Re:Demon - Reborn as a Demon Book 1

16

'Time and tide wait for no man.' That had been his father's favorite saying in his previous life, and it had mostly been directed at his son as a way of telling him that he was being lazy, which had been about all the communication they'd had, since his father had always been busy with work.

It wasn't that he didn't understand that his dad had responsibilities, but wasn't your kid supposed to be one of those? Couldn't he find the time to come to at least one school event?

Now it was too late, he'd died in some bus accident or something, at least that was the only thing that made any sense considering he was stuck in this new world, with a new father that was similar to his last in only one way, he also loved the same phrase.

Alright, there were other similarities, he would concede to his classmates in the conversations he had in his head, his imagination keeping them alive. Or at least his friends, Yamada and Toshiro and Kanaka. It wasn't like he wouldn't be happy to see any of them, including the rest of the class, he would've been, it's just that he hoped that Akihito had changed into less of a dick, though he didn't really think that would ever happen.

Still, he didn't dislike this new world, despite his father not letting him laze around, in fact, even though he was still technically a child, he was being forced to go along with his father on a business trip so that he could learn the trade.

The Freewynd family had long been a respectable merchant house and the current head, Wellolyndivine, wasn't about to let his son grow up without learning the ins and outs of the family trade. It never occurred to him that Urstosovaldi might not want to become a merchant, after all, it was a family tradition.

As long as he was thinking of family traditions, he had to wonder if the more money they accumulated, the more letters they were able to afford to shove into their names. As far as Urstosovaldi was concerned, he hated it. It was bad enough remembering the new language he had to learn, but trying to write his own name now took a minute and a half, and that was only if he was shortening it, if he included his entire name, with all the middle names and things that he would apparently have to use for legal documents, it took over five.

He had to wonder if the ridiculousness of his name wasn't just to keep him from hastily signing things. If it took that long to do, you had to be darn sure that you wanted to do it.

"Young master Urst." A voice interrupted his musings, drawing his attention back to the deck of the ship he was on and the bearded man leaning towards him.

More than half the crew of the boat seemed to dislike him, with reasons ranging from him being bad luck, to him being a golden sword, useless, expensive and just for show. But the most common reason seemed to be that he wasn't able to do the work, so he should stay out of their way and not distract them while they were doing their jobs.

There were others who saw the boy's interest as a good sign and as long as they weren't in an emergency, were more than willing to tell him about what they were doing.

Tigval was one of the latter and had been telling him many improbable tales of the sea. He'd also been teaching him what to do at different posts, such as what a topman did and what to do in an emergency.

"You said you didn't believe in the Lord of El'dli, well, look out there and tell me what you see."

Urst looked past the thick, scared finger and tried to spot what he was supposed to be looking at, but all he saw was the seemingly endless blue-green water sparkling off into the distance. A few clouds hung nearer the horizon, but other than that, there wasn't anything, not even a bird or a break in the waves.