“I don’t know what about this place I love the most,” John announced as they snooped around their temporary home. The two, half-moon shaped buildings had two stories each and a roof/balcony on top. Each was easily large enough to fit a whole party but equipped to only house about a dozen people with utter comfort.

“There is so much fucking SPACE,” Eliza said as she went from room to room, “I would say literally too much.”

The layout was pretty simple. There was only one door into the building, at the centre of the inwards curve at the base floor, which lead into the lobby with a white couch, a birchwood staircase to the second floor and an open kitchen.

That lobby, and its living room counterpart (or perhaps home cinema would have been more appropriate) on the second floor, had an oval shape, leaving about six equally spacious but differently stretched rooms attached to each of them. 12 rooms, two of which were regular bathrooms, one of which was just one giant storage for food (which Aclysia loved to see), and 9 of which were just regular sleeping rooms with a customizable picture frame hanging on the white plastic walls.

The polished grey floor reflected the sunlight falling through the walls in a barely intrusive manner. Good thing as well, as the outer walls were made entirely out of windows, save for the breaks where they met the inner walls or the corner points. While that at first had caused John to wonder about his privacy, Sylph had soon discovered one of many touch panels.

“This is so cool! Swooooosh,” she put her tiny hand on the panel and flew downwards, the room dimmed as all windows tinged, eventually shutting all light out entirely. The lamps switched on automatically a moment later. “Swooosh!” she flew back up, lamps went out, natural light returned. “Boop, boop, boop!” She clicked a few buttons. “Swoooooooooooooosh,” and the next time she repeated this little game only every third window dimmed.

“Sylph, stop that,” Gnome said. “Y-you are wasting power. Here, you can have this small piece of chocolate.”

“Coming over, yep yep, on my way, every second now: Eating chocolate! I am committed!” the tempest elemental whirled around to meet the promised sweet. Behind her Undine flowed towards the panel and put it back on the default setting.

Metra dropped her bra and pants on the floor and stretched, “It’s pretty nice in here,” she said and then looked at the floor as it came to life and began to carry her clothes away. Like a bunch of cats looking after potential prey, everyone’s eyes were glued to the pieces of clothing slowly being carried off to one end of the apartment. Once they were kind of close, a hole opened, threatening to dispose of the clothes.

“That’s not trash!” John, knowing that these were the only real clothes Metra had, stepped up in a hurry. The hole closed in response, and the clothes were just carried off to another place where they were less intrusive. “That’s pretty cool,” John said, carefully stepping on where the hole had been. It felt exactly like the rest of the floor. “Somebody really remind me to buy slimes like this for whatever guild base I am making eventually.”

“I will do my best to remind you at the appropriate time, Master,” Aclysia said with a bow and walked towards the open kitchen (which also had a medium sized and fully stocked bar). Inside she found a note. “It seems we are allowed to ask the service for appropriate amounts of their stock in case the pantry runs out.” That included all meals of the day, so they could completely isolate themselves up here if they so desired. Next Aclysia picked up a piece of plastic from the counter next to the fridge. “Also, there are key cards here.”

John had no idea what they were useful for yet, but with 5 being available he claimed one of those and threw it into his inventory. Better to have it in case he needed it to unlock something with them. Aclysia, as their prime (who was he kidding: only) person who took care of chores got another one while the remaining three were left on the counter for now for people to take with them when they headed out.

Rave tossed herself on the giant couch and made a face that immediately made John understand that it wasn’t quite as nice as the one in Lydia’s place. He would miss that couch. “We should check the restaurant once before we take that offer,” the funky lightbearer said. “Cause ya’re great at cooking Aclysia, but still there are better cooks out there. Like my granddad, he is awesome.”

“Isn’t he a professional Abyssal chef or something like that?” John asked, having a distant memory about that coming up once back in Springfield.

“Ja, makes superb titanium-calamari soup,” Rave answered.

“Do you people not hear me?!” Eliza shouted as she went to another room. “We have too much fucking space. Literally.” She began an overly crudely worded but very much true rant. “Between me and all of you other slabs of meat waiting to get their white cream filling, we know that the only people who aren’t going to sleep in John’s bed are going to be those who won’t fit on it and will sleep on the floor instead! We won’t be able to even fill these nine bedrooms, fuck the ones in the other building. Which brings me to my real problem,” she slid the steel reinforced door to the side, they kind of reminded John of a sci-fi design, “THESE BEDS ARE TOO FUCKING SMALL!”

They took a look inside and saw the one-person beds. They were a good size for couples that wanted to cuddle, but that’s where that stopped. “Yeah, that is going to be a problem,” John rubbed his chin, “also pretty lame for a VIP suite… which makes me think that that can’t be all there is to it. Undine, does the panel have an option for fusing rooms or something?”

“Yes,” came the simple answer. A moment later she added, “it says you should close all doors and not try to forcefully open them once the process begins.”

“Okay, can you add together all bedrooms on the upper floor?” John asked. As the pantry was down here, that would give them a bit more space, not to mention he rather wanted to sleep upstairs. That was so that whoever wanted to roam the cruises shopping mall and came in late could just sleep in their own room and not wake up the rest of them by drunkenly bouldering up the stairs.

“Why are ya looking at me like that?” Rave wanted to know.

“Nothing, just safety precautions,” John said mysteriously, only to give her the honest answer one raised, pink eyebrow later.

“Totally get ya,” his girlfriend thankfully understood, “but don’t rely on drunk-me to get that when she wakes ya with a jump into a power hug.”

“You are aware that that’s how I wake up on some days when you are sober, right?” he had to tease her. “Because you and your sleeping habits are the worst.”

“Yeah, very helpful,” she rolled her eyes. “Whatcha gonna crack at me next, wise guy? That my hair should be less curly? Can do so much about that.”

Eliza cackled, “We could bind you together like a fucking… I don’t want to exhaust my meat metaphors today, how about like a dumbass, masochistic carrier of a genocide goddess?”

“How is that NOT a meat metaphor?” Nia asked with her usual confused head tilt.

“FUCK EVERYTHING!” Eliza cried out. “Stop being that creepy?! Where the fuck did you come from?”

“She was with us when we boarded the ship,” John said.

“Really? Wow,” Eliza said and looked up to the face of the French pariah, “you really are as bland as fucking toothpaste, I just assumed you were missing again and thought you would miss the cruise like the creepy shit you are.”

“I didn’t know creepy shits were known for missing cruises,” Nia delivered that line with her washed out voice without holding up a single card, meaning that it actually wasn’t a return jab, “but is that why you were giggling to yourself?”

“No, that’s just because I am fucking insane and whenever stupid shit bubbles to the forefront of my mind, like imagining what it would be like to just kick someone so hard their body would break on the hull of this fucking ship, I have to laugh. Be happy I keep it so quiet instead of laying waste to your useless eardrums, you pretty, creepy Arian piece of surrendering garbage.”

“I have never sur-“ Nia began.

“Also yes, that’s a reason why I giggled every now and again.”

“I have never surrendered anything.”

“Do I look like I give a fuck?”

“I think I miss the qualification to answer that question. I am unclear what giving a fuck looks like,” the blank blinked and leaned in on Eliza. “Not like that? Maybe?”

“Yes, not at all like that,” the blood mage put her hand on Nia’s face and shoved her away. “And stop staring like that, it is super fucking creepy. You have a major case of resting bitch face.”

“I see.” Nia seemed done for the moment, which meant that she was currently conducting a new question that she would fire whenever she was comfortable with it. Usually that was the least expected time.

“Room fusion is complete,” Undine told them and saved them from the continuation of this awkward conversation. John headed upstairs together with everyone else, as he wondered about what their bedroom for the next week was going to look like.

The formerly one-person beds had, predictably, fused into one giant bed. The way the birch decorating the head area described five separate arches made it apparent that the frames had simply been moved together. The mattress, however, was one unit and felt a lot like memory foam. The grey, translucent colour made John pretty sure it was just another slime instead. Not that he had anything against that.

The walls had just left to somewhere, not something John cared that much about, and the now gargantuan room had been filled with another television, a couch, decorative plants, more customizable picture frames and, to John’s surprise, a bathtub. “You put that there, didn’t you?” he asked Undine and received an unashamed nod as his answer. At least she was honest. “Let’s unpack and then go out; I want to wave Europe goodbye.”

They did exactly that and then headed out just as the public announcement started. A voice, high for a man, softly barked into the microphone. “Ladies, gentlemen and whatever else you are, I am your captain Sealy and welcome you to our voyage led by me and my team, the Seven Sea Seal Sailors or Sour for short… S-Four doesn’t role off the tongue quite that well, then again sour taste is kind of sticky...” the ship was dead quiet; if that was supposed to be a pause to let a joke settle, it was utterly unneeded. “Okay, continuing on, the tremor you will feel in a second is the mana engine heating up.” The ground started buzzing. “Do not worry, it will soon become basically unnoticeable as we reach permanent operation fluctuation of the inside pressure within the main conversion reactor, to put it easily.”

“It better, ‘cause if I am going to hear this shit for the entire cruise I will vomit,” Eliza growled as they reached the railing. On the less private and slightly lower deck below, people were crowding and waving at the piers as the ship slowly began to move.

“We will now start the cruise. A quick reminder: Our route is quite easy, 14-days to New York and back,” or seven days just to New York, for John and his crew, “with a special drive by the Atlantic Fuse. As long as you listen to the staff, you should be safe.” John noted the lack of a guarantee there. “Scouting reports that there aren’t any huge monsters around, but who knows, right?” A pause, once again entirely unnecessary. “Anyway, have fun with the cruise, I wish you as your captain. If you want to meet me, check the program.”

“There is a program?” John asked out loud. “Aclysia could you be a dear and find out more about that later?”

“I will be your dear every day, Master, although I would have done it even without that incentive,” she gave him a closed lipped smile. “I could start right now, if you so desire.”

“No, let’s stay here,” John said as the ship began its slow steering and eventually left the Amsterdam barrier, creating its own substitute. Then it began to heat up inside, as the promised summer experience climbed into reality. He wasn’t really paying much attention, he was just looking onto what he was leaving behind.

Although Illusion Barriers had a border, the view extended naturally to keep the illusion alive. John looked at Amsterdam but much more on the land it was build upon, the continent as a whole, metaphysically speaking. “So, what would you people say was the most important event for each of you while we were here?” he asked the round. It wasn’t like Europe was going to vanish behind the horizon any minute now, they hadn’t even passed the strait of Dover, but it was best to make goodbyes like this early.

“How is being reborn for a fucking start?” Eliza suggested, pretty obvious choice. “Although it sucks how it happened and that my whole existence, and I mean both me and her dumbass genocidesty, are drenched in blood.” It was good she was coming to terms with that.

“Going Super Saiyan was definitely the awesomest thing to happen on this trip,” Rave presented her pick. “Getting mom’s phone number was also an okay thing to happen.” Her priorities were as jumbled as ever.

“That moment when Eliza gave me a lecture during sparring and told me she would try to get along with me,” Nia said in her usual emotionless voice. That was a surprise pick, and Eliza’s shattered eyes widened as she turned her head. Nia herself was just continuing to look at what was, in part, her homeland, “I didn’t have friends before, just people I saw more often than others. It was boring.”

Aclysia cleared her throat, “To allow myself the crudeness, being able to grow a phallus was quite the moment. I enjoy being able to take some of Master’s vast sexual burdens.” A weird pick, but understandable. The weaponized maid didn’t really have a lot to do these past weeks.

“Ah, I remember about 320 years ago when I was contracted by a Lewis Carroll to do some impossible shit, that was fun,” Metra missed the point a bit, but she was new, so she didn’t have a lot of moments that the rest of the group could relate to here.

“Aside from when I was contracted,” Siena was the first of the elementals to speak up, “I would say when I came to the realization that I am kind of awful and that I will have to dial it back for you people. Back in the barrier we had to conquer as a small team.”

“When Marvin told me it was okay to eat him, sad moment but I will always hold it dear to me,” Sylph wiped a tear from her little cheek and shouted at the top of her lungs, “GOODBYE MARVOPA! Uhm, EUROVIN! No, maybe, MARZIPAN!” She was as light-hearted as ever, it was good to see

“When, uhm,” Gnome fidgeted with one of her twintails, twirling the end of it around her finger, “when everyone told me I should take charge again. Yeah. So, when they all allowed me to be the one to lead them despite me being this useless.” Typical Gnome, John put a hand on her head and saw her smile a bit despite casting her eyes down and blushing.

“It was when I was foolish,” was all Undine had to say. In her mind the events of that evening played out again, and she was scolding herself for it. John let it happen without influencing her in any way; his comments wouldn’t have been any help right now, and she wasn’t so remorseful anymore that it was unhealthy. Just a mental scar that she had to look back on in tranquil moments like these.

“When Undine disappointed me,” Salamander’s voice cut into the ocean elemental’s brooding like a hot knife. “When she threw her unbearable hissy fit and lost to the corruption, when she was nothing but a naïve child that didn’t know how to talk about her feelings.”

“Salamander…” John found this a bit harsh, so he prepared to intervene, but Undine stopped him in return. She wanted to hear this.

The blaze elemental looked at her younger sister with her coal-black eyes. The blue reflection inside seemed to burn in flames of disappointment. “I thought you were the best of us, but you are just as disappointing as everyone else. I idolized you and paid the price. The only outstanding thing that you showed that day was foolishness. Not that anyone else is any better,” Salamander’s gaze went over all of them and finally stopped nowhere, just staring holes into the air as her true focus shifted inwards. “A lesson to me to never elevate someone else to an idol. That’s my most important moment on this continent.”

John wondered what the answers for Nathalia, Momo and Lydia would have been. Would Momo have picked her wings, her freedom or something else entirely? Was it just going to be the ascension to throne for Lydia? Doubtlessly, it would have been the spa for Nathalia, he imagined to know her that well.

“What about you, Master?” Aclysia asked into the quiet.

“Of all of what happened to me and us during the past few months?” John asked and tried to not say the one thing that immediately came to mind. However, it would have been disingenuous to not say that exact thing. “It was when I learned to properly doubt thanks to Herman’s betrayal. Of all the terrible, wonderful, ugly and ecstatic things that happened to me, that was the most important thing to happen to me.” Rave put her hand on his back supportingly, and he gave her a thankful kiss.

The list ended on a depressing note, so depressing that even Stirwin was affected and searched for a good mood elsewhere, presumably the private pool. ‘Hole!’ that transmitted thought caused John to sigh but also smile a bit. The thought of Stirwin jumping down something was amusing, for the biggest part, but he was mostly torn between annoyance and thankfulness for having been given an opportunity to step out of this melancholic shroud that had settled over them.

“I will have to go check on Chompy, and then I suggest we do something more fun,” John said.

“Thank fuck, I thought we were going to group hug and cry about our problems,” Eliza announced everyone’s relief. Especially Salamander looked like she was happy that the situation didn’t escalate; she had said something she wanted to say, but that didn’t necessarily mean that she wanted to say it. The fact that John understood that feeling just went to show that human emotions were full of contradictions. Notably the mental area that Salamander was hiding had basically vanished, so that finally had come to an end as well. Just something the size of one thought remained hidden from his eyes.

He found Stirwin at the border between VIP and public areas. “What are you talking about holes, Chompy?” John wanted to know patting the open-mouthed crocodile. “There are no holes he-“ he looked up as he gestured around and stared into the sunglasses of someone leaning against the separating drop. The man was standing there with a straw attached to his open mouth.

He was wearing a suit that was tailored to his body with utter perfection, and he had perfectly styled brown hair, longer than John’s. He was handsome, very much so, and had the athletic build of a male supermodel. Basically, he was what most women would swoon over, the fact that he was a literal king only helped.

“”What the hell are you doing here, buddy?”” John and Maximilian asked at the same time.