by Hiro Ainana
I got that she was play-acting and all, but I didn’t want her to hurt her teeth, so I gently took it away.
“… Water Hold Mizu Shibaru.”
“Now!”
“Gotchaaa?”
“Take this, sir!”
Mia’s Water Magic held the plesiosaur in place, and the beastfolk girls finished it off.
It was only around level 20, so I guess it wasn’t as strong as it looked.
As far as taste, it was a bit tougher and stranger-tasting than sea serpent, but it should be fine as long as it was paired with a flavorful sauce and seasoning.
“Flower island.”
“Flower island…
“Mia and the larva are correct, I concur.”
We’d been traveling south for about two hours after running into the plesiosaur when we came across an island covered in blooming flowers.
Rei was speaking in Shigan with occasional Hallowed Language words mixed in.
“Master, let’s make land there!”
“Sure, but you’ll have to wear void suits, all right?”
Arisa tilted her head. “What do you mean?”
“Those flowers are all poisonous.”
According to my AR information, many of the flowers used neurotoxins, sleeping powder, and other such poisons for targeting animals.
Many of them could be used for potion ingredients, so I warned everyone to use Air Control to make sure the poison didn’t get in as we approached, then used my Magic Hand to pick a few.
“I guess every rose has its thorns,” Arisa said wisely as we left the island behind.
I didn’t think someone who looked like a child should really be saying that kind of thing.
It turned out that Tama and Pochi had been dozing in the lookout post, earning them a scolding from Liza.
So that was why Mia had spotted the island first.
As we made a detour around the island, we saw a metal frame in the middle of it, covered in flowers.
“
Judging by the trance state of Rei’s words, the metal frame was the ruins of a floating ship from the Lalakie era.
I checked it out with Clairvoyance and my map, but there didn’t seem to be anything of special note inside, so I decided to just pass it by.
“What is that? Sand?”
“It seems to be volcanic ash.”
A few days after we saw the flower island, Arisa noticed some ash drifting on the breeze.
Since we had magical Air Control, it didn’t land on the deck. As far as I could tell, it was coming from an island near the center of the area.
Unlike the previous monster territory, this area contained a few islands with human settlements.
It would probably be fun to visit one of these remote inhabited southern islands, but I had something more important to do first.
As I was getting ready to set out, Arisa looked at me nervously.
“Don’t do anything reckless, okay?”
“Don’t worry. I’m just going to set a seal slate and do a little harvesting while I’m at it,” I responded lightly.
Volcanic islands tended to be useful bonus stages where you could get lots of sulfur and fire stones and such, after all.
I brought the ship as close as I safely could, then used my Flying Shoes to take off from the deck. Once I was far enough away from the ship, I used “Flashrunning” to teleport to the volcano, which was almost six miles away.
“Wow. ‘Flashrunning’ long distances when you’re not in space is pretty intense.”
My shirt had been blown off in the process, so I replaced it with a new one, then used the Everyday Magic spell Deodorant to get rid of the burned smell.
I had assumed that it would simply use magic to teleport me like “Warp” does, but when it was that long of a distance, the atmosphere clearly had some kind of effect. It was pretty strange, considering there was no inertia once the movement was complete.
“Ooh, it’s erupting.”
I used the Canopy spell to protect myself from the ash and smoke, putting my Flexible Shields to work to ward off the flying debris.
“Lots of fire monsters. I figured as much.”
Bright-red fire-spitting snakes attacked me from the ground, while burning human-shaped spirits flew at me, so I used Remote Arrow to deal with the lot of them.
The volcano’s crater was full of red-hot lava, with yellow sulfur peeking out through the cracks.
“I got plenty of sulfur and ash and stuff, but I haven’t found any fire stones…”
I muttered to myself as I searched the map, which showed a huge amount of fire stones inside the lava. There were even a few shards of the rare Firelight Pearls.
There was also a level-82 creature called a “flamebeast” lurking in the lava; this territory was its domain. This one even had a proper name, which was rare for a monster: “Flame Lord.”
Its specialty was Blaze Breath, and its species had a special trait that reduced the effect of physical attacks by half. Fire and light attacks wouldn’t work on it at all.
I prepared the intermediate attack spell Implosion from the magic menu.
See, I read in a book long ago that a shock wave was the best way to put out fire.
GGRAAAAAAAARRR.
The Flame Lord appeared, bursting through the lava.
“It’s a T. reeeeeex?!”
For some reason, it looked exactly like the infamous Tyrannosaurus rex.
Startled, I instinctively flung out a kick to the side of its head and then automatically used Implosion to attack its unprotected neck, defeating it instantly.
I had aimed the focal point of the Implosion at its back to avoid getting caught in it myself, so I wound up with a headless corpse.
Although I was able to defeat it easily thanks to the huge difference in our levels, it was an over-two-hundred-foot-long monster that could even fly, so it might’ve actually been a pretty powerful enemy.
I stored away the corpse of the Flame Lord, which had a thick hide with a red to orange gradation, then reached into the lava with Magic Hand to pick up some gigantic fire stones and Firelight Pearls.
When this harvest was finished, I turned away, feeling very pleased with myself, and spotted some kind of man-made structure in one corner of the crater.
“…What’s that?”
As I approached the structure with “Skyrunning,” I could see that it looked like some kind of temple.
In fact, it bore a strong resemblance to the underwater shrine I saw at the city-rock island.
It had been mostly destroyed, but there seemed to be enough space for someone to fit into it, so I stepped inside.
“It hasn’t deteriorated much, considering it doesn’t have a Fixify spell protecting it.”
The shrine must have been destroyed more recently than I realized.
Inside, there was some kind of sealing device, which didn’t seem to be working anymore.
It must have been sealing the Flame Lord I just defeated.
The Flame Lord didn’t seem to have any phoenixlike revival skills or abilities, so it was probably safe to leave this device as it was.
I set a seal slate far enough away that it should be safe even if there was a major eruption, then changed out of my burned-up boots and clothes before returning to the ship.
Later on the journey, when we stopped at one of the islands along our route…
“Piiineapples?”
“Bananas are the best, sir.”
“There are even kiwis and mangoes.”
…we were able to find a bunch of tropical fruits.
When the head chief of the island saw Mia, he became very welcoming.
There were hardly any monsters around the island, either, which made it very peaceful.
Rei’s trance state explained the reason, which turned out to be a cone-shaped magic object.
“
Many of the people of this island had tanned skin like Rei, along with black hair and eyes. A lot of them also wore a garment that looked like a single piece of red cloth draped over their shoulder. Since that alone would leave half of their chests exposed, the women wore white chest wraps underneath.
Most of the inhabitants also wore accessories around their necks, wrists, and ankles that looked like strings of small wood pieces. More extravagant accessories denoted someone with a higher rank in their village.
“
“
The chief was speaking a language called “Ujan Language,” which sounded closer to the Saga Empire language than Shigan.
I acquired the skill for it, but it seemed to be unique to this island, so I just used the Translation: Lesser spell to communicate.
I wondered at first if these people were descendants of Lalakie, but that didn’t appear to be the case.
“
I’d given the man some transparent Shigan sake and bitter ale. Since the liquor of this island all seemed to be a sweet unfiltered sake-like drink made from fruit, it was probably unusual for them to taste a different kind of alcohol.
For the food, I’d given them some deep-fried hydra meat and whale steak from the giant monster fish Tobkezerra.
As thanks, the villagers made us a delicacy that they rarely ate: sea turtle soup. It wasn’t quite the same as soft-shelled turtle, but it was still unbelievably good.
“
The chief’s daughter, an adorable high school–age girl, offered me a cup filled with some kind of black liquid after dinner.
Her chest wrap wasn’t as wide as the other girls’, so an enticing little bit of volume peeked out around the edges.
If she weren’t a child, I might’ve been tempted to talk her up.
“
The drink was bitter; a powdery texture filled my mouth.
If it was cocoa, there definitely wasn’t any milk or sugar in it.
“<‘Kokoa’? No, this is ‘drops of love.’ When two people drink it, they share a special love and are granted a child.>”
The chief’s daughter drew closer to me, fiery heat in her tone and gaze.
But of course, the iron-wall pair wasn’t going to let that slide.
“Nuh-uh, you’re not taking on any local sweethearts on my watch!”
“Mm. Banned.”
Who says “sweethearts” anymore, Arisa?
It was probably her penchant for outdated lingo at work again.
“
Apparently, someone in the village had the “Analyze Person” skill.
Just as we’d done in other settlements, Rei was equipped with a recognition-inhibiting magic tool, so we should be all right. Nana was wearing her Amulet of Humanity, too.
“Don’t give me that folklorish world-building nonsense!”
Arisa complained about the village’s customs with some hard-to-follow logic.
“
The girl pointed at the cup almost accusingly.
Did drinking it mean accepting a marriage proposal or something?
I covered the top of the cup with my hand, added some milk and sugar from Storage, and stirred it with Magic Hand.
“
“
I showed her the cup, which now contained the same amount of liquid as it had before.
Intrigued by the sweet scent now rising from the cup, the chief’s daughter gave it a sip.
“
“
I used my “Fabrication” skill to mislead the young girl.
“<…I see. Very well.>”
She hesitated for a bit but finally gave in to the allure of the sweet cocoa and drank it up, then returned to the other villagers.
I felt a little bad, but she should really find a spouse in her own village instead.
“
“Mm. Thank you.”
The next day, some of the island people came to see us off.
After Mia’s brief answer, the villagers threw themselves to the ground in gratitude.
“
The chief’s expression was so grave that I couldn’t bring myself to tell him I’d already beaten that thing.
“
“
I nodded at the villagers, and we left the island behind us.
We passed several uninhabited islands where cacao fruits grew, so we gathered plenty of ingredients for chocolate as well as tropical fruits.
But we took care to avoid harvesting too much, of course. That would be bad for the environment.
Besides, since I’d set seal slates in the area, I could come back for more anytime.
Maritime Nation Ishrallie
Satou here. For some reason, the phrase maritime nation makes me picture a floating man-made island in the Pacific Ocean. I must have read some memorable sci-fi story about a floating nation like that.
“Is that Ishrallie?”
Arisa pointed at a structure up ahead that looked like an island.
The Kingdom of Ishrallie was in the next area after the volcanic island.
It was an island nation consisting of several hundred islands of various sizes, centered around an island about the size of Shikoku, the smallest of Japan’s four main islands. The biggest island contained a lakelike inlet, at the center of which was the capital of Ishrallie.
Unlike the subtropical climate of the previous area, the weather here was light and summery. The climate seemed to be controlled with a City Core.
“I think so, yeah.”
I answered Arisa’s question vaguely as I looked at the map.
The place Arisa was pointing at seemed to be a settlement on the edges of a donut-shaped island.
Including the ocean, Ishrallie was about the size of the Ougoch Duchy, but its population was barely a tenth of the duchy’s. Most of the inhabitants seemed to live on the bigger islands.
Just as I’d been warned, there were a great deal of pirates in the kingdom’s territory, but since we were so far from the usual route, we didn’t encounter any of them.
“We’re not running into many monsters here.”
“Well, we’re not in a monster-dominated territory anymore.”
We’d captured all kinds of sea life along the way; the green quartz seahorses and flying shark fins would probably fetch a particularly high price.
Not that I had any intention of selling them.
“I suppose. But what about my ootoro?” Arisa asked, her eyes gleaming with gluttony.
I understood her eagerness, but we were looking for tuna.
“They don’t seem to be in this area, either.”
I couldn’t find them anywhere. Maybe they had a wide migration range.
“Master, a small airship is approaching, I report.”
Looking up to where Nana was pointing, I saw what resembled a bathtub with dragonfly wings coming right at us. Its pilot was a man with a big, bushy mustache.
“
> Skill Acquired: “Ishralliese Language”
This country’s language sounded fairly similar to Ancient Language.
If they were descended from Lalakie, I thought they might use something closer to Hallowed Language…
Largely out of curiosity, I put some points into the new skill and activated it. Translation: Lesser was only for speaking, not reading, anyway.
“You, pirates! Yes, no?!”
When I didn’t respond, the mustachioed man called out in broken Shigan instead.
“
After a short question-and-answer exchange, the man guided us to the only gate into the inlet.
“Biiig?”
“Amazingly amazing, sir!”
On a cliff above the gate was a dome-shaped fortress equipped with two huge Magic Cannons.
“<…Totorie Magic Cannon, eighth-generation model. Also known as Dragon Cannons, they boasted the highest attack power of any in the Lalakie dynasty. Because of these Dragon Cannons, Totorie’s Magic Cannon technology was praised as the greatest in the world; this led an envious Lalakie engineer to involve the senate, accusing the Totorie royal family of treachery, which led to its fall as well as that of the floating castle. The prince fled with the Dragon Cannons, which were forever lost to the annals of history…>”
Rei entered her trance state and gave a lengthy explanation in Hallowed Language.
“Larva, you are quite knowledgeable, I commend.”
“Hmm? Nana?”
Coming back to her senses to find Nana lifting her up in a hug, Rei blinked in confusion.
She’d become so accustomed to the Shigan language that she even spoke it when she was surprised now. It probably helped that the other girls were teaching her, too, not only Nana.
Our ship traveled through the narrow passage between the cliffs and toward the inlet.
“It’s a little scary how close these walls are…”
“Fear not, Lulu. If the worst should happen, master will surely protect us.”
Normally, Liza would offer to do the protecting herself, but apparently, extreme cases like natural disasters fell to me instead.
But I really would protect them from a landslide or a tidal wave and so on.