CH 27

After a while, Floa walked towards me, leaving footprints on the clear sand.

“Are you having fun?” he asked.

I replied, crouching and digging a hole for crabs, holding only a small crab in my palm as if it was natural. 

“Of course! Look, I’m really good at catching crabs!”

I dug a little sand in the crab hole and caught the crab that was hiding there. Then, I lifted the wriggling crab to show Floa.

“I’m amazing, right?”

“You’re amazing.”

I felt proud of the praise and put the crab down on the ground. As soon as the crab touched the ground, it scurried away somewhere.

“Why did you let it go?” Floa asked.

“I thought about collecting the crabs I caught, but since we’re not going to eat them, it seemed pointless to collect them. So I decided to just let it go.”

Suddenly, I remembered something and clapped my hands.

“Oh! Floa, could you take out my straw hat from my bag? I want to wear it to protect myself from the sun, but my hands are dirty from the soil.”

I showed her my hands covered in sand and laughed.

Then, I finally realized something.

“Uh… Floa, where’s my bag?”

The fact that none of the luggage I had entrusted to him was visible.

“Where is our luggage?” 

I stood up, my knees trembling, and looked around. However, our luggage was nowhere to be seen.

“Where did you put it?” 

“Nowhere.”

“What do you mean?”

Then where is our luggage? All of our possessions are in there.

I looked at Floa with a worried expression, and his lips formed a thin line.

Soon, shocking words came out of his mouth. 

“I lost it. Everything, including the money.”

… What?

“Don’t joke around.” 

“I’m serious.” 

“If you’re joking, I won’t let it go.” 

“I’m serious… “ 

“…”

I was in shock at his words, but I didn’t forget that he was Floa.

He is the guardian of Flotina, no one else. It’s unbelievable that he lost all of our luggage. 

There must be some other reason for him to claim that he lost our luggage.

Then, what could be that other reason?

“Floa, by any chance…”

As if I had no bad intentions, I asked with an innocent expression, “Do you want attention?”

It was going to be ‘Are you an attention seeker?’  but it came out a bit softened.

“Yes, I want attention.”

And without hesitation or any change of expression, Floa replied.

… He really wanted attention.

Our conversation may sound strange to others, but it was more honest than anyone else’s.

“If I give you attention, will you find the luggage?”

“It depends on how much attention you give.”

“Are you blackmailing me?”

“I’m not blackmailing May.”

He grinned shamelessly with a calm smile.

If this isn’t blackmail, what is it, then? He’s holding my luggage hostage.

I glared at him.

“So, how much attention do you want?”

“When I look back on the trip I took with you later, I hope that the most memorable thing is not the beautiful scenery, but the trip we had together.”

“If that’s the case, you’ve already succeeded. When you said you lost all your luggage, you forgot about the scenery and everything else.”

“I want it to be more memorable. Please play with me.”

… Play with him? I was speechless for a moment.

“Floa. Isn’t Floa more than twice my age?”

“…”

He just kept his mouth shut. It seemed like he didn’t want to talk about his age.

“What if someone much older than me asks a 10-year-old to play with them? Isn’t it up to Floa to play with me?”

“I just like May that much.”

Ha! When did he start liking me like that?

Floa has already lost my trust since he said he lost my luggage.”

“This is sincere. I like you. Enough to want to protect you for life.”

Floa spoke with sincerity in his own way, but… how can I believe that sincerity? He said he wants to protect me for life, but he even purposely lost my luggage. I don’t know if he doesn’t have that kind of heart, or if Flora’s way of thinking is extreme…

As I was still looking at him with suspicious eyes, Floa hugged me tightly.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to catch fish.”

“What??”

You’re going to catch fish?

He started walking on the sea while holding me. To be precise, he was walking on the sea thanks to levitation.

I never thought I would end up walking on the sea while being hugged by someone. I held onto Floa tightly in case I fell into the sea.

The sound of cool waves rippling and sparkling in the sun reflected on the sea echoed.

Floa kept walking forward without hesitation. The distance between us and the land was getting farther and farther.

“Floa, aren’t we getting too far from the land? I’m worried.”

“Don’t worry, we can return with teleportation. 

Teleportation is not something anyone can do. Only guardian deities or magicians can do it, so even Persis or the guardian knights couldn’t do it, no matter how powerful their magic was.

At the mention of being able to return quickly, I felt relieved. And I could also stop worrying about my lost luggage. Perhaps Floa had placed my luggage in a safe place using teleportation.

By the way, did Dad and Stella have a meal together? I had arranged for them to have a meal while I was traveling.

Perhaps through this meal, Persis might fall in love with Stella as originally intended. Stella may even be adopted by him, as she had hoped.

As I imagined the happy and smiling Persis and Stella from the original work, Floa stopped on the beach.

“Are we going back now?”

“We’re going back after catching some fish, aren’t we?”

“How are we going to catch them?”

“You’ll see.”

As soon as she spoke, red energy spread from Floa’s hand and entered the sea.

Three seconds later, ten fish came out of the sea.

Flutter flutter!

Red, golden, blue, navy, gray… all kinds of colored fish formed a semicircle in the air about a meter away.

The fish, splashing around and bouncing water droplets, were tightly held by the red energy and unable to escape.

“Wow….”

I can catch fish so easily like this?

The blue fish is even bigger than my face!

As I gaped in amazement, Floa asked me.

“Is there a fish you want to eat? I’ll cook it for you.”

“You’ll cook it?”

“Yes, like this.”

When Floa snapped his fingers, the biggest blue fish they caught was engulfed in flames and cooked to perfection.

“Wow!”

“If you don’t want to eat that one, I can catch something else for you.”

“I actually want to eat the one you just cooked…but I hope I won’t get a stomachache.”

“Don’t worry, I only picked fish that won’t cause any problems when eaten.”

Really? Then there’s no reason to hesitate!

I pointed to the well-cooked blue fish with my index finger.

“I want to eat that one!”

Floa snapped his fingers again and created a pair of chopsticks. The ability to create objects was something only gods and wizards could do.

He moved his hand and put the chopsticks on the fish without touching it.

“Here you go.”

As the fish with the chopsticks approached me, I grabbed it.

Gulp – My mouth watered as I looked at the perfectly cooked fish. It looked very delicious.

“Eat it while it’s still warm. It cools down quickly because of the strong wind.”

“Okay, I will!”

As I took a bite of the fish, the nutty and refreshing flavors filled my mouth. It was not greasy, as it was cooked without oil, and surprisingly not bland either.

I opened my eyes wide and looked at Floa.

“It’s delicious! How can it taste this good even without seasoning?”

“I seasoned it a little bit while cooking. You probably didn’t see it as it was covered by the fire. I’m glad you like it.”

I focused on spreading the fish and eating it, without taking my eyes off it. Floa looked at me with satisfaction.

“Take your time and enjoy.”

He walked slowly on the sea, heading back to the land.

***

After we finished our fish, we spent some time walking along the beach. As I healed by feeding the seagulls, the time to return home was approaching before I knew it.

“The sun is already setting.”

As it approached six o’clock, the sea turned orange from the sunset.

“It’s a shame it’s just a day trip.”

Feeling unsatisfied with going home right away, I made a suggestion to Floa.

“Floa, how about we play rock-paper-scissors and the loser gets buried in the sand?”

You lie down and get buried in the sand except for your face!

Floa didn’t refuse.

“That sounds good.”

“I won’t complain even if I lose.”

“Sure.”

As I held out my fist, Floa got into a rock-paper-scissors stance.

I shouted, “Rock, paper, scissors!”

Paper! Along with the sound, what was placed in our field of vision was a rock and a piece of paper. The rock was the Floa, and then I was the paper.

Confirming my win, I jumped up and down with joy. Then I immediately instructed Floa.

“Floa, lie down quickly!”

He lay down on the sandy beach as if he had no choice. I was startled when I saw him lying down. His body was so long that it would take three large parasols to cover him from head to toe. I knew he was tall, but he looked even taller lying down.

To cover his whole body, we would need to spread a lot of sand…