VIP Chapter 136: Case Closed (3k)
This train, as Shuna said, would travel for at most one day.
But…
That didn’t mean it had to travel for the entire day!
Watching the sun move more than halfway across the sky, and the train showing no signs of slowing down or stopping, Will felt exhausted.
Fortunately, the observation car was supposed to have people stationed there. Perhaps something went wrong with the night departure, so there were plenty of dried rations left, otherwise Will and Shuna felt they would have starved to death on the train.
“Actually, this hard bread is quite tasty.”
Shuna praised the hard bread.
But…
For Will, who was accustomed to fine foods, it was a bit of a torment.
He looked at the hard bread in his hand, hesitated for a long time, and finally took a bite. Had his life as a young master after reincarnation been too good?
“Mmm… you should at least drink some water with this, shouldn’t you? Are you just going to chew it dry?”
“Huh?”
Shuna suddenly handed him a cup of water.
But…
This cup of water looked a bit strange.
For those who could use magic, water was not in short supply. Will had once thought about where the magical water came from, and guessed it was probably the water vapor in the air.
Without thinking too much, he accepted Shuna’s cup.
Then…
“…Wait, this taste…”
He felt his memories from his past life being awakened.
It was different from ordinary water. This familiar taste, coupled with some sugar she had gotten from who-knows-where.
A sweetness accompanied by the pleasure of extreme refreshment only on the first sip.
“…Is this a carbonated drink? Shuna, did you also come from that place—?!”
“What place? What did you call it… carbon?”
Shuna tilted her head, not understanding what Will was saying.
“Huh? You don’t know what I’m talking about?”
“Mmm… If you want to ask how this is made… Hehe, I discovered it by chance. It’s a unique skill.”
Shuna picked up a bottle, grabbed some limestone that could be seen everywhere, and sealed the bottle’s opening.
Wait…
Is she going to…
“This thing, using fire magic at a specific point, with a magnitude control of around 9000 Thai.”
From a chemical perspective, carbon dioxide could be produced at high temperatures, but using magic for high temperatures? And controlling the temperature with precise data?
So this is how it can be done in this world?!
“The gas is released into the sugar water prepared earlier and sealed for a while to fully absorb. Then it becomes that taste. It’s amazing. How is it? Does it taste good?”
Shuna didn’t seem to know the real principle behind it; it was as if she had stumbled upon it by playing with burning stones.
This kind of exploratory behavior that always stumbled upon knowledge familiar to Will’s original world…
Reminded Will of Xiu, the protagonist of the original work.
In the original work, to add elements of “Wow, magic can be explained by real-world physics and chemistry” and to make Xiu stand out, there were often scenes where natives discovered things from outside the story.
Coupled with the rarity of “black hair” in this world, what was Shuna’s identity, after all…
Will began to doubt again.
Rather, he hadn’t stopped doubting since he met Shuna.
Was it just an illusion?
After all, Shuna seemed too unrestrained and cheerful, completely different from the silent, obsessive protagonist in the original work who seemed to have lost a hundred friends.
Even if she experienced a gender change, could her personality change so drastically? If her character changed so much that she was unrecognizable, then changing her gender would be meaningless.
If anything, the similarities were…
She got drunk very easily, and after getting drunk, she did something crazy but logical like bringing him onto the train.
“It is indeed quite delicious.”
Will took a bite of his hard bread and sat down. Now that he had a carbonated drink that tasted similar to cola, he could accept such hard bread with peace of mind.
“Yay!”
“So, Shuna, do you often hitchhike?”
“Ah, it’s not about saving money. I still have money. I just think it’s a shame to use such cool transportation only for transporting goods. One day, I wondered what it would feel like to ride on it, and since my destination was Nov, I just hitched a ride to try it out.”
“You just did that?! Then… the hard bread… you seem to eat it often?”
“I eat it often. I’m an orphan, right? I don’t have parents, so I could only eat hard bread with the other adopted children.”
Her tone was a bit somber.
But…
After speaking, Shuna seemed afraid that Will would pity her too much, so she patted him on the back to cover her tracks.
“It’s nothing, really. I learned to live later on, and exploring dungeons was super fun, so I don’t think I’m living any worse than others.”
But in Will’s heart—
Wow, what a traditional setting, and even a “protagonist” setting.
It was completely different from him, who at least had a father and had a good family background when he was young.
In this world, orphans were not uncommon. The main reason was that before the Hysterm Family optimized dungeon exploration, it was quite difficult. Adventurers often died with their children.
Otherwise, Entak wouldn’t have a specialized charity organization to care for orphans.
Since she grew up in an orphanage, Shuna should also be surnamed Polol, right?
No wonder she didn’t mention her surname when introducing herself; people surnamed Polol generally didn’t want to reveal their surname.
But…
Looking at Shuna, who was smiling so freely, Will felt something was out of place.
“By the way, Shuna, I’m not doubting you, it’s just…”
“Huh?”
Shuna tilted her head, her eyes widened, and her black hair swayed with her movement.
“I somehow feel that you now are not the same as the person in the letter… not like one person?”
Will remembered that S was not so unrestrained and lively in the letters.
Instead, she was someone who presented arguments logically and used many honorifics in her wording, making her written style quite elegant.
This was also why Will had always mistakenly believed S to be a reliable adult man.
Thinking about it now, it was too hasty; it was completely baseless stereotype!
“Ah… this… well…”
Shuna seemed embarrassed, scratching her head.
“Can I not answer?”
“Huh? It seems there’s a hidden story.”
Will guessed.
“If you tell me, I might be able to treat you to dinner later when we get off the train?”
“Deal! I’ll tell you, it’s all your fault—”
Shuna pointed at Will and began.
“My fault?”
“Because… because when I first received your anonymous question…”
Hmm? Anonymous question?
Will only then remembered that he and S had been communicating for a long time, making it seem like they had known each other for a long time.
But in fact, at the very beginning, it was because he had problems with Iaar’s education and someone suggested he write an anonymous question to the Adventurer’s Guild to get a reply.
Perhaps because of the subsequent frequent correspondence—although it was still through anonymous letters via the Adventurer’s Guild—Will naturally threw this initial correspondence into the trash bin of his memory.
“What happened to that anonymous question?”
“You…” Shuna fiddled with her hair. “Wrote it very seriously.”
“Very seriously!?”
Will had to admit, he had forgotten that too.
It was a long time ago, when he hadn’t even attended a formal school and was just starting to learn the formal writing of this world.
He probably took the anonymous questions that the Adventurer’s Guild would make public very seriously, fearing that no one would reply if he wrote impolitely, and specifically studied formal written language.
He never expected that something he had written casually at the time would have such a significant impact years later.
The biggest impact was…
“…When I saw that question, I immediately thought about what kind of problem you might have. Now that I think about it, it wasn’t a difficult problem. Even Little Will should be able to think of the reason now, right?”
“Yes. However, I admit, my thinking was too confined to books at the time.”
Will took a bite of the hard bread.
Paired with the carbonated drink Shuna gave him, the hard bread was indeed less difficult to swallow.
“But you wrote it too formally. It was also my first time replying, so I spent a whole day writing it back and forth, researching a lot of letter-writing etiquette.”
“To be honest, I also did a lot of research before writing that.”
“After writing so much, it became difficult to be too colloquial, so it’s been like this ever since. Honestly… it’s quite difficult to write letters like that; I have to pull out a few strands of hair every time.”
“Then… then it really seems to be my fault.”
The case was closed.
So, the origin of everything was because the first letter he posted was too serious.
“Honestly, I… I thought you were some sheltered young lady at the time, and your handwriting was so delicate and beautiful.”
Shuna twirled her black hair around her finger, half her face hidden in her hair.
“Oh. It’s just that the Hysterm Family values calligraphy quite a bit. To be honest, I’ve practiced for a long time too… Wait, you just said you thought I was a sheltered young lady?!”
“Mmm… for a very… a very long time, maybe three months? If your letter paper hadn’t been from the Hysterm Family, and if I hadn’t happened to know that the Hysterm Family had no females of your age, I might have continued to believe it to this day?”
“That’s it!”
“You’re so excited, what’s wrong?”
Will looked at Shuna like this…
Great!
His sense of guilt instantly dropped to zero after hearing Shuna’s words—although it probably wasn’t very high before.
“See! We have a special connection, we’re so alike! Look, I mistook your gender, and you also misunderstood me before; we’re even!”
He also patted Shuna on the back vigorously.
“Do you have to compete in this area?!”
“Yes!”
“Why do I feel like neither of us clarified things? If we had canceled the anonymity earlier, it wouldn’t have come to this.”
“You were so cautious about using anonymity, I didn’t dare to inquire about your details. What if you were a wanted criminal?”
“I used it because you posted an anonymous letter first!”
“It’s… it’s my fault again?”
…
On the speeding train, laughter and scolding could be heard from the observation car.
Will’s restless heart had calmed down considerably.
He had, for the first time in a long time, experienced the joy of bickering with a friend without restraint.
Perhaps Shuna…
Was indeed the friend he had outside of the “original story.”
