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Last Embryo Volume 2 Chapter 1 Part 2

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Translator: DarkHeartedAlchemist

Editor: Weasalopes

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「Well, that particular issue has nothing to do with me, so I won’t pry about it anymore. But this just goes to show that it really pays off to have lots of friends in foreign countries, because you never know when you might end up needing their help. This time we didn’t have anything to lose, so I thought that we might as well try to use some of Don Bruno’s connections, and it would seem that we hit the nails right on the head with that decision. Thanks to that we don’t have to swim all the way to Crete with the strength of our own arms and legs alone.」

「Indeed. I know that at times it is good to just let yourself be carried on with the current, but since the sea is my fundamental weakness I can’t say that I entertain that idea all that much.」

「Oh? Now here’s a weakness I never expected someone like you to have. So tell me, just out of curiosity, if we were unable to get our hands on a boat, what would the great Prithvi Mata’s – the Mother Goddess of the Indian mythology – plan for crossing the sea be?」

Izayoi asked her that with a teasing tone and a truly roguish smile.

From her looks alone, Pritt seemed like that type of woman that’s always been calm and collected, as if she was always donning an impenetrable armor that had no gaps and cracks in it whatsoever, but for her to have such a plain and, admittedly cute, but also boring weakness? Also, do bear in mind that it was not Izayoi’s intention to mock Pritt for it, but rather he tried to use it as a catalyst for deepening the friendship between the two of them.

However, Pritt didn’t seem to be the least bit embarrassed by his remarks. She just stood there with the coat of her business suit hanged over her shoulder. She looked at him, slightly puzzled, tilted her head to the side and simply proclaimed:

「I don’t think there’s any sense in asking me that now, but… I thought everything would be fine as long as I filled the ocean with enough earth to create a passage.」

「…….oh.」

(I… I see. So *pffft* so that was her plan, huh? Definitely sounds *snicker* like something she would do. But honestly… taking the world’s one and only Mediterranean Sea… and filling it with earth…)

That was a wonderful remainder that no matter how much they resembled humans, the Gods were still fundamentally different being from them, with logic and goal way beyond our understanding. However, as funny as Pritt’s suggestion was, it didn’t change the fact that as long as she had enough power and resources, she definitely could have pulled something like that off, and that deserved nothing but admiration. Izayoi had to admit that right now, he started seeing Pritt in a whole new light.

Glancing at him as if she knew that he didn’t take her suggestion seriously, she pointed towards a mountain far to the north that was barely visible from where they were standing.

「See that mountain over there? If I were to take it and dump it into the water, wouldn’t it be enough to at best fill it up, or at worst create a giant floating platform for us? Or maybe it would have been better to take the whole island and cut it into pieces small enough to create a bridge that we could cross on foot without having to get ourselves wet in the water?」

Oh man, she was seriously considering such over-the-top options, didn’t she? If she is seriously thinking about trying them out, then Izayoi will have no choice but to stop her before things will get too drastic and the local maps will have to be rewritten. Looking at them from the sidelines, Mikado Tokuteru, who was sitting on a chair he brought for himself from the deck below, heaved a long, perplexed sigh.

「Oi, need I remind you two uncivilized brutes not to judge everything through the standards of Little Garden and act as if we were still there? Because if you need a reminder, then we are not, so we have to make sure to act accordingly to avoid coming off as too suspicious. Also, Pritt, a small piece of trivia to help you cool your head: Mount Athos is considered to be a sacred place for the citizens of Greece, so unless you want to make enemies of the Eastern Orthodox Church, then by all means knock yourself out on it. But if you want to enjoy peace and quiet, then I strongly suggest leaving it be.」

Tokuteru scolded both Pritt and Izayoi without taking his eyes off the economic section of the newspaper he bought before they departed and the international reports regarding the damage done by the typhoon he had displayed on his phone. Even though the media were doing everything they could to cover the whole thing up, the negative effects of the virus were steadily becoming more and more apparent to the general public, becoming a growing issue day by day. The number of people who noticed that it was also infecting wheat and corn was still fairly limited, but you know how it is with rumors: try as hard as you can, but you can never stop them from spreading altogether. As an evidence of that, the prices of wheat flour in Europe were already going up. Tokuteru grimaced after reading that, as did Izayoi, who snuck up behind him and read the same page without him noticing. Next, he leaned forward over Tokuteru’s arm and traced the very top of the article with his finger.

「The prices of wheat flour went up 55% in France alone? Damn, this is getting serious. Are they going to be alright? I don’t know any French people personally, but I always thought about them as someone who will die if they won’t be able to eat bread.」

「That’s profiling, prejudice and stereotypical thinking all mashed up into one opinion… is what I would like to say, but unfortunately this time you’re not that far off the mark. I don’t know if you’re aware, but in Europe, France is a major agricultural powerhouse with farming fields taking a little more than 60% of the country’s total territory. Alternatively, we can say that France alone is responsible for producing one 1/4^th of the entirety of the crops in all of Europe. I do not know how much of France has been infected already, but I imagine that if they haven’t been egulfed by panic and mass hysteria yet, they are probably going to reach that point soon enough.」

Tokuteru spoke the words that would fill the heart of any normal human with anxiety and terror. But it remained an undisputable fact that, as crazy as it sounds, Typhoon Nr.24, 『The Bull of Heaven』 did end up crossing over half of the world before its arrival in Tokyo, destroying anything that stood in its path, and doing even more damage than it was visible to the naked eye. At the current moment, it was still unknown whether or not were the saved up reserves of wheat and corn spoiled, and if they were, how much of them got infected, because only a handful of farmers would even be able to realize that instead of dying out o its own the virus stayed at the farming areas it managed to infect, permeating both the crops and the soil they were cultivated in, and the fact that the UN’s Food & Agriculture Organization have yet to make any comments on the matter seemed to be pointing to the fact that they were still looking for a way to deal with the chaos and confusion which were bound to emerge after they will break the news of this new, never-before-seen pandemic to the world (TL Note: Hits a little too close to home right now, huh?)

However, even when faced with such abnormal circumstances, Tokuteru didn’t seem to be worried at all. If anything, he was calm to an unexpected degree. Thinking that such behavior was suspicious even for someone as shady as him, he placed a hand on his shoulder and asked him with a wicked grin on his face.

「Hey, Tokuteru. Don’t you think it is high time for you to finally tell me?」

「Tell you about what, exactly?」

「Don’t try to play dumb with me. The disaster we’re facing right now is undoubtedly a world-class one. If it wasn’t like that, then 『The 12 Devas』, the embodiment of the strongest Gods of War across all the mythologies wouldn’t have sent two of their members in human forms to personally monitor the situation. But even so, so far the two of you have adopted a rather… passive approach to the problem, if we can even call it that, which is strange considering the fact that with all the power in your possession, each one of you should be able to fix a mess like that in your spare time without as much as lifting a finger. Isn’t that right, Prithvi Mata?」

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