-Break-
Location: Inside the giant ship wave sweeper
ΦSitting inside a room with a box filled with cursed weapons, Iancu cleans every one of them, and as he goes through them in silence, he stares at each of them with a face just a moment away from tears.
"I am sorry you guys had to be turned into this."
He focuses directly on the weapons in front of him, but from the back, he hears little footsteps moving back and forth as if they can't decide which direction to go.
So, taking a deep breath, Iancu activates his legacy on his leg, then he kicks the ground, increasing the reaction force, and dashes out of the room to grab the tiny person moving.
Holding the person on the leg, Iancu says, "Neem?"
Dropping him, Iancu pulls back, and then he drops Neem. But as Neem is about to fall to the ground, he activates his legacy to stop the gravity from crashing his head into the ground.
Grabbing and bringing Neem back to his normal state, Iancu says, "What are you doing here!?"
He looks worried and stares down into something he is holding in his arms, so I say, "Sorry for that. I didn't mean to sound angry. Just grab whatever you need and leave Neem."
Neem shakes a bit as Iancu turns, back then he says, "I BROUGHT FOOD!"
Turning, Iancu says, "Why?"
"Because you weren't around when every else was eating. So I saved some and brought it to you."
Putting his hand up, Iancu says, "That's very nice of you, but I am fine and don't need it. So you can go on your wa-." As the scent of the food strikes deep into Iancu's nose, his stomach lets out a large grumble that echoes throughout the area.
Pushing the basket into him, Neem says, "Food is important for your health."
Embarrassed, Iancu says, "I am fine."
"If you don't eat, I won't eat anymore and just die of starvation!"
"What! Are you insane? Just leave me alone!"
"NO! Only after you consume food, my mommy made it, and it's very tasty, it would be incredibly rude and make her cry if it isn't eat. Do you want to make a woman with lots of kids cry? Do you!"
-Break-
Sitting beside each other, Neem stares at Iancu, who is slowly eating meat filled with blood, and then says, "How did you even cook this without losing the blood?"
"Mommy said she just marinated it in the blood of an animal after she cooked it. Apparently, you like blood, so mommy went further."
"You people really are weird."
Iancu quietly gets back to cleaning and inspecting all of the weapons in front of him, and looking at them, Neem says, "Do you know who they were?"
Iancu gives him a little glare that causes Neem to pull back, then seeing the scared face he has, Iancu sighs and says, "No. All of these weapons here have been in circulation before I was even born. I doubt many people would know who the nightmares were before they turned into this form."
"Are there many of these out there?"
"Countless. You could make multiples from a single nightmare's body, even know I don't know how many fragments of whoever these people were before are still out there, or how many have been returned.
Right now, there could be humans out there using these people's bodies as tools, and weapons to make themselves hunt or kill people a bit better, and from my core, it disgusts me."
Neem, lowering his head, says, "I am sorry for what I have done. I didn't know who these people were, and I am sorry for playing with your people's bodies. I would hate it if the same were to ever happen to anyone from Aplos."
Iancu flicks him on the forehead, which causes Neem to say, "OW!" While holding his forehead.
"What was that for?"
"For being stupid. It was a mistake, and everyone knew that. I overreacted and used my anger and frustration to hurt you. I apologise. So don't hold yourself hostage over a single mistake, and besides, it's not like anyone really got harmed."
"But I am still sorry."
"It doesn't really matter. You can just leave me to clean them."
"Why are you cleaning them?"
"Because they're still my people in some way, shape or form, and they at least deserve a warm place to sleep, and to be clean, I think if I were in the same situation would make my cells feel happy.
Though overall it's pretty stupid because I don't know any other nightmares outside of those who have been around me since I grew up, I can barely even call them my people. Guess I am just a stranger to all of them."
Neem, putting up his hands, says, "But you're not a stranger to all of us! To Aplos, you have constantly helped us be safe by activating your legacy on this ship and getting us materials, you teach the kids a bunch of stuff, and you helped Maple during that big battle. You're a big, big help, so as far as I am concerned, you're already a member of Aplos."
Looking away, Iancu says, "Why would I want to be a member of Aplos!"
Climbing on him, Neem says, "But Aplos is super cool, we have done a lot of things."
"You guys are not the strongest, the smartest or even the most organised. What makes you special in this country?"
"We have spirit, and we are good against the cold."
"Both are useless!"
"YOU'RE USELESS!"
As the two fight, looking from a distance with his hand over his face, Avram says, "I can't even leave you alone for two seconds. Though at least it seems my little boy has managed to make some progress. I guess it's up to me now to give him and everyone else a helping hand."
-Break-
Location: Abais castle, Office room
Walking into the room in front of him, Avaram is greeted with a giant amount of sheets, and people packing them into binders.
In a certain desk, Elia and Orb are writing at incredible speeds along with the 3 idiots, while everyone else is taking the sheets they are producing and stuffing them into binders one by one at incredible speeds.
Finish a sheet, Ivana hands it over to Elia and says, "I am finished."
Looking at this sheet, Elia says, "It's far from good. You have made eight different spelling mistakes, and the formatting isn't the same as mine. Fix it."
Gheroghe hands Elia a sheet, and she says, "YOUR SCALES ARE IN THE SHEET, FIX THIS!"
"Right!"
Wadim handing her a sheet, and after looking over it for a second, she says, "I told you to sort the cases by year month day, not month year day you dumbass! FIX IT!"
Orb then hands Elia a stack of sheets, and grabbing all of them, Elia looks through each one, and says, "You managed to rewrite the past budgets all while maintaining and translating them to the Skydust accounting style, didn't I tell you to use my accounting style?"
"CAA, otherwise known as the Cordum accounting accords, are used by everyone who does business with Cordum for the sake of their own transparency. Considering the fact that most of the people who will be helping us with current accounting practices are from Skydust, I thought it would be the best."
With a smile, Elia says, "Did I ask you for your intervention?"
Smiling back, Orb says, "It seems you forgot who is the boss around here?"
Standing up, Elia says, "Do it the way I asked."
Standing up, Orb says, "You lack flexibility! You're method of accounting is far too hard for others to learn except for me."
"It allows for each and every number to be transparent and allows all of them to be seen. It is the ultimate way to respect the numbers used."
"No one needs all of that data, or is even able to find it all. You split up revenue into literally everything, making the revenue, and then create a series of super-specific entries that are not stable across different companies or even the same time periods.
At a certain point, some of this information tells us nothing more apart than it would together. Besides, it's way too stuffy, and hard for the people who need to use it to read."
"Why would I care for troglodytes who don't respect the numbers to be able to read such a thing?"
"Then who are these tables even for if not the people?"
"It's called deontology. If you can't respect the numbers, you don't deserve to read."
Orb's hair turns red, and he scratches it.
"What a shame for a brain such as yours not to understand this."
"I can see why you have no friends."
Elia smashes a kick into Orb's face, knocking him down, and says, "I do have friends, isn't that right. Ivana, Gheorghe, Wadim?"
Opening her eyes fully, she glares at all three of them, pushing each of the three grown adults to put their heads down and turn away from facing her.
Avaram, seeing the pressure being pushed onto them, covers Elia's eyes and says, "What are you even doing?"
"Sorting out the new flies being brought to us, and disciplining my dog."
"I am not your dog! I am a person."
"Calm down, I will get you a treat."
"SHUT UP!"
Avram flings Elia into a wall and says, "Be nice."
Orb starts to laugh at her, so Avram smacks him in the face and says, "A real man doesn't find joy in a woman getting hurt."
"You threw her!"
Clapping his hands, Orb says, "Let's just forget about that."
Orb says, "I WON'T!"
"Gheorghe, Ivana, Wadim. We are a few days into the 2nd month, Radonitsa should be happening, and I think it's time we went home to return all of our people we have recovered."
Ivana, Gheorghe and Wadim all run behind Elia and say, "WE WON'T GO!"
Avram says, "Come on, it would be nice."
Ivana says, "We haven't returned since we left decades ago! I can't even imagine what they will do to us when we return."
Orb asks, "Are you guys criminals?"
"Nothing of the sort, these three are just babies. Now let's go, don't you want to visit Blestemate Orb?"
Jumping up and down with green hair, Orb says, "I DO!"
Looking at him, Avram says, "Literally just a dog."
"WHAT!"
Putting his hand on Orb's shoulder, Avram says, "You can invite anyone you want to join. But only enough people to fit on Wave sweeper. Think of this as a small delegation to go meet the queen of Blestemate. If you can swipe her off her feet."
Jumping up and down, Orb says, "I don't know what to do or who to bring. I need to go and get started. I WILL RETURN SOON!"
As Orb jets out of the room, Avram turns his face to Elia and says, "You're coming as well."
"I refuse."
"Are you sure you don't want to see my old workshop. There might be secrets there for you, or maybe some have finished inventions."
Turning her face, she says, "You can't do things like this. You know I can't deal with it."
"Imagine the faces of embarrassment the three idiots will make when they come home, and imagine the virginal face of happiness Iancu will make when he first sees his homeland."
"I WANT TO SEE THEM!"
"I knew you would."
"Now let's go get packed for this."
Turning to all of the workers, Avram says, "You are all excused."
Every one of the workers falls to the ground in relief, and Elia says, "When I return, we will all get back to work so stay healthy!"
Which sends terror throughout each and every one of them.