Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody, Vol. 9

by Hiro Ainana

  The king seemed grimly confident about this.

  If I remembered right, Yuuneia had said something along these lines when we first encountered her:

  “”

  He was probably going to use this Blazeshine Sword that had been used to seal the Flame Lord in place of the gem from the Crimson Cane, which was in my possession.

  It seemed strange to use a fire-type item to seal a fire-type monster, but there was no reason that the king would lie about that right now.

  “If he offers up the elemental jewels at the Sealtower Islands and Lalakie rises into the sky, then the most powerful of Doghead’s kin—the Sea Lord—will be unleashed.”

  Oh, there’s a new key phrase.

  “Doghead’s kin will run rampant on land and sea, and the Skeleton King will control the floating island Lalakie and its Divine Wrath Cannon in the sky…”

  The king of Lalagi looked up as if he might die at any moment.

  “…There is nowhere left to go.”

  “That’s not true.”

  If I left the king to his own devices, he might die of despair, so I spoke without thinking.

  “Spare me your empty consolations. Who in the world could possibly stop such a disaster?”

  The gods probably could handle it, but in this world, they seemed to just warn people about disasters with the “Oracle” skill and leave them to handle the rest themselves.

  “A hero will surely rise to meet the evil.”

  “A hero? You mean the Hero of the Saga Empire?”

  A faint light of hope entered the king’s eyes.

  Casually tossing out the word hero seemed to carry some serious clout around here.

  “Did you not see the hero who protected this land earlier this very day?”

  “You mean that mysterious figure who was flying around in the sky?”

  Shoot. I should’ve showed myself off a little more.

  “Yes, that is the very same hero who swiftly defeated Tobkezerra and the other giant monster fish when they appeared in the Shiga Kingdom.”

  “Th-the giant monster fish Tobkezerra?!”

  I nodded and continued speaking. “Not long before I left the Shiga Kingdom, the Skeleton King attacked a harbor town there, so I suspect the hero was waiting here for the Skeleton King to arrive.”

  My “Fabrication” skill was on a roll as usual.

  “There is no doubt in my mind that the hero will put an end to the Skeleton King’s foul plans.”

  I smiled reassuringly, and the dark shadow over the king’s eyes lifted completely.

  “Well then, I suppose I cannot simply cower in here any longer. I must go and reassure the people.”

  The king of Lalagi stood with renewed energy and went to calm the people of the castle town, which was in near chaos after the Skeleton King’s attack. He could probably take care of the rest.

  I asked the king for more information about the Sealtower Islands, then left the castle.

  On the way, I told Rayleigh that our discussion about his new company would have to wait and gave him some money to get started for the time being.

  They seemed to still be working on their business plan anyway, so I’d have to come back once the Lalakie situation was dealt with.

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

  I nodded at Nana on the deck and gave the order to the figurehead golem Scarecrow to set sail.

  The Sealtower Islands, the Skeleton King’s likely destination, were said to be somewhere in the Kraken’s Domain.

  And so we set forth from the Kingdom of Sorcery Lalagi to put a stop to the Skeleton King’s plan to resurrect Lalakie.

  Lalakie Route

  Satou here. I think exploring unknown waters is an important part of any adventure at sea. Even if you have a map that’s basically a walk-through guide…

  “Master! There are seabirds circling around up ahead!”

  Liza called out from the lookout post on the mast.

  “We finally found them.”

  “Uh-huh. I’ll finish them off with a single slice.”

  Arisa grinned eagerly, and I responded with a similar expression.

  Even the orichalcum alloy knife in my hand seemed keen to finally see action.

  “All right, I’ll be right back.”

  “Good luuuck?”

  “You can do it, sir!”

  I took off from the deck with a quick wave.

  Near where the birds were circling, something broke the water’s surface.

  Gotcha!

  It leaped into the air with a spray of seawater, far larger than anything I was expecting.

  “Haaaaaa!”

  “Flashrunning” put me right in front of my prey within an instant, and I swung the orichalcum blade with all my might, slicing through its head as easily as cutting through cloth.

  The attack, so sharp that it seemed as if it could have sliced a molecule in two, went straight through its target and cut a swath through the ocean waves behind it.

  The creature continued its leap as if it hadn’t even noticed that it had been cut, but as soon as it tried to turn in midair, its body split into perfect halves, killing it instantly.

  I wasted no time in grabbing both halves with Magic Hand and putting them away in Storage.

  Finally! We’ve got ootoro!

  I almost struck a victory pose right then and there, but I was getting ahead of myself.

  “Master, behind you!” Lulu cried.

  I didn’t even need to turn around to know that a school of bullet tuna was coming this way, aiming for the circling birds.

  As the school of thirty-foot-long bullet tuna zoomed toward me, I prepared my orichalcum tuna knife and charged into the fray.

  “Ahhh, it’s melting in my mooouth.”

  “Very…yummy.”

  As Arisa and Rei enjoyed the ootoro sashimi with wasabi and soy sauce, I reached out my chopsticks as well.

  Sushi was high on my list, but trying out the sashimi was my main objective.

  Lulu, Tama, and Pochi seemed very interested, but Liza stopped them, so they were just watching.

  At last, I took a bite of the long-awaited ootoro.

  The fat really did dissolve in my mouth, spreading the delicious taste of tuna across my tongue.

  I’d eaten ootoro in Japan before, but this was on a whole different level.

  It had an incredible depth of flavor and was rich enough that a single piece seemed like enough to satisfy me, yet I couldn’t stop myself from taking another bite.

  Delicious. It’s way too delicious.

  I’d prepared a few different kinds of wasabi and soy sauce with the intention of figuring out which went with it best, but I accidentally wound up eating a whole plate’s worth of sashimi with the first kind of soy sauce alone.

  “Ahhh, I can die happy now.”

  “Yes… It was very, very…good.”

  Arisa and Rei sighed happily.

  “Meeew?”

  “I—I want to try it, too, sir.”

  Tama and Pochi, who were still being held by Liza, had stopped squirming and were now just staring at the empty plates with drool on their lips.

  “You mustn’t. Raw fish has a high chance of giving you a stomachache.”

  “I want to try it even if my tummy hurts after, sir.”

  “Me toooo?”

  “I-I’m willing to take the risk, too.”

  Liza was trying to dissuade them, but Pochi, Tama, and even Lulu seemed determined this time.

  “It’s all right, Liza. I’ve already removed any parasites or eggs that could make us sick.”

  “Master… Very well, then. Since the three of them seem quite firm about this, I shall test it first as a guinea pig.”

  Liza’s expression looked grim.

  Her spirit of self-sacrifice was admirable and all, but since
some of us had already eaten a lot of it, a guinea pig wasn’t really necessary.

  Still, this was my chance to finally get Liza to try sashimi.

  I lined a plate with more tuna sashimi, and Liza tremulously lifted the ootoro with her chopsticks, then squeezed her eyes shut and popped the whole thing into her mouth.

  “I-impossible…”

  Liza’s wide-eyed expression prompted the other girls to reach out with their forks and chopsticks as well.

  “Fishy, yummyyyy?”

  “It’s so squishy and juicy and tasty, sir!”

  “This is amazing, master! Tuna is unbelievably delicious!”

  Tama, Pochi, and Lulu all praised the taste as they reached for another bite.

  “…Delicious.” Liza put a hand to her cheek and murmured blissfully.

  I guess she must have liked it, too.

  “I see now why you were so beside yourself about acquiring this, master,” Liza added.

  I wasn’t really that worked up, was I?

  I turned to Arisa to ask her, but she quickly averted her eyes. Ridiculous.

  “Want to try it…Nana?”

  “If you insist, larva, then I shall do so, I consent.”

  “You too, Mia…”

  “Mrrr. No.”

  Nana gave in to Rei’s adorable request, but Mia hated fatty foods, so she made an X in front of her mouth with her fingers.

  “It is delicious, but it would be even more so if cooked, I declare.”

  “Yes, tuna steak might be good, too.”

  My Japanese instincts cried out in protest at the thought of cooking such high-quality tuna, but I had read somewhere that it was good that way, so I decided to cook some per Nana’s request.

  “Ahhh, what a waste…”

  “It smells good, though, doesn’t it?”

  I understood Arisa’s feelings, but Lulu was right: The scent certainly piqued one’s appetite.

  Tama and Pochi were visible proof of that. They were standing next to the charcoal grill, sniffing the air and drooling excessively.

  Once it was finished, I cut it up and gave Tama and Pochi the first two pieces.

  “Yaaay!”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  The pair picked up the tuna steak with their forks and brought it to their lips.

  “Très bieeen?”

  “It’s almost as strong as Professor Hamburg, sir!”

  Tama and Pochi burst into huge smiles immediately, waving their fists around gleefully.

  Just flailing their arms evidently wasn’t enough to express their feelings, as they soon started stamping around on the deck, too.

  It may have been my imagination, but I thought I even saw tears in their eyes.

  “Master, as I surmised, tuna is better cooked than raw, I insist.”

  “It is…really good…cooked. But I think…the sashimi…was even better…”

  Nana was head over heels for the tuna steak, while Rei quietly stated her own preference.

  It was nice to have someone else who understood the deliciousness of sashimi.

  “Grrr, I hate to admit it, but it is really good.”

  Arisa frowned reluctantly even as she stuffed her cheeks with the tuna steak.

  “It’s quite delicious. The taste is somewhat similar to beef.”

  “Yes, it really is tasty.”

  Liza and Lulu seemed satisfied, too.

  “Satou…”

  Mia rubbed her cheek against me, clearly feeling left out, so I decided to make a dish for her before moving on to sushi.

  Hopefully everyone would like the sushi right away, though.

  “Ahhh, that was delicious.”

  Arisa, who’d been tidying up after the meal with the other girls, flopped down next to me, sitting back against the forecastle.

  “Did you finish cleaning up?”

  “Why, of course we did. So have you figured out our route from here?”

  I used the Light Magic spell Illusion to display the map information of the Kraken’s Domain, which was next to the Kingdom of Sorcery Lalagi.

  “This is where we are now, and these four points are the Sealtower Islands.”

  The Skeleton King was likely planning to place a gem similar to the one from the Crimson Cane at one of these four islands to raise Lalakie.

  It was a pretty gamelike setup, but if I had to use force, there were plenty of ways I could stop him. I could even destroy all the islands without a trace if I had to.

  Not that I was looking to use that option at the moment.

  “What’s the scale on this map?”

  “One inch is about twenty miles.”

  “Wait, then they’re super far apart! Won’t it take days to get to all of them?!”

  Arisa jumped up in surprise.

  She was shouting pretty loudly, but I’d used the Secret Field spell to put a sound barrier around us, so the others didn’t seem to notice.

  It certainly was far, but if I had to, I could sacrifice my clothes and use “Flashrunning” to travel around in no time.

  “Right now, we’re trying to get to this spot.”

  “The middle of the four islands? But there’s nothing there, is there?”

  Arisa frowned in puzzlement, so I zoomed in on that part of the map.

  “Another island?”

  “That’s right. We could go to each of the islands, but they’re all pretty far apart. It seems likely that there’d be something important on the center island, right?”

  “True. And even if there isn’t, if something happens on one of the islands, we can get to any of them in about the same amount of time, so…that makes sense, yeah.”

  It didn’t take Arisa long to catch on to my line of thinking and nod in agreement.

  “Hmm? But up is north on this map, right? Aren’t we going off course?”

  “There’s a place I want to stop at on the way.”

  Since we were stopping at islands to set seal slates as we traveled, our course was already pretty zigzagged, but it was still farther south than it should be.

  “I have some business over here.”

  “What is it?”

  “The roc lives on this island.”

  “You really want to go sightseeing right now?”

  Arisa raised her eyebrows, but I shook my head.

  “No, no. The Sky Lord is on that island.”

  The Sky Lord was supposed to be kin to the Dogheaded Demon Lord, an enemy of the floating island Lalakie, so I didn’t want to risk it interrupting while I was facing down the Skeleton King.

  That guy was already pretty quick to flee, so the last thing I needed was to give him another chance to do so.

  “So this is the roc, huh?”

  When the bird spread its wings, it was around the same size as the island it was using as its nest.

  PYWEEEEEWN!

  With a loud cry, its enormous heavy bomber–like body took off into the sky. It was most likely supporting itself with Wind Magic.

  At level 87, it was a little stronger than the Flame Lord. Its species was roc, while its individual name was Sky Lord.

  I put magic power into Claidheamh Soluis, elongating the blade, and then added Sacredblade to the tip, making it long enough to cut the Sky Lord.

  PYWEEEEEWN!

  The Sky Lord produced a tornado full of wind blades, so I blew it apart with a wind spell of my own, Air Cannon.

  I thought I saw surprise flash through the Sky Lord’s eyes, but that might have just been my imagination.

  Dodging the compressed-air shots that zoomed toward me like anti-aircraft missiles, I swung my glowing blue blade almost casually and cut through the Sky Lord’s thick neck.

  “All right! Poultry!”

  I wasn’t sure how it would taste yet, but it was easy to run low on poultry, so I was genuinely happy to acquire it in such a large quantity.

  Grilled chicken skewers were one of Liza’s favorite meals, so now I could make plenty for her.

  I p
ut the enormous body into Storage and headed for the nest in the middle of the island.

  The nest contained twenty-odd enormous eggs the size of small houses, a huge amount of bones, and a pile of treasure.

  Rocs seemed to share with crows a love of shiny objects; there were even gems the size of large eggs, like emerald and sapphire.

  Most of the bones belonged to monsters, fish, and other creatures, but there were more than a few human bones in there, too. The nest itself seemed to be made of the remains of ships.

  I recovered the treasure, the eggs, and the human bones into Storage before returning to the ship.

  I planned to give the latter a proper burial at sea later.

  “That was…a big…bird.”

  The ship had been pretty far away, but I guess they could still see it from here.

  Luckily, the island wasn’t in view to give a size comparison, so nobody seemed to have noticed just how gigantic the bird was.

  “Yeah, I guess it was called a ‘roc.’”

  I probably should’ve said “Sky Lord” in the hopes that it would jog Rei’s memories, but I didn’t want to remind her of the downfall of her home, so I decided not to mention that name.

  I should also note that we dined on roc meat that evening, which was a little tough but very flavorful in a rustic way.

  “Satou…”

  As I was sitting in my usual after-dinner spot behind the forecastle, watching the sun set on the horizon, Rei came over to me.

  “Can I talk to you…about that girl…?”

  “You mean Yuuneia? Sure.”

  Arisa would probably be better at giving advice than I would, but since Rei had gone out of her way to ask me, I didn’t want to pass her off on someone else.

  “Do you think you can…remove her shackles?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Rei breathed a little sigh of relief.

  If that ghost bird hadn’t gotten in my way the first time, I’m sure I could’ve gotten rid of those miasma shackles.

  I had been able to do it for Rei when we initially rescued her, after all.

  “Then…please…do it. Remove…that girl’s…shackles.”

  “No problem.”

  When I agreed immediately, Rei broke into a smile.

  She’d only seemed scared of Yuuneia, but I guess she was concerned for her after all.