"Stare"
A second after seeing Fisher looking over, with absolutely no expression on her face, she turned her head away. However, her body was exceedingly honest as she, hugging the parrot Steel Knife in her arms, shimmied her butt toward the other side of the bed. It seed she wanted to use this thod to alleviate the awkwardness of making eye contact with Fisher.
There were two beds in the room. Right now, she was sitting on the inner bed, while Fisher sat on the bed by the window.
Although Aoxi was no longer looking at him, the Steel Knife she hugged in her arms wasn't behaving. It still poked out its highly smackable head and tilted it to size Fisher up, as if greeting him—it was just that its way of greeting wasn't very friendly.
"Idiot... idiot..."
Upon hearing the parrot's voice, Eimhart—who only had one eye poking out of the pocket—couldn't help but let out a snicker. He took delight in it as if it was him scolding Fisher rather than Steel Knife. But before he could revel in it for even a second, Fisher forcefully stuffed him back in the very next mont.
"Steel Knife, don't be like this..."
The wings Aoxi hid beneath her cloak awkwardly hugged that colorful parrot even tighter, forcefully twisting the head that was looking at Fisher back around. Even so, sitting on the bed, she still didn't look at Fisher, and even her voice was pitifully quiet, like a mosquito flapping its wings in the distance.
Looking at her back, Fisher had already begun concocting how to converse with her and get her to cooperate with his research. But before he could even open his mouth, an extrely obvious "rumble" sounded from her stomach.
"Rumble~"
Her body trembled slightly, and her figure sitting on the bed moved even further away from Fisher. But sensing no reaction from Fisher behind her, she thought he hadn't heard it, so she covertly turned her head to peek at him. Instead, she found him staring straight at her, clearly having noticed the noise from her stomach. Frightened, she hurriedly turned her head back and shrank into herself.
"Are you hungry?"
"..."
Her turned profile prevented Fisher from seeing her specific expression; he only knew she didn't speak.
It was only after hearing Fisher's words that she pursed her lips and turned her head around, giving him a slight nod.
"Mhm..."
Because the Iceberg Queen was approaching Patlusion Island this morning, all crew mbers had gotten up to busy themselves at five or six o'clock, which was also approximately when they had breakfast. Now, it was just past noon, so it was perfectly normal for her to be hungry.
It was a good thing Aoxi was relatively normal; if it had been Jasmine, she probably would have already started getting hungry for her third al by now.
Fisher found it sowhat not knowing whether to laugh or cry. He stood up, sized up the environnt of the room, and then said.
"The hotel has a al service. It's not convenient for to show my face right now, so you can go find the clerk downstairs and ask for a portion... no, two portions of lunch to be brought up. I don't know when Alajina will return, but it probably won't be quick, so we'll just worry about ourselves."
Upon hearing Fisher's words, the pair of eyes above Aoxi's cloak lit up slightly as she nodded at the sa ti. But she simply didn't move her body, rely maintaining her previous posture to look at Fisher.
This made Fisher sowhat confused, not knowing what kind of trick she was pulling again.
"What's wrong?"
"I..."
Aoxi's long legs resting on the edge of the bed rubbed together bashfully, and her face—already largely hidden beneath her cloak—shrank back even further. She said with so embarrassnt.
"I don't have any money..."
"No money?"
This ti it truly was Fisher's turn to be astonished. During his ti on the Iceberg Queen, he had roughly figured out the ship's profit-sharing model. Although Alajina was the captain, she didn't take the vast majority of the rewards like other pirate captains; she only took more than an ordinary crew mber. By that logic, the First Mate and Second Mate should be the sa.
This sharing model was extrely suited for Alajina and her group of fiercely loyal subordinates. But no matter how you looked at it, Alajina had already saved up this much money; as the Second Mate, it shouldn't be to the point where she had absolutely no money...
Hearing Fisher's question, Aoxi appeared increasingly distressed. She lowered her head slightly and silently unfastened the cloak on her body, revealing her body clad in a sailor uniform underneath.
It wasn't until this mont, when she actively lifted the inner side of the cloak slightly toward Fisher, that he suddenly discovered quite a few sharp daggers tied beneath her cloak. They stuck to the inner side of the cloak like a layer of soft armor, and for so unknown reason, this arrangent didn't cut her body at all. During their interactions just now, Fisher hadn't felt the presence of anything beneath her cloak in the slightest.
Looking closely, the shapes of those daggers appeared sowhat bizarre. They seed to be made of so eerie material, entirely emitting a faint azure color—as cold as a patch of frost, yet as light and thin as a feather.
These traits undoubtedly indicated to Fisher that these daggers were not ordinary, mundane items.
"Are these... relics?"
Feeling Fisher's gaze pierce through her cloak, Aoxi sowhat unnaturally lowered the cloak wrapping her body a bit. Then, she nodded and opened her mouth to explain.
"Mhm, the relic raint... I am collecting them, so I spent a lot of money."
Right at this mont, Eimhart in Fisher's pocket seed to sniff the scent of a relic. He hurriedly burrowed out of the pocket, looking at the blades stuck inside Aoxi's cloak with a single shining eye.
"Fisher, Fisher! That's not an ordinary holy artifact, but a part of the [Phoenix Raint]; it's one of the holy artifacts crafted by the Holy Progeny for the Phoenix."
Hearing Eimhart's sudden words, Fisher cast a glance at him and asked.
"...Wait, exactly how many relics did the Angel-kin craft for the Phoenix? Didn't you say only the Phoenix King and her three children had them?"
Aoxi wasn't clear about the history of the Northern Border, but her attention was still grabbed by Eimhart's words. Along with Steel Knife, she looked at the Book Viscount standing on Fisher's shoulder, who appeared sowhat exhilarated.
"I ant the Phoenix's holy artifacts only number four! Not that the Holy Progeny only forged four for the Phoenix! You forgot, aside from dividing the Northern Border among her three children, the Phoenix King still had six demi-human tribes loyal to her beneath her children... Every familiar that participated in the war received a reward; this is the proof of their loyalty."
"The holy artifact bestowed upon the Cangniao-kin is this [Phoenix Raint]. A highly skilled Holy Progeny used high-purity magic raw stones to accurately and flawlessly replicate the forging process hundreds of tis, ultimately forming a holy artifact that is composed of a hundred blades yet forms a single entity. However, it's also precisely because of this relic's unique composition that it ended up scattered like this today... The ones on your body are roughly only half the true number of the Phoenix Raint. Mhm, although it can't completely cover your feathers, it should be usable."
Fisher cast a glance at those daggers beneath Aoxi's cloak, suddenly understanding why this fellow was so impoverished. The reason lay in the fact that the Angel-kin who forged the relic had used hundreds of flawless daggers to piece together a suit of raint. But with the vicissitudes of history, these daggers scattered. To the untrained eye, each dagger beca an individual relic.
In other words, this sucker Aoxi spent the price of dozens of relics to collect these daggers, only to end up with just half the number of a complete raint...
"Why are you collecting these relics?"
Unable to think of any comforting words—who asked the relic distributed by the Phoenix to the Cangniao-kin to be so bizarre—Fisher had to change the subject, inquiring so.
Hearing this, Aoxi shook her head and replied calmly.
"I don't know..."
"You don't know?"
"Mhm... my mom is a guard of the [Hammond Family], and my dad lived in a tribe inside the snowy mountains. My dad was collecting these relics, which is why he ca to the Sardin Matriarchy in the southern part of the Northern Border and t my mom. After I was born, my dad set off again to search for these relics. Before leaving, he left all these relics he had collected previously by my side."
"So, perhaps if I continue searching for these relics, I can bump into my dad... I don't know if I can, either. Furthermore, these relics are also very handy to use, very suitable for my combat style."
Fisher crossed his arms, watching Aoxi slowly wrap the cloak completely tightly around her body again. Just as expected, there wasn't the slightest sound of tal clashing inside when she moved her cloak. It was very difficult for soone to discover rows of dangerous blade relics hidden within.
It was the sa last ti when she carried him back to the ship after facing the Siren. At that ti, Fisher was entirely focused on seeing what her Cangniao-kin body exactly looked like and didn't have ti to notice the anomaly beneath her cloak.
"Alajina didn't tell about this."
"She doesn't know; I've never told her about these matters..."
"Yet you're telling this?"
"Mhm... I saw you help that blonde Naris girl, helping her integrate into this ship, helping her reconcile with the crew mbers she clashed with. I saw that after you boarded the ship, Alajina, Pakhz, and the rest were all in very good, very joyful moods... Only I alone... I also want to be like that; I want you to help ."
Aoxi crossed her legs slightly. For so unknown reason, the beating of her heart was accelerating bit by bit.
It wasn't the bashfulness of affection, but the nervousness of confessing a secret. For so reason, in front of Fisher, she seed to have spoken a bit too much...
However, he seed very interested in her affairs.
"I grew up under the training of the Hammond Family since childhood to swear loyalty to Alajina and protect her safety—the relationship between a guard and a master, it's that simple... But this kind of relationship seems... to have beco sowhat strange after we left the Sardin Matriarchy. She treats her original subordinates as close as sisters, but I can't do that..."
"I am the only demi-human on the ship. Even though they don't look down on because of the Frost Phoenix, in the end, I... am still different from them. I just feel a bit lonely and want to change, but everyone else has already gotten used to it; they think I should just be like this..."
"Sotis I also secretly practice conversing with Steel Knife, letting it communicate with the other crew mbers on my behalf, but most of the ti... I can only watch them, so..."
Fisher observed the Aoxi sitting on the bed. Then, he took out Eliog's Naris gold coin pouch from his pocket, lined up a few gold coins from it, and placed them on the table nearby. Following that, amidst Aoxi's sowhat bewildered gaze, Fisher looked at her and said.
"I understand. Then let's secretly make a deal."
"A secret deal?"
Aoxi and Steel Knife both tilted their heads simultaneously to look at the Fisher before them, just that one tilted left and the other right.
"Mhm, let help you Converse normally with the crew of the Iceberg Queen, help you integrate with them, but in return, I need you to satisfy my curiosity towards the Cangniao-kin."
Eimhart's eyes turned into dead fish eyes. He hurriedly looked at Aoxi, winking at her furiously, but the current Aoxi had already been hooked by the contents of Fisher's words and completely ignored him. Only the parrot in her arms looked at him, but completely didn't understand what he ant.
"As I said before, I am a scholar researching demi-humans, and all along, I have been very interested in the demi-humans of the Northern Border. I want to obtain so information regarding the Northern Border Cangniao-kin from you."
"Just this?"
Aoxi seed sowhat in disbelief. Regarding the request Fisher proposed, she felt it was no different from helping her without compensation. Or perhaps he pitied her, so he wanted to help her under the guise of a transaction?
Seeing her cautiously probing deanor, Fisher stacked the freshly laid-out gold coins, nodded, and said.
"Just this. Having you cooperate with to research your external characteristics will do."
Aoxi was just about to nod, but she sowhat nervously glanced toward the window and the door. After waiting for several seconds, she said quite nervously.
"Ok... Okay, but, but Alajina absolutely must not know about this matter. She likes you very much... I just want a little help; I don't want to cause any misunderstandings with her."
Originally, Fisher wanted Aoxi to keep this matter a secret anyway—though with her socially anxious personality, she definitely wouldn't take the initiative to blab about it anyway—but for her to proactively request it now actually gave Fisher, the one setting the trap, so feelings of guilt.
Just as observed previously, the pure, innocent Aoxi was simply a breath of fresh air among that bunch of tomboys from the Sardin Matriarchy.
"It's a deal. Then the first step now is to take this money and buy so food from the boss downstairs. When you co back, we can simultaneously conduct the research and discuss how to help you."
Aoxi looked at the gold coins in Fisher's hand, extended her wing-like hands, caught the gold coins, and put them back in her pocket. Fisher wasn't sure how she managed to dexterously use her wings exactly like hands. Could it be a racial talent of the Cangniao-kin?
By that logic, if the appearance of the Cangniao-kin was like this, would the legendary Phoenix Species also be like this?
After taking the gold coins, Aoxi slowly stood up, nodded, and walked toward the door. Just as she was about to reach the door, she realized after the fact and thought of the person behind her. Turning her head to look at Fisher sitting on the bed, she asked.
"That... research is... researching what? Will it hurt?"
"It won't. You can just treat it as lying down and chatting with ; it won't take long."
The small face Aoxi hid in her cloak blushed slightly. The thought in her heart that Fisher rely wanted to find an excuse to help her grew increasingly firm.
As expected, Fisher is a good person...
She shrank her face back rather embarrassedly. Without responding to Fisher's words, she rely turned her head, opened the door, and walked out of the room.
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