This is a multimedia webnovel with giant city-crushing monsters, a valiant man who dares to fight them, a hero who loses himself on a righteous path, and a darkness which conceives a profound love. But I suck at descriptions, so I strongly encourage...
"This one is actually made out of the old ones! I've always liked to design things with interchangeable parts. That means that the old sail-ranae could be disassembled and reassembled. It runs the risk of the ship taking on some water if there's a lot of weight, but I designed them to be pretty watertight," Vaida answered with enthusiasm.
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Vaida looked at the vehicle around her with a sense of pride. Hatasuko watched her happy left eye as she ran her fingers along the side of the sail-rana, but as he watched, he saw her eyes swiftly switch from happy to melancholy. She then added, "While I was waiting for you to wake up, I took apart the old sail-ranae and basically combined them. I had to carve some wood from a fallen tree to make the base wider, but I had a lot of time. You were out for a really long time."
Hatasuko said, "I know. I'm sorry about that, I hope I didn't make you worry too much."
Vaida dropped the albapomus in her hand and grabbed the steering wheel. It had been locked so that the wind would not blow them off a straight-north path, but she unlocked it and steered very slightly to the left. This meant that they would have more distance to travel on the river later, but this new direction more closely matched the direction of the wind, meaning they could travel faster than before. Once she locked the steering wheel again, Hatasuko realized that her silence was her response; it served as a wordless confession of her hopeless worries during his absence.
"I don't want to face the possibility any more than I have to, but we're destined to die if we fight the Interfecti. That's a fate we just have to accept," Hatasuko added.
"I can't, um, I can't agree with you. You sound too much like Lazaro when you say something like that. I've come to understand that I will die on this quest, and I can accept that because I am expendable. But you are not! You're not meant to die, and you know it! Lazaro thought you were crazy when you said this was your destiny, but then you became the first Astrodeus. You did things this world has never seen; that isn't a coincidence! You've been given this power because you are the key that will unlock our salvation. You are still the only hope we have left, so you can't die. It's just not your destiny," Vaida responded.
"But how do you know that? How are any of us supposed to know our destiny?"
"You already told me the answer to this. I asked you when we first met, and do you know what you told me? You said, 'Vaida, have you ever felt something so powerful that you know it has to be true? Even if you can't see it, even if you can't describe it, you just know that it's real. You know that it must be real. I guess that's the only way that I can explain it. I'm not giving reality the choice to disagree with me.' I don't know if you lost sight of that, or if it just slipped your mind after our disaster, but I want you to remember who you are. I want you to remember that reality doesn't have a choice," Vaida said in her quiet voice.
Hatasuko glanced up and saw that the starlight glistened on the northern horizon, reflecting on the surface of the river. He narrowed his eyes and looked more closely because he saw a dark object move across it. There was another sail-rana drifting eastward along the river at a fast speed. He knew that Vaida couldn't see the boat since she only had one working eye, but he decided to tell her later; he knew she would like to know that her invention made life easier for so many people.
