There were patches of exposed adamantite hull scattered about and occasional places where rusted metal pipes ran along the walls and ceiling.

Most of them broke off partway through, leaving a mountain of rust fragments. I didn’t see a single thing made of wood.

Contrary to what I’d assumed because it looked relatively clean from the outside, this ship must have actually sunk quite a long time ago.

“A jaaar?”

“It’s sparkly and gold, sir.”

“What do you suppose it is?”

“Vase?”

The younger crew had found something in the corner of the hallway.

“Octopuuus?”

“The octopus is attacking, sir!”

“Eek, don’t wave that harpoon around!”

“Mm, danger.”

They seemed to have agitated an octopus that was living in the golden vase, which came out and attacked Pochi.

“Pochi! Drop the harpoon and use your short sword!”

“A-aye!”

Pochi was in panic mode, but Liza’s instructions brought her back to her senses, and she freed herself from the octopus’s tentacles with her short sword.

“Gotchaaa?”

The octopus sprayed a cloud of ink and attempted to flee, but Tama ran it through with her harpoon.

I used the Practical Magic spell Pure Water to clear up the ink.

After a few similar incidents, we arrived at the ship’s hold.

By then, the net attached to Liza’s belt contained several different kinds of fish, while Tama’s net was full of shells she’d picked up on the way. Pochi was carrying a rolled-up octopus.

Nana and Lulu were in charge of transporting the valuables.

“Gold coooins?”

“Lots of shells, sir.”

Just as the hallway had been buried in pieces of rusted metal, the ship’s hold was full of rusty gold coins and other riches.

As Pochi said, there were cockscomb-like shellfish stuck to many of the coins.

“Why are they sticking to the coins and not the walls or the floor?”

“That’s a good question.”

Maybe there was some kind of anti-shellfish magic device or rune built into the ship itself.

“Master, I have located a treasury over here, I report.”

“There’s an armory inside, too, master.”

Since there wasn’t much point in looking at rusted armor, I went to see the treasury Nana had found before checking out the armory Liza had discovered.

“Ooh, look at all the gold, silver, and pearls!”

“So sparklyyy?”

Arisa and Tama exclaimed with glee.

Nana had placed Mana Lights throughout the room, which reflected off the treasure to create a beautiful effect.

Farther inside, there was artwork like sculptures and even paintings.

“It’s too bright, sir.”

Lulu giggled. “It is quite dazzling, isn’t it?”

Pochi tried to rub her eyes over her goggles, but Lulu stopped her with a hug.

The gold ingots, ceramics, and so on were one thing, but how were these sculptures and paintings still intact?

“Fixed?” Mia murmured thoughtfully.

She was right. The treasure in the room was protected with the Fixify spell.

Fixify was a Practical Magic spell that put things in a “Fixed” state by covering them with a transparent shell. It was essentially a magic vacuum, so it was used to protect things like artwork and precious metals.

Even our ship had been Fixed in the hangar of the World Tree for long-term storage.

“Fixed? …I wonder if the ship’s power source is still functioning, then?”

Arisa muttered a very interesting remark.

Using my “Magic Power Vision” skill, I checked the air around us. It was so faint that it was barely visible, but there was definitely magic power circulating through the adamantite walls and floor.

The magic hearth aboard the ship was definitely out of order, so it must have been some kind of backup electricity-like magic preservation system providing the power.

“Everyone, gather around!”

Disturbing things would break the Fixify spell, so I gathered everyone in one place to prevent them from touching things too much. The money and gold weren’t that big of a deal, but I didn’t want the art to get ruined by seawater.

“…So, don’t move anything, okay? I’ll collect it all later.”

“Master, I have already moved something. I apologize.”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

Nana and Pochi had already tried to pick up some treasure, breaking the Fixify spell on it.

“Just a little bit isn’t a big deal. We can fix it up on the ship.”

I gave them a reassuring smile to ease their worries.

Next, we went to the armory deeper in the hold.

There were some thick, disposable berserker-style weapons, tons of Small Magic Cannons, and ten or so bigger cannons on wheels.

These, too, were intact thanks to the Fixify spell.

“This is a lot more than I expected.”

“Yes, and I believe this weapon resembles the one we saw in the fort in the Muno Barony.”

The fort Liza was referring to was the former haunted house that was now technically my personal villa.

Liza’s assessment that these Small Magic Cannons were similar was probably correct. Maybe this ship was a product of the same ancient magical culture that made the Magic Cannon.

“Aren’t there any staves or armor?”

“Maybe they’re in those boxes?” Lulu suggested.

She was pointing at a stack of several boxes in one corner of the room. Opening them would break the Fixify spell, so we’d have to see what was inside later.

Once we’d finished looking around the ship’s hold, we moved on to the captain’s quarters.

There were a few minor incidents along the way, but we arrived without any serious injuries. Once or twice, there was an accidental slip that might’ve been brought on by some lecherous god, but for the sake of Nana’s and Lulu’s honor, I’ll keep that close to my chest.

“It’s a door!”

“Gaaap?”

“Pochi can fit through this, sir.”

The captain’s door was warped on its hinges, but Pochi was able to push herself through.

Tama was starting to follow after her when Pochi returned in alarm, so their heads smacked into each other.

“Owwwiiie?”

Tama rubbed her head, but since I’d cast Enchant: Physical Protection on everyone, there shouldn’t have been any pain. She’d probably said “Owie” on reflex.

“This is bad! This is super, super bad, sir!”

Pochi flailed her arms around in a panic, her eyes darting about wildly.

“Calm down, Pochi.”

“I’m totally calm, sir! Listen to this, sir!”

Brushing off Liza, Pochi ran up to me urgently.

“Master, I have located a ghost in the captain’s quarters, I report.”

Nana, who had found another entrance, called out calmly.

“Exactly, sir! That’s what I was trying to say, sir!”

Patting Pochi’s head, I checked the captain’s quarters on the radar.

Sure enough, there was now a white dot in there, indicating a nonaggressive presence.

According to the information on the map, it was the ghost of the captain of this sunken ship.

He hadn’t been there when I checked the map before we dove in or when we first entered this ship, but thinking back, I remembered that the ghosts we saw in the Muno Barony had abruptly appeared at sunset, too.

I guess that’s just how ghosts are.

I’m not a fan of horror or thrillers, but I didn’t want to endanger my comrades by sending them in to face an unknown ghost, so I went in alone.

Inside the room was a semitransparent man clad in a flashy military uniform. This must be the ghost, then. For now, we’ll call him “Captain Ghost.”

There was a massive hole in the ceiling of the captain’s quarters, and the windows were still open, allowing a light current into the room.

“”

> Skill Acquired: “Ancient Language”

I promptly allocated some points to the “Ancient Language” skill and activated it.

“<…They’ve already caught up to us?!>”

Captain Ghost completely ignored me, talking to himself like an actor giving a soliloquy.

“<Damn them—those wicked skyfolk…!>”

Captain Ghost looked up at the sky and cried out resentfully.

I wonder why his form keeps blurring like that?

“<So even the high-speed battleship we stole from them can’t outmatch the mobility of their floating ships…>”

The ghost strode toward the window.

Evidently, this ship had been stolen from Captain Ghost’s adversaries.

“<Impossible! Nunulie?! They’re even using the floating castles to chase us down!>”

Captain Ghost was looking out the window, but of course there was nothing there.

I thought this must be a memory of the moment he died.

“<Do they plan to use the floating castle’s Divine Wrath Cannon?! You fools! What if the Coffin you’re looking for is on this very ship?!>”

As Captain Ghost gave this final cry of despair, he vanished, leaving behind a faint misty effect.

Curious, I searched the map for this “Coffin” thing, but there wasn’t anything of the sort in the area.

Remembering the damage I saw when we first arrived at the ship, I considered the captain’s words.

This “Divine Wrath Cannon” must have been what sliced through the ship’s adamantite alloy so cleanly.

I didn’t know if that weapon still existed, but if it did, I doubted our little flying ship could withstand it.

I would prefer to keep a thing like that as far away from us as possible.

“<…The key to Lalakie… Stolen. Now Lalakie…can no longer fly. All that remains is to bring the Coffin to His Majesty the Emperor in the Room of Reality…>”

Upon turning around, I noticed that Captain Ghost had reappeared in the same spot as before.

Exactly like before, he would occasionally become blurry, rendering his words unintelligible.

Before long, he came back to a familiar phrase.

“<…They’ve already caught up to us?!>”

It looked like Captain Ghost was in an endless loop, repeating the same moment over and over.

I tried talking to him a few times, but he didn’t respond.

“Sounds like he’s stuck haunting this place.”

When I poked my head out to update the rest of the group, Arisa made an interesting comment about Captain Ghost.

“You’re right. Maybe we can help him pass on.”

“Here’s a Holy Stone, master.”

Lulu handed me a Holy Stone that had been hanging off her belt.

She must have brought it along for the sunken ship exploration, just in case.

After thanking her, I poured some magical energy into the Holy Stone and used it to exorcise Captain Ghost’s spirit.

As he disappeared, I could’ve sworn I heard him murmur something.

“<Aaah… Finally freedom is within our grasp…>”

The pile of white bones where he had appeared crumbled and was carried out into the ocean by the current.

He never did acknowledge me, but since he seemed to have passed on now, that was good enough for me.

We waited a moment to make sure he didn’t reappear, then went back to exploring the sunken ship.

“Master, the back of this painting is suspicious, I report.”

“I bet there’s a room full of treasure behind it!”

Pochi’s eyes sparkled, and she reached out for the painting.

I was sure she was thinking of a similar situation we’d encountered back in the labyrinth under Seiryuu City.

However, Tama grabbed her tail and stopped her.

“It’s a traaap?”

Evidently, there was a dangerous trap in the hidden room.

My “Sense Danger” and “Trap Detection” skills both reacted just as Tama spoke.

“Can you disarm it?” Arisa asked me.

I nodded. “I think so, but…”

I didn’t want to risk messing it up and putting everyone in danger.

“…I’d better not. There’s an easier solution, so I’ll get everything out that way.”

My statement piqued everyone’s curiosity, so I ended up having to show them my trick several times during the remaining exploration.

Once I brought everyone back up to the flying ship, I put the entire sunken ship in Storage.

If I’d done it while we were still in the water, we might’ve gotten sucked into the space where the ship was and drowned.

> Title Acquired: Salvager

> Title Acquired: Treasure Seeker

> Title Acquired: Sunken Ship Explorer

Looking at my log, I saw that I’d gained a few titles when I stored the ship.

Treasure Seeker seemed like one I should’ve already had by now, but it wasn’t like it had any special benefits or anything, so I’d just ignore that.

“Whoooosh?”

“The ship disappeared and made a whirlpool, sir!”

Tama and Pochi peered down at the water where the ship had been.

“I showed you before, remember? It’s magic, sort of like the Fairy Pack.”

Before we left the elf village, I’d let them see me store fresh food in Storage, so everyone but Arisa seemed satisfied with the explanation.

“A whole ship… Your powers are always so broken.”

My only response was a shrug.

As a precaution, I warned everyone not to tell anyone what I did with the ship, especially Tama and Pochi.

“Our lips are seeealed?”

“We’ll clam up, sir.”

They mimed zipping their lips shut, then hugged their knees to their chests in an apparent imitation of a clam. This seemed like another one of Arisa’s weird jokes, so I didn’t bother asking about it.

“Ravine.”

“Looks like that ship was on top of an underwater mountain.”

Mia and Arisa were looking down at the water now that it had calmed.

With the ship gone, I could see that it had been at the peak of a large mountain underwater.

Even with my “Night Vision” skill, I couldn’t see to the bottom, and it appeared to overlap into a different area on the map.

With all that water pressure, I doubted some monster would suddenly come zooming up from the depths to attack; still, it would be stressful to be on guard against a surprise attack all the time, so I decided to do a little investigating.

Leaving everyone else on the ship, I dove back into the ocean, used “Search Entire Map,” and resurfaced.

At some point, I left the range of Mia’s Spirit Magic protection, so the water pressure was a little bit of a pain.

I didn’t want to have to do that every time, so I decided to avoid sailing over deep waters whenever possible.

“I’m back.”

“Welcome back, master.”

Arisa handed me some cool carbonated water to quench my thirst.

On the deck, the group had started working on removing the dirt and shellfish stuck to the coins and valuables we’d found in the passageways of the sunken ship.

“Pochi, please be more careful. You’re scratching the coins.”

“Yes, sir. This is hard, sir.”

Liza and Pochi were laboring away to unstick the shellfish, while Tama was intently polishing the coins they’d already taken care of.

“Scrub-a-duuub?”

Looking at her handiwork, Tama let out a sigh of satisfaction.

“Mia, we must remove the dirt from these grooves, I advise.”

“Mm. Magic.”

Nana brought jewelry over to Mia, who began a Spirit Magic chant.

Lulu was spreading the polished coins out on a cloth so that they would dry in the sun.

“Well, let’s look at the rest of our spoils.”

I lined up some treasure boxes, and together we opened them one by one. I’d already confirmed in Storage that none of them contained traps or poison.

We placed artwork, sheet music, and other things that might be damaged by the sun in the shadow of the sails. In order to prevent the wind from blowing them away, I blocked the outside air again and used an Air-Conditioning spell.

“Whoa! Look at all these gold coins!”

“Pretty jewels.”

Arisa and Mia delightedly held up fistfuls of treasure.

Since they’d been magically Fixed, the contents of the treasure boxes were perfectly clean.

“Tama and Pochi, you can go look through everything, too.”

The two of them had been looking up at me and fidgeting, so they were probably waiting for permission.

“Yaaay!”

“Arisa, is there meat, sir?”

“No, but you could buy enough meat to fill your bellies with just one of these coins.”

“For reeeal?”

“That’s amazingly amazing, sir!”

Thus, we began peacefully sorting through our loot.

“Sheet music?”

“Those must be very old songs.”

At that, Mia immediately began to read the sheet music with a serious face.

Evidently, the elves were the ones who had spread sheet music methods to other cultures, so they could read scores from anywhere at all.

“What a beautiful necklace.”

Lulu was staring longingly at a string of large pearls.

“We must find something even cuter, I propose.”

Nana rummaged through the jewelry boxes, more interested in cuteness than monetary value.

“Master, there are weapons in these boxes here.”

“That’s a lot of bows and rapiers… Aren’t there any arrows?”

“I’m afraid not. I checked every box, but there was none to be found.”

You checked all of them already? That was fast, Liza.

Were there not any bowstrings, either?

I picked up one of the unstrung bows.

“Oh!”

I felt a tiny amount of my magic power being sucked into the bow, like when I pulled the trigger on a Magic Gun, and the bow transformed so that it now had a transparent bowstring. Clearly, it was a Magic Bow.

When I pulled the string back, I felt a little more magic get siphoned away, and a transparent arrow appeared just like the bowstring.

Judging by the feel of the bow, it was probably made cheaply with Practical Magic.

“Hmm? It doesn’t take much strength to draw the string back, does it?”

Apparently, even the physically inept Arisa could use these Magic Bows.

“Gravity doesn’t seem to affect it, but it’s not easy to hit a target with, either. And it consumes a lot of magic power, too.” After a test fire, Arisa shared her thoughts. “It seems to be about as strong as Nana’s Foundation spears.”

“Yes, master.”

If it was as strong as Nana’s spears, that meant it was stronger than our Fire Rods and Thunder Rods.

There were around fifty of these Magic Bows, so I decided to at least have Mia and Arisa take one each for now.

“What do you think these are?”

The rapiers were magical, too, but putting magic power into them only made them sparkle pointlessly, so they weren’t very useful weapons.

When I gave one a swing, it let out a science-fiction-y vwoom sound effect and left traces of light in the air like an effect from an action game.

“It’s like a Mementaider Rangers toy.”

“So cooool?”

“Awesome, sir!”

The sparkling swords were a huge hit with the kids, who were waving them around and striking ridiculous poses.

There were tons of these toy swords, too, so I let them put one each in their Fairy Packs.

“What about these rings?”

All of them were Magic Rings that were activated by magic power.

“Whoa! What’s up with this one?!” Arisa exclaimed after putting magic power into a topaz ring.

A magic circle appeared in front of the ring and started producing stalagmites, which shot toward me so forcefully, they could’ve stabbed right through my buckler.

“It takes up all my magic, so it wouldn’t be very easy to use.”

Arisa handed me the ring, so I inspected it.

As far as I could tell, it could be charged with magic power in advance and would then steal exactly enough magic from the user to pull the trigger when activated.

If even Arisa, who had more magic power than most people, had all her magic used up just to trigger the effect, it must be a stunningly inefficient magic tool.

Once Arisa and the others’ levels were higher, maybe they could carry them as an emergency self-defense measure.

The other kids were picking up various rings and testing them out, too.

“Wha—?! It made a shield!”

“This one produces stone spears.”

“Master, ice spears have appeared, I declare.”

Lulu’s sardonyx ring produced a Practical Magic Shield spell, Liza’s onyx ring created black obsidian-like spears, and Nana’s aquamarine ring created ice spears that floated in the air.

The ice spears went flying in whatever direction Nana pointed. They had a range of about 150 feet and were almost as strong as a normal Icicle spell.

Wearing multiple rings at once seemed to cause them to interfere with one another and make the effects difficult to produce. I was able to wear ten rings and activate them all at once, but that was probably because of my “Magic Manipulation” skill.

There were a lot of other rings, too, but no translation or underwater movement rings.

“Aren’t there any spell books?”

Arisa sounded hopeful, but I had to shake my head.

“There are maps of both land and sea, and reports on some magic tools, but no spell books.”

The maps covered a wider expanse than the one I had, but many of the major borders and place names were different.

The only ones that looked the same were the Valley of Dragons and elf territories like Bolenan Forest.

“What do you think these different-colored dotted lines on the sea map mean?”

“It says Nunulie, Nenelier, and so on.”

If what Captain Ghost said was true, then these were probably the routes of the floating castles.

“Isn’t Nenelier the place those ancient manuscripts you got at the dark auction came from?”

Arisa’s words jogged my memory. There hadn’t been anyone in the old capital who could read Ancient Language, so I had been planning to ask in the elf village, but I completely forgot.

Since I’d picked up the “Ancient Language” skill in the sunken ship, I could finally read those manuscripts later.

Suddenly, an adorable growl rumbled from Arisa’s tummy.

I guess it’s just about lunchtime.

“Ahhh, that was some really good takoyaki!”

Lulu blushed at Arisa’s compliment. “It’s only because the octopus was so fresh.”

For lunch, we’d had takoyaki made with the octopus Pochi defeated.

The other kids were patting their stomachs in satisfaction and dozing off on the mat we’d spread out on the deck. Mia hadn’t finished her octopus, but Tama and Pochi were happy to eat it for her.

“The fish was good, too.”

Lulu smiled happily, letting out a little sigh of contentment.

The takoyaki alone wouldn’t have been enough food, so we boiled and grilled some of the scorpion fish, greenling, and other fish we’d caught in the sunken ship.

“Yes, they had just the right amount of salt.”

“The soy-boiled fish was delicious as well, I report.”

Liza and Nana both looked pleased.

“Let’s make sashimi and sushi sometime soon, too.”

“Yes!” Lulu exclaimed. “I can’t wait.”

The other kids chimed in eagerly as well.

Arisa was the only one who knew what sushi was, but they must have figured it was some kind of delicious food.

Well, I’m pretty full now, so maybe I’ll try to work this off a little.

“What’s up, master?”

“I thought I’d test out the thing we found in the ship’s hold.”

As I responded, I stood over the water with “Skyrunning” and pulled out the Small Magic Cannon.

Despite being “Small,” it was a full size bigger than the disposable berserker cannons. It was in good shape thanks to Fixify, so I needed to give it only a quick inspection.

Once I’d distanced myself from the ship by a few dozen feet, I started setting up targets for the cannon.

I activated eight Flexible Shields about four hundred feet away from me, lined up on top of one another. Layered like this, they could withstand even the black dragon Hei Long’s breath attack, so they should work just fine as a target.

“I’m firing now,” I called back toward the ship, and then I loaded the Small Magic Cannon with magic power.

A red conducting line extended from the muzzle of the cannon, and magic circles began to form around it.

“Kind of looks like a cutscene from a fantasy game.”

Suddenly, an unstable light started crackling along the line and the circles.

Uh-oh.

Just as I pulled the trigger, “Sense Danger” activated, and I produced Flexible Shields in front of myself as well.

In the next moment, a flash of light dyed the ocean waves white.

The sound of the explosion tore through the air. It was so loud, it nearly knocked me off my feet.

After a few seconds, the flash faded, and my “Light Intensity Adjustment” skill restored my vision.

More than half of my Flexible Shields still remained, but the excess energy of the Small Magic Cannon had carved a path through the waves along a distance of more than half a mile.

Water went flying in every direction as it evaporated, and more seawater poured in to fill the gap the cannon had made.

“Hot!”

I used Wind Magic to fend off the wave of heat that came toward me.

I returned the now-melted ruins of the Small Magic Cannon to Storage and headed back toward the ship, leaving the raging sea and the cloud of hot vapor behind me.

“Looks like I used a bit too much magic.”

Clearly, this weapon had similar properties to the magically overcharged Holy Arrows I’d used to defeat that demon lord; the cannonballs were made from monster cores, so they could be charged up with magic to create enormous destructive power.

If done normally, it shouldn’t cause the weapon to collapse like the Holy Armor, but I guess I didn’t fully understand how that worked.

Luckily, I still had thirty-one Small Magic Cannons left to use for research, so I decided to take one apart and examine it next time I had a free moment.

If I really couldn’t figure it out, maybe I could even ask the research-loving elves of the Bulainan and Beliunan clans for help.

“No more craziness, okay?”

“Mm. Repent.”

Arisa and Mia scolded me when I got back to the ship.

“Sorry, sorry.”

I’d gotten so distracted by the mesmerizing sight of the cannon activating that I had forgotten to adjust how much magic I was putting into it, so I really had no excuse.

When I test-fired another cannon with the proper amount of magic later, the red line and magic circles still appeared, but there was no strange crackling this time, and it fired a steady shot.

Using the rapid-fire function caused the cannon to overheat, so it seemed to require a cooldown time after a few shots.

Firing it with a cannonball overloaded with magic power produced about half the strength of Hei Long’s breath attack, while firing it the normal way was about a tenth. Regardless, it was so powerful that it wouldn’t be easy to use.

My intermediate Light Magic spell Laser was a lot easier to focus and control, so even with less range, it was probably still more user-friendly than the Small Magic Cannons.

Concerning the experiment I’d thought of in the sunken ship regarding whether I could use Pure Water to turn salt water into fresh water, it turned out that I could produce completely salt-free drinking water and mineral-rich salt particles. Not only that, but I could do a whole barrelful of it in one go.

The results were better than I expected, but it was still faster to use the Well Bag or put magic into a water stone if we needed fresh water, so I probably wouldn’t get a chance to use it very often.

According to my spell books, even a veteran Practical Magic user could produce only slightly less salty water with that technique.

“Master, unidentified object discovered above the seas ahead, I report.”

“What is it? A UMA?”

My AR revealed that the flashing light Nana was pointing at was actually the back of a sea serpent monster, not an unidentified mysterious animal.

Maybe it was investigating the commotion I’d caused with the Small Magic Cannon?

“Looks like a sea serpent.”

“Whoa, it’s huge! What is it, level fifty?”

“No, the one in front of us is level thirty-one.”

As Arisa and I chatted, the sea serpent raised its head above the waves and shot a ball of water at us.

Its range was a lot longer than I expected: It flew more than three hundred feet.

“Master, allow me to take care of this, I exclaim!”

A magic circle glowed on Nana’s forehead, creating two transparent shields in front of her. It was a similar technique to the intermediate Practical Magic spell Flexible Shield, which I often used.

Nana’s shields successfully intercepted the blob of liquid, but as soon as it hit, both shield and liquid went up in a puff of white smoke.

Stealthily, I created a few Flexible Shields of my own beneath the ship itself.

“Looks like those blobs aren’t just made of water. They’re globules of acid.”

“Yikes, no thank you.”

I had to agree with Arisa. I didn’t want to see any of my friends get a nasty chemical burn.

“Fire.”

Mia took aim and fired with the Fairy Bow she’d brought from home, but her arrow was blocked by a wall of water that appeared around the sea serpent.

“Mrrr.” Mia scowled.

“Master, I am running low on shields. Requesting backup.”

“All right. I’ll take over.”

I switched into Nana’s defensive position and used a Light Magic Laser on the sea serpent, which was still firing at us from far away.

The Laser pierced right through the wall of water and obliterated the sea serpent with ease. I guess intermediate magic might’ve been overkill.

The sea serpent’s blood began to dye the water red.

Immediately, most of the other sea serpents on the map began making their way over to us. Like sharks, they could probably smell blood from a long distance away.

Of course, the school of them traveling along the southern tip of the area didn’t react.

“Scarecrow, bring the ship back a thousand feet. Stand by at maximum altitude. Engage evasive maneuvers as needed.”

I gave some instructions to the ship’s golem.

Sadly, it couldn’t respond out loud, so the only confirmation was text that appeared in my log. Next time I had a chance, I would have to add a magic-propelled steam whistle or something.

“It looks like a bunch of sea serpents are swarming because of the blood. I’ll distract them, so can you girls attack them with Magic Bows from above in order to level up?”

“Nooo?”

“Teachers said powelling is bad, sir.”

Hmm? By “teachers,” they must mean the elf instructors, but what was “powelling”?

“You weren’t there at the time, master? Hiya and the other elf teachers told us not to use power leveling. They said it doesn’t make you stronger because you won’t learn how to use your skills properly.”

Arisa stepped in to explain.

That was strange. The beastfolk girls had been power leveling with my help from the beginning, and they seemed stronger than soldiers and such around their same level, but…

Well, all right, then. I think it probably varies based on the individual, but if this advice is coming from the long-lived elves, it’s probably in our best interest to listen.

Besides, there’d be plenty of enemies for leveling up once we reach Labyrinth City.

“In that case, Arisa, Nana, and Mia, please defend the ship. Lulu, stay by the helm and keep an eye on the steering. Tama, please take the lookout post, and Liza and Pochi, watch the front and rear of the ship!”

The group all shouted confident affirmatives, so I left the ship feeling reassured.

Using “Skyrunning,” I made my way over to the area above the dead sea serpent and added more monster blood that couldn’t be used for potions to the mix.

Reaching an insane speed of nearly ninety miles per hour, the swarm of sea serpents arrived, promptly tearing into the dead one floating on the waves.

I guess sea serpents don’t have a problem with cannibalism.

The monsters were completely focused on their meal, paying no attention to me floating above them.

Taking a closer look, I realized that their heads looked more like that of an eel than a snake. If it weren’t for the sharp fangs peeking out of their mouths, they might just look like giant eels.

I was willing to bet they’d be delicious, so I took extra precautions to not damage the meat with my attack.

Picking serpents at random, I caught them with Magic Hand, lopped off their heads with a “Spellblade”-infused fairy sword, and put the corpses away in Storage.

I was able to get through about half their number that way, but when the sea serpents ran out of meat, they all started firing acid attacks at me.

Using “Skyrunning” and “Flashrunning” to avoid the attacks, I flipped acrobatically into the middle of the swarm.

At first, I continued cutting off their heads with my fairy sword, but that started to become a pain in the heat of battle, so I wound up putting “Spellblade” directly on my hands and fighting them off that way.

It wasn’t the most efficient use of magic power, but considering how much I had to spare, it wasn’t a huge deal.

As I cut the sea serpents down, I quickly put the bodies in Storage one after another to ensure they weren’t picked off by the others.

“…Ooh. It’s time for the big game now, huh?”

A level-56 deep sea serpent emerged from the depths, gaping its enormous maw.

It seemed intent on swallowing me, so I hopped right into its mouth, then spun my entire body—sword in hand—and cut off its head from the inside.

A few more deep sea serpents attacked us, so I hunted each of them down. Finally, the last few sea serpents fled the scene, and the battle was won.

I didn’t want to leave the sea in such a state, so I stored away the bloodiest parts of the water in Storage until it had thinned out to a reasonable level before returning to the ship.

“You’re as overpowered as ever.”

I shrugged at Arisa, then handed Lulu a big slice of sea serpent that I’d removed the blood from during battle.

I’d had my spirit light on full blast, so the dangerous miasma in the meat should have been thinned out to a safe level.

“It doesn’t seem to be poisonous. Want to try cooking a sample?”

“Of course! Shall I broil it in soy sauce?”

Lulu already had a mithril kitchen knife in hand.

“That sounds good. Since we want to see how it tastes first, could you grill one piece plain, please?”

With that, I retreated to the captain’s quarters on the poop deck to change clothes.

I’d used Practical Magic to clean off the grime and seawater from the battle, but changing into fresh clothes just makes one feel cleaner.

“Smells good.”

“Aye-aaaye!”

“Sniffing it makes me feel all floaty, sir.”

When I returned to the deck, Lulu was cooking on the oven magic tool, and Tama and Pochi were hovering around drooling. The other kids looked eager to try it, too.

“Master, could you taste it first, please?”

“Thank you, Lulu.”

I started with the plain grilled piece.

First, a bite with some salt… Yep, it was delicious. Its large size notwithstanding, it tasted similar to a conger eel. Lulu had removed the small bones carefully, so it was a breeze to eat.

Next, I added a bit of lemon and took another bite.

Mm. This would go perfectly with some dry sake.

Finally, I tried a piece that had been broiled in soy sauce with a thick sauce on the side. The sweet dipping sauce beautifully complemented the light, flaky flesh. If there were white rice to go with it, I’d probably eat so much, I wouldn’t be able to move.

“It’s delicious, Lulu.”

“Thank you very much!”

Lulu’s beaming smile could have made a field of flowers bloom.

“The rest of you should try this, too.”

At that, the girls all scrambled to get a taste of the broiled sea serpent.

Even Mia, who didn’t generally like meat, seemed to enjoy the plain grilled fish with lemon.

Guess we’ll have sea serpent for dinner tonight.

A good majority of the sea serpent’s body was edible, so even if we grilled, broiled, or fried it every night, it would probably take half a month just to get through a single one. Its head might taste good broiled, too, so I’d have to try that sometime.

“Tweeelve ships?”

“Thirteen, sir.”

“Reeeally?”

I heard Tama and Pochi conversing on the lookout post. They were probably counting the number of sunken ships I’d recently collected.

We were heading north along the archipelagos, picking up sunken ships as we went.

We’d had our fill of sunken-ship exploring with the first one, so each time we found another, I just put it into Storage with no questions asked.

In this area, we were finding one every couple of miles, but there seemed to be even more of them up ahead.

“Another wooden one, huh?” Arisa murmured.

“Approximately twenty percent have been metal, I inform.”

Aside from the adamantite battleship we first found, we’d come upon only two metal ships, both mithril-alloy magic destroyers from the Flue Empire.

The rest were all wooden, mostly Shiga Kingdom carracks and jib-sailed caravels, with the occasional galley ship of unknown origin.

All of them were huge ships, ranging from three hundred to five hundred tons of displacement, and most were equipped with Magic Guns of various sizes, Foundation spear launchers, and so on, with about half of them having a Magic Furnace as well.

Most of the Magic Furnaces could probably be used with a bit of repairs, but they wouldn’t be nearly as powerful as my Holytree Stone magic power sources despite being bigger, so they would probably just stay in Storage.

“All right, I think that should do it.”

Since I had the time, I was fiddling with one of the Small Magic Guns that had been Fixed in Storage to make it usable again.

The Foundation spear launchers looked sort of like harpoon guns, but none of them had been Fixed, so I would have to do some maintenance over the next few days before we could test one out.

“I wish to test fire it, I request.”

“Sure. Aim for that rock over there.”

I stabilized the ship and let Nana try out the Magic Gun.

A bigger version of this was frequently used in Seiryuu City’s anti-dragon towers. It was like the weapon equivalent of a Fire or Thunder Rod.

Normally, it would be supplied with magic power from a City Core or Magic Furnace, but this ship’s Holytree Stone engine didn’t produce much extra magic, so I was supplying the magic myself. I hadn’t overloaded it this time, so it should be fine.

If we were going to use weapons aboard this ship, it might be better to trade out the Holytree Stone engine for a bigger one after all.

“Firing now, I declare.”

Nana pulled the trigger.

The blast that roared from the muzzle looked like an average mage’s fireball made much bigger. It hit the water near the rock, sending up a huge splash.

Though their names were similar, the Small Magic Gun seemed to be much less powerful than the Small Magic Cannon.

“Huh, that’s stronger than I expected.”

“About five times the strength of a Fire Rod, perhaps?”

“Little more.”

Mia’s guess was probably correct. To be precise, I would say it was about seven times stronger.

“Rapid-fire is also possible, I report.”

Nana fired five more times, after which the body of the gun became rather hot, so I had her stop the test.

“Perhaps we could use it to dispose of monsters on our travels?”

“…Th-this isn’t going to work. Maybe if it got its magic power supply from the ship, though.”

While Nana was testing, Arisa had attempted to charge another one with magic power, but she threw in the towel.

Evidently, this wasn’t the kind of weapon that any normal individual could fire multiple times in a row.

Since this ship didn’t have a Magic Furnace, I’d equipped it with something like the magic collection device I’d learned about in the elf village.

Incidentally, my salvaging also turned up a special Garage Bag that could also transport living things, Flying Shoes and a wooden Pegasus like the hero Hayato’s party had, and other such valuable magic tools.

The Garage Bag that could carry living things didn’t seem to have solved the issues that the elves had told me about, so I would have to be very careful about using it. It must have been used as a pet carrier originally, since I found the bones of a small animal inside.

“A rooock?”

“It’s an island, sir!”

Back up in the lookout post, Pochi had a longscope in hand.

The biggest of the Seadragon Islands must have come into view.

Before long, we were close enough that the island could be seen with the naked eye even from the deck.

“Hey, doesn’t that look more like a sideways city than a rock?”

Just as Arisa said, the large rock in the center of the island almost looked like a city that had fallen from the sky.

That was a remarkable sight in itself, but there was something else that surprised me even more…

“Emergency stop!”

On my command, the figurehead golem stopped the ship.

The city-rock wasn’t showing up on my map.

That meant it must have some kind of power that hid it from my map somehow.

“Wh-what’s going on?”

“It might be a little dangerous here.”

Everyone was looking at me in surprise, especially Arisa, but I couldn’t explain exactly what the danger might be.

“I’m going to go take a look at that island. If I don’t come back before sundown, return to Bolenan Forest and ask Miss Aaze for help.”

To be safe, I lined the deck with some Magic Bows, special Holy Swords and Spears without user limitations, and so on.

Since the group wouldn’t have enough magic power to make use of the rapid-fire capabilities of the Magic Cannons and Guns, I didn’t put out any of those.

“W-wait a minute! Why would you go out of your way to investigate something dangerous?! Let’s just ignore that island and go right by it!”

Arisa tugged my sleeve urgently, trying to stop me.

The others all looked worried, too, of course.

But if I didn’t find out why the city-rock on that island wasn’t showing on my map, I wouldn’t be able to travel with peace of mind.

“It’s all right. Once I figure out the cause, I’ll come right back.”

“Cause? The cause of what?!”

I waved at the infuriated Arisa and took off toward the island with “Skyrunning.”

The water around the island was quite shallow, giving a clear view of the ocean floor below.

“Looks like there are a lot of sunken ships here, too…”

Among the coral reef on the ocean floor were the forms of quite a few large ships.

I gradually raised my altitude as I approached the island, until suddenly…

“M-masterrrrrr!”

My “Keen Hearing” skill picked up on cries from my party as I crashed into the ocean waves.

My mouth and nose felt strange and my ears popped, like the sensation when one dives off a diving board, as I collided with a rock on the bottom of the ocean.

…Ouch.

Beyond the froth of white bubbles, I saw colorful sea creatures wildly fleeing from me.

But no matter how long I looked at them, no information appeared in my AR.

Kicking off the ocean floor, I floated back up to the surface. For some reason, I couldn’t use “Skyrunning.”

“Are you okaaay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

My friends called out to me with worry, so I waved at them reassuringly.

In the meantime, my research continued. My menu was displaying normally, and I seemed to be able to bring items into and out of Storage without a problem. Even my map appeared normal at a glance, but it wasn’t updating with any new information.

Next, I tried selecting magic from my menu, but like “Skyrunning,” I couldn’t use any of it.

Whatever the reason, it seemed that I couldn’t use magic or magic-related skills around this island.

My unique skills seemed to be functioning fine, but there were evidently limits on their ability to acquire new information by way of magic.

I moved away until I could use magic again, trying to figure out the range of the effect.

By marking a few kinds of migratory fish and following their movements on the map, I was able to get a rough estimate of the range. Magic seemed to be invalidated in about a two-mile radius around the water near the city-rock.

If there was something causing this, it would probably be at the center of that circle.

I headed toward the central point at the speed of an Olympic athlete.

I wasn’t very good at swimming, since my body kept popping out of the ocean, so eventually I just started running along the surface of the water at high speed.

“A sea serpent welcoming party, huh?”

I unloaded several harpoons from Storage into the depths below, eliminating any sea serpents in my way. Once in a while, bigger creatures showed up, too, like deep sea serpents and something that looked like a mosasaurus.

Because of the huge difference in our levels, I was able to defeat them easily even without any magic or magical skills.

However, since I couldn’t use Magic Hand, putting the corpses into Storage was a lot harder. Because I left a lot of them behind, the sea was starting to turn red, but I’d have to deal with that later.

“This should be the center of the radius… Hmm? There’s something in the water.”

On the ocean floor, I could see something that looked like a shrine surrounded by Grecian stone pillars.

Once no more monsters were coming to attack me for the time being, I dove into the water to investigate.

Occasionally supplying myself with fresh oxygen from Storage, I explored the seabed shrine.

There was something written on the walls in what appeared to be Ancient Language.

THE FLOATING CASTLE NONOLIE HAS FALLEN TO OUR DEVOURING TRAP. WE WILL USE THE HEART OF NONOLIE TO CREATE A SECOND AND THIRD TRAP. THE FLOATING SHIPS, THE FLOATING ISLANDS…AND FINALLY, THE SKYFOLKS’ CAPITAL, LALAKIE… WE SHALL BRING ALL OF THEM DOWN TO THE EARTH. FREEDOM SHALL BE IN OUR GRASP.

The final sentence was written in a strange scrawl, with red staining the grooves of the carved letters. It definitely gave off a sense of madness.

It was likely a trap laid by Captain Ghost’s people.

The large amount of sunken ships near this area must have been caught in the magic-nullifying trap. Without magical defenses, the wooden ships especially would never have held up to sea serpent attacks.

A ship made with a magical alloy might manage, but against a larger monster like a deep sea serpent, it would probably meet the same fate.

I found a staircase leading downward and followed it to find an underground cavern.

I swam along a slope lined with white stone slabs that looked like coffins.

It felt as though I’d wandered into a graveyard.

…Hmm? White hair?

Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a woman lying on one of the slabs.

An icy chill ran down my spine as I whirled to face her.

“…I guess I imagined it.”

There was nobody there.

If there had been, surely I would have noticed when I first passed it.

Since coming to this world, I’d thought that encountering ghosts and undead kings and such had gotten me used to the supernatural, but I guess I still didn’t deal well with this kind of deathly atmosphere.

When I reached the end of the slope, I saw an open space with a gigantic jet-black rock buried in the center.

A magic circle was emanating from the black rock.

This must have been creating the magic-nullifying space.

It would be difficult to pull the stone out without magic, but if I left it alone, this part of the ocean would become a ship graveyard not unlike the Bermuda Triangle.

I pulled out a blue-steel tool the kobolds had given me and dug out the rock.

Once I put it in Storage, the magic nullifier was canceled and I was able to use magic again.

Just to be sure, I confirmed that none of the items in Storage had lost their magic power.

“I guess this case is closed.”

Opening my map, I saw that I was receiving new information again.

As I thought, the city-rock was the wreckage of the city called Nonolie.

Once I dealt with all the strong monsters in the area, I returned to my comrades on the ship.

“Land hoooo!”

“Sir!”

The ship had arrived on the beach of an inlet on the city-rock island, where I activated Dimension Anchor to keep it in place.

I lowered the gangway to the beach, and everyone happily disembarked, with the little kids in the lead.

“There are monsters and other dangerous creatures in the forest and beyond the cliffs, so don’t go too far.”

I stepped down onto the sand myself as I called out a warning.

Flotsam and jetsam from sunken ships were washed up all over the shore.

I gazed at it all absently as I set up a beach parasol next to the sheet Liza and Lulu had laid out.

The sunlight was strong, bright enough that it hurt my eyes bouncing off the sand.

I handed out canteens to make sure nobody got heatstroke.

“Ooh, that’s nice and cold.”

“Bubblyyy?”

“It’s carbonated, sir!”

“Mm, yellorange fruit.”

The younger kids thanked me and ran off to play by the water.

I followed them with the older group in tow.

“Hee-hee, you can’t come to the beach without dipping your toes in a little.”

“Mm. Nice.”

“Feels funnyyy?”

“It’s amazing, sir! There’s sand moving between my toes, sir!”

Arisa took off her shoes, and the rest of the younger crew soon followed suit, frolicking at the water’s edge.

“There is a foreign object in the sand, I report.”

“A shell, maybe?”

“No, it seems to be some kind of rusted jewelry.”

The older crowd had found a washed-up piece of flotsam from one of the sunken ships.

“Gold coooin?”

“I found a pretty rock, sir.”

“Mm. Aquamarine.”

After a little while of gathering shells, the group moved on to combing the beach for treasure.

Arisa dragged Lulu over to look at some barrels that had washed up onshore.

“Barrrrel.”

For some reason, Arisa kept muttering barrel to herself and giggling. It was probably a joke from some famous game or anime series.

“This one smells of alcohol.”

Some of the hardier barrels still had their contents intact. There were all different kinds, including a handful that contained food, drink, or liquor that was still usable.

Unfortunately…

“Eeeeeek! B-buuuugs!”

…some of them had been infested by roaches or flies, so we had to proceed with caution.

Lulu was clinging to me and trembling, so I patted her reassuringly as I spoke to Liza.

“Liza, I’m going to go check out the city-rock a bit. Could you keep an eye on things over here?”

“Yes, of course.”

Liza nodded, but she looked like she wanted to say something else.

It was Nana who stepped in for her.

“Master, if you are going to investigate the city-rock, please bring a guard with you, I request.”

Ah, I see. She doesn’t want me to go alone.

“Don’t worry. I’m only going to fly around and collect some treasure from the sunken ships nearby, plus take a little peek while I’m at it.”

The older girls looked worried, so I tried to reassure them as lightly as possible.

I wasn’t too worried about monsters or other things I could detect in advance, but I didn’t want to risk putting them in danger of landslides, falling rocks, or that sort of thing.

“And I’ll put a Return seal slate here, so I can come back at any time.”

The trio still looked worried, so I showed them a seal slate, at which point they finally smiled in relief.

“That’s probably enough salvaging for now…”

I’d used “Skyrunning” to do a loop around the island, picking up treasure from sunken ships as I went.

Most of the ships themselves were in pretty rough shape, so I put them back in the water to serve as fish reefs once I’d recovered the treasure and other remains.

Some of the ships had rotted so severely that they’d lost their shape entirely, turning into piles of scrap wood and metal with the occasional treasure buried within. Since the anti-magic space had also canceled out the Fixify spells, the only valuables that were still intact were certain precious metals and gems that were resistant to rust and seawater.

Among the relatively newer sunken ships, I found a few that seemed to belong to Viscount Emerin, who I’d met in the old capital. From those, I was able to recover the remains and articles of the deceased, as well as some Magic Furnaces and Cannons that were damaged but potentially repairable.

Strangely, though Viscount Emerin had spoken of a lost fleet, there was one less ship here than the amount he mentioned. I was a little curious about this; perhaps it had broken apart and left no remains or sunk in a deep area that was part of a different map.

Once we set sail again, I decided I would give the unidentifiable remains a proper burial at sea.

These poor souls had probably been caught in the magic-nullifying barrier and slaughtered by a swarm of sea serpents near this beach, so I doubted they could rest in peace properly here.

“Next, I guess I’ll investigate the city-rock.”

I took off into the sky, leaving the waves far below, until I was high enough to look down at the city-rock.

The side we’d been facing was merely bare rock, but when I came around to the other side, I could see just how bizarre it was.

The image of buildings that were hundreds or even thousands of years old, all clustered together horizontally, was so strange, it seemed like something out of a movie.

There weren’t any buildings as tall as you would see in modern Japan, but I thought it was pretty impressive that none of them had bent out of shape. They were still standing straight and tall, despite being tilted to one side for so long.

When I came closer, I saw something else that intrigued me.

“I’ve seen this crest somewhere before…”

There were four crests engraved on the front gates of the city, one of which was made with a familiar-looking red stone.

“…Oh yeah, the pyromaniac noble.”

For some reason, it looked like the crest sported by the pyromaniac noble we’d encountered a little while before we went to the elf village.

“I knew it. It’s the same one in the stone from the Crimson Cane.”

When I produced the stone of his fiery weapon from Storage, I saw that they were one and the same.

Still, that didn’t explain what the connection might be.

I put the stone back in Storage and approached one of the buildings.

Peering in through the window, I saw that the lower wall was severely indented beneath a heap of crushed furniture and equipment.

From somewhere in this pile, I heard the flapping of wings.

“…Birds?”

The arrival of an intruder (me) seemed to have scared away some birds.

The ruins of these buildings must be a bird paradise; there were countless nests in most of the buildings below a certain point.

I passed the web of a giant spider that preyed on the birds, arriving at the ground.

“Looking up at it from down here is impressive, too, in a different way from seeing it from the sky.”

I landed near some kind of monument close to the city-rock.

“‘Freedom shall be in our grasp’ again, huh…”

That same phrase was engraved on this monument, a warped, sinister-looking stone.

It was written in the same mad-looking penmanship I’d seen in the underwater temple.

“What’s this, then?”

There was a huge pit directly in front of the monument.

“…Geh!”

I used the Wind Magic spell Blow to disperse the leaves that had settled over the pit, shedding sunlight on its contents.

“I mean, I knew there was no one left alive, but…”

In the pit below, a huge amount of human bones was trapped in a cement-like substance along with pieces of junk.

It was more like a landfill than a grave.

“It looks like the survivors were killed in a pretty gruesome way.”

In my mind, images of the events that must have transpired here arose unbidden…

The floating city Nonolie must have fallen due to the anti-magic trap, and even those few people who survived were captured and killed.

The sense of madness about this monument made it all too easy to imagine what kind of tragedies had befallen the people of Nonolie.

It must have been the same kind of atrocities committed in the witch hunts of Europe in the Middle Ages.

Imagining the kind of people who would invent such things made me sick to my stomach.

Even if this had taken place a long time in the past, it was still horrible.

Raising my eyes, I once again saw the twisted stone monument.

After seeing the remains of this terrible tragedy, the word freedom now called to mind the demon lord–worshipping cult the Wings of Freedom.

“I should at least bury them properly…”

I knew this wouldn’t serve any purpose beyond making myself feel a little better, but it didn’t seem right to leave these remains tossed aside with the garbage.

I sent my Magic Hand into the pit, collecting the bones, junk, and all into Storage, where I separated the human remains from the rest.

According to the detailed information in my Storage screen, the cement-like substance was actually the solidified ashes of more of the deceased.

I moved to an elevated part of the island near the city-rock, as far from the underwater monument as possible, and used the Earth Magic spell Pitfall to create a new grave, where I buried the massive amount of bones and ashes.

One grave wasn’t enough, so I ended up having to make several large pits—since I was burying all the bones from the city-rock as well.

It was easy to recover each one, since I found that I could successfully put the entire city-rock in Storage by touching it.

But since I remembered that the city-rock was a historic landmark as well as home to countless birds, I decided to put it back.

A few animals were sacrificed in the process, but I would make sure to use them for food in the future so they wouldn’t go to waste.

I reinforced the base with the Earth Magic spell Wall, so there should be no risk of the city-rock falling.

“This seems a little sparse…”

I planted some of the flower seeds I’d received in the elf village in the earth above the graves, then used a Treespirit Pearl from the treants to speed up the flowers’ growth, turning the hill into a flower garden.

Then I placed a meteorite from Storage near the graves and used “Spellblade” to carve the words HERE LIE THE PEOPLE OF NONOLIE into it.

Finally, I said a silent prayer for the buried victims before leaving the place.

Briefly, I remembered the bodies from the Valley of Dragons in my Graveyard folder, but I decided not to bury them here.

Dragon corpses contained highly valuable ingredients, so if anyone found out I’d buried them, it could cause some serious problems. Besides, the high elf Aaze told me that the dragon god would eventually be revived and could use its power to revive the other dragons.

They wouldn’t rot as long as they were in Storage, so I decided it was probably best to keep them there for the time being.

“Welcome back, master!”

After regrouping with the others on the beach, I found Arisa wearing sunglasses and relaxing in a beach chair. The other girls were still combing the shore for treasure.

According to my map information, the rest of the younger kids had gone to an arch-shaped rock formation at the northern end of the beach, while the older group was at a cliff on the southern side.

A bouquet of flowers was lying on the blanket set out next to Arisa.

“Thanks… Were there flowers growing around here?”

Arisa lowered her sunglasses. “These are artificial flowers we found in the flotsam. I figured we could leave them at those ruins later, so I washed them.”

Arisa really was very considerate in her own way.

She didn’t pry into what I’d been doing, so I sat down at her side, enjoying the sound of the waves and the distant laughter of Tama and Pochi. The soothing atmosphere was a balm on my soul after the atrocities I’d seen.

As Arisa’s warm hand stroked my hair, I sorted through the articles and remains of the deceased from the sunken ships.

For those who could be identified, I decided to mail them along with a letter to the families, saying that I’d acquired them from salvagers.

For the ones I couldn’t figure out, perhaps I could find a way to put the information out for families to find.

Arisa frowned up at the sky, holding out an open hand.

“Is it going to rain?”

Looking around, I saw gray clouds on the other side of the city-rock.

Large, sparse raindrops began to hit the beach here and there, sinking into the sand and tapping on the parasol.

Before long, the light rain became a squall.

The older group seemed to have found shelter from the rain, but the younger kids were getting soaked as they ran back toward us.

Danger.

My “Sense Danger” skill suddenly kicked into action, just as countless red dots appeared on my radar.

Fortunately, they weren’t too close to any of the girls.

“Enemies! Everyone, get to the ship!”

I used my “Amplification” skill to relay a warning to everyone.

“Enemies? What kind?”

I could barely see anything through the heavy rain.

“Hang on a second.”

I opened the map to get more information.

A dozen or so large red dots, which hadn’t been anywhere on the map before the rain started pouring, had appeared around the city-rock.

“…Ghost ships?”

The dots were evidently undead monsters called “ghost ships.”

Their levels ranged from the low 30s to the high 40s, with skills like “Float” and “Spirit World Passage.”

As I was watching these ghost ships, I saw new dots appearing on my radar near my companions and myself.

These smaller red dots were appearing from the large dots of the ghost ships closest to the city-rock.

The ships were producing various kinds of skeletons.

Once that ended, the ghost ships floated upward as if they had no other business here, joining the rest of the ghost fleet patrolling around the city-rock.

I quickly searched the skeletons by level, checking for any that were too strong for the girls to handle.

Luckily, the only ones that were level 20 or above, and therefore a potentially serious threat to my comrades, were all near the ghost ship fleet.

I decided to keep an eye on those while supporting the rest of my party, letting them take the lead so they could get stronger.

“Master, skeletons are coming out of the rain!”

With that, Arisa produced a Fire Rod from her Fairy Pack and fired at the head of an almost-ten-foot-tall skeleton soldier.

The creature emerged from the steam and smoke with a single skull, while more skeletons dressed in tattered pirate clothes leaped out from behind it, brandishing rusty cutlasses.

“There’s quite a few of them.”

I selected Remote Arrow from the magic menu, wiping out most of the lesser skeletons.

“Come on—leave some work for your beloved Arisa, would you?”

“Don’t worry. I left five or so for you.”

“Oh, master! You’re so thoughtful!”

Her mood improving considerably, Arisa fired off some chant-less Space Magic.

I didn’t know which spell she used, since there wasn’t any incantation, but five of the big skeletons hit the ground, their shins shattered.

“Masterrr!”

The rain was starting to let up as I heard Tama’s voice approaching.

Her Magic Sword glowed red as she cut through the skeletons blocking her path. She seemed to be using the Soft Stun effect on the skeletons, since their resistance to blades was high.

Tama was followed closely by Pochi, who was carrying Mia over her shoulder.

“… Create Swamp Sokonashi Numa.”

As Pochi held her up, Mia waved her staff.

The rain hitting the sand swirled into a whirlpool, forming a bottomless swamp that swallowed the skeletons chasing the three.

“Made iiit?”

“Good job, you three.”

As I praised Tama and the other two, I operated my magic menu.

“I’ll take care of the rest.”

My Remote Stun spell rained down on the skeletons who had avoided the swamp, evaporating bones and blades alike into dust. Technically, this spell was supposed to be for knocking people out, but its power was equivalent to being hit by an average soldier with a mace, so it was very effective against brittle bones.

“Mia, use Water Hold, please!” Arisa called out, pointing at the large skeletons that were dragging themselves along with their arms.

“Mm.”

Mia nodded and began the chant.

“Tama, Pochi! Take out any skeletons Mia’s spell doesn’t reach!”

“Aye-aye!”

“Yes, sir!”

At Arisa’s directions, Tama and Pochi readied their Magic Swords and glared at the big skeletons.

My companions weren’t wearing armor today, so I used Enchant: Physical Protection on all of them.

Okay, looks like these four can take it from here.

“Master! Requesting backup, I entreat!” Nana called out from elsewhere in the rain.

I thought that Liza and Nana should be able to handle all the monsters near them easily, but when I turned, I saw a giant skeletal snake chasing the three older girls. It was a level-30 monster called a “bone snake.”

Nana, who was bringing up the rear, was using her Foundation abilities to keep the snake in check, and Liza protected Lulu from the front while fending off any other enemies who got in their way.

Even Lulu, in the middle, wasn’t just letting herself be protected. She was screaming, yes, but she was also shooting at a kangaroo-like skeleton monster called a “skeleton hopper” with her Magic Gun.

I was impressed she was able to hit her target while running.

I selected Short Stun from my magic menu and used it to take out the skeletons, starting with the bone snake. I hadn’t intended to defeat them, but they ended up getting reduced to specks of dust.

Next, I produced a large shield from Storage and held it out to Nana as she rushed over to me.

“Master, I am terribly sorry to have troubled you.”

“Master, thank you for the shield, I declare.”

Liza and Nana handed Lulu to me, then ran to help the others fight off the large skeletons.

Lulu seemed to be panicking, so I held her steady as I instructed the Scarecrow golem to prepare the ship for departure.

“Mere piles of bones should not be working together, I exclaim!”

With her shield at the ready, Nana used her “Taunt” skill to draw the monsters’ attention.

The five large skeletons had somehow fused together, turning into a single bone snake. Combining seemed to raise their level, which had gone from somewhere in the teens to level 30.

I didn’t want anyone to get hurt, so I used Enchant: Physical Protection on the older girls, too, and prepared to intervene just in case.

“Shield!”

Nana combined her Foundation shield and her real physical one to parry the bone snake’s attack.

Then Mia’s Water Magic came in.

“… Water Hold Mizu Shibaru.”

The rain hitting the bone snake’s body merged into watery tentacles, wrapping around the monster and holding it in place.

“My turn! Dimension Pile!”

Once the bone snake was immobilized, Arisa’s magic created invisible poles that pierced through the creature, rooting it to the ground.

“Good work!” Liza called. “Tama, Pochi, aim for the core!”

“Aye-aye, sirrr!”

“Roger, sir!”

Liza, too, came in to attack the snake head-on.

Tama and Pochi attacked the glowing red core from either side, but the bones transformed to defend it, then shot at them with bullet-like bone fragments.

“Whoosh, whooooosh!”

“Waaah, don’t attack so much, sir!”

Tama managed to dodge all the bones, but Pochi wasn’t so lucky and wound up falling back to a nearby rock.

Her Enchant: Physical Protection was in danger of breaking, so I recast it right away.

“It is cowardly to split in two, I declare!”

The bone snake’s head had split in two, with one half attacking Liza, the other attacking Nana.

Liza twisted around to dodge the oncoming head-butt and tumbled onto the sand.

“Aah! Take this!”

A part of the snake’s tail had been sneaking up on Lulu, but she shot it down with her Magic Gun.

The two magic users, Arisa and Mia, were too busy keeping the snake trapped to do anything else.

“O Magic Spear, feel my burning blood—”

Liza stood, kicking up sand, and started weirdly muttering with her spear in hand.

“—pass through my arm and gather at thine spearhead!”

Liza’s body let off a faint red glow, and the patterns on the Magic Spear pulsed with red light.

“Come forth, ‘Spellblade’!”

With that final shout, the light on the spear gathered at the tip, turning into the bright-red glow of “Spellblade.”

Liza charged toward the bone snake, leaving a streak of red light like a comet.

With the help of her “Blink” and “Body Strengthening” skills, Liza moved far faster than the scattering of the snake’s bone bullets, leaving a spray of sand in her wake as she leaped toward the heart of the bone snake.

The monster attempted to counter her with a head-butt, but—

“Not a chance!”

Arisa’s spirited Space Magic blocked it.

“Begone, bone beast!”

Liza’s “Spellblade” pierced right through the bone snake’s skull, the overflowing magic cracking it into pieces.

“There’s that legendary move!”

“Mm. Awesome.”

Arisa and Mia praised Liza’s “Spellblade.”

Evidently, Liza’s bad-fantasy-novel-sounding chant was actually a spirit-focusing incantation taught to her by the elf Gurgapoya, her spear master.

Deliberately invoking “Spellblade” could be difficult when one was still learning, so he suggested using keywords like those to help activate it.

“Miss Liza, watch out!” Lulu cried.

The snake’s other head was going straight for her.

“Do not get distracted, I warn.”

Nana fired a Foundation spear at the skull, using “Taunt” to draw its attention from Liza back to her.

“Pochiii!”

Realizing the snake was no longer focused on them, Tama called out to Pochi.

“Charge, sir!”

Using the “Body Strengthening” and “Blink” skills, Pochi came in at incredible speed from the bone snake’s blind spot to stab through the bone protecting its heart.

The bone shards flew across the beach, and Tama dodged among them like a shadow.

“Now, Tama, sir!”

Having lost her momentum, Pochi shouted at Tama.

“Nooo problemooo!”

Tama leapfrogged over Pochi’s back, sneaking through the gaps in the bone snake’s body to arrive directly at the core.

“Meowly Stone!”

With this joking cry, Tama poured magic into the Holy Stone, and a pillar of bluish-white light enveloped the glowing red core.

HISSSSHAAAAAAAAH!

The bone snake let out an angry roar at the unexpected attack.

“You are wide-open, I report.”

Nana’s large shield smashed into the bone snake’s unprotected jaw, and Liza’s “Spellblade” slashed through its neck.

With its head gone and heart purified, the bone snake fell apart into smaller skeletons.

“Finish it!”

“  Ice Koori.”

Arisa’s Space Magic and Mia’s Spirit Magic delivered the finishing blows to the remaining skeletons.

“Good work, everyone! We’ll take a break once we return to the ship.”

I led everyone back toward our ship as I praised their teamwork.

“Master, the ghost ships are coming this way.”

Sensing a change, Liza alerted me.

Evidently, defeating the bone snake had drawn the ships’ attention to us.

“Don’t worry, Liza.”

Once we got off the coast, I could use my intermediate attack magic to wipe them all out in one go.

If I did it here, I might accidentally destroy the city-rock of the grave of the Nonolie people in the process.

“Master, we are prepared for departure, I report.”

“All right, let’s set sail!”

The skypower engine let out a roar, and our ship took off into the sky.

By now, the rain had let up from an intense squall to an average downpour, but in exchange, the wind had gotten much stronger and stormier.

“Dome, close!”

A transparent dome covered the helm and the other seats on the deck.

It was a powerful defensive dome made from the cornea of the giant monster fish Tobkezerra. It could ward off even my Fire Ball or a concentrated Laser.

“Shiiips?”

“There are lots and lots of them, sir!”

Tama and Pochi, who had changed into armor and fastened their seat belts, pointed frantically back in the direction of the city-rock.

The ghost ships were approaching through the curtain of heavy rain, wreathed by black clouds. It was hard to see clearly in the rain, but the silhouettes of the ships ranged from small sailing ships to galleys.

“Big.”

“Th-they’re quite fast.”

Mia and Lulu trembled as they looked at the oncoming ghost ships.

“Master, shall I produce Flexible Shields? I inquire.”

“I think I can slow down one or two of them.”

“It’s all right,” I reassured Nana and Arisa. I appreciated the offers, but we were on track to put a perfectly safe distance between us.

“Master, at least allow me to guard from the stern—”

“No, you could fall.”

Liza, who had changed into her armor, looked eager as well, but I shook my head.

Perhaps due to the intense rainfall or the appearance of the ghost ships, the formerly calm seas were becoming increasingly tempestuous.

If someone fell in there, they could drown in a matter of seconds.

Besides…

“I’ll take care of the rest. You all just stay here and watch.”

I smiled at everyone, then used “Skyrunning” to take off from the poop deck.

The figurehead golem should be able to take care of steering the ship.

“Wow, they really are ghost ships, all right.”

As I came closer, I could see the ships more clearly.

They weren’t merely different sizes—they were from all different places and eras, too.

All the ghost ships in the fleet had tattered sails, and some even had broken masts or huge holes in the sides.

They were each trailed by a black cloud, giving the illusion that they were burning from a direct cannon hit.

All they had in common was the fact that they were floating in the sky and that they were all captained by ghosts or skeletons with rusty cutlasses.

It was a fantastical scene and all but a little bit too horror-flavored for my tastes.

“Okwabeetouga!”

Beneath the sounds of rain and whipping winds, I heard a skin-crawling voice shrieking.

> Skill Acquired: “Hallowed Language”

The inflection was similar to Ancient Language, but apparently, it wasn’t the same.

I quickly put skill points into “Hallowed Language” and activated it.

On the map, I could see that my comrades’ status condition had changed to Fear. That shriek must have had a similar effect to the black dragon’s roar.

I felt bad for them, but I would probably have to deal with this situation first.

“<Ye covetous whelps who dare target the gods’ floating island Lalakie! For as long as there be living light in these eyes, I, the Skeleton King, shall never surrender the key to Lalakie!>”

The bearded skeleton captain of the largest ghost ship shouted from the deck.

Um, aren’t you dead, though?

“<You misunderstand! We care not for the key to Lalakie.>”

Just to be safe, I searched my Storage and the map for it, but the key didn’t seem to be anywhere around.

“<Any thief would say the same. But you shall answer to the Skeleton King, companion to the final queen of Lalakie!>”

The Skeleton King swung a dark-red rapier, and all the ghost ships turned their sides toward me.

“<Fiiiiire!>”

Boom! The ghost ships shot at me with a dull sound and clouds of black smoke.

Cannonballs flew toward me, blazing with black flame.

My Flexible Shields or the ship’s defenses could probably ward them off, but there was no need to put everyone in danger like that.

Instead, I changed my title to Hero and brought out the Holy Sword Claidheamh Soluis.

“<Dance,> Claidheamh Soluis!”

On my command, the Holy Sword transformed into thirteen blades and began counterattacking the cannons.

“<How impudent for a measly thief! Go forth, undead army! Drag these thieves into the next world as your comrades!>”

Upon hearing the Skeleton King’s words, I finally understood.

The ghost ships were all different because they were the shades of the Skeleton King’s victims. That explained why the crews’ clothing ranged from that of pirate lackeys to navy uniforms.

The ghost ships attacked at the Skeleton King’s command.

They were led by former pirate ships, which had naval rams on their bows.

The ghosts who were able to fly took off like carrier-based aircraft, and the deck-bound skeleton soldiers began to fire with guns and bows.

AWUOOOOOOWN.

The skeletons’ cries echoed through the stormy sky. There was no meaning to their words.

Giving a brief, silent prayer for their souls, I swung my raised hand down.

“<Dance,> Claidheamh Soluis—bring the dead to rest.”

My slightly dramatic words scattered on the wind.

The blades of my Holy Sword let off a bright-blue light as they zoomed around like guided air-to-air missiles from a certain mecha anime.

WHOOOSH.

Claidheamh Soluis reached the first of the ghost ships.

The black clouds of the ghost ship and the blue glow of Claidheamh Soluis clashed for an instant, but the latter quickly won out.

When the flash of light faded, the ghost ship was gone, leaving nothing but white ash falling amid the rain and gusts.

All over the stormy skies, the same scene was playing out.

One by one, the ghost ships turned to ash along with their skeletal crews and disappeared.

I thought I heard the skeletons sigh with relief as they vanished, but it might have been my imagination.

“<Impossible! How darest thou destroy my elite troops with such ease?!>”

The Skeleton King shouted with rage as his ghost fleet disappeared.

His pompous mannerisms reminded me of the jet-black greater hell demon I’d encountered in Seiryuu City.

“<Hang in there. It’s almost your turn.>”

“<Such insolence! Art thou perhaps with Doghead?! Then destroying the god-granted floating islands and floating castles was not enough to slake thy bloodlust—thou hast turned thy hand toward the sea-hidden Lalakie as well?!>”

I had no idea what the Skeleton King was talking about at that point.

“<I shall not allow it! Lalakie shall someday return to the skies, destroy the false kings who run rampant on land, and reign over the world once more. This I swore to my wife on her deathbed—>”

For some reason, the Skeleton King was glaring into the swirling black clouds. I’d thought he was talking to me, but it seemed he was shouting at some other person in his memories instead.

“<—and I shall see that promise through, no matter who or what I must sacrifice to do so!>”

This all sounded very grandiose but also maybe a little crazy.

World domination was the kind of goal that should show up only in children’s stories.

As I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, my Holy Sword returned from sweeping away the ghost fleet.

All that was left was the Skeleton King’s flagship.

“<Save that kind of ambition for the living, please.>”

I had a bad feeling about it, so I put a marker on the Skeleton King and his ship.

If conversation was possible, I preferred to settle things with words rather than trying to kill each other, but…

“<Foolish vermin. Feel the wrath of the Magic Cannon granted to me by the gods.>”

The bow of the ghost ship opened, revealing a giant cannon.

Red particles of light began to gather at its muzzle.

…Clearly, this guy was out to kill me.

The red light began to form into a straight conducting line.

This Magic Cannon must have the same firing sequence as the Small Magic Cannon I’d tested before.

“<Tremble in fear, thou earth-crawling worms!>”

Magic circles began to spawn around the red line.

…Yeah, I’m not going to just let this thing fire.

I would’ve let him go if he was harmless, but having a phantom ghost ship with a grudge against us roaming around would be bad for my mental health.

From Storage, I produced a Holy Bullet that had been overloaded with magic power, and then I flung it toward the Magic Cannon with all my might.

A blue flash evaporated the nearby raindrops, piercing the Magic Cannon along with the ghost ship itself.

The ship exploded, leaving a few rings of black dust.

“Was it wasteful to use a Holy Bullet when a few of them could kill a demon lord?”

Within moments, the rain let up, and the clouds began to disperse. The Skeleton King appeared to have been the cause of the storm.

A dark voice spoke to me from the seas below.

“<Foolish vermin—nay, demon who dareth harm me and hide thyself from the spirit world! I shall return Lalakie to the skies, even if thou standeth in my way! No matter what I must offer up in exchange…>”

Just as I suspected, the Skeleton King had some tricks up his sleeve.

According to my marker, his current location was now the Spirit World. He must have used the “Spirit World Passage” he and the ghost ships had.

The Skeleton King had next to zero HP left. He must have fled to this Spirit World place moments before the attack could kill him.

The marker I’d attached to the ghost ship had disappeared, so I’d successfully destroyed that, at least.

I searched around for the source of the voice. If I could hear him, there must be a gate to the Spirit World somewhere.

“<…Let us meet again, elsewhere in time.>”

Finishing his monologue, the Skeleton King’s presence vanished completely, leaving the echo of an ominous laugh.

I didn’t manage to find the gate, but my “Sense Danger” would be on high alert for this guy. If we did “meet again,” I would dispose of him with no questions asked.

You had to deal with guys like that before you wound up with some kind of fated adversary.

I could see why the younger kids and Nana would fall for her games, but I wasn’t sure why Lulu and Liza were agreeing.

In the end, they all insisted that I hold out my hand.

Liza, Lulu, and Mia each lightly kissed my fingertip, while Pochi and Tama licked my fingers like a puppy and kitten respectively.

Fortunately, Tama was no longer growling at the little girl like she had on the deck. She had probably just been sensing that miasma before.

“Looks like I’m up next.”

“You must not take both hands, I rebuke.”

“You can have the right hand, then.”

After this strange exchange, Nana and Arisa each clamped on to one of my fingers like they were ice pops.

Something about the way Arisa was sucking felt like sexual harassment, so I stopped her, ignoring her protests of “Just a little mooore!”

“Master, no magic is coming out, I report.”

“Oh, sorry.”

At Nana’s request, I produced some magic power from my fingertip.

“I believe that receiving it through my back is more efficient, I request.”

Still just holding her clothes to her chest, Nana turned to face her smooth back toward me.

Come to think of it, it had been a while since I last provided her with magic, so I decided to comply with her request.

“Master, I’ll give this girl a bath.”

“Lulu! I shall care for the larva, I insist.”

Just as I was reaching for her back, Nana whirled around to face Lulu, which meant that my hand wound up directly on her new-and-improved F cups.

It felt like the god of perverts was smiling down on me, but I prudently withdrew my hand without even a single squeeze.

I am her guardian, after all.

Arisa and Mia accused me of being “Guilty” as usual, but this was a genuine accident, so I didn’t feel guilty about it.

Behind them, I saw Nana snatch the young girl from Lulu’s hands and start rushing over to the bath.

That worried me a little, so I asked Lulu to intervene.

“Hmm? I don’t see that young lady’s clothes anywhere.”

Picking up Nana’s discarded clothing, Liza looked around in puzzlement. From the massage table to the floor, there was no sign of the girl’s clothes.

The young kids peeked around the laundry basket and beneath the table, but they were nowhere to be found.

I wondered if maybe they had gotten mixed in with some other clothes, but when we’d first rescued her, she’d been wearing a silk garment with a distinctive luster, so it would still stand out.

“Search.”

Mia threw the door to the bathroom open unceremoniously and stepped inside.

“Eeeek! Mia, I keep telling you not to leave the door wide open when you enter the bath!”

“Mm. Sorry.”

Lulu was wearing shorts and a T-shirt for post-bath stretching, so it was no big deal, but I still looked away out of politeness.

Arisa poked her head into the bath. “They don’t seem to be in here, either.”

My “Keen Hearing” skill picked up on a conversation between Mia and Nana.

“Clothes. Where?”

“Once removed, her clothing faded and disappeared, I report.”

Maybe her clothes were ghostly in nature, too.

“That’s a good wind.”

Standing on the starlit deck, I looked out at the island in the dim light.

I’d set up Holy Stones, purifying magic circles, and runes all over the island to ensure that the people I’d reburied that afternoon wouldn’t be disturbed or resurrected as undead monsters.

Since my Light Magic spell Laser was too strong, I used an inverted version of the Condense spell to disperse the wind and lessen its intensity so that I could use it to draw magic circles.

This was my first time drawing such a large magic circle, but it was easy enough, since I used the map to draw it, adding Holy Stones as I went.

Then, using techniques I learned in the elf village, I connected a magic power line from the magic circle to the island’s mana source, creating a weak purification field that should perpetually stay in effect throughout the island.

If people started visiting the Seadragon Islands in future generations, maybe this island would become a popular sightseeing spot.

With these absentminded thoughts, I continued reading the ancient text I had open in the menu, Secrets of the Underwater City Nenelier.

In addition to the titular city, the book contained information about the ancient Lalakie civilization’s demise as well.

Hmm?

My radar alerted me to a white dot moving on the ship.

I heard light footsteps that stopped behind me.

“<Are you hungry?>”

“<Magic…please.>”

“<Sure thing.>”

I held out my hand, and the young girl—now wearing a baggy T-shirt—started sucking magic from my finger again.

She’d looked around Arisa’s age when she fell asleep, but now she looked like a preschooler.

Unlike earlier, her red eyes were no longer glazed over.

I’d assumed that her faltering speech from before was due to her consciousness still being hazy, but maybe I was wrong.

As she absorbed my magic, she gradually grew taller and rounded out a bit.

It was like watching someone grow in fast-forward.

When she’d had enough magic, she let out a sigh of satisfaction and gave me a timid “<Thank…you.>”

“<It’s no problem. By the way, could I ask your name?>”

I knew she had amnesia, but I asked anyway, since she should probably be aware as well.

“<Name?>”

The girl closed her eyes and furrowed her brow, trying to remember.

“<…I don’t…know.>”

She frowned, biting her lip.

I noticed that her white hair had grown from around ear length to down past her shoulders in the magic-absorption process.

“<We found you washed up on the beach, so it’s possible that you were in some kind of shipwreck. The shock might have addled your memory.>”

She looked up at me with wide eyes, possibly surprised that I believed her so readily.

“<But we have to call you something until you remember your name. What would you like to be called for now?>”

I wasn’t the most creative person, so if I gave her a name myself, it’d probably be something like “Lala” from “Lalakie” or “Ha” from “half-ghost.”

“<Name…>”

The young girl looked around uncertainly.

Then her eyes fell on the city-rock—Nonolie.

“<Soul lights…pretty.>”

At first I thought she might cry, but she simply gazed at the city-rock with a soft expression.

The city-rock was lit up with blue light, creating a solemn atmosphere.

“<Soul lights… How about…Rei?>”

I didn’t understand at first, but then I realized that the first part of the Hallowed Language word for soul lights was pronounced “rei.”

“<Nice to meet you, then, Rei. I’m Satou.>”

“<Nice to meet you…Satou.>”

We exchanged a friendly handshake, then smiled at each other.

“<Thank you…for…saving me.>”

“<Don’t mention it.>”

I tried to convey that it was no big deal.

Oh, right. Maybe I should ask her one more question…

“<Do you know what ‘Lalakie’ is?>”

“<Lalakie…>” Rei caught her breath abruptly. “<…I want to go home…>”

Tears began to stream down her cheeks, so I wiped them away with a handkerchief.

“<Am I…crying?>” Rei touched her own cheeks in surprise, unaware of the reason for her tears.

“<Lalakie must be very important to you.>”

“<I think…so. I don’t know why…but my heart says…I want to go there…very much.>”

Rei’s homesickness must have been so strong that even her amnesia couldn’t erase it completely.

Her small hands trembled as she clung to my leg.

“<I see…>”

I didn’t know how to tell her that her civilization was long gone.

The ancient text was primarily about the Underwater City Nenelier, but within the text were also rumors stating that when Lalakie sank into the ocean, its survivors created a hidden village on an island somewhere in the southern seas.

It would be a little bit of a detour, but we might be able to bring Rei to meet the descendants of Lalakie.

As long as the others were okay with it, of course.

“<Um… Satou…>”

Rei tugged on my hand, interrupting my thoughts.

She looked a little shy for some reason.

“<Could I have…a bit more magic…please?>”

“<Sure, but first…>”

I didn’t want her to get cold in the evening breeze, so I sat her on my knee and wrapped her in a terry-cloth blanket.

She hadn’t eaten since we rescued her, either, so I had her drink a sweetened nutritional supplement potion, a concoction I’d popularized in the elf village.

As she drank, I noticed her hair ornament swaying in the breeze.

“<Could I have a look at that, please?>”

“<No!>”

I reached out to touch the barrette, but Rei quickly covered it with both hands.

I caught the potion she’d dropped before it spilled onto the deck.

“<No one…can…touch this.>”

Her voice trembled as she shook her head.

“<I don’t…know…why. But…I feel it…deep in…my heart.>”

So Rei didn’t know what the key was or why she didn’t want me to touch it.

“<I’m sorry—that was rude of me. Don’t worry. I wouldn’t try to take it from you or anything like that. Please finish drinking.>”

Once she finished drinking the potion, I took the empty vial back and supplied her with more magic as she’d requested.

Squish, squish.

Feeling a soft sensation enveloping my right arm, I opened my eyes to find a beautiful woman—Rei, returned to her adult form—sleeping beside me.

Lowering my gaze, I found that she was hugging my right arm to her chest.

Thinking back, I remembered that I’d been giving her magic last night.

The blanket I’d produced so she wouldn’t catch a cold was just barely covering her body and my left hand.

For some reason, I could feel something warm beneath my left hand— Oh.

“Master, the larva has vanished, I report!”

Nana came flying out of the hatch and landed on the deck.

I started to call out to her, then remembered my current precarious position.

Since I’d been holding her as she sat on my lap in her smaller form, my hand had naturally wound up somewhere on her lower half while we were sleeping.

I hastily extracted my hand and folded both of them innocently on my lap.

“Over here, Nana!”

“Master… The larva has grown? I inquire.”

“She asked me to supply her with magic last night, but I must have given her a bit too much.”

Nana’s normally expressionless face was full of surprise.

Checking my MP reserves just to be safe, I found that they’d already recovered to the maximum amount.

Rei’s “Magic Absorption: Weak” must have absorbed magic at the same rate as my natural recovery, perhaps even a little slower.

The other girls gathered around and made a fuss as well, but since Rei’s clothes were perfectly in place, it didn’t get too out of hand.

“Hey, is she shrinking again?”

“Master, she is almost there, I report.”

Judging by the magic I felt leaking from Rei, staying in adult mode seemed to deplete the most magical energy, while being in young-girl mode took less. She probably reverted to near-infancy only when she ran out of magic entirely.

Once Rei shrank back down to the size of a young girl, she opened her eyes.

Greeted by the sight of the entire group staring at her, she winced.

“<G-good…morning.>”

“Mm. Morning.”

Rei cautiously greeted them in Hallowed Language, and Mia responded quite naturally.

“Satou, rings.”

Mia held up the translation ring on her finger for me and the others to see.

When we were in the elf village, she’d worn one so that she would match with the rest of us.

Evidently, the translation rings we got from the elves also supported Hallowed Language.

“Good thinking, Mia.”

When Arisa complimented Mia, Nana held up her ringed finger as if to point out that she, too, had done well.

So that was why Nana had been able to tell me that the “larva” had “requested magic supply” before.

I just thought that she figured it out by looking at her somehow.

“Riiings?”

“I want to talk, too, sir.”

The other girls produced translation rings from their Fairy Packs, put them on, and introduced themselves one by one.

“<Nice to meet you… I’m Rei.>”

Rei looked bashful under all the attention.

“You remembered your name?”

“<No… Satou…gave me…this one…yesterday.>”

Arisa whipped her head around at me like a haunted doll in a horror movie, looking accusatory, so I simply said, “It makes things easier.”

Still, Rei was the one who had chosen that name herself.

Could it be that she didn’t remember?

“All right, want to offer up those flowers before we head out?”

Now that Rei was awake, I directed the ship toward the grave of the Nonolie people on the opposite side of the island.

I’d been worried that the purification barrier I put up around the island would have a negative effect on Rei, but now that the miasma had been cleared away, it didn’t seem to affect her at all.

I supposed in that case, the ship’s anti-monster barrier would’ve had a stronger effect anyway.

Putting on the Flying Shoes, I sped our journey along by shuttling the ship through the air.

The Flying Shoes I’d found in the salvaged goods automatically adjusted their size, so they could fit anyone without a problem, but they weren’t very easy to use.

With my “Skyrunning” experience, I was the only one who was able to use them.

Tama seemed pretty close, though, so she might get the hang of them soon.

“Funeral song.”

Once we offered the flowers, Arisa had a moment of silence, and Mia started playing a lilting tune on her lute.

It reminded me of the memorial we’d held for the lost ratmen at a battlefield in Seiryuu County.

“<Sleep now… Sleep well…>”

Rei began to sing a requiem, matching the tune to Mia’s song.

It was a calming song, almost like a lullaby.

I listened peacefully to their singing and playing for a while.

Then Mia put her lute away in her Fairy Pack and pointed to a well-lit area.

“Satou, seeds.”

“You mean you want me to plant some seeds there?”

She was referring to the Treant seeds from her hometown, which the high elf Aaze had asked us to plant on our travels.

“Mm. Best.”

It was a good spot, and the purification barrier would prevent miasma from harming them.

Mia was probably right that it was the perfect place for some.

“Can you all help me plant some Treant seeds?”

“Aye-aaaye!”

“Of course, sir!”

With the girls’ help, I planted ten or so of the Treant seeds.

“Master, will one fertilizer orb do?”

“It should. Bury it a little ways away, please.”

The golden fruits that contained the seeds had been removed for use in magic potions, so instead we were using fertilizer orbs to promote healthy growth.

These were given to us by Jia, the elf gardener.

“Larva, you must not pack the earth too tightly when you bury it, I advise.”

“<I’m sorry… I’ve never…touched earth…before.>”

“Mm. Experience.”

Nana and Mia were helping Rei plant.

She was fitting in with the group faster than I’d expected.

“Are you worried about how to deal with that girl?”

Having planted her seeds, Arisa came over to me, her mature expression at odds with her age.

“Yeah, a little.”

Judging by Rei’s Last Princess of Lalakie title and the Skeleton King proclaiming himself as the companion to the final queen of Lalakie, the chances were good that Rei was the Skeleton King’s daughter.

Normally, I would assume I should return her to her father, but between her Sacrificial Maiden title and the Skeleton King’s insane-sounding promise to return Lalakie to the skies…no matter what I must offer up in exchange, I was hesitant to put her in harm’s way.

If the Skeleton King was going to try to sacrifice Rei, I would prefer to keep her safe at least until her memories returned.

However, the warning of the sunken ship’s ghost captain—without its key, Lalakie cannot fly—seemed too obviously linked to Rei’s key-shaped hair ornament to be a coincidence.

My concern was that the Skeleton King might be after Rei’s hair ornament in order to return Lalakie to the skies.

If I blindly took Rei in, knowing she might be targeted by the dangerous and elusive Skeleton King, I would be putting my companions in danger.

“I see…”

Once I explained my concerns to Arisa, she folded her arms and nodded thoughtfully.

“I don’t think the Skeleton King would be able to reach her if she’s protected by the purification barrier on this island, but…I don’t want to leave her here after she’s been alone for so long.”

“Alone? How do you know that?”

“I mean, she seems to really want company. She’s always staying close to one of us, and even when Nana and Mia fuss over her too much, she actually seems happy about it.”

Obviously, Arisa was more observant about other people than I was.

“Thank you, Arisa.”

I smiled at her, grateful for the push.

“Everyone, I’d like to talk to you about something…”

When I proposed that Rei travel with us until her memories returned, everyone was in total agreement.

“<I…truly…appreciate it…>”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk!”

“You can just say ‘thanks,’ sir!”

“<Okay… Thanks.>”

Rei was trying to be polite, but Tama and Pochi shook their fingers at her.

Pochi didn’t seem to be very good at clicking her tongue, so she just said “Tsk” out loud.

Meanwhile, as far as the Skeleton King’s movements were concerned…

I’d been keeping an eye on his status since the day before via the marker on my map. It seemed like my attack had hit him harder than I realized, though, as his health gauge was recovering very slowly. His stamina and magic gauges were still totally empty.

His location hadn’t changed from the Spirit World area, either.

For now, I would just have to keep checking on a regular basis.

“<Satou… Good…morning.>”

“<Good morning, Rei.>”

As I was leaning over the side of the ship and looking at the sunrise, Rei showed up, barely awake and in her younger form.

She didn’t seem particularly surprised that the ship was flying.

When Captain Ghost was raging about Lalakie, he had used phrases like floating ships, so she was probably accustomed to this kind of thing.

“<Would you like a drink?>”

“<Thank…you.>”

Opening my Item Box, I produced a glass of yellorange fruit juice with ice.

The ice was actually cubes of juice that I’d created with the Freeze Water spell.

“<Yummy.>”

Rei gulped down the juice in one go, letting out a contended sigh.

She must have been thirsty after sweating in her sleep.

“<Want some magic candy, too?>”

“<Yes…please.>”

I handed her the candy, and she popped it into her mouth immediately.

The magic candy was a version of one of the magic recovery potion recipes I’d learned in the elf village. Sucking on it would continuously restore your magic.

The original recipe for the candy restored six points of magic per second, but the one I’d just given Rei was a type I’d specially made for her that restored only one point per second.

With this, even if she ate the whole thing, she would stay in her little-girl form.

I’d come up with this solution because if she kept growing and shrinking, her clothes would keep ripping or coming off.

At first I thought I should stop giving her magic, but if she ran out completely, her status would change to Starvation.

If she stayed in that state for too long, she would enter a magic-hungry trance like the day we first met her, which was why I’d created these candies.

While she sucked on the one I’d just given her, Rei gazed out at the sea, resting her head against me.

“<Did you have a nightmare?>”

“<Yes… I dreamed…a shadow person…was chasing me…>”

A shadow person? The Skeleton King, perhaps?

“<It was very…very…scary…>”

Normally, a bad dream was still nothing more than that, but in Rei’s case, I had the feeling it might be some kind of omen.

Just in case, I decided to stay on guard for a while.

“Master! Do not monopolize the larva for yourself, I beseech.”

“<Good morning…Nana.>”

“Good morning, Rei, I greet.”

As soon as Nana came onto the deck, she picked up Rei and rubbed her cheek against her.

Rei had been bewildered by Nana’s behavior at first, but now she seemed accustomed to it.

“Mrrr. Excessive.”

Mia emerged next, shaking her head at Nana.

“Cuteness is justice, I declare.” Nana seemed undaunted.

“<Good morning…Mia.>”

“Mm. Morning.”

Rei smiled sheepishly at Mia, who gave up on her efforts to stop Nana, instead securing a spot on my lap.

“Good morniiing.”

“Good morning, sirs!”

Tama and Pochi bounded onto the deck, arm in arm with Arisa.

Like a student who had recently come back from summer vacation, Arisa had been late to rise since we left Bolenan Forest.

“Wake uuup?”

“Time for calisthenics, sir.”

“Yeah, yeah…”

Tama and Pochi pushed Arisa forward, but she just slumped tiredly to the deck.

“Part one.”

With that, Mia started playing a lute version of a radio calisthenics tune from Japan.

Rei escaped from Nana’s grasp to join Tama and Pochi.

She seemed to have become quite fond of this little morning exercise.

“Master toooo?”

“Join us, sir.”

Nana had started doing the calisthenics with Rei, so I would’ve preferred to stay off to the side and watch her, but Tama and Pochi insisted that I line up next to them.

While I was at it, I dragged Arisa to her feet to participate along with me.

“Ughhh, I hate mornings…”

Despite Arisa’s grumbling, she was back to her usual energetic self by the time part one of the calisthenics was over.

Once we finished part two, a delicious smell drifted up from the vent of the galley, and the girls’ stomachs began to growl.

When Liza emerged onto the deck carrying an enormous stockpot, everyone’s attention was riveted on her.

“Breakfast is ready.”

Lulu’s call was met with a chorus of cheers, and everyone scrambled to reach the food.

“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, I report.”

“Mm. Let’s go.”

“<Okay.>”

Even Rei was among them, dragged along by Nana and Mia.

“Master, I’ve spotted a ship run aground.”

I was in the ship’s hold making a magic tool to deal with the Skeleton King when Liza came in to give me her report.

“Thanks, I’ll be right there.”

As I stood, I opened the menu to check the time and found that it was later than I realized. If that much time had passed, it meant that we had to leave for the Seadragon Islands area fairly soon.

I needed to set up another seal slate here, or I wouldn’t be able to return to the city-rock island with only the Return spell from a long distance.

“Satou, look.”

Once I reached the deck, Mia pointed at an island up ahead.

Among the reefs surrounding the island, I could barely make out the shadow of what looked like a ship.

Using my “Telescopic Sight” skill and the Clairvoyance spell, I took a closer look.

The ship’s three masts all seemed to be intact, but there were holes all over the hull of the ship itself. There didn’t seem to be much evidence of acid attacks, so they’d probably managed to avoid sea serpents.

“Isn’t that a Shiga Kingdom flag?”

“Yeah. And the one below it is from the Ougoch Duchy—it’s Viscount Emerin’s flag.”

So the missing ship from the viscount’s fleet had actually run aground here.

The area up ahead was unexplored territory, so I couldn’t check the status of the ship.

It would be a pain to explain things if they saw us flying, so I lowered the ship into the water to sail toward the island normally.

As we traversed the few miles between us and the ship, we were attacked by monsters like flying manta rays and the mosasaur-like sea monster I’d seen elsewhere in the Seadragon Islands.

Liza’s harpoons and Mia’s bow made quick work of the flying rays, but the sea monster attacking the bottom of the ship was hard to reach directly, so I used my Remote Arrow to take care of it.

Remote Arrow was only half as effective underwater, but since it was already overkill to begin with, that didn’t matter much.

Once Mia mastered her Spirit Magic skill a little more and could use Create Water Spirit, she would probably be able to help with underwater battles more.

“There are survivors. That’s a relief.”

As soon as we passed into the new area, I used “Search Entire Map” and found there were some thirty-seven people alive on the other side of the fairly large island. All of them were sailors from the ship that had run aground.

“Then we’d better save them right away.”

I was about to nod, but I wasn’t sure how we were going to fit that many people onto our little ship.

Our best bet was to repair their ship for their transportation.

“We have to prepare a bit first.”

I stopped the ship at the edge of the reef area and took off with my Flying Shoes, heading for the grounded ship. The shoes were so that Rei wouldn’t question why I was flying.

“It’s more beat-up than I expected.”

The two lower decks of the four-deck ship were flooded, and there was a huge hole in the bottom of the hull.

I had planned on just repairing it normally, but this would probably require some special maneuvers.

“Arisa, you’re on.”

“Okey-dokey!”

Using the Space Magic spell Telephone to contact Arisa, I instructed her to begin Operation: Keep Rei Distracted.

“We’re good to go.”

Once Arisa gave me the okay, I put the grounded ship into Storage and separated the seawater.

Next, I used Freeze Water to solidify the surface of the sea, took the ship out on top of the ice, and sealed up the holes from the outside with boards. Conveniently, I had the parts from the other sunken ships we’d stumbled onto in the Seadragon Islands.

Once they were reasonably covered, I used Treespirit Pearls to adhere the boards to the ship.

All I needed was for the ship to be able to sail again, so I casually ignored the dents in the hull.

With the repairs completed, I used Storage to bring the ship back to safe sailing waters and got rid of the ice I’d been using to hold it up.

Now all that was left was to put up the sails. For some reason, there were no spares to be found on the formerly grounded ship, so I used the most intact ones from the sunken ships of the same build.

Then I towed the ship—a carrack—with Magic Hand and returned to our own ship.

“All done.”

“Welcome back, master.”

Liza was the only one to come greet me; the rest of the girls were playing dress-up in the main cabin with Rei as their doll.

“I better get things set up now,” I murmured, opening the biggest Fairy Pack.

“<Numbers one through ten, activate. Advance forward ten paces and stand by in remote mode.>”

When I gave these orders in Elvish, large wooden living dolls around the height of brownies marched forth from the Fairy Pack. There were a few gargoyle-style dolls for reconnaissance, as well. I had made them as practice in an elf workshop, so they all moved rather clumsily.

The living dolls had squat, gnomelike bodies and were wearing loose, hooded brown robes. It might look a bit strange in this hot weather, but at least it wasn’t obvious that they were living dolls.

These low-cost versions didn’t use Holytree Stone, but they were made with a lot of the elves’ secret techniques, so I didn’t want any thieves coming after them.

“Scarecrow, control the living dolls according to the ‘sailor’ preset.”

When I gave the order to the figurehead golem Scarecrow, the living dolls began moving about briskly, miming various sailor-like tasks.

Since I’d made the Scarecrow golem after mastering the art of controller units, it was pretty high performance.

Hearing the living dolls’ footsteps, my companions came up to the deck and were caught completely by surprise.

I explained to them that these were dummy crew members so we would look like a normal sailing ship.

This might’ve been a small galleon, but it still wasn’t very realistic to claim that it was being operated by nine people, most of whom were children.

“Master, there are people on the beach, I report.”

“Yeah, they probably came because they saw the ship.”

“I believe there are people hidden in the woods near the beach as well, master.”

I nodded at Nana and Liza.

I was aboard the newly repaired ship, which I’d brought over to the inlet where the survivors were living.

The rest of my group was on the galleon, which was stopped nearby, out of range of any possible attacks from the beach.

Of course, I’d put the flash anti-monster magic into stealth mode.

I lowered the bigger ship’s anchor in a safe area away from the reef and had my “sailors” take a small lifeboat back to our ship. The sailors were actually living dolls made to look like humans with the Light Magic spell Illusion.

I was actually operating the ship myself with Magic Hand, but my official story was that I couldn’t use magic, hence the facade.

“I am a noble of the Ougoch Duchy in the Shiga Kingdom. For my valiant battles against monsters, I have been granted the Ougoch Duchy Blazing Scarlet Medal. They call me Baron Jeetbert!”

A middle-aged man who was carrying a two-handed sword like a walking stick greeted me in a clear voice. The emblem with the red gem on his chest must be the aforementioned Blazing Scarlet Medal.

He must have introduced himself preemptively because I was wearing noble clothing.

“His Excellency has introduced himself. Now it is your turn!”

A smaller man standing next to the baron in mage-like robes shouted at me next.

There were a few other men stationed nearby with large shields, ready to guard the baron at a moment’s notice. Since they were sailors to begin with, none of them was wearing heavy metal armor.

“I am a noble of the Muno Barony in the Shiga Kingdom. For fending off a lesser hell demon in Gururian City, I have been granted the Ougoch Duchy Sapphire Medal. My name is Satou Pendragon, hereditary knight.”

Just for fun, I decided to match the baron’s style of self-introduction.

While I was at it, I produced the Sapphire Medal from Storage by way of my pocket and fixed it to my breast as well.

“…The Sapphire Medal?!”

The baron’s eyes widened as he stared at my medal.

His hands were visibly shaking, revealing his alarm.

The knights and mages around him all murmured in surprise, too.

Thinking back, I remembered that Sir Ipasa Lloyd, the imperial knight and son of a viscount, had been surprised when I received the Sapphire Medal, too.

A few of these men were muttering things like, “Isn’t the Muno Barony that cursed territory?” but most of them seemed to be more surprised by the medal.

None of them made any effort to hide their surprise, but the baron was the first to recover.

“Sir Pendragon, might you be willing to take us to the trade city of Sutoandell on your ship? We are the sole survivors of Viscount Emerin’s trade fleet. Naturally, we shall reward you however you may wish.”

“Yes, of course.”

I had no intention of asking for a reward for helping out a friend of a friend.

“Perhaps it was fate that I discovered that ship adrift at sea.”

“Adrift, you say?”

I thought it might cause a scene if I told them I repaired it, so I decided to say that I’d just found it by chance.

I wasn’t sure if they would believe my story, but they definitely wouldn’t believe the truth.

“Indeed. Since it was flying the flag of Viscount Emerin, I thought it prudent to search for survivors on the nearby islands. This is the last island in the area, so I was quite relieved to find you here.”

My “Fabrication” skill helped me make up a story on the spot.

Of course, I’d already confirmed on the map that there were zero survivors anywhere else.

If I didn’t tell them that I’d searched the islands, they might drag me into a lot of pointless searching.

“Well then, Sir Pendragon, if you do not mind a brief wait, we shall prepare to depart at once.”

The baron called over his associates and asked how long it would take them to prepare enough water for the trip.

“Five days… No, if we mobilize everyone with the ‘Item Box’ skill, we can do it in three,” his first mate responded with grim determination.

“Your Excellency,” I interrupted. “Pardon my intrusion, but if it’s water that you need, we have more than enough on board for the journey to Sutoandell.”

“A-are you quite certain?!”

I nodded and gave the first mate a number of barrels.

“Yes, that is more than enough. Why, with that amount, we could make a round trip to the ends of the Seadragon Islands and still reach Sutoandell safely.”

I pulled out a sea chart from my Garage Bag, showing them our current location.

This chart was for use with the general public, so it wasn’t marked with the places I’d set seal slates.

“Wh-what a detailed map!”

“It even includes the watering holes on the islands and the distribution of monsters…!”

The sailors were all very impressed with my sea chart.

“You really searched the islands this thoroughly for survivors…?”

One easily moved sailor fought back manly tears as he gazed at me in admiration.

I definitely couldn’t tell them that I’d drawn it in the thirty minutes or so it took to get here.

“Your Excellency, from here, we should be able to reach Sutoandell within less than ten days.”

At the navigation officer’s words, the other men embraced one another with shouts of joy.

Even the archers who’d been hiding in the forest forgot to keep concealing themselves, jostling shoulders with one another excitedly.

In the end, we decided to depart the following morning.

The sun had set while the men were carrying their supplies from their base onto the ship.

We’d decided to have a banquet that night to celebrate the departure, so I was sitting with the baron at a table on the bigger ship.

I’d already sent Liza and Nana back to join the others on our ship. Some of the young sailors’ eyes were fixed lustily on Nana, so I thought it best to have them retreat.

“  Lamp Toumyou.”

The monster wards hanging from the prow to the stern, which looked a bit like mosquito lamps, weren’t very bright, so the Practical Magic users on the crew created magic lights all over the deck.

“Oh-ho, that smells tasty. How long has it been since we’ve had any seasonings but salt?”

“Sir Pendragon was kind enough to share some of his spices, so I used them to the best of my ability!”

The baron and his sailors looked thrilled when the food was carried out.

Most of the hearty fare was made from seafood the men had caught on the island. To celebrate their departure, they even brought out tankards full of ale, which were distributed to even the lowliest soldiers.

“Sir Pendragon, you have women in your crew, no? It’s bad to bring women on a long journey at sea, you know.” The baron took a swig of ale. “Some captains bring their wives or lovers on board, but that often leads to mutiny, see.”

I assumed he was referring to the old bad-luck superstition, but it turned out he just meant it could cause unrest with the crew.

“Thank you. I’ll keep your advice in mind.”

In our ship’s case, we were more like a family than a crew, so I didn’t think it would be a problem. Besides, I was the only man in the group.

“Raise anchor!”

“Anchors aweigh!”

“““Anchors aweeeigh!”””

When the captain gave an order, the head sailor would repeat it back loudly, followed by a chorus of the rest of the sailors. Together, they began hauling on a pulley.

Many of them had the “Strength” skill, but it still looked pretty tough.

I wanted to see how a normal ship prepared to set sail, so I asked the baron to let me stay on board. I was able to use the Telephone spell to give orders to our ship’s figurehead golem, so there were no issues there.

“Bowsprit, hoist the sails!”

“Saaails!”

“““Saaails!”””

The sailors climbed the mast easily, untying the ropes that kept the sails in place.

Once the sails were unfurled, the wind began to turn the ship gently.

“Pull the port rigging!”

“Pull to pooort!”

“““Pull to pooort!”””

A few of the sailors turned bright red with exertion as they yanked on the rope.

Once the ship was turned in the proper direction, they used the rigging to keep it running straight.

There was probably still a rudder, of course, but the sails were the main power source regardless.

Leaving a few sailors in charge of the bowsprit, the rest rushed to help with the stern. Their crew wasn’t as large as usual, so they seemed to have their work cut out for them.

Arriving at the stern, the sailors climbed the rope ladder easily.

“Main mast, hoist the sails!”

“Saaails!”

“““Saaails!”””

When the central sails were unfurled, the ship’s speed rose.

The sailors on the main mast slid down the rope, heading to their assigned rigging.

“Stern, hoist the sails!”

“Saaails!”

“““Saaails!”””

Once the rear sails were ready, most of the crew came down to the deck, operating the rigging ropes to keep the ship on course per the captain’s orders.

This work seemed primarily fueled by manpower; they weren’t using the ship’s Magic Furnace.

I guess since Magic Furnaces were fueled by cores, it would be too costly to use them all the time.

Thinking back, I remembered that the dwarves used something called “refined monster coal” instead of cores because Magic Furnaces were so inefficient.

“Sir Pendragon, your sailors are a talented bunch. It’s rare to see such skilled steering and effortless departure.”

“Much obliged.”

I’d borrowed the blueprints from the elves’ self-steering ship library, so I didn’t feel like I could be particularly proud.

“By the way, why isn’t your ship flying the Shiga Kingdom or the Muno Barony flags?”

“My apologies. I’m afraid our flagpole was blown off in a recent storm, flags and all.”

My “Fabrication” skill helped me answer the baron’s question.

I’d completely forgotten about flags to show our affiliation.

According to the information I casually gathered from the navigation officer later, most ships generally flew the flags of their kingdom, territory, and captain, as well as a flag to indicate whether they were warships or general passage.

I mostly remembered the Muno Barony flag, and I could probably copy the kingdom flag from this ship’s.

As for the general passage flag, I could probably re-create it from some of the sunken ships I’d recovered.

“Captain, we’ve entered the current.”

“Very well. Activate the Magic Furnace and double down on our lookout.”

The first mate nodded, then shouted, “Activate Magic Furnace, lowest output!” into a speaking tube.

After a few moments, a voice reported, “Activation complete,” and a mage used the Wind Magic spell Long-Range Search Wind. It appeared that he was using the power from the Magic Furnace to maintain the spell after he cast it.

The results of the search were displayed on a mirror near the helm.

Keeping the spell up continuously cost a huge amount of magic, so it couldn’t be used at the same time as their defensive barrier when the Magic Furnace was in low-output mode.

Apparently, with their current stock of fuel, the Magic Furnace could run in high-output battle mode for only thirty minutes at the most.

“Oof, I gotta take a leak…”

“Fool! We have a guest here!”

As the captain scolded him, the soldier ran to a mysterious object at the side of the ship, a sort of car seat–like protrusion.

That’s a toilet?!

Once his business was taken care of, the soldier hurried back to his post, ducking his head toward me apologetically.

“Don’t just stand around! Swab the decks!”

The head sailor barked a command, and the lowest-ranked sailors scrambled to start cleaning the decks with seawater.

Maybe this was for sterilizing, but if anything, I thought the salt might actually damage the wood.

Curious, I asked the head sailor if he knew why they were using seawater, and he explained that soaking the wood caused it to expand, shrinking the gaps in the deck to reduce the risk of flooding.

I see. That makes sense.

Our ship was coated with resin, so that wouldn’t be necessary in our case.

We used a resin called “alua” developed by the elves, the same substance that was used for my favorite goblets in our tree house. Alua was transparent and light yet durable, and like acrylic, it wouldn’t break when dropped, so I used it frequently on tableware for the kids and such.

“Sorry it’s nothing fancy.”

At the baron’s request, I joined him for lunch. As he said, it was fairly modest: a few lightly baked biscuits, salty soup with beans and jerky, and a sauerkraut-like side along with some dried yellorange fruits.

Aside from the dried fruits, the rest of the ingredients came from the barrels we’d found washed up on the beach at the city-rock island, as well as the ale they were drinking.

I was reluctant to give them secondhand goods, but all we had available that was appropriate for a voyage at sea was the dried fruits, so I didn’t have any other choice.

I used “Analyze” to make sure none of it had gone bad, of course.

“This is delicious. What kind of fruit is it?”

“Oh, that’s dried yellorange fruit from a Mountain-Tree.”

When I answered the young assistant mate’s question, everyone froze.

“Y-yellorange fruit?”

“Y-you mean the legendary Mountain-Trees that only grow in the elves’ forest?”

The sailors all peppered me with questions.

Mountain-Trees grow in the giants’ forest in the Muno Barony, too, you know.

“Ch-chef! Cease distributing the dried fruit at once!”

Looking flustered, the baron gave an order into the speaking tube connected to the galley.

“Is something wrong?”

“S-Sir Pendragon, do you not know how valuable yellorange fruits are?”

Huh?

Each giant piece of fruit weighed more than a ton, so I had lots, and I knew they were delicious.

But I’d never seen them in a market before, so I hadn’t gotten the chance to use my “Estimation” skill on one.

Looking at the dried fruit, I saw that a single slice was worth anywhere from one to three silver coins each. So five slices would be worth more than a gold coin? Even if they were rare, that seemed pretty ridiculous to me.

As we ate lunch, I decided to find out if the captain or any of his men happened to know anything about Lalakie.

“Lalakie? I feel like I’ve heard of it.”

The baron stroked his beardless chin thoughtfully.

“…Ah, I remember. I heard about it at a festival in the Kingdom of Sorcery, Lalagi, which is in the middle of the sugar route.”

According to the baron, the royal family of Lalagi were said to be descendants of the skyfolk, and the Skydea Festival was exhibiting something called a “Lalakie Box.”

If I remembered correctly, “skyfolk” referred to the people of Lalakie.

Perhaps the descendants of Lalakie were secretly living in this Kingdom of Sorcery called Lalagi.

“Thank you very much, Your Excellency.”

“Not at all. I’m glad I was able to be of some assistance.”

I thanked the baron and later asked a navigator to tell me the locations of the sugar route and Lalagi.

Getting to Labyrinth City would probably take a little longer than expected, but if we traveled at full speed with the flying ship, the detour should amount to only a week or so of lost time.

In the middle of this conversation, we unluckily came across some monsters.

“Captain! We’ve spotted a school of torpedo squid to starboard! They haven’t noticed us yet.”

“All right, hard to port!”

The ship veered off to the left, attempting to avoid getting into a battle.

The torpedo squid were only around level 10, but there were a lot of them, somewhere between thirty and fifty. If they all came at us at once, it would be a pain to deal with.

“Increase power to the Magic Furnace. As soon as it’s ready, raise the defensive barrier!”

After a minute or so, the ship was surrounded by some kind of Practical Magic–type defensive shield, and its speed raised slightly.

The underwater portion of the shield was probably reducing the friction from the water.

“W-we’ve detected the presence of rock-head bass near the island up ahead!”

A sailor who was in charge of monitoring the enemy detection reported this with a shaking voice.

According to my map, there were only about ten of these rock-head bass, all of which ranged from level 10 to 15.

Was that really an enemy worth shaking over?

“Magic Furnace, maximum power. All hands not steering the ship, prepare the Magic Cannons! We’re going around the right side of the island, so focus on the port-side cannons!”

The baron called out orders.

I helped move the Magic Cannons across the deck as well.

“Here they come!”

“Their rock heads can repel Magic Cannons! Aim for their bodies or the center of their foreheads!”

“““Aye-aye!””” chorused the men.

So these were a type of monster whose defense was focused on their heads.

The captain shouted, “Fiiiiire!” and thunder shots flew forth from the cannons. For water-based enemies, they apparently used thunder, ice, and rock shots. Fire was reserved for foes like pirate ships.

Since they were short on shooters, I got to man one of the cannons.

Because the magic supply was relatively sparse, the shots weren’t very powerful. And since one Magic Furnace was powering all the Magic Cannons, it took a long time to recharge between shots.

Forced to lower their speed to dodge the shots, the rock-head bass were circling around to regain speed, aside from one that charged forward without attempting to evade.

When it got close, the fish monster leaped into the air, aiming to strike one of the crewmen on the deck.

It was enormous, easily around the size of a car. I guess even low-level sea-based monsters could be pretty huge.

“Aaaagh!” The targeted sailor screamed in fear.

The captain drew his two-handed sword, but it didn’t look like he’d get there in time.

I pulled out a heavy rock spear from Storage and tossed it at the rock-head bass.

It hit the monster much harder than I expected, pinning it against the forecastle wall.

“Thank you, Sir Pendragon! Hurry up with the second volley, men!”

The baron made no comment on the spear that had suddenly appeared in my hand. He was too preoccupied with giving battle commands.

Just in case I needed an excuse later, I put on a stone spear ring.

As far as anyone else could tell, I was officially level 30, so I didn’t think the fact that I defeated the monster would be too suspect, but it was possible that someone would question the sudden appearance of the spear.

“Let’s finish them off! Aim carefully, lads! Once you’ve fired, prepare for close-quarters combat!”

“““Aye-aye!””” the crew shouted again.

The first round of shots managed to take out only about 30 percent of them. At this rate, the rock-head bass would definitely break through, possibly putting my party in danger.

So instead of preparing a second shot, I went to the other side of the ship and made sure nobody was watching as I fired Remote Arrow into the water.

I chose the most roundabout course possible so that they would hopefully reach the fish at around the same time as the second round of shots from the cannons.

“All cannons, fire!”

“““Aye!”””

The shooters looked grim as they pulled the levers to fire the second volley.

A barrage of magic shots hurtled toward the rock-head bass, which were now incredibly close.

At the same time, there was a flash in the waves, and the underwater monsters began to sink as they were hit by Remote Arrow.

“Whew. Looks like we drove ’em off somehow.”

The baron heaved a sigh of relief, then started giving post-battle orders.

The crew gathered the cores that had wound up on deck, but since it seemed like they were just going to give up on the ones in the water, I collected them for myself. The captain wanted to buy them off me to power the Magic Furnace, so I sold them at the price he proposed.

“It’s the water gate to the port!”

Back on our ship, we heard a shout from the baron’s ship.

Seven days since the battle against the rock-head bass, we were about to safely enter Sutoandell.

I’d returned to my own ship right after that battle and hadn’t bothered the baron’s ship any further except to confirm our route.

Since the sailors hadn’t been bathing, their ship smelled absolutely awful.

They avoided using up precious fresh water whenever possible and would use seawater for cooking, washing their faces, and so on.

No wonder the first mate and I had such different outlooks on the value of water.

Before my eyes, the water gate began to open.

Oh, I better warn her now.

“<Rei, you mustn’t sing in front of other people, all right?>”

“<Okay…Satou.>”

The rest of the group often sang together to pass the time on our journey, but whenever Rei joined in, it always attracted schools of fish or swarms of seabirds.

This was all very nice and fantasy-like, of course, but in reality it might cause problems if she did it in front of strangers.

While the girls amused themselves on our travels, I’d secretly been doing a bit of remodeling on the ship.

In preparation for a possible rematch with the Skeleton King, I’d made portable Holy Stones for each member of the group and upgraded the ship’s Holytree Stone engine to a bigger, more powerful model.

In the future, I planned to add features like a rocket launcher and improve the defensive barrier.

“Wow, now that’s a big gate.”

“They have so many big cannons and towers…”

Arisa and Lulu gazed at the gate and its fully armed defensive towers in surprise.

The towers also seemed to be staffed by birdfolk soldiers, archers, and mages. Defense must be very important to them.

“They use the gated entrance to the bay there to keep out monsters.”

There were large pillars placed inside the gates for warding off monsters, too, like the ones we saw on the huge river near the old capital.

The flow of water coming through the narrow gates was as fast as a river.

That was probably because the water from that same river let out into the bay.

Checking my map, I saw that there were other gates and channels for routing out excess water. One particularly large channel even doubled as a place to cultivate seaweed.

“Master, the harbor watch ship has given us the signal that we may enter.”

“Thank you, Liza. Let’s head on in, then.”

Thanks to the baron’s ship preceding us, we were able to get into the harbor after only a simple identity check.

Normally, the harbor watch would have to thoroughly inspect any weapons and search for smuggled goods before allowing us in.

There were virtually no monsters in the harbor, so there were plenty of small boats fishing.

“<Lots of…big…ships.>”

“<Yes, they seem to be from many different places.>”

Rei pointed out the many larger ships in the harbor.

Several of the largest ones were Ougoch Duchy gunships; a few large and medium battleships were anchored in the harbor as well.

They were evidently kept here as a precaution against the foreign ships in the same harbor.

The most noticeable ships were what looked like paddle steamers with sails from the Saga Empire and Weaselman Empire ships with oars, but there were also many medium-size ships from the southern islands.

As I was explaining some of the ships to Rei and the others, I heard the rumbling of the beastfolk girls’ stomachs.

“Well, it’s almost lunchtime. Shall we eat once we get into the harbor?”

“Meeeat?”

“I want meat, sir!”

Tama and Pochi hopped up and down excitedly.

We’d been subsiding largely on seafood during our travels at sea, so they were overdue for some red meat.

“All right, let’s find a place that sells some good meat dishes.”

Everyone except Mia cheered in agreement.

“And rice and vegetables, too, of course,” I added.

“Mm, yeah.”

At that, Mia smiled and nodded, too.

“<It’s me, Reiaane! Father sent me to collect you!>”

Judging by the direction of the girl’s gaze, Reiaane must be Rei’s real name.

But while she looked happy to see Rei, Rei was trembling and hiding behind my arm.

“<It’s the shadow person… Scary…>”

Rei clung to me even tighter.

So this was the person Rei saw in her dream?

“Grrr…”

“Tama, what’s wrong, sir?”

Tama was growling at the black-haired girl, the same way she’d reacted when we first met Rei.

Liza and Nana moved to stand in front of me, but I stopped them with a wave of my hand.

Tama’s reaction prompted me to activate my “Miasma Vision,” and when I did, I saw something truly frightful.

With “Miasma Vision,” the girl in front of us looked like an evil spirit.

She was completely shrouded in a black aura, and black chains of miasma writhed around her body like snakes.

There were shackle-like miasma shapes around her hands and feet, too; the thick chain attached to them faded into the mist that had suddenly risen up around us.

If she could see this, it was no wonder Rei was frightened.

Since she was speaking Hallowed Language, this girl was probably connected to the Skeleton King, so I put a marker on her just in case.

“<Listen to me, Sister! Aside from the long-lost Crimson Cane, we have gathered all the Sacred Treasures. All we need now is a large crystallized Firelight Pearl, the Box, and your key, and we’ll be able to bring Lalakie back to the skies!>”

As soon as the girl finished shouting, something about Rei suddenly changed.

The light left her eyes, which became unfocused as she looked up at the girl.

“<Lalakie must not be returned to the skies. The queen’s dying wish was for it to rest at the bottom of the ocean forever…>”

Rei spoke in a voice and manner that didn’t sound like her own.

Her tone resembled a prerecorded announcement being played back.

“<Sister? What is wrong?>”

Finally noticing Rei’s unusual state, the girl squinted at her quizzically, then saw me standing in front of her and scowled.

“<Hi there. Are you a friend of Rei’s?>” I attempted a friendly greeting, but she jutted out her chin and glared even harder.

“<Out of the way, servant. Don’t interrupt my reunion with Sister Reiaane.>”

According to the information in my AR display, her name was Yuuneia. She was level 30, with the inherent ability Foundation. She had four skills: “Ghost Magic,” “Tuning,” “Evasion,” and “Animal Training.”

Judging by her apparent race, she couldn’t possibly be Rei’s sister by blood. They were probably either sisters-in-law or simply had been raised as siblings.

“<…Can you hear me? I keep telling you to get out of the way.>”

As I raised my head to stare at her, Yuuneia sounded exasperated.

She must have told me to move a few times while I was inspecting her information.

“<Oh, sorry. I was a little lost in thought, so I didn’t hear you.>” I apologized, but it didn’t seem to be enough to calm her anger.

“<So you intend to keep blocking my way…>”

As she scowled, a gear-like ring of light appeared over her forehead.

I guess I messed up.

I should have been dodging to the side, not apologizing.

But I wouldn’t have done that even if I knew, of course.

“<Then perish!>”

SHWNESHWNEEEE!

A call like a mynah bird’s cry echoed over Yuuneia’s voice.

Wondering where the call was coming from, I nonetheless focused on using Break Magic to ward off the shots from her forehead.

Before long, twenty or so skeleton pirates rose from her shadow and attacked.

Is that Ghost Magic?

“Aaaagh!”

“Monsterrrs!”

The passersby who’d been gathered around talking about Yuuneia in a language I didn’t know all screamed and fled when they saw the skeleton pirates.

“Prepare for battle, everyone.”

On Liza’s command, the rest of the group started producing their weapons from their Fairy Packs.

Nana chose the large shield.

Despite their numbers, the skeleton pirates were only around level 10, so the girls could probably take them without my help.

Just to make sure they didn’t get hurt, I used Enchant: Physical Protection and Enchant: Magic Protection on all of them.

“They’re level ten,” Arisa called. “They have the Paralysis effect, though, so watch out for unarmed attacks, too!”

The others all shouted affirmation.

“<Can’t we talk this out, please?>”

“<I will kill you and bring my sister home, along with the key. Those are Father’s orders.>”

Yuuneia produced another gear-shaped magic circle over her forehead.

I knew it. So Rei’s key-shaped hair ornament really is an important item.

But also… “Orders,” huh?

At this point, I finally noticed that her status condition read Possessed.

That explained the miasma around her.

“<Let me help you with that.>”

I entrusted Rei to Lulu and zipped over to Yuuneia with “Warp.”

She tried to fire a Foundation spear, but I again evaporated it with Break Magic.

“<Evil spirit, begone!>”

I produced a Holy Stone from Storage and put magic power into it.

Given her race, she shouldn’t be purified along with the evil spirit possessing her.

GHWEGHWEEEE!

“Aaaaah!”

As Yuuneia was bathed in holy light, a black cloud erupted from her body with a roar. For some reason, she let out a scream as well.

Luckily, she didn’t seem to be hurt, but her white clothes started contracting around her, binding her tightly.

I felt awkward seeing her like that, so I switched over to “Miasma Vision,” which revealed the cause.

The vortex of miasma around her was fading, but the miasma chains had tightened on her body. The shackles were still totally intact.

I stopped the Holy Stone at once and started to unbind the miasma around her by hand instead.

If I kept trying to banish it with the Holy Stone, it might seriously harm her.

I could just defeat the thing possessing her whenever it came out.

“<L-let me go!>”

“<Don’t worry. It’ll all be over in a minute.>”

With this absurd response to Yuuneia’s protest, I drained her magic to prevent her from trying to fight me off with Foundation.

“<Stealing my magic isn’t going to stop me!>”

Yuuneia kept struggling, so I held her up with Magic Hand while I undid the chains of miasma.

“<Nnngh… I told you—let me go!>”

I wanted to get the shackles off first, but judging by the way they were put together, it looked like I might have to start with the chains.

Ignoring Yuuneia’s violent resistance, I continued my work.

“Wh-why, you heartless… Nnngh… Aaah… Aaah!”

As I started to remove more of the miasma, a few of Yuuneia’s screams seemed to take on a borderline sexual tone, but I figured that must be my imagination and ignored it.

Meanwhile, my companions finished off the skeleton pirates with ease.

SHWNESHWNEEEE!

I heard the mynah-like cry again.

“Master, her shadow!” Arisa exclaimed.

Turning off the “Miasma Vision” in my left eye, I glanced at Yuuneia’s shadow, but I didn’t see anything.

Wait—a bird.

The shadow of a bird was sitting on her shadow’s shoulder.

There was nothing on her real shoulder, so it must have been some kind of shadow monster.

I tried stomping on the bird’s shadow as hard as I could, but it simply flew away unharmed.

“Behind you!”

“<Aah!>”

Arisa’s shout and Rei’s scream rang out at the same time.

Whirling around, I saw a shadow stalker emerging from Rei’s shadow.

At the same time, she returned from her trancelike state to her normal self.

“Take this!”

Lulu fired at it with her Magic Gun.

It seemed to be weaker than the shadow stalkers the Undead King Zen used, disappearing after only a few shots.

SHWNESHWNEEE!

The mynah bird’s cry echoed, and the shadows at my and Rei’s feet turned into a dark pool. This must be Shadow Portal, the same spell Zen used to kidnap Mia.

But this time, it didn’t feel like my feet were sinking in all the way.

“Don’t expect to get away with using space manipulation in front of a Space Magic user like me!”

Arisa grinned, her arm stretched out toward Rei and me.

She’d used her Space Magic to block the Shadow Portal.

But there were still some shadow tentacles left…

“There!”

“Take this, sir!”

Lulu shot down a tentacle that tried to grab Rei, and Pochi sped in to stab the vortex of shadows with her Magic Sword.

The shadows shrank back, the tentacles freezing in place.

“Dun-dun-duuun!”

Tama sliced through the shadow tentacle that had grabbed Rei’s leg.

“We will never surrender the larva, I declare.”

Once Rei was freed, Nana lifted her up.

Then, finally…

“No mere shadows can stand up against the Magic Spear master gave me.”

Using “Spellblade,” Liza used her glittering Magic Spear to destroy the shadows.

Pushing away the sudden urge to brag to someone about my companions’ growth, I finished off the wriggling remains of the shadows with Break Magic and turned my attention back to Yuuneia.

I’d gotten rid of about half of the miasma; possibly as a result, one of her inverted eyes had returned to a normal blue.

I reactivated my “Miasma Vision” and moved to resume unraveling the miasma.

“<Get away!>”

Yuuneia struggled desperately to escape Magic Hand, but it wasn’t so easy to shake off.

“<Nnngh! Ch-Chibi! Help me!>”

Realizing this, Yuuneia cried out for help.

SHWNESHWNEEE!

As if on cue, the mynah bird’s call echoed again.

But the bird wasn’t the only one waiting for that chance.

Stepping away from Yuuneia, I found the red point of light that had appeared for just a moment and punched it as hard as I could.

GHWEGHWEEE.

“<Ch-Chibiiii!>”

Yuuneia gave a worried cry when she heard the bird’s scream.

“<Get away from me, you fiend! How dare you do that to Chibi!>”

I didn’t see anything, but it did feel like my hand had hit something.

Shadowy feathers flew everywhere, and something appeared in my log:

> Defeated Ghost Bird: Copy!

Shoot, so it has the same kind of ability as that lesser hell demon I fought in the Muno Barony?

“<Release me at once! I shall avenge Chibi!>”

Not realizing that what I’d beaten was only a copy, Yuuneia struggled even more fiercely than before.

SHWNESHWNEEE!

“<Chibi!>”

Yuuneia’s face lit up when she heard the ghost bird’s cry echoing from somewhere.

SHWNESHWNEEE!

This time, there were seven different red lights around me.

They all attacked at once, so I got ready to fend them off with the rest of my party.

“Master, she’s gone!” Arisa exclaimed.

By the time I turned around, Yuuneia had already vanished, and her location in my marker information screen read Spirit World.

She must have escaped from Magic Hand somehow while I was distracted.

“<Wait for me, Sister!>”

Yuuneia’s voice seemed to come from nowhere.

I switched to “Miasma Vision” and looked around.

“<I’ll save you from that black-haired demon, I promise!>”

That was a strange thing to call me, but I decided to ignore it for now.

Aha.

Spotting an area of miasma that was moving a little, I shot out my hand.

“<Eeeeek! He’s coming! It’s the black-haired demon!>”

The wormhole to the Spirit World expanded around my hand, and Yuuneia let forth a fearful cry.

For some reason, I was starting to feel like the villain here.

A little disheartened, I nonetheless began to widen the fragile entrance.

“<Chibi, cut the connection! Quick!>”

SHWNESHWNEEE!

The bird let out a cry, and a few decomposing corpses emerged from the wormhole.

“Ew!”

The sight and smell made me instinctively draw back, and the entrance to the Spirit World closed, leaving behind the terrible corpses—reanimated undead monsters.

“Larva! Master, the larva has fainted, I report. Requesting assistance!”

Turning around, I saw Nana holding Rei, who’d lost consciousness.

Her condition read Fainted, and with “Miasma Vision,” I could see that a snakelike trail of miasma was wrapping around her leg.

The miasma carried by the undead monsters must have attacked her.

“Tama, Pochi, take care of that thing.”

“Aye-aye, sirrr!”

“Leave it to us, sir!”

The beastfolk girls took care of the monsters while I started working to remove the miasma from Rei.

By the time I finished, the beastfolk girls had defeated all the undead, leaving behind countless bones and rotted meat.

“Hey, you! What’s the meaning of this?!”

The sound of hooves clattered through the street, announcing the arrival of the viceroy’s army of Sutoandell.

Uh-oh. How am I going to explain this?

“Sir Pendragon, we simply cannot thank you enough.”

I thought I was being apprehended at the viceroy’s mansion, but instead I was given a royal welcome by the viceroy himself.

My companions weren’t with me, but they were being well cared for in a separate room.

“I had no idea that you were the viceroy of Sutoandell, Viscount Emerin.”

I’d first befriended Viscount Kirk Emerin, a high-ranking noble of the old capital, when he came to me on the brink of ruin, asking if I could develop some cooking methods to popularize the unsellable lulu fruit.

The reason the viscount had been so close to bankruptcy was the destruction of Baron Jeetbert’s fleet, but far from being resentful, he was simply overjoyed that some of his vassals and friends had survived.

“Indeed. Traditionally, I would have a while longer to wait before becoming a viceroy, but certain circumstances sped things along a bit.”

Oh, right. The previous viceroy of Sutoandell, Count Bobino, had been removed from his post because the former head of his family turned out to be supporting the demon lord–worshipping cult the Wings of Freedom.

“At any rate, Sir Pendragon, you need not stand on ceremony so. I believe I told you that you may simply call me Kirk.”

Why are you calling me Sir Pendragon instead of just Satou, then? I thought, but I supposed that was simply his nature.

“You saved my vassals from being stranded on a remote island. I owe you a great debt.”

“Precisely! When Sir Pendragon appeared sailing our ship that had run aground, we thought an agent of the gods had come to us.”

Sitting next to Viscount Emerin was Baron Jeetbert.

Several members of the viscount’s family were present as well, although his second daughter, Rina, who I’d danced with at the ball in the old capital, was not among them.

I was told that she was traveling back to the Muno Barony with Miss Karina to study as a lady’s attendant.

That seemed like a pretty big deal, since she was only around middle school age.

Still, if she wanted to become an attendant, why was she studying in the faraway Muno Barony instead of the Ougoch Duchy castle?

Well, she was a young teenager, so maybe she wanted to prove that she could get by on her own far away from her parents. Next time I sent a letter to the Muno Barony, I would have to write to her as well. And Miss Karina, of course.

There was a knock at the door, and a servant peered inside.

“Your Excellency, Baron Jeetbert’s family has arrived.”

At that, the baron half rose from his seat, looking eager.

“Is that right? Baron Jeetbert, don’t feel obliged to stay. You may go and see them.”

“I appreciate your kindness, Your Excellency.”

With a bow to Viscount Emerin and me, Baron Jeetbert hurried out of the room.

Soon, my “Keen Hearing” skill picked up on his reunion with his family.

Yeah. It feels good to help people.

“Lord Kirk, I believe this is yours.”

“Th-this is the Magic Bag I entrusted to the crew!” Viscount Emerin exclaimed in surprise.

“I found it when we discovered the sunken ships. At first I thought I should give it to Baron Jeetbert, but the contents seemed incredibly valuable, so I wanted to deliver it to you directly.”

Peering into the bag, the viscount was at a loss for words.

It didn’t contain much in the way of gold or silver coins, but there was a great deal of sculpted coral and delicate magical handicrafts, as well as large, high-quality gems like jade and agate and an amazing amount of raw ore containing more gemstones.

Though Baron Jeetbert hadn’t noticed, I’d also removed the ballast from that ship and replaced it with as many Magic Cannons as I could fit. I wasn’t able to fit extra Magic Furnaces, though.

“Wh-why, Sir Pendragon…?”

Huh? I’d expected him to be happy, but his reaction was a little strange.

“With all this treasure, you could buy yourself an honorary baron title or even a permanent one! Why would you give this to me without asking for any reward in exchange?”

“Well, it belongs to you, doesn’t it?”

When you find something lost, you return it to the owner.

Any Japanese person would tell you that.

“What are you saying? Anything found in monster territory, be it from a sunken ship or flotsam and jetsam, belongs to the person who finds it. Piracy is another story, but in this case, these treasures belong to you by rights.”

I see. So it works the same way as items found in a labyrinth.

But pocketing something knowing full well it belonged to someone I knew just wouldn’t sit right with me.

“All right. Let me explain, then.”

“Explain what?”

So I decided to put my “Fabrication” skill to work.

“I did not mention this because I thought you might find it hard to believe, but these bags and sunken treasures were given to me by the ghosts of the captains who passed away in the Seadragon Islands.”

“Wh-what?!”

I told him that we had been lost in the Seadragon Islands when the ghosts appeared, guided us to safety, and asked us to rescue the baron and his men and bring them and these items to Viscount Emerin.

With that story, I figured even Viscount Emerin would have to accept the items.

“Incredible! Such loyal vassals they were…”

“Quite so. Once I promised to carry out their wishes, they seemed to be able to pass on peacefully.”

That didn’t actually happen per se, but I did purify that whole area, so it probably wasn’t wrong.

For a few moments, Viscount Emerin closed his eyes tearfully to pray silently for his lost vassals. Then he opened his eyes again and looked at me.

“Thank you for bringing these to me. What can I ever do to repay you?”

“Well, I do have one rather impudent request…”

If I didn’t say something, I was afraid I’d get dragged into marriage talks and have to find a way out of it, so I asked for permits to buy and sell scrolls and spell books in Sutoandell.

I didn’t really care about selling them, but just permission to buy them didn’t seem like enough of a reward, so I tried to make it sound like a bigger deal.

“Are you sure that is all you desire? If you wished it, I would be more than happy to even welcome you into my family…”

That was close.

If I remembered right, his eldest daughter was already engaged, so he probably would’ve tried to set me up with Miss Rina.

Rina was a good kid, but she was barely old enough to be in middle school, so she was definitely too young for me. Besides, I had feelings for someone else now.

“If you intend to travel to Labyrinth City, I imagine you will pass through the trade city Tartumina on your land route. Perhaps I can give you some items that are likely to turn a large profit there.”

As it turned out, Viscount Emerin wasn’t done rewarding me yet.

That night, he held a ball in honor of Baron Jeetbert and me.

Viscount Emerin introduced me as a “new friend,” so at first I was surrounded by eligible young women and nobles with unmarried daughters, but Rina’s older sister helped me escape.

But then…

“What an exquisite aroma! Whatever could it be?”

“It resembles the freshness of new leaves but with a faint trace of sweetness. How delightful.”

This time, she and her friends surrounded me instead.

They seemed to like the cologne I’d received as a parting gift from the brownies.

“I have never seen this particular fabric before, either.”

“It has the luster of jade silk, but it’s not quite the same… It’s almost like the legendary fairy silk.”

The fairly plain-looking young noblewoman’s guess was correct. Her face was a little too close for comfort, though.

“The way it gives off a jade-green shimmer when it catches the chandelier light is so beautiful.”

“Indeed. Perhaps I shall ask you for a dance?”

“If you wish, milady…”

I agreed to Rina’s elder sister’s request and wound up dancing with her and her friends.

Once I’d humored all of the rather young women, they finally released me.

“How would you like to try some spirits from the Saga Empire?”

“Certainly, thank you.”

As if waiting for his chance, a Saga Empire merchant jumped me as soon as I left the dance floor.

I used this as my opportunity to start chatting with the nobles of Sutoandell, captains of foreign merchant ships, and other guests.

I didn’t gain any new information about Lalakie, but I did learn more about the Kingdom of Sorcery Lalagi, where the descendants of the skyfolk might reside.

“The king there can’t get enough liquor.”

“Yes, he even invented titles to give people for offering him rare drinks, like Liquor Baron and Liquor Knight.”

According to this man, a liquor baron was considered the same rank as other barons in Lalagi, while a liquor knight was a low-ranking form of nobility.

Even nobles from other countries often sought these titles. The reason being…

“The only real responsibility is to give rare liquor to the king if you happen to find it, and being a liquor baron is useful for trade.”

Basically, the title came with certain trading permissions and privileges.

I also spoke with a weaselman captain and a Saga Empire captain, who gave me information about certain sea routes, rare recipes, and special products that turned a high profit in some places.

However, apparently, they weren’t just sharing that information out of kindness…

“The route to the Bolenan Forest?”

“I-indeed. I know it is a secret, but even a hint would be appreciated.”

“Is it true that you get there through the Seadragon Islands?”

The captains seemed to want to trade with the elves in Bolenan Forest.

“I wasn’t especially told to keep it a secret, but I was teleported out via the elves’ special techniques, so I’m afraid I don’t know the route back to the Bolenan Forest.”

The pair had gotten excited when I said I could tell them a land route, but they lost interest as soon as they heard “cross the Black Dragon Mountains.”

I still felt like I owed them something for all that information, so I decided to give them a few small casks of fairy wine and dried yellorange fruit before I left the harbor.

As for the viceroy’s soldiers who took care of the aftermath of the battle for us, I sent them a few barrels of high-quality ale and delivery from a high-class restaurant.

“Get outta here, kid.”

As soon as I set foot in the tavern where most of the visiting sailors reportedly gathered, I was met with this corny line. It came from a suntanned sailor near the entrance.

I was here to gather information: I wanted to ask the sailors about Lalakie and its successor, Lalagi.

I’d gotten most of the details from Baron Jeetbert, his men, and the captains at the ball, but I thought people who had just come back from that area might have different information.

“Noble or not, no brats allowed here.”

“This is where we men of the sea come to take a load off.”

More sailors jeered at me from farther into the tavern.

“Do I not look like a sailor?”

I was wearing a shirt and trousers instead of my usual noble garb, but I guess I still looked like a noble to them.

“’Course ya don’t. What kinda sailor would go around smellin’ like fancy perfume with nary a wrinkle in his shirt?!”

The man grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and scowled.

I must have still smelled like the cologne I’d worn to Viscount Emerin’s ball.

“Not to mention, yer skin and hair look like ye’ve never felt the sun nor the sea breeze in yer life.”

“Kid’s either a noble or some merchant’s boy.”

True enough, I’d been protecting myself from the harsh sun and winds using magic, so they weren’t wrong.

Still, if they were going to object to me this much, I wouldn’t be able to gather any information.

As I wondered what to do, I caught wind of a conversation in the corner of the tavern.

“Whaddaya mean, ale? What kinda sailor don’t drink rum?!”

“C’mon, can’t a man drink what he wants when he comes back to dry land?”

Two of the sailors were arguing over drinks.

Seeing them, the man holding me smirked and winked.

“We don’t got none of yer hoity-toity booze here.”

“Yeah, go on home.”

“Or are you gonna show us how manly you are by knocking back some rum?”

The soldier who’d been winked at grinned back and poured a full glass of rum in front of me.

The strong smell of alcohol assaulted my nose.

Rum was a kind of liquor made from sugarcane, with a high alcohol content—at least, it certainly was on Earth.

Expecting me to choke, the men all sneered at me unpleasantly.

“Well, if you insist…”

With that, I brought the glass to my lips.

Whoa.

This was very different from the rum I knew.

The taste and smell were incredibly aggressive, so strong it practically numbed my mouth with the first drink.

But it was good.

The rum still retained a bit of the sweet molasses taste of the sugarcane, perhaps due to imprecise brewing. It would go great with a bitter, salty snack.

I drank the rest down in one gulp.

“One more, barkeep!”

The men around me all stared in surprise as I called to the bartender.

“Another glass?”

“I’ll take a tankard!”

All at once, the bar was filled with crude laughter and the sounds of tankards being slammed down on tables.

“Good one, boy!”

“Ye’ve got the making of a real sailor-in-training!”

It appeared that I’d earned their approval.

I drank with the sailors for a while, and they taught me all kinds of things about ships and sailing. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any information about Lalakie, my original goal here.

“I dunno about no legendary sky cities, but I do know of a legendary pirate.” One of the men said, pointing at the wall.

Looking closely, I saw a board of wanted posters with drawn faces and their respective bounties. Most of them were grim-looking male pirates, but there were a few women in the mix, too.

The most faded, timeworn wanted poster bore a drawing of a skull. I guess the Skeleton King had a bounty, too.

“Urgh, don’t call that disaster a legend!”

“Yeah, what if talking about ’im brings ’im around?”

“Heaven and hell forbid!”

I gathered that the Skeleton King appeared every few years, unpredictably attacking island countries, trade fleets, and the like and pillaging their treasures.

“My gramps who was a sailor said that he first heard about the Skeleton King from his gramps.”

Hmm. If that was true, then the Skeleton King had been around since the ancient times when Lalakie fell.

I’d assumed he showed up because I broke the anti-magic spell on the city-rock island, but maybe it was actually only an unlucky coincidence.

“Aye, and the sailors he kills are forced to work in his ghost fleet for all eternity.”

“If ever ye find a drifting ship without a crew, turn round and run for all yer worth. It’s a sure sign of a Skeleton King attack.”

“Be wary of storms, too. They say the Skeleton King’s ghost fleet brings dark clouds and fierce winds wherever it roams.”

“Storms are never a good thing anyway, moron!”

Wow. So the Skeleton King was basically on par with a natural disaster.

I’d destroyed his ghost fleet, though, so hopefully he’d stay quiet for a while.

“Oh, don’t look like that, boy. As long as ye stay away from Lalagi, the Kingdom of Sorcery, ye’re hardly likely to see ’im.”

As I was lost in thought, one of the sailors appeared to mistake my reaction for fear, so he clapped me on the back reassuringly.

“S’right. I hear he oft shows up in years when the Skydea Festival is held.”

“Why? To check out the festival?”

The men around me burst out in raucous laughter.

“Yer a funny little noble, kid.”

“If the Skeleton King were such a fun-lovin’ sort, nobody’d be so afeared of ’im.”

Once they’d wiped away the tears of laughter, the sailors explained the real reason.

“It’s a war, see. Once the Skeleton King’s strengthened his ghost fleet, he attacks Lalagi.”

War?

That was strange. Why would the Skeleton King, the companion to the final queen of Lalakie, attack a kingdom where the descendants of the skyfolk—the people of Lalakie—lived?

Did they have some mysterious enmity or something?

“C’mon, I told ye—don’t make that face. The kingdom of Lalagi’s got mighty powerful magics, so you oughtta go check it out at least once. You’ll see how they’ve staved off the Skeleton King’s ghost fleet all this time.”

The soldier smacked my back heartily again, then loudly shouted for another drink.

From there, the topic changed to the Skydea Festival, from the different parades to which shopgirls were the cutest.

Some of the sailors also knew that the royal family of the Kingdom of Sorcery Lalagi were called “skyfolk,” so it didn’t seem to be a big secret.

“Well, there is a place kind of like Lalagi at the very end of the sugar route.”

“The end of the sugar route… Y’mean Ishrallie?”

Oh, that was a new name.

“Ishrallie?” I echoed.

“Aye, the maritime nation. Rumor has it their royal family is descended from some kinda flying castle place, too.”

As the veteran sailor explained, I searched my Storage for information.

“If ye’re a real man, ye’ll aim to make a real fortune out there.”

“Ye mean by finding a Heaven’s Teardop in Ishrallie?”

The men crashed their tankards against one another and roared with laughter.

“Oi, don’t tell the kid to go to Ishrallie. It’s all prospectors and pilferers out there.”

“There are tons o’ pirates in those waters, not to mention the bullet tuna and monster fish…”

“Aye, I’d steer clear. Might be a different story if ye were as strong as the Eight Swordsmen of Shiga, but for the rest of us, it ain’t worth the danger. Only gamblers and fools with a death wish dare travel to that place.”

“It’s still safer than treasure-hunting in the Seadragon Islands, though, eh?”

“True that. Not even gamblers go there.”

As I sat searching in silence, the men around me explained everything they knew about Ishrallie.

The Heaven’s Teardrop in question was a particularly high-quality gemstone that could be found only in Ishrallie.

It was highly sought-after, especially by well-to-do nobles living in the royal capital of the Shiga Kingdom, who would pay a fortune for it.

Wait, forget about that.

I heard something much more important just now.

“There are tuna there?”

“Huh? Y’mean the bullet tuna? Aye, they appear time ’n’ again there.”

The sea captain seemed a little taken aback by my sudden enthusiasm.

All right! We’ve gotta go there!

First, I would have to make a knife that could properly cut tuna. I know! I’ll make a tuna knife out of orichalcum.

“I hear the battleships and speed ships alike that go after the monster-fish fins disappear into the depths of the sea…”

“Not like ye can just bring a battleship into a trade area anyway.”

“’Course not. Ishrallie’s Dragon Cannon would send ye up in flames, ship and all.”

Monster-fish fins were an important material for skypower engines, but I had seven enormous giant monster fish in my Storage, so I wasn’t interested in that.

“Are you really planning to go to Ishrallie, boy?”

“Yes, my interest is certainly piqued.”

In the tuna, that is.

“Then ye better buy some silk. I doubt ye can afford jade silk, but I hear all kinds of silk sell there for several times the amount in the old capital.”

“And glasswork for Lalagi, right?”

“Oh yes, ye’ll sell plenty of glasswork there. But unlike in the old capital, transparent glass is valued higher there—at least, according to me captain.”

As we drank together, I learned more from the sailors about sales and trade.

I didn’t particularly need to turn a profit, but I wound up writing down buy glasswork and silk on my to-do list on my menu anyway. I couldn’t resist the allure of a phrase like making a killing in trade and all the exciting images it brought to mind.

In a good mood now, I declared that I would pay for everyone’s drinks as thanks for all the information, and we wound up drinking together until dawn.

I’d already stopped by the magic store to buy the scrolls and spell books I couldn’t get earlier in the day, so it was no big deal.

There were some establishments with pretty ladies, too, but those would have to wait.

“So you drank until morning, hmm?”

“Mrrr.”

When I returned to the viceroy’s castle, I ignored Arisa’s and Mia’s complaints and asked the maid to send for their regular tradesman.

“Are you going to order something?”

“That too, but I wanted to see if they could send some articles of the deceased to their respective families.”

For those who were related to people I knew in the old capital or their retainers, I had the items delivered directly. I sent the rest of the old capital deliveries to Tolma; for those who couldn’t be identified, I sent the items to Sara at the Tenion Temple to donate to the old capital museum.

Foreigners often visited the museum, so that way a relative of the deceased owners or a researcher might find them. It was certainly better than letting them rot away in my Storage forever.

My excuse for having the goods was that I acquired them from a trader friend who bought them off pirates at a black market.

“You must really trust Sara and Tolma.”

“You could say that.”

They couldn’t be more different as people, but I was confident that neither of them would misuse someone else’s belongings. Despite his generally lax attitude, Tolma actually had a very strong sense of duty.

For items that belonged to deceased people from outside the Ougoch Duchy, I kept them in Storage for now, thinking that I could give them to someone trustworthy when I visited the royal capital.

Miss Nina, the competent consul of Baron Muno, was coming for the kingdom conference, so I could also potentially give the items to her to help the Muno Barony form stronger ties with the rest of the world.

A butler asked if he could do anything else to help, so I requested that he send some small casks of fairy wine and dried yellorange fruit to the two captains from the previous evening.

I didn’t want to leave anybody out, so I sent some to Viscount Emerin, too.

While I was at it, I gave the staff of the house some simple baked sweets as thanks.

Seeing the beautiful women’s serious expressions melt at the scent of the pastries was well worth the trouble.

“You’re departing already? Why not stay a little longer and rest?”

“Thank you, but I recovered more than enough energy at last night’s ball.”

Viscount Emerin seemed disappointed that I was leaving so soon, but he saw me off kindly nonetheless.

On top of that, he even gave me a large supply of silk, jade silk, and transparent glasswork. Evidently, one of Baron Jeetbert’s subordinates had been at the tavern the night before.

The rest of the group besides Rei had already set out, so the viscount’s vassals generously carried these supplies to the harbor for us.

Rei still wasn’t back to her usual self, which was why she was leaving late with me.

It was also a precaution against another attack from Yuuneia.

“Oh, I almost forgot.”

I reached into my pocket and produced a replica of Rei’s hair ornament.

I’d used my “Forgery” and “Metalworking” skills to make it, so it was virtually indistinguishable from the real thing, even up close.

I’d added a little bonus feature to it, too, but that wasn’t too important.

“<Rei, I made this…>”

As soon as she saw the fake key, the light left her eyes, and she stopped in place.

“<…Rei?>”

I called out her name, but she didn’t respond.

Then her mouth opened, her face expressionless.

“<The key to Lalakie… The controller that activates Lalakie’s heart.>”

She spoke rapidly, in the same tone she’d used when we ran into Yuuneia.

“<The proof of royalty that has been passed down by the queens of Lalakie for generations…>”

When she finished, the light slowly returned to her eyes.

“<Are you all right?>”

“<Yes… I’m fine.>”

Speaking in her usual manner again, Rei blinked a few times.

No, maybe not quite usual. Her hesitant pauses hadn’t changed, but her pronunciation was more fluent than before.

“<Did you remember something?>” I asked, wondering if her memories were returning.

“<No…>”

Rei shook her head.

On further questioning, she remembered that she’d been speaking, but she couldn’t recall what she’d actually said.

Seeing Yuuneia again must have jogged her memories a bit.

It didn’t seem like the kind of thing I could rush along, though, so I went back to the main point.

“<It seemed like Yuuneia was after your hair ornament, so I made a fake one just in case she manages to steal it.>”

Rei touched the key-shaped hair ornament on her head as she looked at the one in my hand.

“<It looks…the same.>”

Her eyes widened in surprise as she compared them.

“<You can put the real one in this pouch and keep it around your neck so you don’t lose it.>”

I handed her a small Fairy Pack–style pouch, which I’d made with the interior of a Magic Bag from the salvaged goods.

Judging by the information she had just unknowingly spoken, it was increasingly clear that her hair ornament was extremely important to anyone connected to Lalakie.

“<Satou… Thank you.>”

“<Don’t worry about it.>”

I smiled at her and fixed the fake ornament to her hair.

The barrette glowed a faint blue for only a moment.

It was meant to absorb the excess magic coming off Rei and use it for purification, which should reduce her chances of getting attacked by miasma again.

It might not have much of an effect on Yuuneia, but it should work against the Skeleton King or the ghost bird Yuuneia called Chibi.

It could even communicate with certain other magic tools like a walkie-talkie, but it would work only within a thousand feet and absorbed a great deal of magic, so I had that feature turned off.

When I brought her to the harbor and passed through the crowds of people, I found the rest of my companions getting ready to set sail.

“Master, all cargo has been loaded on board, I report.”

“Here is the inventory list, master.”

The vanguard group, who’d left early, had brought all the goods delivered to our temporary warehouse onto the ship.

“We haggled ’em down—don’t worry.”

“There were some good bargains, too, so we purchased them like you said, master.”

“Satou.”

Arisa, Lulu, and Mia, who’d gone to pay the merchants, returned from the chamber of commerce.

Mia rushed through the throngs of people and wrapped her arms around my waist.

“Mrrr.”

Noticing that I was holding Rei’s hand, Mia puffed out her cheeks and started rubbing her face against my side.

She seemed to be the jealous type.

“Mia.”

I held out my free hand to her, and she accepted it with an “Mm” and a happy smile.

It goes without saying that when the rest of the group saw us, I was forced to take turns holding hands with everyone and doing laps up and down the deck.

Waving good-bye to Viscount Emerin, Baron Jeetbert, and the others who’d come to see us off, we left Sutoandell behind us.

They had offered to send gunboats along to escort us to the border of the neighboring Ganika Marquisate, but that seemed inappropriate, so I politely declined.

I appreciated the thought, but if we had a guard with us, then we could hardly use the ship’s flight mode.

“There’s a sailing ship over thataway, sir.”

The first to spot the vessel was Pochi, who was on duty in the lookout post.

Tama, who’d been stretched out lazily below the mast, sat up with her ears twitching.

Swiftly climbing the rope ladder, she borrowed the longscope from Pochi and looked at the ship.

“No one’s theeere?”

Just as she said, the ship drifting toward us was unmanned.

Checking my map, I saw that four fleets of twenty-eight ships total on the route ahead of us were drifting without a crew.

A few of them had run aground, but still, it was strange.

Why would they all be unmanned?

Looking at the map, I didn’t see any monsters lurking nearby.

“What’s up with that?”

Like Tama, Arisa had been lying around due to the heat, but now she sat up and shaded her eyes to look.

“Mrrr?”

“Master, the larva’s hair decoration is glowing, I report.”

Mia and Nana drew my attention to Rei’s hair barrette, which was indeed letting off a faint light.

“Satou…?”

“It’s okay—it’s just purifying miasma.”

Reassuring the nervous-looking Rei, I activated my “Miasma Vision.”

…Yikes.

The unmanned ship coming toward us up ahead was completely covered in miasma-like blobs of thick black ink.

The dark aura reached out from the drifting ship like tentacles, one of which had already reached our ship.

It wasn’t behaving like ordinary miasma, so this was definitely the work of some nonhuman culprit.

Judging by the tales of the Skeleton King and drifting ships that I’d heard in the tavern in Sutoandell, it was very possible that the Skeleton King was rebuilding his ghost fleet.

Either way, we should probably investigate the ship before jumping to conclusions.

And so…

“Hang on a minute. I’m going to get rid of the miasma.”

I unleashed my spirit light, which I normally kept suppressed, at full throttle, driving away the miasma around us. Any miasma that touched my multicolored spirit light promptly evaporated.

I had learned in the elf village that spirit light could dispel miasma, but it was still amazing to see it with my own eyes.

“I’m going to go check out that ship for a minute.”

“B-be careful!” Arisa called nervously.

Giving her a wave, I purified the drifting ship as I explored the interior.

The Magic Furnace was still running, and there was food on the table and in the pots, so the situation must have happened very abruptly.

Judging by the state of the food, it had probably been only a day or two since the people disappeared from the ship.

Like the famous case of the Mary Celeste, all the cargo was still intact, with only the crew missing.

Documents on the ship indicated that this was the flagship of a Shiga Kingdom trade fleet belonging to a man called Duke Vistall.

I wasn’t familiar with the name, so I checked my notes from Tolma, which were full of information about nobles.

It read that he was one of the three dukes of the Shiga Kingdom and the political opponent of Duke Ougoch. His territory was in the northwest of the Shiga Kingdom, separated from the Saga Empire by several smaller nations.

Once I’d satisfied my curiosity about Duke Vistall, I continued my investigation.

The coins, magic items, and other goods in the captain’s cabin were still safely stored away, so this clearly wasn’t the work of ordinary pirates.

“How many ships are left? Three?”

Arisa was looking at yet another unmanned ship that had appeared up ahead.

“No, this twenty-fifth one is the last.”

After about an hour of traveling around in flying-ship mode recovering the drifting ships, we finally reached the last one.

The last three had been sunk by monsters before I could retrieve them.

Of course, I recovered as much of the bodies, cargo, and so on as I could.

The fact that I was able to collect twenty-five of the ships in the kind of seas where three ships could get sunk in such a short time must have meant that the Skeleton King was closer than I realized.

Up until now, I’d been checking his marker only once in the morning and once at night, but now it seemed like I might have to start checking every hour.

“Do you think this is the work of the Skeleton King?”

“Most likely.”

The sailors at the tavern in Sutoandell had said things like a drifting ship without a crew is a sure sign of a Skeleton King attack and the sailors he kills are forced to work in his ghost fleet for all eternity.

The Skeleton King had probably taken the lives of all of these ships’ crews and turned them into undead sailors in his ghost fleet.

I used my Magic Hand to put the last unmanned ship in Storage.

Once that was done, I could open each ship like a folder and move the miasma around like an item.

“It’s…gone.”

“Vaniiished?”

“Poof, sir.”

At first, Rei had been surprised to see the drifting ships disappear, but now she seemed to be used to it: She was standing with Tama and Pochi, watching the small whirlpool created by the ship’s disappearance.

“Larva, do not lean over too far or you may fall, I advise.”

“Mm. Danger.”

“Okay… I’m sorry.”

Rei meekly pulled back from the railing.

“What about uuus?”

“Aren’t we in danger, too, sirs?”

“Of course you are. Come back to the deck at once before you fall.”

Tama and Pochi seemed to be feeling left out, so Liza scolded them gently.

“Aye-aaaye?”

“Yes, sir.”

Tama and Pochi looked strangely cheerful about being rebuked, and they hopped down to the deck with big smiles.

“Master! There’s someone out there!”

Lulu, who was peering through the scope of a rifle-style sniping Magic Gun, called out in an uncharacteristically loud voice.

This Magic Gun was something I’d made by repurposing one of the Small Magic Cannons from the sunken ships.

It was only about a tenth as powerful as the original, but I thought it was still pretty impressive for something that could be carried by a single person.

It also featured a battery made from bluecoins, so even Lulu could fire it.

“Ah! They’re sinking!”

Oops, this is no time to be monologizing to myself.

I took off from the deck and used See Through and Magic Hand to retrieve the person from the sea.

The miasma seemed to have knocked him unconscious, so I healed him and let him rest in one of the guest cabins.

I wanted to ask what had happened when his ship was attacked, but he appeared to be in a weaker state than I thought, so we might not be able to get any information from him until we reached Lalagi.

“Huh, so he’s a Shiga Kingdom noble?”

“The second son of Marquis Ashinen, it seems.”

According to my Tolma notes, the house of Marquis Ashinen was one of the most influential families in the royal capital.

And his father, the current head of the family, was the viceroy of Labyrinth City Celivera, which we were planning to visit soon.

That was a convenient coincidence.

“Let’s make our way to Lalagi. We’re passing a few pirate hideouts along the way, so better get armed and ready.”

“Understood.”

Liza nodded and took the rest of the group downstairs.

“Satou…?”

“What is it?”

Rei, who’d stayed behind on deck, looked at me with a grave expression.

“My heart…feels sort of…noisy.”

Thinking that she might be sensing the presence of the Skeleton King or Yuuneia, I searched the map, but there were no signs of either of them.

The nearest threat was a level-50 octopus sea monster lurking not far from Lalagi.

There’d been at least one or two such monsters in most of the sea territories we passed through, so it didn’t seem worth mentioning.

I decided to stay on guard to be on the safe side, but even after we dealt with the pirates and arrived at the Kingdom of Sorcery Lalagi, nothing ever came of Rei’s fears.

It was probably just her imagination.

The capital of Lalagi was deep inside a bay around the size of Tokyo Bay.

Unlike the Shiga Kingdom, instead of having a physical water gate at the entrance to the bay, there was a magical invisible barrier.

It was similar to the Bolenan Forest barrier that protected the home of the elves. No wonder they called this place the Kingdom of Sorcery.

“Tiltyyy?”

“It’s slanted, isn’t it, sir?”

Tama and Pochi leaned to the side to match the slanted surface of the capital of Lalagi.

Were they trying to find an angle where it would look perpendicular to the sea?

“<Lalakie’s northern branch castle, Lalagi. A battle-ready floating castle that oversaw discipline of the landfolk.>”

Rei went into a trance and spoke as she looked up at the city.

There were countless white buildings, surrounding an enormous cone-shaped structure that was probably the castle. At the top was a mysterious object similar to the Heavenslight Protection on the Ishrallie royal castle.

Most of the buildings around the castle were quite tall, but the outer edge of the city consisted of mostly one- or two-story houses.

The fact that the entire city was on a slant was likely an indication that it had made an emergency landing on the ground long ago.

When Rei returned from her trance, her eyes narrowed as she sniffed the air.

“It smells…sort of…sweet.”

“That is the scent of pastries, I inform.”

“Mm. Sugar.”

The Kingdom of Sorcery Lalagi was probably the biggest producer of sugar on the sugar route. There even seemed to be a sugar refinery in the royal capital.

As Rei listened to Nana and Mia discussing what kinds of sweets might be waiting in the city, the anxiety she’d mentioned before we dealt with the pirates was gone without a trace.

“Huh? Okay… Um, it’s the ocean!”

Finally, Lulu sheepishly followed me toward the water.

I was quick to put away her unnecessary cardigan in Storage.

“Whew, that was fun!”

“Mm. Satisfied.”

Arisa and Mia sighed happily as they finished burying me in the sand.

Lulu and Rei had long since given up and were relaxing under a beach parasol.

“Master, I have found many small and cute seashells, I report.”

Nana showed me the contents of her bag.

Freeing myself from the sand to look inside, I saw that it was indeed full of colorful little shells, true to her report.

“Very nice. Why don’t we make some seashell accessories later?”

“Am I capable of making them? I inquire.”

“Of course. We’ll all make them together.”

The other girls would probably be interested, too, so I figured we could have a little seashell accessory–making class after we ate.

“Preeey!”

“We caught a lot, sir.”

“We’ve successfully captured fish, lobster, and some large shellfish.”

Liza opened the hunting Fairy Pack and showed me their haul.

There were tropical fish, striped beakfish, and enough spiny lobster to go around, plus oysters, turban shells, and even a pearl oyster so gigantic I almost expected Venus to be inside.

“Mia, can you take care of the shellfish?”

“Mm.”

Mia used the Water Magic spell I’d made on the journey, Clean Clams, to quickly remove the sand and grit from the shells.

This particular spell had taken a lot of work, and more than a few exploded clamshells, to perfect.

“Awww, you couldn’t get any sea turtles?” Arisa asked.

“No waaay?”

“Mr. Sea Turtle is very speedy in the water, sir.”

Tama and Pochi shook their heads sadly.

“Master, may I open this shell?”

“Yes, of course. Clams can be very strong, so I’ll get it started for you first.”

I didn’t want Liza’s arm to get stuck in the shell by mistake.

I gave it a light pull and it came apart easily enough, and Liza thrust her short sword into the gap, expertly slicing up the clam.

The clam did its best to close, but it didn’t stand a chance against my high strength stat.

“Whoa, what a big pearl!”

It really was big.

Probably around the size of a softball.

“Master, is the shell transparent now?”

“You’re right—that’s strange. It was normal only a moment ago.”

For some reason, the giant clamshell had turned transparent.

“Actually, I think it’s just blending in. Looks like it changes colors using magic power.”

It probably used this ability to disguise itself on the seafloor.

It was pretty solid, so I could probably make some fun things with it, which was an exciting creative prospect.

As I thought about such things, the other kids opened the smaller shells.

“Master, I have found a pearl larva, I report.”

“Wow, I didn’t know they could have pink pearls.”

“This one has a black pearl.”

A high proportion of the clams near this beach seemed to have pearls inside.

There weren’t enough to make a pearl string necklace, but I could probably make a single-pearl necklace for each of the girls.

There was coral washed up on the beach, too; our post-lunch accessory-making workshop was shaping up to be pretty involved.

Meanwhile, as for the lunch itself…

“Whoa! It’s like a beach-house smorgasbord!”

I’d prepared a lineup of curry, yakisoba, ramen, and grilled squid. The yakisoba and salt ramen were new menu items.

“But the clam’s not missing from the curry, and the ramen’s not soggy enough…”

Arisa complained that it didn’t seem like real beach-house food, but I wasn’t going to make it poorly on purpose.

Even as she complained, she slurped up the ramen with a satisfied expression.

“Mm. Yummy.”

Mia seemed to be enjoying her vegetable-filled salt ramen, too.

“The one with meat is good, sir.”

“That’s roast pork. It’s also called ‘chashu.’”

“Chashu rameeen?”

Tama’s pronunciation was a little off, but she and the others all took a liking to ramen at once. Tama and Pochi were using forks, since eating it with chopsticks proved difficult for them.

For some reason, the yakisoba wasn’t particularly popular, so I would have to work on my recipe some more.

“Ramen is hot, but it’s delicious.”

“There are lots of other kinds, so I can make more next time we’re someplace colder.”

Unsurprisingly, I didn’t want to boil up tonkotsu ramen broth in this sweltering heat.

I could’ve simply used magic to control the temperature, but that was beside the point.

“Spicy…and good…”

“Curry is most delicious on the third day, I inform.”

Rei and Nana were enjoying some curry together.

“It’s very good. The curry and fried seafood go quite well together.”

Liza was eating curry topped with fried shrimp and fish.

Afterward, once we’d cooled off with some shaved ice, we made the seashell accessories and built a tree house as part of our island vacation.

“Firewooorks?”

“Pop-pop, sir!”

Tama and Pochi were twirling around on the beach by the campfire.

They were both holding a short staff in each hand with a Fireworks Illusion spell on them.

These staffs had been made by the high elf of the Beliunan clan when I told her about the Fireworks Illusion spell I made. She said she wasn’t very good at making light-type magic tools, but she still turned these out in a pretty short time.

Making them required special magical assistance, so I couldn’t reproduce them myself.

“Larva, it is used like this, I instruct.”

“It’s…very…pretty.”

Nana was teaching Rei how to use the Fireworks Illusion short staffs.

“They really pull you in, don’t they?”

“Yes, they are truly impressive to behold.”

Lulu and Liza were fascinated by the prototype sparklers I’d made.

These ones just used regular gunpowder.

“Campfires are pretty romantic, huh?”

“You think so? Didn’t you ever have one at a school event?”

At Arisa’s request, we were dancing the “Oklahoma Mixer,” with accompaniment by Mia.

I don’t think you’re supposed to do this dance with only two people.

“Mrrr. Trade.”

Mia was the only one who could play an instrument well, so Mia and I danced to Arisa’s humming.

“Larva?”

Hearing Nana’s confused voice, I turned to see Rei with the light gone from her eyes, staring into the campfire with a blank expression.

“<…Fire,>” she murmured.

“Mew!”

“Something’s coming, sir!”

Tama and Pochi dropped their short staffs and got down on all fours, looking alarmed.

A moment later, the ground shook.

At the same time, birds took off in droves from all over the island, and we heard animals howling.

“An earthquake?”

“I don’t think there are any underwater volcanoes or anything around here.”

Opening the map, I checked for any moving monsters, but nothing stood out. The Skeleton King’s and Yuuneia’s markers were still in the Spirit World.

“Let’s check the other islands, then.”

I used the Space Magic spell Clairvoyance to look at each of the Sealtower Islands.

Three of them were unchanged, but one had produced a towerlike structure that was letting off a red light.

Guess he’s making his move.

“Is it an evil omen of some sort?” I heard Liza murmur.

“No, don’t worry,” I reassured her lightly.

Minimizing the menu that had taken up all of my vision, I saw that most of the group members were trembling and clinging to me.

There weren’t many earthquakes in this world, so even a magnitude three was probably enough to scare them.

Arisa was clearly just taking advantage of the moment, so I flicked her forehead, and we decided to turn in for the night once everyone had calmed down a little.

I thought about going to the Sealtower Island now but decided against it.

The Skeleton King might come after Rei while I was gone, and it would be annoying to run around being one step behind him anyway, so I figured it would be easier to destroy the Sea Lord and the Divine Wrath Cannon after Lalakie had been revived.

Although I planned to do my best to stop him before that happened, of course.

“Let’s look for tropical fruits tomorrow!”

“Mm, agree.”

“Arisa, I wish to play split the watermelon, I request.”

“All right, we can do that in the afternoon.”

Despite their earlier unease, everyone was back to normal before long, largely thanks to Arisa.

At first, they were all staying awake and chatting even after we’d laid down to sleep on beds of banana leaves, but by the time the moon was gleaming gently in the sky, they were all sound asleep, no doubt tired from playing during the day.

Then, late at night…

I woke up feeling as if something was calling to me.

With my “Night Vision” skill, I quickly realized what was wrong.

Rei was gone.

On my radar, I saw that Rei’s dot was moving toward the mountain in the center of the island.

Being careful not to wake anyone up, I extracted myself from bed and followed Rei on her unexpected evening walk.

The soothing cries of nocturnal creatures echoed through the tropical rain forest, along with the gentle rustling of the leaves.

“There she is.”

I was chasing her from above the trees using “Skyrunning,” so I caught up to her very quickly.

Wandering along unsteadily, Rei looked like she was sleepwalking.

I continued to follow her, looking after her from above.

When Rei reached the rock face of the mountainside and extended her hand, a gear-like magic circle appeared over the rock, and I heard a voice similar to the one that came from the Box in Lalagi.

“<This device can only be used by senior personnel. Please speak your identification number.>”

“<La. 1090609. Reiaane Tuuwa Lalakie.>”

Rei identified herself in a trance state.

That might’ve been the first time I’d heard anyone in this world use a middle name.

“<Identification number accepted. Disengaging camouflage.>”

The rock fell apart like sand, revealing a small towerlike structure beneath.

The top of the tower was inlaid with a crystal like the Lalakie crest.

“<The Lalakie central control core welcomes your return, Queen Reiaane— Warning, negative interference detected in Queen Reiaane. Initiating security scan.>”

The crystal on top of the tower flashed.

“<…Queen…?>”

With that murmur, Rei suddenly fainted on the spot.

“Rei!”

I rushed over at once, but the central control core created a defensive barrier around her.

“Get out of my way.”

With a wave of my arm, I effortlessly broke the barrier into fragments of light.

“<Potential threat to Queen Reiaane detected. Suspending scan to remove threat—>”

I picked up Rei and prepared to block the tower’s attack with Flexible Shield.

“<Removal suspended. Unable to harm an elf envoy in accordance with article E-3.>”

The tower must have detected the Silent Bell of Bolenan on my belt.

“<Addressing elf envoy. Return our queen at once. Queen Reiaane’s memories show evidence of tampering. They must be repaired via the central control room at once.>”

“<I am her traveling companion. If you’re the central control core, you’ve been monitoring us since we arrived on this island, right? Then you must know that we would never harm her.>”

The crystal began to blink like an electrical device that was low on battery.

“<…Fellowship acknowledged. Lalakie is currently in magic-conservation mode and therefore cannot safely guide Queen Reiaane to the central control room. Envoy, requesting that you escort Queen Reiaane…to the central…control room…>”

With that, the crystal fell silent.

Its voice sounded strange at the end; maybe it really was running out of magic power.

I pried open the door and used “Search Entire Map,” since we’d entered a new area.

So this is the entrance to Lalakie.

The map name read Lalakie: Ruins.

That meant I had fulfilled my mission of bringing Rei back to Lalakie, but it sounded like I needed to bring her to this “central control room” to completely restore her memories.

Maybe this was like a follow-up mission to bring her to the main control room.

Anyway, I brought my attention back to the map.

It was much bigger than I thought—so large that it could encompass all of Tokyo. There was no one inside the ruins, not even any monsters or golems.

True to its name, the central control room seemed to be right in the middle of the enormous ruins.

I checked the time on my menu.

“It’s almost morning…”

I returned to the campsite with “Skyrunning,” laid Rei down on the bed, and started preparing breakfast.

There didn’t seem to be any danger inside the ruins, so I figured I could take the whole group with me to explore on the way to the central control room.

“Yikes, this staircase is looong!”

Arisa looked down the spiral staircase, which descended so far that light didn’t reach the bottom.

“ … Create Wisp Makoudama Souzou.”

With the ball of light that Mia created using Spirit Magic going on some thirty feet ahead, we had Nana use her Foundation ability Mana Light and take the lead.

In the middle of the group, Lulu was carrying a lantern with the same Mana Light magic. This was a farewell gift from Inenimaana, the witch’s apprentice we’d met in Kuhanou County.

I was also able to use Mana Light, since I’d learned it from a scroll, but my version of it was so bright, it would ruin the exploratory atmosphere, so I refrained.

In case of an emergency, I had our flying ship ready in Storage.

“Ugh, it’s waaay too long…,” Arisa grumbled, sounding bored now.

The rearguard and Rei had quickly gotten too tired to walk, so they were sitting on a Floating Board I’d produced from Storage that followed along with us.

Lulu and Mia still seemed all right, but the board could carry four people as easily as it could two, so I had them ride it, too, to increase our speed.

“Not looong?”

“I heard the rock before I got to two, so we’re almost there, sir.”

The pair was gauging our progress by dropping small stones from Tama’s pocket down the length of the spiral staircase and counting how long it took to hear them hit the bottom.

I doubted they understood gravitational acceleration and other such calculations, but they seemed to be able to get a general idea.

“Mm. Hall.”

Mia sent the wisp ahead, illuminating a hall at the bottom of the staircase.

It was a fairly empty place with a single door.

Immediately, Tama and Pochi sprinted toward the exit.

“Doooor?”

“Can we open it, sir?”

Reaching the double doors, they looked back at me.

There were no enemies on my radar, and my skills like “Trap Detection” and “Sense Danger” weren’t reacting, so it should be fine.

“Go ahead.”

As soon as I gave them the okay, Tama and Pochi pushed the doors open with all their weight.

Light shone through from the other side.

“Wooow?”

“Amazingly amazing, sir!”

Tumbling into the next room, Tama and Pochi frantically beckoned us over.

Curious, I stepped through the exit into the large open space and was greeted by a completely unexpected sight.

“Master, the ocean is above us!”

“Master, I can see the sun through the ocean, I report.”

Both the serious Liza and the usually sensible Nana were looking up in surprise.

Sure enough, the only ceiling was the ocean, with no visible barrier between us. There was probably either a highly transparent resin or some kind of Foundation magic creating the illusion.

On the other side of this ceiling, colorful sea life swam along rhythmically, almost like an aquarium exhibit.

According to my map, this was the central residential area of Lalakie.

The space was so enormous that I couldn’t see the other side.

“It’s beautiful…”

“It is beautiful! It’s so very, very pretty. It’s as pretty as watching spirits dance; it really is!”

“But doesn’t it seem as if the ceiling could collapse? It’s a little unnerving.”

Lulu released an admiring sigh, Mia went on one of her rare excited rants, and Liza looked up worriedly.

As for Arisa…

“Grrr, it’s like an aquarium where stupid normie couples would go on their stupid dates…”

Better leave her alone. She seemed to be remembering something unpleasant.

“<Ultra-effective magic-enclosing barrier, a miracle from a god. A device to protect Lalakie from the cold winds and air pressure of high altitudes. Only the floating ships of Lalakie can pass through it.>”

Entering a trance, Rei explained the workings of the ceiling.

It was a little different from the information in my AR display, but that wasn’t a big deal, so I didn’t bother correcting her.

“Is the tower over there the central control room?”

“<Sky Tower. A sacred place where the queen communicates with the gods. The imperial palace of the queen and the royal family.>”

Arisa and Rei were looking at a thick tower at the center of the residential area.

It was made from orichalcum that glittered gold in the light.

As we continued through the wide room, we happened upon a grate-like floor from which a draft was blowing.

The mischievous wind lifted Lulu’s and Mia’s skirts, revealing a glimpse of white and stripes.

“<…Wind.>”

Rei’s murmur made me think of something, so I trusted my intuition and used Clairvoyance to check on the three remaining Sealtower Islands.

Another one of them had produced a tower, which was glowing green.

Of course, the Skeleton King and Yuuneia were nowhere to be seen.

“Another shake… This one was pretty weak. Magnitude two, maybe?”

“Yes, around that.”

The tremors weren’t as noticeable this time, so the rest of the group didn’t get as scared as before.

Lulu and Liza tugged on my sleeves, and the younger girls grabbed my hands, but that was all.

“Master, there are people, I report.”

The far end of the enormous space tapered into a cliff of sorts, looking out on the townscape of Lalakie.

There were indeed a large amount of humanoid figures where Nana was pointing.

However…

“Something seems off, no?”

The people were semitransparent, and they were all young adults—no children, no seniors, not even anyone middle-aged.

“<The Happy Ones of Lalakie—people who have cast aside their needless physical forms to live in happiness forevermore as souls. They are reborn as half-ghosts in the Purifying Mausoleum, and when their physical bodies decay, they cast aside even their spirit bodies to take pure soul form.>”

So a half-ghost wasn’t a child of a human and a ghost—it was a state somewhere between human and ghost.

As usual, it seemed like any civilization that ruled the world in glory ended up striving for eternal youth.

“Huh… It’s better than being turned into a bolt in some distant galaxy, I guess, but is being a disembodied soul really any fun?”

“<They no longer feel anything but happiness. The human heart is frail. Without a physical body, one’s memories fade, and without a spirit body, even one’s emotions fade as well. They have become mere vestiges of the past. If the backups stored in the Lalakie central control core should cease, they will simply disappear.>”

Rei’s face was expressionless, but tears were pouring down her cheeks.

That explained why my AR described them as Lalakie apparitions, treating them like undead monsters.

Nana and Mia wiped the tears from Rei’s face with handkerchiefs.

After taking a moment of silent prayer for the transparent figures, we left them behind.

The Purifying Mausoleum that we passed through on the way looked similar to the elves’ sleeping tanks, but while the elves in the tanks looked healthy as they slept, the people in the glass cylinders of the mausoleum were dried up like mummies.

As we made for the central control room, some of the passages had been submerged in water by broken waterwork pipes, but we used Water Breathing and Resist Water Pressure to walk right through.

“<…Water.>”

That was fast. The third Sealtower Island had been unlocked.

The earthquake that followed must have opened up a hole; a sudden fast current formed, so I used Magic Hand to hold on to everyone until we made it to our destination.

“Scaryyyy?”

“I thought I would be washed away, sir.”

I used the Practical Magic spell Dry to deal with all our soaked clothing, and we hurried toward the control room.

If possible, I wanted to restore Rei’s memories before the final seal was broken.

Both sides of the huge hallway leading to the central control room were lined with black sheetlike stone pillars. The hall was so large that a giant could walk through it.

There were murals on the stone pillars flanking the hallway.

“Whoa, these are some pretty grim light-versus-darkness murals.”

Half of them showed how Lalakie controlled the world, prospering at the expense of the land-dwelling people.

“Looks like the land people didn’t take it lying down, though.”

Farther down the hall, the latter half slowly changed into a war against the rebels, until in the end, the Dogheaded Demon Lord brought destruction on the world.

“…What’s this?”

One of them caught my attention so much that I stopped without thinking.

“What is the matter, master?”

“Some girls and some octopuses?”

Arisa’s summary of the mural was a little oversimplified.

It showed sacrifices being thrown off a cliff into an ocean, where octopus monsters lay in wait.

“<The sacrificial maidens. In order to turn the tides of the battle, which had become unfavorable, young women with the rune of domination engraved into their bodies were offered to the sea lord’s spawn.>”

If I remembered right, Rei had a Sacrificial Maiden title, too.

Were the events in this image part of her past?

“<The sacrificial maidens were usually twins or sisters. Once a spawn had been captured with the first maiden’s rune of domination, it could be controlled with the rune of operation carved into the other maiden’s body.>”

Looking closely, I saw that the girls in the picture were bound in chains, being thrown almost like fishing bait.

I knew that lots of places used some extreme methods when they were about to lose a war, but just looking at it made my chest burn with anger.

In the next image, the controlled spawn were causing tidal waves, destroying the enemies’ ships and harbors.

“<With the controlled spawn, they were able to turn the war back in their favor, but all was lost when Doghead’s four warlords entered the battle. The attempt to control the Sea Lord itself failed, the queen’s younger sister lost her life, and the queen herself had her soul rent away and entered eternal slumber in the Coffin.>”

The next few images showed an island that was probably Lalakie being dragged into the sea by the Sea Lord, which was about equal to it in size.

It was probably an exaggeration, but I still would have preferred not to fight an island-size giant octopus.

The final six images showed the Flame and Ground Lords being sealed and the end of Doghead’s reign.

“What’s this giant cone-shaped creature? A faceless ghost?”

“<The gods’ apostles overwhelmed the Sky Lord, sealed the Flame Lord with the Blazeshine Sword, and confined the Ground Lord to the labyrinth.>”

The gods’ apostles, huh?

Rei made it sound like these “apostles” crushed Doghead’s kin effortlessly, but the images showed a single lord being surrounded by a dozen or more apostles.

This part was probably drawn after Lalakie sank into the sea.

“What about the seven pillars of light surrounding a wolf and a person here?”

“<The forms the gods took when they descended to seal Doghead. One of the gods took human form to defeat Doghead.>”

Huh? Do those numbers add up?

I doubted the evil god who created the demon lord joined in to defeat him, so maybe the dragon god joined instead?

Since the dragon god taught the goddess Parion the Hero Summoning magic, they seemed to get along well enough.

Besides, since dragons loved battling so much, I bet the dragon god would’ve shown up for a fight either way.

“<We have been waiting for you, Queen Reiaane.>”

When we arrived in front of the central control room, an orb above the door glowed, and the voice of the central control core spoke.

“<Elf and elf envoys. Your escorting of Queen Reiaane is appreciated.>”

We were invited in through the door.

“Master! The larva has disappeared, I report.”

“<What’s going on?>” I shouted at the control core.

Part of the shutters around the dark room opened, illuminating one section like a spotlight.

There was Rei, floating in the middle of a red magic circle.

“<Security scan complete. Evidence of tampering located within Queen Reiaane’s memory storage. Recommending restoration from backup.>”

What is she, a PC? I wanted to joke, but I decided it wasn’t quite the right time.

“<…I don’t want to…forget.>”

“<Only altered memories will be targeted. No other memories will be changed.>”

From the sound of things, Lalakie’s technology was pretty amazing.

“<Then please…do it.>”

“<Understood. Initiating restoration.>”

Layers of gear-shaped magic circles appeared around Rei, and a light similar to the scan from before continued for a half hour or so.

“<Restoration complete. Are you well, Queen Reiaane?>”

“<Thank you. My memories are still somewhat cloudy, but most of them have come back to me.>”

Rei spoke in the same tone she usually used in her trance state.

She still looked like a little girl, but she seemed more composed than usual.

Her name in my AR display changed to Reiaane Tuuwa Lalakie, and her once-grayed-out skills and level turned white.

“Satou, I remember now. I am—”

Rei’s words were interrupted by a particularly large quake.

“Aaaaah!”

Lulu’s scream was the loudest, but even I was a little perturbed by a magnitude five–class earthquake.

Rationally, I knew I would be fine at my level even if the ceiling and floor caved in, but some things are still scary no matter what.

“<Queen Reiaane, a report. The Queen’s Tower has declared a state of emergency. Until the declaration is revoked, the central control core will enter slave device mode, prioritizing commands from the Queen’s Tower. If you did not request this declaration, please suspend it using the control terminal in the Queen’s Tower.>”

After making an announcement that was sort of reminiscent of a password change notification e-mail, the central control core fell silent.

“M-master, something’s wrong! This doesn’t feel like an earthquake!”

Arisa was right. This felt more like an intensified version of the shaking in a large ship’s engine room than an earthquake.

I couldn’t tell what was happening from here, so I used Return to teleport us to the seal slate I’d placed in the large viewing area in Lalakie.

“Master, look at the ceiling.”

“Is the ocean…moving?”

I looked up.

“Skyyy?”

“The sun is bright, sir.”

“Lalakie is surfacing? B-but…that would mean that Father has released the Sea Lord after Mother sacrificed her life to seal it…”

Rei’s eyes widened in horror.

So it was true. Lalakie was rising to the ocean’s surface.

Hmm? Surfacing?

But if this much mass suddenly rises to the surface—

“Satou.”

“Master!”

Following Mia’s and Nana’s gazes, I saw a gear-like magic circle growing and a person appearing through it.

Sure enough, it was Yuuneia.

“<I’ve come for you, Sister!>”

Yuuneia was wearing an old-fashioned shrine maiden–style outfit, shooting Rei a challenging smile.

The outfit was similar to the formal shrine maiden clothes I’d seen in the Tenion Temple in the old capital but with less humble saintliness and more flashiness.

“<You are…Yuuneia…correct?>” Rei asked uncertainly.

“<That’s right! You finally remembered me, Sister!>”

Unconcerned with Rei’s strange state, Yuuneia quickly nodded.

“<Let us go, Sister. Father is waiting for us!>”

For some reason, Rei was giving Yuuneia a sad look.

Sad or even pitying.

“Satou… I’m…going with her.”

Without answering Yuuneia, Rei turned to me and spoke in the Shigan language.

“I will bring an end to Father’s delusions…prevent the world from falling into chaos…and protect the gravestone of those sad lost lives of Lalakie.”

“Is that what you want?”

“Yes… If everything is to be saved, then I must go.”

Rei gave a faint smile, the expression of a martyr.

“Larva! I will go with you, I declare!”

The rest of the group all clamored forward in agreement.

“Nana… Thank you for all you’ve done. The rest of you, too… Thank you for being kind to me when even I did not know who I was.”

Rei shook her head, refusing to let Nana and the others come along.

“<Let us go, Sister.>”

Yuuneia took Rei’s hand.

“Rei, wait! If you want to save everything, shouldn’t that include yourself?!”

Rei gave no answer to my final question beyond an unhappy smile, and then she disappeared into the Spirit World.

Then the dots that represented the two of them reappeared on the top floor of the Queen’s Tower—along with that of the Skeleton King.

“<Evacuation orders received. Initializing…>”

A moment after we heard the central control core’s voice, we were returned to the beach of the central island where we’d had the campfire.

But now the bay was little more than a puddle. The island had become a part of the top of the ridge around Lalakie’s urban area.

It seemed that this place was actually the western end of the city of Lalakie.

On the other side of the mountain, I could see the glowing dome of Heavenslight Protection.

“Master!”

Arisa’s light punch hit me in the stomach.

“That’s when you’re supposed to embrace Rei and stop her from leaving!”

“Mm. Duh.”

“Master…”

The indignant iron-wall pair and the expressionless Nana surrounded me.

But I knew that, of course.

“I didn’t go with her because there was something else I had to do first.”

“What could possibly be more important than saving Rei?!”

“Tidal waves.”

If I didn’t do something, the enormous tidal waves created by Lalakie’s rise would strike all the nations on the coast.

And a tidal wave moves faster than most people realize.

“I’ll take care of it quickly and then go save Rei, so all of you board the ship and get away from Lalakie.”

As I spoke, I produced the flying ship from Storage, then the core parts of the figurehead golem from the large Fairy Pack Lulu was carrying, setting it up on the helm.

Since golems were considered living things once they’d been activated, they couldn’t be put in Storage.

“Mrrr. We’ll save her.”

“Master, I wish to join the larva’s rescue party, I request.”

Mia and Nana puffed furiously, insisting they would go save Rei.

“Let’s gooo?”

“Pochi wants to help, too, sir.”

“Master, I, too, request your permission.”

“I want to help her, too.”

The beastfolk girls and Lulu felt the same way.

Arisa was giving the rest of them a thumbs-up, so it was probably safe to guess how she felt.

“Arisa, the ship’s defenses are perfect, but try to avoid battle if you can.”

“I know that, duuuh! We’ll just buy some time for you!”

“All I need is ninety seconds. I’ll be back after that.”

“Okey-dokey!”

I transferred control of the ship to Arisa and taught her a few command words.

These were the key to activating the armament and propellers I’d added during our long journey.

“Wh-when did you make all this?”

Arisa stared at me in disbelief, but I grinned in response.

“Oh, you know. Just in case, I figured.”

With that, I took off from the deck.

Opening the map, I looked at the ring-shaped tidal waves and decided to start with the outermost areas.

Taking a shortcut with the seal stones I’d placed around the islands like stepping stones, I arrived just outside the ring of tidal waves.

On the horizon, I could see the enormous waves coming closer.

Instead of using “Skyrunning,” I chose “Flashrunning” to charge toward them.

Right now, I had to prioritize saving time over my clothes or a little burn damage.

I had to get back before Arisa and the others did anything crazy.

The spears broke on the barrier, the shock wave blowing the flying ship away like a leaf on the wind.

“Utter foolishness.”

Father was wrong. Thanks to their intervention, I was able to keep control of my senses until the end.

“It is done now, yes?”

“Yes, Father.”

With a wave of my arm, I created new ethereal clothes around my body.

I wrapped myself in the outfit of a shrine maiden honoring all eight gods.

Lending a hand to Yuuneia as she staggered, I picked up her clothes and put them back on her.

“Go, Reiaane.”

I stepped onto the thin pier that stretched from the Queen’s Tower, ending outside the Heavenslight Protection dome.

It was plenty wide enough for me to walk, but my legs still trembled at the sheer height.

Yuuneia, now linked to me magically, followed behind me.

TWAAAAAKZWOOOOOWN!

A horrible, chest-piercing sound sent a tremor through my body.

I heard Yuuneia collapse behind me.

One of the Sea Lord’s enormous tentacles was waiting at the end of the pier. Its tip split off into smaller appendages, wriggling like a sea anemone.

“I can’t let you do that, Seafoooooox!”

“All five mounted Magic Cannons are ready for discharge! Firing now!”

Arisa’s scream was followed by Lulu’s high-pitched voice.

A rapid succession of blasts assaulted my ears as red spheres struck the Sea Lord’s tentacle and exploded, tearing holes through it.

TWAAAAKZWOOOOWN!

The Sea Lord’s roar reverberated.

The cannons were definitely hurting the monster.

But they cost too much magic to be fired over and over for long. Given the small size of the flying ship, no doubt those shots were its last.

“Tama, Pochi!”

“Reloooooad?”

“I’ll show you how fast I am, sir!”

As the ship circled in the sky, I could see Liza, Pochi, and Tama working on the cannons.

“The Holytree Stone engine’s bluecoin battery replacement is complete, I declare.”

“Lulu! We’ve finished switching the Magic Cannon barrels, too!”

“Mm. Charged.”

“Fire the next round!”

Another onslaught of cannon fire rained down on the tentacle.

By the end, one of the Sea Lord’s tentacles had been torn off completely.

“Amazing…”

It was so unbelievable that I couldn’t help a murmur of admiration.

“Yeeeeeeeeeeees! We’re just getting started, guys!”

Arisa’s words made a smile tug at my cheeks, but it vanished when I noticed the Sea Lord in the corner of my vision.

“Arisa! Ruuuun!”

“…Huh?”

A giant magic circle appeared above the Sea Lord, practically blotting out the sky.

In the next second, a water hammer huge enough to split the earth crashed down on the space where the ship had been.

“Arisa… Nana…”

There was no way they could have survived such an enormous blow intact.

If its hull had been made of orichalcum or the branch of a World Tree, perhaps the ship itself would have been all right. But even then, the people inside would have been crushed into a paste.

I couldn’t stop the tears that began to flow over my friends’ all-too-sudden deaths.

Arisa, Nana, Mia… I engraved each of their names on my heart, trying to will myself to fight through the despair for their sakes.

But it was no use—the sadness was too deep for me to stand.

“Oh man, we almost ate it there.”

…What?

“This is no laughing matter, Arisa!”

After Arisa’s remark, I heard the light sound of a fist bopping someone on the head and Satou’s scolding voice.

Looking up, I saw the familiar sails rising toward me.

In the blink of an eye, the flying ship ascended in front of the pier where I had fallen to my knees.

“Honestly. I wasn’t exactly expecting to have to teleport the whole ship the second I got back with the Return spell.”

Standing on the deck, Satou ruffled Arisa’s hair for a moment before turning toward the tower.

Those dark, gentle eyes settled on me at once.

Breathing a sigh of relief when he saw me, Satou broke into a warm smile.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Rei.”

My body was lifted gently into the air.

I floated along like a feather on the wind until I was gently placed on the deck of his flying ship.

“I hope we didn’t worry you.”

His tone was so light and wonderfully ordinary that I couldn’t bear it—I flew into his arms and wept like a child.

But there was no sadness in those tears.

They filled my heart with warmth, like rain in the middle of a sunny day.

“<A-at this rate, I’ll be finished. Yuuneia, my beloved daughter, come to me…>”

Covered in wounds, the Skeleton King called to Yuuneia in a wheedling voice.

She immediately tried to break free from my arms, but this was undoubtedly a trap, so I held her fast.

“<I can save myself if I absorb your life force. There are plenty of homunculus life cores just like yours in the underground workshop. I can create a new Yuuneia at any time. So give me your life now!>”

What a selfish request.

Yet, Yuuneia still seemed to feel familial love for him; she reached out toward the Skeleton King, her eyes filled with tears.

Suddenly, a stone bullet shot past us.

“<Impossible!>”

The stone broke through the Skeleton King’s rib cage, sinking into the glowing bloodred core within.

“<Rei…aane… How could you strike me…?>”

Turning around, I saw Rei crying, poised as if she’d just released a magic spell.

She must have used her topaz ring to fire that bullet.

“<It was Mother’s final wish. She wanted me to stop you if you ever strayed from the path of humanity…>”

The Skeleton King’s bones crackled and splintered, turning into ash.

“<But I am immortal…the ruler of the great skyfolk… It cannot end…like this…>”

The king’s skull crumbled into ash, and his crown fell to the floor with a hollow thud.

“<Farewell, Father. Worry not—I will soon join you…>”

Rei murmured a disquieting promise as she watched the Skeleton King disappear.

The latter half was so quiet that only my “Keen Hearing” skill was able to hear it.

“<Thank you, Satou. Thank you, everyone.>”

Turning toward us, Rei smiled almost unnaturally.

“<Satou, please take me to the Queen’s Tower.>”

I nodded and carried her with Magic Hand.

“<The Sea Lord has been defeated, and my father has passed on. Now all that remains is for me to sink Lalakie back to the bottom of the sea and activate its self-destruct mechanism so that it does not fall into the wrong hands, and the world will be safe at last.>”

Rei gave a faint, martyr-like smile.

“<Please take care of Yuuneia for me. Father was only using her. The floating island Lalakie and I will atone for all their sins.>”

“<S-sister…don’t leave me… Take me with you!>”

Yuuneia reached out her hand, and Rei clasped it gently.

“<No, you must go with Satou. You still have a future of your own.>”

Yuuneia shook her head tearfully.

If this were a story, maybe it would have a tragic ending like that.

But apparently, I wasn’t the only one who wouldn’t let that fly.

“Arisa Kiiiiiick!!”

Arisa’s clumsy flying kick hit Rei squarely on the rear.

I had carried her and the others along with us using Magic Hand, since they looked like they had something to say.

“<What? Arisa?>”

“Really, this is the problem with you sheltered princesses!”

“<But, Arisa, I…>”

Rei shrank from Arisa’s accusing gaze.

“There will be no buts about it, I declare in Arisa’s place.”

“<Nana…>”

“Mm. Reckless.”

“<You too, Mia?>”

Nana and Mia stepped in, and Tama and Pochi stood off to the side, cheering the girls on by waving fans—most likely provided by Arisa.

Lulu and Liza were preparing a bed for Yuuneia.

I entrusted Yuuneia to Liza and looked on as Arisa tried to convince Rei.

“Why would you sacrifice yourself after we’ve already resolved all the problems?”

“<If we leave Lalakie here, someone is sure to try to use it for evil.>”

“That doesn’t mean you have to die with it, though!”

Arisa was right, so I let them have it out.

“<…But you saw the history recorded on the slates, didn’t you? We skyfolk have done horrible things that the people of the land could never forgive. The royal family of Lalakie must atone.>”

If you asked me, the blame shouldn’t fall on Rei when she didn’t personally do anything wrong.

And the people who were to blame were long dead.

Arisa seemed to feel the same way, shrugging and rejecting Rei’s words.

“That was twenty thousand years ago, wasn’t it? Even the elves from that generation are gone by now, so I’m sure nobody but the high elves even remembers what happened.”

“<But…>”

Rei was too consumed with guilt to listen to Arisa’s reasoning.

Instead, Arisa grabbed Rei’s hand and dragged her over to me.

“Master! Give her a hug.”

I didn’t really understand, but I complied with Arisa’s request and embraced Rei gently.

“<Wait, Arisa? S-Satou, let go of me.>”

“Squeeze harder, master!”

Rei’s adult form was very curvy, so this was a little embarrassing.

“<A-ah, Satou…>”

At first, Rei struggled with beet-red cheeks, but eventually she lowered her head and calmed down.

“Looks like she’s calmed down now.”

I guess Arisa’s plan was to physically reassure her.

“Physical affection is the only way to go with these daddy-issue types.”

…Or not. Luckily, the second half of Arisa’s muttering was quiet, so Rei probably didn’t hear it.

“If you go down with Lalakie, you’re not solving anything but your own self-satisfaction. It won’t help anyone or make anybody happy. Talk about zero upsides.”

“<Arisa…>”

Rei lowered her eyes sadly at Arisa’s slightly harsh words.

“<She’s right, Rei. There are still lots of fun things to see in this world, so let’s see them together.>”

I tilted Rei’s chin up gently and spoke as delicately as I could.

“<Besides, if you die, Yuuneia will follow you.>”

“<He’s right. There’s no point in a world without you in it, Sister.>”

“<Yuuneia…>”

I released Rei and led her over to Yuuneia’s bedside.

“<Let’s… Let’s both go on living, Sister.>”

“<Yuuneia!>”

Yuuneia sat up, and Rei wrapped her arms around her.

“I wish to participate, I declare.”

“Mm, me too.”

Nana and Mia embraced the two sisters, and the other girls piled on for a big group hug.

“Is this a gaaaame?”

“No pushing or you’re out, sir.”

A few of them didn’t quite seem to know what was going on, but it made Yuuneia and Rei smile through their tears, so that was fine with me.

Arisa wasn’t used to being complimented, so she lamely brushed off Rei’s kind words.

“Arisa, answer her properly, won’t you?”

“Lulu… Oh, all right.”

With prompting from Lulu, Arisa corrected her posture.

“Rei! All I did was give you a little push, my dear. You’re here because of your own strength and determination! You should be proud of yourself. No need to thank me for anything more than that!”

Arisa’s rather manly declaration brought tears to Rei’s eyes as she gave us the highest Lalakie thanks.

They both seemed a little embarrassed that Arisa had called Rei “my dear,” but I decided not to tease them about it.

With that, we left Rei and Yuuneia’s island of Lalakie behind and turned our course toward the sugar route and Labyrinth City.

However, we were making a few stops along the way.

“Liquor Marquis Pendragon! You won’t believe it! The Box came back! Nanashi the Hero returned it to us, just as you said!”

I stopped by the royal castle of Lalagi to say hello and was greeted by the king himself, who was practically jumping for joy.

I’d disguised myself as Nanashi the Hero to bring the Box back to them right after we sank Lalakie.

He’d looked about ready to die when it was stolen, after all.

“I’m glad to hear that. Congratulations.”

“You said something to Sir Nanashi for us, didn’t you, Liquor Marquis Pendragon?”

“No, I didn’t do—”

“Always so modest! We shall have a three-day, three-night banquet to celebrate your peerage ceremony! Minister! Buy up all the liquor in the castle town! We’ll give it out to the people for free during the course of the banquet!”

The ministers in the castle all gleefully rushed around to prepare.

Normally, the minister of finance would be there to keep things in check, but in this case, he joined in on the merriment, checking around with his subordinates to see if they could find some extra leeway in the budget. I was a little concerned about this kingdom’s future.

I went back to the inn to tell the others that we’d be staying for five days or so and to have them prepare to move into the room in the castle we’d been given for the course of our stay.

“Master, that groping bastard says he wants to show you something.”

“All right. I’ll go check it out.”

While the others were getting ready to move, I went to the little shop they were renting to develop the new company.

“Sir Pendragon! I heard all about it! Why in the world didn’t you tell us that you were a liquor marquis?!”

Rayleigh Ashinen, the marquis’s son, came to greet me with a huge smile.

Behind him was a man with dark bags under his eyes and a young boy. These two were in charge of drawing up the trading business plan for the SS Cloud.

“Marquis, this is the business plan we’ve come up with. Please take a look.”

“Certainly.”

Ooh. It was a lot more thorough and easy to understand than I’d expected.

There were many places where numbers had been crossed out and rewritten. They explained that the original numbers were the old calculations, while the new numbers took into account the tax exemptions from my Liquor Marquis title.

Impressively enough, this business plan would keep them in the black even with the old numbers.

In the latter case, however, having only one ship was proving to be something of a bottleneck. If they had two or three more ships, they would probably be able to keep up a more stable trade.

So, in the interest of clearing out my Storage a little as well, I made them an offer…

“Yes, I can most certainly invest in this. I’m planning on having two more ships brought to the harbor within the next day or two—would you like to use them for the company?”

“M-more ships?”

“Yes, I found some medium-size merchant ships being sold for a bargain on my journey, so I purchased a few. I thought I would sell them in Lalagi, but judging by these plans, it might be best to use them here instead.”

“Y-yes, please do! We’ll have a revised plan in the next few days.”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

I stood up to leave, but Rayleigh stopped me.

He wanted to ask if I minded that they weren’t using my name in the company title.

“No, that’s perfectly fine. You will need to fly my flag to indicate that your ships belong to a liquor marquis, but I believe you should choose the company name for yourselves.”

I wanted to remain as a shareholder, not the owner.

“All right. Then we’ll use Dragonpen Trading Company as the name. It might sound a bit too similar to the Ganika Marquisate’s Dragonwrit Trading Company, but that makes it easy to understand that both companies have had your help, right, Sir Pendragon?”

Rayleigh looked pleased with himself, so I said it was an excellent name and agreed.

I could tell that the other names he had in mind would all use my name directly, so I figured this choice was the easiest.

Since they were rewriting the plan anyway, I offered an additional amount of money if they would collect rare products and ingredients from the southern islands.

The other two men’s faces were a fascinating mixture of excitement over the new developments and despair over the additional work.

Then, after my liquor marquis peerage ceremony and a nightmarish three-day, three-night drinking party…

“Sir Pendragon, your tolerance for liquor is so remarkable that it will be spoken of in our kingdom for generations. In commemoration of your defeat of a hundred drunkards, I present you with this medallion. It is sure to serve you well in any nation or city within the sugar route.”

“Thank you very much, Your Highness.”

“May your journey be safe, and may you encounter many more marvelous liquors.”

After this very Lalagian exchange with the king, we departed from the Kingdom of Sorcery Lalagi.

Our journey went fairly smoothly from there: We visited various small nations and port cities and towns, sampling their local delicacies, and while we occasionally got caught up in little incidents and uproars, we all made it safely back into Shiga Kingdom territory.

We passed the Ganika Marquisate on the route, entered a port in the neighboring Ukeu County, and crossed the mountains to reach the port of Kiriku County on the other side of the peninsula.

This was a very large peninsula, so many travelers used this shortcut to pass through.

When we reached Ukeu County, we switched to a normal small ship, and I put the flying ship away in Storage.

Both Ukeu County and Kiriku County were small, rustic counties that centered around the fishing industry.

Despite being so similar, or perhaps because of it, their respective rulers didn’t get along, but that didn’t matter much to us, since we were just passing through.

“Master, what ship are we going to take from here?”

“Don’t worry. I’ve got an idea.”

Most sailors didn’t like to let women aboard, but there were some exceptions.

I set foot in a certain shop some distance away from the rest of the port.

“Hello there.”

“If yer looking for a brothel, try the red-light district on the other side of the harbor. If yer lost, just head right along the beach that way and ye’ll be back in the center.”

The good-looking female captain barely glanced up as she waved us back toward the door.

“No, I was hoping you could carry eight passengers to the trade city Tartumina.”

“Ye can’t be serious— Ah, I see. That includes those little ladies over there, does it? Well, all right, then. Yer all welcome aboard the SS She-Devil!”

Thus, we became passengers on the woman’s galley ship traveling toward Tartumina.

“Look alive, ye scurvy dogs!”

“““Aye-aye, Cap’n!”””

True to its name, the crew members of the SS She-Devil were all women.

Many of them were young ladies wearing nothing but a chest wrap on their upper bodies, so it was hard to know where to look.

The passenger seats were right across from the rowers’ seats, so I couldn’t really turn away.

“Yer welcome to look as much as ye like, if ye like what ye see!”

“S’long as ye pay us back with some tasty ale once we get to the harbor!”

“I’d prefer rum—the cheap stuff’s fine with me!”

“I’ll happily treat you to all the ale and rum you’d like.”

The rowers laughed heartily, and I smiled in return.

Drinking seemed to motivate them as much as any sailor; their rowing became a little faster than before.

“Tartumina’s in sight now, mister. This harbor’s terrible crowded-like, so d’you mind if we take a detour to the next one?”

“Of course—whatever you think is best.”

Sure enough, since this was the heart of foreign trade in the Shiga Kingdom, there were big trade ships from all over in the harbor, with countless smaller ships moving haphazardly among them.

When we arrived at the next harbor, it was still far livelier than any we’d seen on the sugar route or even in Sutoandell.

“Hey, mister! You better join us later!”

“Yes, I’ll be sure to come by as soon as we get to an inn.”

Once we’d laid anchor, I rented an entire bar for the She-Devil crew to drink and eat as much as they desired.

Meanwhile, we headed to an inn that should accept demi-humans, according to the tip we’d received at the harbor chamber of commerce.

The people there were a bit gruff at first, but they changed their tune quickly when I showed them the medallion the king of Lalagi had given me.

“I can’t believe the Lalagi red silk and the Ishrallie Heaven’s Teardrops sell for so much here.”

“No kidding. The red silk sold for seven times the original price, and the Heaven’s Teardrops were more like thirty times.”

As Arisa and I chatted excitedly about our deals, we arrived at the inn, so I filled out the paperwork for our room and went back to the bar, where the lady sailors were waiting.

I left the rest of my group at the inn; I’d paid for a full course of the inn’s famous Ohmi beef for each of them.

Taking a shortcut through a sketchy part of town, I wound up near an arena.

“Viceroy! If your wife finds out that you’re going to the arena this late at night, you’ll be in big trouble!”

“Fool! When else can I enjoy time with those gorgeous young men except when Laytell is in Kiriku County?”

This lascivious conversation was between an extremely rich, noble-looking middle-aged man and an elderly butler. Four handsome young knights were flanking them in shining silver armor.

Two sentinels were guarding the path this group was attempting to walk down, one of whom stepped forward to address them.

“I’m terribly sorry, good sirs. This way lies a corrupt street used by the lowly commoners. A noble such as yourself should take care not to—”

“How dare you block my path, man?!”

The sentinel lowered his head, being almost unnaturally polite as he attempted to tell the noble in a roundabout way that only certain people were allowed down this street, but the noble refused to listen, striking the guard with his staff and attempting to force his way through.

Enraged, the other guard stepped forward to bluntly defend his comrade.

“Hey, noble! This is the path to the gladiator slaves’ waiting room. If you want to watch the fight, use the front entrance!”

“What an impolite cur. Put him in his place!”

The four knights drew their swords and slashed at the two guards, who were armed only with clubs.

Seriously?!

Blood flew everywhere, and the two guards hit the ground in an instant.

Come to think of it, in this kingdom, being rude to an upper-class noble often meant becoming a slave or even being killed on the spot. This sure made me miss democracy.

“Finish them off,” the noble said coldly, then walked down the path with his butler and two of his knights.

The remaining two knights raised their swords above the fallen guards, so I decided to interfere.

“Excuse me, Sir Knights. Have these two committed some offense?”

If I let them kill these guys right in front of me, I’d definitely have nightmares later.

“Are you a friend of these mannerless curs?”

“Yes, and I must apologize for their insolence and boorish ways. Here, perhaps this will make up for your troubles.”

I slipped the knights two small pouches of gold coins.

“Hmph. Very well.”

Judging by the weight that there was gold inside, the knights nodded satisfactorily and went after their master.

I made each of the guards drink a recovery potion. Arena staff members came over to see about the commotion, so I left them to take care of the rest.

“Are these all the demonic potions you’ve got?”

“I’ve got plenty more corpse potions.”

“We’re good on those for now. How much can you have ready for next month?”

“That’s up to you, Mister Daman.”

“Don’t get smart with me, plunderer.”

Now people were trading illegal drugs? This Tartumina place seemed pretty rough around the edges.

“If we pilfer too much, Sokell will catch on to us, so let’s keep the extra side jobs to a minimum.”

My “Keen Hearing” skill picked up on some secret-sounding information from delinquent-sounding men, but I wasn’t too interested, so I just wrote down the men’s names and the nature of their offenses and delivered them in a letter to the guard’s post.

Better to leave arresting criminals to the professionals.

That evening, I ended up drinking with the sensual lady sailors until morning.

It felt a bit like a witches’ gathering, but they were pretty soft in various ways, so that was all right with me.

“Ryyyye?”

“And Effie, sir!”

A few days later, I used the Return spell to go back to Bolenan Forest and retrieve our horses and carriage, much to the delight of Tama and Pochi.

Liza and Nana seemed happy to ride on a runosaur again, too.

We could have used my DIY airship to take a shortcut to Labyrinth City, but we decided to enjoy the trip in our horse-drawn carriage instead.

Besides, I wanted to test out the electric bicycle–like contraption I’d attached to the new magic carriage.

The journey wound up being fairly relaxed, without too many monster or bandit encounters.

Along the way, we stopped at the crossroads city Kelton, which was a major land-based trading point situated between the trade city Tartumina, the royal capital, and Labyrinth City Celivera. There was an incredible variety of both goods and people there.

Next we came to Furusawa, a small city halfway between Kelton and Celivera; after that, there were less and less villages, until we eventually started passing through a wasteland.

The intervals between the villages along the road grew ever larger, and it was clear that the land was far more barren out here.

“Labyrinth City is just beyond those mountains, right?”

Arisa, sitting next to Lulu in the coachman’s stand, opened the hatch to talk to me.

“That’s right. We’re almost there.”

Finally, the carriage crossed over the mountains, and the wide basin containing Labyrinth City Celivera came into sight.

The part of the basin closest to us was covered in cactus-like plants called “veria,” dotting a wasteland that was basically a desert.

Far in the distance in Labyrinth City was a hill that contained the entrance to the labyrinth; the basin beyond that, leading up to the mountains on the other side, was populated with all kinds of plant monsters.

Beyond that mountain range was apparently a desert.

“We finally made it!”

“Aye-aaaye!”

“Now our battle really begins, sir.”

Arisa, Tama, and Pochi grinned excitedly.

I wish they wouldn’t say such ominous things.

“Let’s get going. There aren’t any villages between here and Labyrinth City, just rest stops with rain coverage, and some of them don’t even have water wells.”

“Okey-dokey! Let’s-a go!”

With that cheerful exclamation from Arisa, the carriage set off down the hill toward Labyrinth City.

I sat back, imagining all the new encounters, sights, and delicious foods waiting for us in Labyrinth City.

It was sure to be an exciting adventure.