Chapter Text
Yumia had the last watch of the night, and she spent it sitting beside the campfire. There was a chill wind blowing over the plains they’d set their small camp up, so the entire group had agreed beforehand to keep the fire burning throughout the night.
She wasn’t worried over being attacked by monsters: they were exploring the newly accessible Sivash region, but they had only just started, and thus were mainly sticking to the relatively safe areas around the welleks village.
As such, she felt she could afford to be a little absent-minded, and stared at the flickering flames, lost in thought.
She thought she’d gotten used to the distrust and fear Eustellans held for alchemists, but that was nothing compared to the welleks.
Alchemy was taboo to the people of the Eustellan Republic, mainly because word of it causing their neighbouring empire’s downfall. It had never had many practitioners on that side of the sea, so it grew to become something of a bogeyman, a harbinger of trouble.
But the welleks had a far better understanding of what ruin alchemy could bring, and they hated and feared it in equal measure. Humans considered her trouble for being an alchemist, but if the welleks learned of what she was, she’d become an active disaster.
… Cledia had put it rather gently, but Yumia got the impression that if she got found out, all of the other welleks would be clamoring for her death.
This brought her mind back to what the hunters had told their group after they’d helped them out: that practicing alchemy eroded one’s humanity.
At the time, it had sounded scary, sure, but most of all nonsensical. Yumia had been practicing alchemy since childhood, albeit not this diligently until after she lost her mother. Yet she didn’t feel any less human, like she lost or gained anything from the mere act of practicing alchemy.
She’d initially thought they meant that the alchemists of the empire had grown too proud, thought their powers made them something above regular humans. Their spirit became monstrous, but they were still human.
But then she remembered a recent encounter with a specific monster, and wondered if perhaps, the welleks had meant it quite literally.
It wasn’t a serious hypothesis, merely the result of Yumia’s mind connecting three pieces of information that didn’t quite fit into anything she knew of the bygone empire yet: alchemists losing their humanity, the intelligent monster that’d introduced itself as Vesper, and how Vesper was potentially an alchemist. It was closer to a thought experiment than anything else, really.
Yet she still found herself wondering what she’d do, if she were to one day become a monster.
Perhaps she wouldn’t lose her mind or heart. That Vesper had done terrible things, causing the disaster being the only crime they knew of, with countless more doubtlessly leading up to it.
But it had also sounded… sane, despite this. It was not raving, it was not mindless. It fought with skill alongside enormous might. It’d even introduced itself as a member of the Aladissian Empire, though the implications of that claim if true were too numerous for Yumia to even begin to theorize over what exactly it meant.
But even if she remained the same on the inside, if her outside became a monster, she would never be accepted. She already knew the persecution one could face for practicing a ‘forbidden’ art, but if that same person also looked like a literal monster?
If her hard work paid off and the public’s perception of alchemy improved, despite its potential monster-transformation properties, there was still no way acceptance of a monster would become widespread.
She’d reached this conclusion not an hour after they saved those hunters, yet it kept troubling her.
She didn’t want to bother the others with her feeling upset over an idle thought experiment, let alone such a ludicrous one. She’d tried to put it out of her mind, yet in the quiet of pre-dawn, with everyone else fast asleep, it kept creeping up on her.
… Isla and Viktor burned with revenge against Vesper, but they were still reasonable enough that they wouldn’t assume a transformed Yumia would be anything like it, surely? Everyone in this little group of theirs, who’d been the first besides the Chief to treat her normally despite her being an alchemist would still be able to come to terms with her new form and accept her, right?
…
There was a snap of wood, not from the campfire before her, and Yumia looked to the side. She abruptly remembered that not everyone in their group was asleep.
Isla or Viktor always took the first watch, as they both tended to stay up a bit later than the others working on a sewing project or writing a report on the day’s events respectively. Yumia always took the last watch, as she was an early riser by nature, and she liked to do some simple synthesis to start the day off as good warming-up exercise for her alchemy.
So before Nina joined them, that left Rutger as the person who often took the hardest watch. Being an experienced adventurer who likely had periods where he spent more nights out in the wilds than in a bed, he didn’t consider waking up in the middle of the night, sitting around for a few hours, and then falling back to sleep as anything difficult, but the three with more regular sleep schedules up to this point in their lives felt differently.
Since Nina also didn’t have issues with taking a middle-of-the-night watch, things had become easier on Rutger. Instead of using this to get more sleep, he’d used the extra time he didn’t have to spend on watch to wander away from camp, and he’d just returned from doing just that.
Yumia greeted him, which Rutger acknowledged with a grunt. He was walking straight over to her.
When he sidestepped his sleeping spot and his stuff laid out there to continue walking towards her in the center of the camp, his stride determined, Yumia couldn’t help but feel the tiniest bit nervous. He was really staring at her.
“Rutger? Is something wrong?” She tried to whisper loud enough for him to hear, without the others waking up.
Rutger plopped down next to her, holding his hands out to warm them by the fire.
“What? It’s chilly out there, can’t I warm up some?”
“Oh. Um, of course.”
“Thanks for your permission, Alchemist.”
After an exchange like that, even if it wasn’t unusual given Rutger’s way of speaking, Yumia simply fell silent. She always had a hard time striking up a conversation with the taciturn adventurer without something to break the ice presenting itself, so she decided it was for the best.
Especially now that she felt a bit self-conscious for thinking he’d been looking at her instead of the fire. For a moment she’d been convinced he was staring at her, but it was just her imagination.
She could’ve asked him about how his ‘walk’ went, as he always waved it off when Viktor told him not to wander away from the group during the night. But whenever she tried to do so the previous two times he’d walked off after waking her up for her shift, he’d simply told her: “It was a walk, not an expedition. Can’t a guy get an hour or so away from you lot without anyone panicking?”
… In truth, Yumia felt a tad envious of him when he said that. Because she, in fact, couldn’t.
Certainly, Isla had never been too worried about keeping an eye on her, and even the dutiful Viktor had grown to trust her enough not to start searching for her the moment she happened to be out of his line of sight.
But their official assignment to keep an eye on her from the Chief had never been rescinded, and it wasn’t entirely out of a lack of trust that they’d been appointed her escorts in the first place.
While other members of the Research Team gossiped about her less whenever she passed by, and no one quite ran away upon seeing her approach anymore, they still didn’t fully trust her. Her work clearing the manabound areas was praised and acknowledged, they couldn’t very well deny how important it was, but that didn’t mean they had to like the presence of an alchemist in their midst.
Especially new recruits fresh off the boat from across the sea reacted appalled to the public presence of an alchemist. For safety’s sake, anyone who reacted too badly wasn’t allowed near the welleks village, just in case they let something slip.
Especially with the reveal that Vesper could perhaps be an alchemist, it was considered important that trustworthy witnesses were near Yumia at all times, so if an incident related to alchemy did occur, she had an alibi.
Yumia knew this well, and it was even the main argument the Chief had used to assure Isla that their continued role as escorts instead of official team members to Yumia wasn’t an insult to the alchemist.
But it didn’t mean she didn’t desire a moment to herself every now and again, no matter how well she got along with everyone.
Going to the bathroom was just about the only moment of true privacy she got: when sleeping indoors she always shared a room with Isla and now Nina, and while sometimes people wandered off instead of continuing to watch her while she spent hours on alchemy, some time to focus while she was working hardly counted as relaxing private time to her. Not to mention Flammi was with her then, and as it had recently announced, it did record and remember anything she did that she thought was private.
(She thought it shouldn’t count as sneaking food and lazing around when she took a break from alchemy while everyone else was out of her atelier to kick back and snack from some of the fruits they’d foraged, even if they’d been marked alchemy ingredients by her. That such breaks sometimes lasted a bit longer than she told Flammi they would was merely her being careless. Didn’t mean she wanted to risk Flammi mentioning it to anyone else, however.)
All in all, Yumia had plenty of times where she could understand Rutger’s desire to go out on his own all too well, even as she wanted him to try to be more cooperative.
It was why she sometimes tried to join him while he used their downtime to go search for treasure, but he was never that receptive to the idea. Not to mention that by some strange coincidence, whenever they did this someone would always show up with a new assignment to send the two of them on.
Yumia wasn’t going to tell him any of this to his face, of course. So as he made himself comfortable in front of the fire, she fell back into silence, her gaze drifting back to the flames.
Soon her thoughts were drifting off to what alchemists could’ve done to ruin an entire empire, and whether monster transformations had anything to do with it.
That is, until she caught movement from the corner of her eye.
"...?"
She turned her head to look at Rutger, who she could’ve sworn was staring at her a moment ago. But all she could see was him using the glow from the fire to inspect his weapon, not even glancing at her.
It could’ve just been an illusion caused by the shadows cast by the flames, but she’d been so certain. Combined with how she thought he’d been looking at her when he approached earlier, she was a bit more reluctant to play it off as a figment of her imagination.
Still, knowing Rutger, even if she did bring it up he would deny it no matter what the truth was.
Uncertain of what to do, she simply regarded him.
He was sitting cross-legged, brushing gloved fingers over the edge of his scythe to check the sharpness of the weapon. Despite it being night he was still wearing his triangular sunglasses.
Yumia had wondered about it before, but did he wear them purely as a fashion statement? It seemed a bit odd to imagine him as the type to fuss over his appearance, but there was no way the things had any practical use. She supposed even experienced adventurers were free to dress up however they felt like, but-
“Is there something on my face?” Rutger spoke up without moving his eyes away from his weapon, startling Yumia into realizing that regardless of whether he’d been stealing glances at her before or not, now she was the one quietly boring a hole into him with her gaze.
Rather than admit she’d been wondering if he had a sense of a fashion and whether those sunglasses fit into it if he did, she brought up a far less potentially offensive subject: “I saw you checking your weapon, and I was wondering if it’s been working well for you so far?”
Rutger did lift his gaze to look at her now, before shifting his scythe so she could see it better as well.
“I’ve got to admit, you do some good work. I didn’t think my old scythe was bad, but I wouldn’t want to change back again. And even after all these battles, it’s still as good as new! ‘Course, proper maintenance is part of it, but that still speaks of quality given all the things we’ve been fighting against. Feel free to make me any other equipment if you feel like it.”
“Sure, if I’ve got a new recipe for something interesting, I’ll run it by you,” Yumia nodded. She tried to suppress a grin, but it was difficult: she’d been getting some praise for all of the work she’d been doing, but before joining the Research Team no one had ever (knowingly) complimented her for her work as an alchemist. As such, praise and compliments for her work still made her puff up with pride.
“I’d been a bit unsure, so I’m glad to hear it’s good. I’ve made regular scythes before, but never one modified for combat.”
“Not a surprise, I don’t often see folks with similar weapons. Still, you made regular scythes with alchemy as well? Ah right, you did mention working in a tool shop before.”
“That’s right. My family used to own that shop, so I’ve been making tools and knickknacks since childhood.” In the back of Yumia’s mind she noted that it was unlike Rutger to ask about her, but perhaps he was simply curious.
“What,” Rutger started, raising an eyebrow as he looked at her, putting his scythe to the side, “your family used alchemy to make all of their tools?”
“Well, no, not quite. It’s…” Yumia trailed off, realizing that it’d be difficult to properly explain the subject without mentioning her mother.
Noticing her pause, and likely the expression on her face, Rutger looked away again as he said: “You don’t need to tell me, I don’t really care.”
“… No, it’s fine. It’s just that I learned alchemy from my mother, but she’s… gone. I didn’t formally learn the basics, but in between our normal tools, she sometimes made more complicated ones with alchemy. We never really discussed how it was called, but when I expressed an interest she’d walk me through how to make it. She always told me it was a secret practice to her family, but I didn’t learn it was alchemy until later.”
“Ah, so that’s why you know how to make all kinds of things, from medicine to buildings, but you regularly need to figure out recipes.”
“That’s right, I never got real training, so I’m mostly making do with the basics and Flammi’s assistance while we’re figuring this out.”
Rutger made an appreciative noise, checking out his scythe once more before putting it away.
“You wouldn’t say so by the quality. Then again, out in unexplored terrain you often need to learn new things and practice them on the job, so I know what you mean. After this expedition’s over, you might make a good adventurer.” He gave her a toothy grin as he said this, and not for the first time Yumia idly wondered how he got his teeth to be so sharp. Honestly, it was a strange look, but also somewhat charming.
Silence fell again, but more comfortable now.
Yumia noticed that before she realized it, the first rays of sunshine started peeking over the horizon: it was dawn. The others would likely start waking up on their own soon, but it wasn’t time for her to start helping anyone with that yet. Still, sitting around and waiting would be harder with the knowledge that it was soon time to get moving, so…
“… I’m thinking of getting started on breakfast. Would you be willing to help me get some ingredients, Rutger?”
“Oh, you’re going to cook instead of us having rations? Count me in, I’m hungry already!” Rutger got up, and within moments he headed back out of the camp.
Trusting him to get something good, Yumia started to prep the campfire for cooking, and started looking in which bag they’d put the bowls and cutlery this time…
By the time she had the water in her pot boiling, Rutger returned with his haul.
Everyone else woke up to the smell of breakfast not long after, and so the team started their new day of exploration in the best possible way.