Leo now understood what was happening—to a certain degree, at least.
The beautiful woman, Lyra, had explained a lot of things to him after he agreed to spend the night with her.
'No! I mean sleep near her! Argh, just sleep next to her.'
Leo's cheeks flushed, remembering how he had accepted. Well, it did help, though.
Now he knew this was an era of the world after the Conceptual War. The question here was that such an era never existed back in the history of his world... or timeline. Whichever suited.
He did not know there were actually nine realms, because back in his present, only four realms existed: Primoria, the human realm; Eldrath, the demi-human realm; Asgard, the gods' realm; and Gehenna, the demon realm. The other lower worlds were inhabited by beings possessing certain similarities, like Sky Tide—the World of Flight containing countless aerial beings.
So, what exactly had happened to the nine realms? Were they devoured by the Spirit of Madness? Or was it the Spirit of Madness?
Speaking of which, it reminded him of Shadow. The Shadow Assassin was never a spirit, at least based on how they were described by Jean, who was the only one who had seen and battled them. Shadow possessed similarities to a human, so he could never have had the ability to drive a whole realm mad, let alone nine. If he still possessed that ability in Leo's timeline, then he would have definitely wiped out the whole world.
Again, Leo had learned a little, if not enough, about Aquarius. Apparently, he had appeared at the edge of the sea unconscious, according to Lyra. Aquarius acted weirdly and was the first in this realm to know about the Spirit of Madness. Although no one believed him except for the King—who was actually the giant he had seen earlier—Aquarius was bent on building a ship to escape the tide of the seas.
Still, he felt this should also be the Tide of Madness.
"What do you mean by escape the sea instead of escape madness?"
Lyra frowned slightly. "We have to do one thing at a time, don't you think? We will escape the sea first, then the madness."
Leo nodded in slight agreement. He still didn't fully understand. Lyra smiled and then turned to the pile of wood, metal, and other things Leo didn't recognize yet.
"Shouldn't you get started on building the ship? I wonder how you got hit in the head with enchanted wood without even building anything or touching the pile."
Leo rubbed the back of his head and smiled awkwardly. "I know, right?"
Lyra stared at him with a deadpan expression before ushering him over to a table with drawings of different parts of ships. This made him wonder how the paper hadn't gotten wet and shredded.
'The sea must be magical or something.'
They were in an open space near the King's castle, with a large Anvil Mountain separating them. On one side was the pile of materials, and at the center of this open space was a stone table with different sketches, which Lyra was currently staring at with childish amusement while Leo smiled and improvised.
Leo looked at the drawings of the masts, the hull, and that strange piano-like instrument. He could see the hard work in the lines, but his confidence was low. As a Royal, he was trained in building floats and basic naval architecture.
The problem was that these sketches didn't follow those rules.
Instead of a standard rudder, the drawing showed a series of glass pipes that ran through the center of the ship. The hull wasn't designed to sit on the water, but to somehow vibrate against it. And the masts didn't have places for ropes or pulleys; they had slots that looked like they were meant for giant tuning forks.
The physics were wrong. Based on his training, a ship built like this shouldn't just sink; it should also probably implode.
'How is this supposed to float?' Leo thought, his finger tracing a line that seemed to loop into itself in a way that made his head hurt. 'I can build a boat, but this... this is a puzzle.'
"Well?" Lyra prompted, glancing from the sketches to him. "The King's castle is right there. He's watching. Are you going to build us a miracle, or should I go get the 'second option' ready?"
Leo looked at his small, human hands, then at the skeletal frame of the ship beginning to take shape near the Anvil Mountain.
"I'm working on it," Leo said, his voice dropping an octave as a strange, foreign confidence took hold. "Just... give me a second to remember where I put the hammer."
"You don't use a hammer for this, Aquarius," Lyra said, her voice flat. She reached into a leather satchel resting on the stone table and pulled out a pair of metallic gloves. They were made of a fine silver mesh that didn't even cover the fingertips, leaving his skin exposed. "You use your... whatever you call it. Unless... you've decided to go back to primitive carpentry?"
Leo took the gloves, hiding his confusion. He slipped them on, and the silver wires tightened against his skin until they were almost invisible. He walked over to the pile of materials. The iron-wood was dense and heavy, but as soon as he reached out to touch a beam, the silver mesh on his gloves glowed. The wood turned into a thick, moldable substance, like heavy clay or half-melted lead.
'Whoa. Okay. No nails. No saws.'
'If the sketches are this weird, the tools must be worse,' he thought.
He glanced back at Lyra, who was staring at him with amusement, waiting for him to start his magical engineering. Sighing, he looked back at the pile of materials and started building.
He wanted to start by just sorting materials to waste time, hoping Lyra would get bored and leave. But half an hour later, Lyra was still there with that disturbing look of amusement.
He finally sighed and walked up to her, a crooked smile appearing on his face.
"Ah... do you have any idea how to build a ship? That amnesia really got me."