Danmachi: Westward Cloud [Complete]

[Vol.4] Quest 357- Moonlit Guidance

Three days have passed since Cirrus went into the sea and passed on. The coalition of adventures and Xeno stayed at the coast, trying to at least collect his body for burial.

They built a dock and boats to go out and dive to find his body.

"Ugh." Ai sits down exhausted, soaking wet.

"Rest, Ai," said Aisha. "You have been diving all day. Have you even eaten?"

Ai looked up at her with desperate and tired eyes. Bags were under her eyes, which told Aisha she hadn’t even gotten sleep. Aisha even noticed how thin she had been getting.

"I… will rest when I get his body back."

"Listen to her," Malion said, his eyes matching Ai’s. "I will cover for you. Ryuu should be back in an hour or two, so you can rest for now."

"… Fine." She said it bitterly.

Ai wasn’t the only one with that drive. Artemis, Malion, Ryuu, Eupheme, Ais, Bell, Bete, Ottar, Allen, and Callisto. Of those, only Callisto was the most healthy-looking one, while the closest ones in terms of health were Bete, Ottar, and Allen. They were eating and sleeping, but not enough.

"Hah…" Bete looks out at the wide, open sea.

"Tired already, wolf?" said Allen.

"Just looking at all the sea we have to explore."

The two had a kind of calmness. Allen, in particular, had mellowed out after the death of the Black Dragon.

Splash!!

Coming out from the sea was Ottar.

"Hm!" He climbs back onto the ship.

The ships they and everyone else are on were ships that Hecton made before he left. Given his skills and many arms with the adventures getting him wood, it was easy to build them.

"Any luck, boar?" Bete asked.

"None." He sits down against the ship's mass. "I am not built for the sea."

"We can see that," Allen and Bete said.

Out on another ship were Tiona and Tione.

"Man…" Tiona lies on her back, looking up at the sky. "I like swimming, but I think my Diving Development Ability is going to rise two ranks."

"Even with the Undine Cloth, it still isn’t enough to search for more than an hour before we need air," Tione said, lying next to her sister.

"Did you see Ais and Nox?"

"Hm. It's hard not to see a ball of light under the sea."

Nox and Ais were working together. They had their parts to play, while Ais used her magic to create a ball of air to give her and Nox oxygen. Nox lets Ais onto her back so they can navigate the sea while also producing light.

Even as an adult and mother, Ais still does not know how to swim. Instead, she found a workaround.

In one of the tents at the camp.

"Mom, I wanna—"

"No, Callisto," Artemis said sternly. "I will not have..." Artemis took a deep breath to center herself. "I will not have you find your fathers… just no," She said, exhausted and heartbroken.

Artemis and Asfi were going over the maps of areas that the coalition had searched, along with a map of the ocean currents. Thanks to Asfi building a magic tool, several small buoy-looking types, and a specialized map to keep track of them.

"But Nox is—"

"Do not use Nox as an example. She is older than you and everyone else here."

"Yeah, but she was born alongside me, so we are the same age! The skill says it! A pact forged with your other half!"

"Callisto, go with your aunt Circe?" Artemis looks at her with red, puffy eyes. "I… I am… Huff." She sits down and covers her face. "I’m just… I want to find your father. I want to at least bury him. So, please… I love you, and I want to shower you in love, but... this is eating away at me."

Callisto knows her mother is going through grief.

"…Okay. I’ll um… I’ll just go and help Aunty Circe."

"Thank you, sweetie. Sniff!"

Callisto leaves the tent, and everyone looks at her, the first Demigod of Gekai.

'So many stares. They're more intense than usual.’

She walked a bit into the woods to get to Circe’s tent.

"I’m here. Again." Callisto said it with no energy.

"Ah, Callisto, you’re here!" Circe said, working on some potions. "Good, can you help me a bit? I need to get some mushrooms, and a few of them were poisonous, so—"

"Hey, Aunty… Why aren’t you sad?"

"I can say the same for you?" She looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "You loved your father dearly. Even more so than your mother and siblings. I would even say it rivaled well Ai and Nox."

"Given how Nox reincarnated with you," Fafnir said, appearing from the shadows, now looking healthier. "It makes sense why you loved Master so much, even as a baby."

The world she and Hecton inhabited was no more. Now they just entered an empty, plain world.

"Fafnir. Where is Hecton?"

In the course of the three days, Callisto had become very well acquainted with Hecton and Fafnir. She learned they had been watching over her since the day she was born, keeping her safe even in the dungeon.

"By this point, he should have arrived in Orario. His healing is better than my own, so he was good to go after a good meal and day of sleep."

"I see… Also, Dad said pain must be worked through. Not moving on will only lead you down a path you will regret. I am still hurting, but... Dad decided how he would pass on. I just want to get his body back so mom and everyone can process the pain."

"You're weirdly mature. Just like your…" Circe didn’t want to finish her sentence. "Hah. I made myself a bit blue there."

"Nox called me that too. Apparently, Dad was also like that."

"He very much was." Circe smiled lightly, remembering Cirrus.

"So, are you gonna answer my question?"

"Yes, well, I am his spirit. Our purpose was to be tools for our contractors. That, and we—me, Fafnir, and Hecton—long accepted this outcome. We knew it was going to come. And like you said, Cirrus chose how he was going to die."

Callisto could hear it in her voice and see it on Fafnir’s face. The two of them were still grieving inside, but they were working through it better than most in their own ways and in their own time.

"…So what mushrooms did you want?"

"Webskulls, Destroying Dapperling, Black Bay, Button Cauliflower, and Charcoal of the Woods. Oh, and can you get those new flora? The green ones with the cloud shape."

"Got it."

Callisto turned and quickly left.

"Circe." Fafnir glanced at her. "You held on well."

Circe lets out a deep sigh.

"Haa…" Her expression darkened. "He rose her well. I expected her to be curled into a ball, crying, and crying... with Artemis there with her, comforting her as best a mother could…"

Callisto went out into the woods.

Tap-Tap-Tap!

Tap-Tap-Tap!

Tap-Tap-Tap!

As Artemis’s child, Callisto moved naturally through the wilderness, picking mushrooms and various other herbs.

"There you are." Gathering herbs was as easy for her as breathing.

She spent a few hours in the woods, simply empty-mindedly picking up the items asked for.

"There you are!" Callisto looked at a small patch of green, cloud-shaped flora.

The flora grew from the drops of Cirrus’ ichor. They had a distinct scent of petrichor. Circe has been using and studying them. So far, they can only be found where Cirrus’ ichor landed.

She walked to a clearing, where she simply sat down.

"Huff!" She looks out at the empty plain, then at the sky. She looked down and took out the green, cloud-shaped flora. "Dad…" The flora reminded Callisto and those close to Cirrus of him. "Why did you have to leave?" Her face began to water, and some tears rolled down her cheeks.

A mask to conceal her anguish. The apple certainly fell pretty close to the tree.

Even if she listened to her late father’s words, she still misses him dearly.

"My, look who I stumbled upon?"

"!?"

Callisto quickly turned to see Fels. Their shady appearance made Callisto on edge.

"W-who are you!!" she said, clenching her fists ready to fight.

"You even have the way Cirrus scrunches his brows when he is tense."

The tone and words Fels spoke disarmed Callisto in her assumption of what and who Fels was.

"Why do you know that!?"

"Because I am the one who raised him. I am his father/mother. My name is Fels."

"!?" Callisto’s eyes widen, she has heard of Fels but never met them. "N-no way!! Dad only showed me Grandma Lenoa!! Dad said you were away on like business or something!!"

The excitement on her face warmed Fels heart.

'I can see a bit of his smile in hers, I can also see a bit of her mothers.'

"Yes, that was my suggestion. You see, I have a bit of a complex regarding my appearance." Fels removed their hood to show their skeletal appearance. "Now that he is... I felt that... Hm. It’s quite hard to put my feelings into words."

It pained Fels a bit. Callisto's eyes were like daggers to Fels' skeletal appearance.

"I… can see why." Callisto quickly got over their grandparent's appearance. "I am sure you are going through the motions as well. But if you are who you say you are, then Nox would know you then, right?"

"Of course."

‘Hey Nox, do you know a Fels?’ Callisto telepathically contacts Nox.

‘Hm? Fels? Are they here?’

‘Yeah. They say their dad’s father/mother.’

‘They are. They raised him. They're your grandparent.’

"No way!!!" She said, very taken aback. "Y-you’re really my grandparent!?"

"That I am." They put their hood back on. "It took me a while to get here, but I am here to retrieve my son’s body."

"We have been looking for days. How are you going to be able to find dads… you know?"

"As morbid as it may sound, I created a magic tool long, long ago using Cirrus’s blood. Given the time and era, it wasn’t hard to get it. He left enough of it around the city fighting. Especially that day..." Fels remembers the Longest Night of the Dark Era of Orario.

"So you can find him?"

"Yes." They took out a compass with a droplet on the head, the arrow pointing to the sea. "Take it. Given my appearance, I would have used a magic tool to hide, but I was in a hurry to get here." Fels then tosses Callisto the magic tool.

Callisto looks at the magic tool and then back to Fels to see they already have their backs turned.

"Are you gonna return to Orario?"

"…I am. I wish to help more, but... my job requires me to keep myself hidden from the eyes of the world. If you wish to meet me again, Nox, Circe, or any of your family members can take you. It was nice to see you, Callisto."

As Fels takes a step, Callisto quickly rushes Fels and hugs them.

"C-can you at least stay for dinner? Grampa? Grandma? I don’t know what to refer to you as?"

"…" Fels felt a pang where their heart should be. "You can call me however you wish. I no longer have a gender, and I have long forgotten what my gender was long ago." Fels said, turning around. "I…" Looking into Callisto’s eyes, they could see a bit of her father in her. "Maybe I'll be able to stay, but I won’t be able to go into camp. I left behind the magic tool your father made for me as I rushed to get here."

"Yay!!" Callisto lets go and jumps a bit in joy. "Oh, um… Could I get a hug?"

"Of course, my dear." Fels bends down, and Callisto goes up and hugs them tightly, and Fels does the same. "There, there." She strokes her head. "Let out your tears. I will not tell a soul of this momentary weakness."

"I-I’m not holding back my tears!"

"You are just like your father. Always holding back his emotions. Let them out. They are there for a reason. Just as one has eyebrows to prevent sweat from reaching your eye, you have pain that must be expressed, or it will eat you from the inside."

"P-promise you won’t tell anyone?"

"Of course. I will keep it to the grave."

"Hic! Hic!" Her grip was just slightly tighter.

After a while and after she cleaned herself up, Callisto returned to Circe.

"Hey! When were you gonna tell me about Grandpa Fels?"

"Hm? Oh, you met Fels!" Circe said, surprised and glad as she mixed the ingredients.

"Master’s parent. How are they taking it?" Fafnir said.

"…They didn’t have a face, so I really couldn’t tell, and their voice sounded fine enough."

"Hmm… Let me see about that." Fafnir then melts into the darkness and disappears.

"Oh, they gave me this!" She holds out the compass.

"Hm? What is—!?" Circe quickly noticed it and grabbed it from her hand. "Ooh! Amazing! Why didn’t I think of that?" She examined the tool methodically. "What is its purpose? Did Fels tell you?"

"They said it was to find Dad’s… body. They used his blood to make it."

Circe looks at the arrow and her expression calms.

"I see… They must have made it in response to those four years, she mumbled to herself. "Well, hand it to your mother and tell her Fels gave it to you and its purpose."

"Okay! Oh, and um, I asked Fels if they could stay for dinner!"

"Dinner? You know they can’t eat, right? And if you want to eat dinner with everyone, I suggest keeping that magic tool to yourself for now and giving it to them tomorrow."

"Where can I put it? Fom would be able to sniff it out."

"Put it in your shadow. With your pact with Nox, you should have it."

"I do but... It’s really weird."

"Get used to it. It was one of the things that made your father so powerful and tenacious. Running low on mana? With a swift motion of the hands and within the blink of an eye, you would have a mana potion in your hand. Weapon broke? Reach into your coat and pull out another weapon."

"Ooh! Cool!!"

Callisto put the compass in her shadow and went to get her family for dinner.