Characters: Laurence, Original Female Character
Word Count: 3.805
Summary: Laurence is interviewed about what kind of food the delvers eat.
(Author's note: I wanted to have a breather chapter and thought doing some world building now and then in chapter form would be a good idea, so please take this chapter which is basically just Laurence talking. I actually was sitting on it for a while, but I was dissatisfied, so I cleaned it up before posting.
I also want to apologize for the long unplanned hiatus. My life is very slowly going back to normal and it is about time that I update all my WIPs, with this one being the first. I want to write more again, but I also want to take more breaks or do some art in-between. I am sure y'all understand.
Anyway, from this day on, please expect more regular updates again. It has itched in my fingers for quite a while to write again.)
Laurence had a rare free day and was spending it just sitting idly on a hill that overlooked the Abyss, enjoying the sight of the primordial beasts that he could see from his position. Sometimes it was nice to just not do anything for a change.
However, his peace and quiet got broken far too soon by a woman approaching him. She wasn't wearing a whistle but she also clearly wasn't an illegal delver. Those would never dare to approach an official delver. A tourist then.
Laurence adjusted his position and looked at her with a bored expression, ready to turn down the request he awaited. There were so many tourists visiting Orth that had more money than brains and he couldn't count how often he had turned down their requests to visit the Abyss from inside. He did not want to have the responsibility to get them out alive of his hell hole, regardless of how much money they paid him, and he didn't even want to think about rubbing their backs when the curse hit them.
"Excuse me.", the woman said, "My name is Carina, a journalist from North Belouska. Am I correct in the assumption that I speak with the delver named Laurence?"
Laurence raised his brow. That wasn't what he had been expecting. Especially not that this Carina apparently had looked for him especially. He wasn't known to do escort missions, so he wondered what she could want from him.
"You are correct.", Laurence said, getting up on his feet to face her, "And what exactly do you want from me?"
"As I said, I am a journalist.", Carina repeated, "I am currently researching for an article I want to write about the delvers in Orth and their style of life. When I asked at the market for information, I was told to find a Moon Whistle delver with crimson and curly hair because – and I am quoting this – he really loves to hear himself talk."
Laurence' face fell immediately upon hearing these words.
"What?! Who the fuck did say that?! Was it Gehrman?! Or maybe fucking Micolash. Thinking about it, every delver would say that about me, but why crimson hair?! It is not crimson, it is auburn! Nobody is getting this right! It isn't like blood, it is the same colour of fallen leaves! How did you even find me with such a dumb description! And what do they mean, I love to hear myself talk. Just because I say more words than usual and won't stop too easily once I start doesn't mean that I love to hear myself talk. Not talking just feels hard if there is someone who can listen to me. I am not a naturally quiet person. Oooh, I have to say a few words to whoever sent you later, I fucking swear."
During his whole rant, Carina stayed quiet and once he finished, she stated calmly: "Well, apparently the part about you talking a lot was true."
"I cannot deny that.", Laurence grumbled as he crossed his arms, "I just think they could have worded it differently. Like I am wordy or just that I like to talk. This sounds like I am in love with my own voice. I am not that much of a narcissist."
"Oh, but they failed to mention that you are indeed quite handsome.", Carina said, making Laurence blush.
"Awww, no you are flattering me.", he said, all his negative feelings blown away, "Especially coming from such a lovely lady like you." It wasn't even a lie. Carina had quite a pretty face, a slender build that got accuented by a flowy dress and a mane of blue wavy hair that fell over her shoulders and down almost her whole back.
"Well well, I guess now you are flattering me.", Carina said, "Well, before we spend the whole time complimenting each other, let me ask you straight away: I want to interview you about the way of life in Orth."
"Here?", Laurence asked, "Shouldn't we go elsewhere? There is a lovely cafe not far from here. It will be much easier to talk there."
Also, in his experience, after a little bit to drink the tourists that talked to Laurence were much more inclined to come with him for some... extra fun. He knew exactly how to get the best out of them. He didn't care that Gehrman told him again and again he should stop sleeping around so much. It wasn't like he was seeing any of them again.
He also assumed that Carina wouldn't put that she had a fling with the interviewed delver in her article.
"No, here is fine.", Carina said, sitting down on the grass, preparing a notebook and pen, "I quite like the view and there are less people around. That will make my job easier."
"Oh, if you are sure.", Laurence sat down on the grass as well, a little bit disappointed that she didn't take his invitation. Maybe it wasn't too late yet. Maybe he could still get a little more out of this interaction. "What do you want to know? I can answer to my best abilities as long as you don't want to know classified information about the Abyss."
"Oh no, don't worry, not at all.", Carina said, "I want to know more about how you delvers live your day to day life. For example, looking around this place, I really wonder where your food comes from, especially because a large percentage of Orth's population works as delvers."
"Oh, that is easy to answer.", Laurence raised his arm and pointed at the Abyss. Carina followed his movement, staying quiet for a few moments before raising her voice again.
"Are you telling me that your food comes from the Abyss?"
"That is exactly what I am telling you.", Laurence nodded, "Of course we go down there for the relics and the adventure and the unknown but there is also an astounding amount of food in the Abyss. A lot of plants down there are edible, we find edible mushrooms and grasses, the primordial beasts are hunted by us for their meat or we collect their eggs and there are a lot of fish to catch in the underground river. As long as you know what is poisonous and what not, you can eat very well from the Abyss. It is also a necessity, because the deeper you delve the longer you stay and you need to find food on the way to not starve. Knowledge about what is edible in the Abyss is important to each and every delver."
"That is kind of fascinating...", Carina's gaze trailed from Laurence to the Abyss and then back to him, "Are there like squads who gather the food for the town? With so many people around, it must be organized."
"We delvers are in charge of getting the food, yes.", Laurence replied, "Red Whistles gather eggs, mushrooms and fruit in the higher levels of the first layer. Blue Whistles are hunting the primordial beasts in the lower areas of the first layer. Moon Whistles like me sometimes are tasked with gathering stuff from the second or even the third layer. It is rather uncommon that we gather stuff from the fourth layer or below because of how long the way back is. It would spoil before it arrives in Orth. The food here in Orth is mostly from the first and second layer. The Abyss is humongous, there is more than enough food in it to feed us all."
Carina diligently took notes while Laurence talked, looking them over once he finished talking.
"Thank you for all this information. However, I have to ask... I have seen the delvers in town eat dishes with rice. I don't assume that you have rice fields in the Abyss. I certainly haven't seen them around town."
"Of course not.", Laurence chuckled to himself, "The rice is imported. We don't have any room to grow our own rice. As you can see, the Abyss is taking up a whole lot of space on the island and the rest is mostly taken up by the town and the mountains. It is a tradition that we delvers eat a dish with rice right before we go on our next delve because it could be our last meal and we want to eat something special in that case. That is the only time we are allowed to eat rice. I am quite fond of getting my share in the form of rice omelette. My friend, Gehrman, is fucking good at preparing them and if he was the one who sent you to me I certainly will ask for extras tomorrow."
Carina had become quiet during his talk. Not even her pen was scratching upon the notebook. She seemed to be contemplating something. Laurence watched her for about a minute and was about to open his mouth to continue when she found her tongue.
"You just told me that you eat rice as a kind of last meal before a delve."
"Yes.", Laurence nodded, wondering why she had worded it as a statement and not as a question.
"Does this apply to the Red Whistles too?"
"Of course.", Laurence said, "I am overlooking a group of them and they are allowed to choose what kind of dish they want to prepare from their rice. It has been the same for me when I was a Red Whistle still but I never stopped wanting to eat it as rice omelet. I love rice omelets."
Especially with extra salt though Gehrman never would salt it extra for him. He always had to salt it after it was done. Well, he guessed he was lucky that Gehrman even cooked for him.
"But I have seen the Red Whistles and they are all children." The way Carina delivered that line made Laurence pause and check her expression. She looked visibly upset. He wondered what was wrong. Had he said something upsetting on accident or what? That probably wasn't the right time to ease her down with a flirt. Besides, he had no clue what was wrong.
"Yes.", Laurence said, "And they are delvers. They usually get their Red Whistle at the age of ten and they are kept to the higher layers of the first layer at first and gradually are allowed to delve deeper the older they get. We are making sure that they don't bite more that they can chew. Red Whistles are never allowed in the second layer. Even in the case one makes it there, we consider it a suicide."
"...Don't you think that is wrong?"
Laurence cocked his head. "Wrong? What is wrong ain regulating how deep Red Whistles are allowed to delve?"
"Not that.", Carina frantically shook her head, "You are sending children to what could be their death."
Now Laurence just stared at her with big eyes.
"And the issue about that is... what exactly?"
Carina just stared back at them and then said, very slowly as if Laurence hadn't heard her the first time: "You are sending children to their death."
"I think you are misunderstanding something.", Laurence felt the need to point out, "Anyone who dies in the Abyss simply has their soul claimed back by the Abyss. It is the natural state of order. We cannot expect to keep our soul forever. The Abyss did provide us with our souls so it is only fair that it is allowed to claim them back at any time."
Carina went silent and then stayed at Laurence for a long uncomfortable time.
"...You really believe this, right? That way of life... it is normal to you. You cannot even grasp why this concept horrifies me."
"I sure think that you are weird for it.", Laurence said, "You wanted to talk about food though, right? Shall we return to that? It was far less upsetting to you."
"I probably could write a whole article about the concept of life and death here in Orth, but you are correct, that is not what I came for. Please accept my apology."
"I apologize as well for upsetting you. Even though it seems to be cultural differences. You are not the first person reacting that way and I never understood what your issue was. I put it down as some weird tourist thing."
"You could call it that, I suppose...", Carina picked her notebook up again and readied her pen, "Alright, let's continue the original topic. You told me that most of your food comes from the Abyss and that you import rice, but is there any food that you gather in or around Orth? For example, if you wouldn't be able to gather food from the Abyss, would you get in trouble?"
"I suppose we would have enough food to not starve but it wouldn't be easy. Food probably would have to be regulated a bit. As we are on an island, we are doing a lot of fishing. As a Red Whistle I often went to the shore to fish. Loads of sardines. It sometimes was a bit upsetting."
"Wait.", Carina lowered her notebook and looked at the mountains surrounding Orth, "How are you able to reach the beach? The whole island is surrounded by mountains."
"There are tunnels and stuff. We don't climb a mountain each time we want to fish. And we have a harbour. A harbour you probably arrived at. It is easy for some fish cutters to set sail and come in with a haul. Of course we don't have a big fish industry or anything, they just fish enough for the population and maybe a little bit more for the tourists. The shore fishing I used to do also was only for the orphanage, that is why I always hoped to fish something other than sardines because my haul was what we were eating for dinner."
"That you mostly eat fish makes sense.", Carina scribbled down notes, "You are on an island after all. However, eating only fish wouldn't be too healthy, would it?"
"Of course.", Laurence nodded, "As you can imagine, we have neither crop fields nor cattle here. We don't have room for it. However, in the whole town there are fruit trees. They don't take up that much space, they are nice to look at and we are getting fresh fruit depending on the season. A lot of the fruit are also used to make booze so most of us delvers are really good at holding our liquor. I can drink a lot without getting drunk."
"You sound pretty proud of that.", Carina gave Laurence a little smirk, "Almost as if you want to prove it to me."
"Heh, and what if I did? Are you saying you would be able to drink me under the table?", Laurence grinned back, "I am always up for a challenge."
"Oh no, I am pretty sure you would easily drink me under the table.", Carina waved with her hand, "But I think I would like to try your booze before I leave and I am sure you can tell me where to get the best."
"I sure can.", Laurence said, "But first, I need to tell you about the other things we have around. Chickens. They don't need as much room and are easy to feed. They provide us with eggs and meat. And of course, you have seen the eternal fortunes everywhere, right? You can use their seeds as seasoning. Then there is the magotato, a starchy vegetable that can be raised in sea water. It is some kind of staple food here in Orth. Hmmm, thinking about it, I don't think it would be that hard without the food from the Abyss, probably just more boring. There is so much good food in the Abyss. What a bummer that it is kind of exhausting to gather it."
"Oh, a vegetable that grows in sea water? How fascinating. I would like to see it.", Carina said.
"It will be sold on the market. You can use it to make all kinds of stuff. Cook it, fry it, we make flour out of it to bake bread... I just would advise against eating it raw. It tastes awful raw."
"It sounds a lot like a kind of potato.", Carina ascertained.
"A what? Is that a vegetable from your own home?", Laurence cocked his head at the unfamiliar word.
"...You guys really have your very own culture inside of this town.", Carina murmured to herself, "Yes, potatoes are a vegetable of my home. They are actually a staple food in almost the whole world. Outside of here I suppose."
"Of course, we have the magotato. We don't need potatoes.", Laurence said, "Hmmm... was there anything else? I think I talked about all the food we have. I guess we sometimes gather mushrooms on the mountain paths but that is more of a last resort. The mushrooms of the Abyss taste so much better and we usually go there anyway. Noboby goes to the mountains on purpose."
"Thank you for your time and the interview then.", Carina said, "Would you be so kind and accompany me to the market so that I can look at the food you have in person and maybe snap a few pictures?"
"Oh, with that box that kinda freezes an image in time?", Laurence said, "I would love to take one into the Abyss but it takes too long. There is no way it wouldn't be trashed before it can even finish a single picture. Besides, the real thing cannot compare to a picture anyway. Not even our best painters managed to convey the beauty of the Abyss."
Laurence got up and then was distracted by a loud growl in his stomach. How embarrassing.
"Fuck. That happens if I talk about food all the time without eating anything. I should get a snack at the market."
"Oh, please allow me to share my snacks with you.", Carina rummaged inside her bag and then produced something square that was wrapped in some paper and handed it to Laurence. He reluctantly took it and studied it. He had no clue what was written on the label.
"I hope that isn't something overly sweet? I don't like sweet tastes.", he said, squinting at the unknown letters, trying to make sense of them, "I cannot read what is written there."
"I have the same problem if I try to read the signs around Orth.", Carina said, "Your script is another thing that feels worth researching, but that is material for another article. To answer your question, it is a cereal bar. I suppose it is a little sweet, but not overly so."
"I prefer salty snacks but I suppose you gifted it to me and it would be rude to complain.", Laurence said, opening the snack and biting into it. It was a little sweet for sure but not overwhelmingly so. He still decided that it was a snack he wouldn't spend money for. At least it was enough to satisfy his hunger.
"How did you like it?", Carina asked, "I suppose you don't get too many foreign snacks here in Orth."
"It was fine.", Laurence said, "And why should I want foreign snacks if everything I need can be gathered from the Abyss? And tastes better?"
"You are pretty direct.", Carina said. Ah whoops, he hadn't meant to say this out loud. "By the way, is there a way for a tourist to eat the stuff that the delvers get? I figured out that you serve the tourists different stuff."
"Oh, not bad. You clearly are having the research part down.", Laurence said, "I have to ask you to not write this in your article however, Orth wants the tourists to keep coming. I guess the only way to eat a real delver's meal is becoming a delver yourself, but then you have to start as a bell and slowly go through the ranks. You might be stuck with the children for a while. I could get a word in with the guild and get you into my team of Red Whistles if you like."
"I don't intend to become a delver.", Carina said and then she hummed, "However... I am with a delver right now, right? You could organize the food that you usually eat and share it with me."
"And why should I do that?", Laurence said, "What is in there for me?"
That was normally the part where they caught on and offered to go on a date with him... Laurence supposed he could have flirted a little more, but he had gotten pretty passionate talking about the Abyss and Orth during the interview.
"Then I am writing the bits about Orth tricking tourists into my article and because you have been my source, it means you are the one in trouble. You confirmed my suspicion earlier, after all."
Oh, that fucking bitch! She was not above blackmailing and unfortunately, as a journalist, she had all means to get him in trouble like that.
"Alright, you won.", Laurence rolled his eyes, "I just have one condition. I am choosing the tavern and you are having to drink at least one shot with me."
"Those are two conditions.", Carina said, humming again.
"Who fucking cares?!", Laurence resisted the urge to roll his eyes again. He feared they would fall out of his head if he rolled them too hard. That woman was smart. Which was fucking annoying but also sexy. So many of the tourists were far too dumb for their own good. A bummer she didn't intend to be a delver, she probably would have been good.
"I am fine with your conditions.", Carina said, "But I have one last of my own."
"Oh and what would that be? I already told you I won't escort you in the Abyss. I am not even doing this for money."
"Oh it is quite more simple than that.", Carina gave him a smile, "After we are done, please spend the evening with me in my room."
Laurence raised his brows and then smiled. It seemed like he would get what he wanted and he didn't even have to work too hard for it. Sometimes being handsome really came in handy.
"Deal."
(Author's note: I am actually thinking of bringing Carina back each time I need to do some world building. Kinda a similar character to Mio from the hospital fleet, just someone who is good to bring back if you need to explain stuff. And yes, I based her name and looks on a character of Rune Factory 3, but her personality is completely different ^^
Carina is also doing the same thing that Laurence is doing with the tourists. She always tries to get something more out of the interviewed person, so it was really handy that Laurence had the same intention.
Some of the stuff that I wrote here are my headcanons, but some of them are actually canon. Do you know what I made up and what is actually canon? Feel free to tell me in the comments. My sources are the anime, the manga (especially the world building pages of the tankobons) and the video game.)