CH 276

Chapter 276 – Dense Foggy Waters

“Hmm, this will be difficult to do alone. Ior and Yofel, lend me a hand.” (Bouchi)

I handed each of them an [Appraisal Looking-Glass]. Ior was raring to go, but Yofel looked really reluctant.

Shiki also stepped out of the shadows and he also devoted himself to the search.

I was also planning to have the [Search Papers] play an active role in this search, so I wrote down the characteristics of the Oz Freedom and sent them off.

Like this, if the Oz Freedom really existed in this world, it would be found in no time.

Well, it was spotted around this area only a few days ago, so I had a feeling that it would be found soon.

So for the time being, we decided to search while flying around slowly on the [Jet Book].

But after one, two, and eventually three hours, we didn’t find anything of interest. The [Search Papers], which could fly at Mach-3, didn’t have any response either.

“No dice, huh? Let’s take a short break. It’s time for bentos.” (Bouchi)

“Now that I realize it, it’s already time for lunch, isn’t it?” (Yofel)

“Yup! Are you looking forward to it, Ior?” (Bouchi)

“Yeah. The lunches that Hiro-sama gives us are delicious… I like them.” (Ior)

Bentos were a constantly evolving food, and there were always new types and combinations of bentos with improved tastes. I decided to pick some from several of my favorite places.

“This one is the sushi explosion bento from Niigata prefecture. It’s loaded with trout, sake, crab, and salmon roe. Great stuff.” (Bouchi)

When I opened it, the two of them wowed, looking impressed.

There were different cuts of seafood placed on top of the sushi rice, the splash of colors making it extremely appealing to the eye.

“The next one is the beef tongue bento. If you pull this string on the box and wait for a bit, the bento will be piping hot moments later. There’s quite a few pieces of beef tongue in there too, and the meat gravy is delicious. It pairs amazingly well with rice.” (Bouchi)

It really was wonderful that this bento could be eaten hot. The aroma of the meat whetted the appetite, and the quantity was perfect, making it an extremely popular bento.

Well, Yofel and Ior weren’t big on meat, so they probably wouldn’t be very interested in this dish.

“And this one, the Tastes of Japan bento, was sold only during the World Expo at Aichi prefecture.” (Bouchi)

“Wow, there are all kinds of things in there…” (Ior)

“Yeah, I’m looking forward to every bite of this one.” (Yofel)

The two of them stared at the bento wide-eyed, unable to tear their eyes away. The bento was filled with a vast variety of ingredients, arranged by seasons. This bento was probably the one with the greatest amount of variety.

“And this last one is the conger eel rice from Hiroshima prefecture. This one is special because of the generous amount of eel heaped on top.” (Bouchi)

There were many more bentos that I thought were delicious, but that was enough for today.

“I like this Tastes of Japan bento! The variety of ingredients is amazing, and the portion size is just right!” (Yofel)

“I’ll take… this one.” (Ior)

Ior seemed to like the sushi explosion bento.

By the way, it had to be the beef tongue bento for me. I was starving, so nothing could beat the charm of some delicious meat. Of course, the conger eel rice was hard to pass up on, but Shiki wanted to try it so I told him to help himself. With this, everyone had something to eat.

As I was storing the empty lunch boxes back into the <Box>, Ior suddenly let out an exclamation in a voice unusually loud for him.

Naturally, I asked him what was wrong. Then, Ior pointed in a certain direction and said, ‘look at that’.

Off in the distance, there was a place where the surface of the sea couldn’t be seen. More precisely, it was covered by a thick fog, making it impossible to see into it.

“Fog… Certainly, it was said that the ghost ship appeared in waters with dense fog, right?” (Bouchi)

“Yeah. That’s also… what I heard.” (Ior)

“No, no, no, no. That’s just some fog. There’s no way a ghost ship will appear in that fog. Definitely not. Tell me it’s not true.” (Yofel)

And on she went, muttering to herself in distress. Well… maybe I should just leave her be.

“Well, whatever. Let’s just dive into the fog and find out.” (Bouchi)

“EHHH?!” (Yofel)

No, I mean, are you really that surprised, Yofel…?

“W-W-What i-if… No, let’s just say in the one in ten thousand, n-no, one in a hundred million chance… i-it might be impossible, b-but let’s say this ghost ship does appear in the f-fog… W-What would we do, Master?!!!” (Yofel)

“Then we’d be pretty lucky.” (Bouchi)

“That’s obviously bad luuuuck!!” (Yofel)

“Onee-chan… You’re being too loud.” (Ior)

“Hmm. I didn’t know you had a phobia like this, Yofel.” (Bouchi)

Everyone had something they were scared of, but I never imagined that Yofel would be so scared of ghosts. She was always the ‘cool beauty’ type and acted like such, but I found her childish phobia rather endearing.

“Relax, Yofel. We’ll check things out as we go. And if you’re scared, just don’t leave my side.” (Bouchi)

“Wuuu… Master…” (Yofel)

Yofel hugged me tightly from behind. I wanted to tell her to not hug me that tightly, but… well, whatever.

I pointed the [Appraisal Looking-Glass] at the fog.

But with a zizizi sound, it just displayed a bunch of static noise. It wasn’t able to appraise it. It seemed as if there was some power moving in that mist.

If it was just some ordinary fog, this phenomenon wouldn’t have happened. In other words…

…There was a good chance we’d found our target.

And if that was the case, I couldn’t just leave things like this. This was the chance to get my hands on some treasure.

It was called the graveyard for ships. Maybe there was treasure lying untouched in those sunken ships.

But then again, it was true that it was in such an ominous area. We needed to be cautious.

In case anything happened, I had a [Teleport Crystal] on hand so we could escape at any moment.

We made preparations to prepare for situation that might happen, and just like that, we ventured into the fog on the [Jet Book].