Sailing the Rapids
Simon pressed forward, pushing through the thick undergrowth. Behind him, skeletons followed, hauling the wooden house he'd built the day before.
Summoning really is the best. Ever since he'd taken up the discipline, his hands and shoulders always felt light. Even wandering into an area crawling with monsters like this one didn't faze him — before Simon could even spot the creatures, his summons would already be charging in to finish them off. All he had to do was stroll over to the aftermath and collect the Tongue Pad points. And beyond that, the countless advantages of having manpower? He could talk your ear off listing them.
Huh?
Simon, walking at the head of the column, stopped and crouched to examine a pile of monster droppings lying in the grass. Beside it, paw prints. Apparently, they'd wandered straight into the territory of a Wrecker — a Grade 2 monster.
"Kids, let's hurry through."
At Simon's command, the skeleton porters quickened their pace.
[Now then, boy,] Pier said, falling in beside him. [You claimed you'd reach the center in one go. What's your plan?]
"Oh, it's simple."
Simon pushed aside a broad leaf and stepped out of the jungle, and a vast open vista unfolded before his eyes.
Shaaaaaa! The crisp sound of rushing water filled his ears.
"We're going to ride a boat up that river."
[A boat? Since when did you have time to build a— ah!]
Pier's avatar shifted its gaze to the wooden house on the skeletons' shoulders. Of course! Now that he looked again, it wasn't a house at all — it was unmistakably the silhouette of a wooden boat.
"Alright, careful coming down."
Thud.Tap.
Simon helped the skeletons lower the wooden house and carefully descended the steep cliff himself, while Pier kept the conversation going.
[The idea itself isn't bad, but rivers generally flow from the inland toward the sea, do they not?]
"Let me explain."
Simon sketched freely in the air with his unoccupied hand.
"Imagine one big island in the center, with four smaller islands surrounding it at close range. Follow me?"
[Mm! I follow.]
"I heard this from Dick — apparently this whole region isn't actually called Kera Island."
Simon gestured toward the enormous landmass in the middle.
"Only that island at the very center is called Kera Island."
[What?]
"The proper name for this whole area is the Kera Archipelago. The other islands are separate from Kera Island entirely. Which means—"
Simon pointed at the channel of water running between the islands that ringed Kera Island — right where he was standing.
"This isn't a river. It's the sea."
[Oho!]
"If you actually taste it, it's salty. It's the ocean flowing between the islands, not a river."
Simon checked his watch, then opened his subspace.
"And apparently the current at this hour flows at exactly the same speed, day after day."
Keong! Keong!
Krrrr!
Barking erupted from the forest behind them.
Oh no!
A pack of six-legged Wreckers had spotted Simon and were charging toward him. They'd caught his scent, most likely.
"Everyone, move!"
Simon and the skeletons scrambled down the cliff at full speed. But their pursuers were native monsters of this jungle — they came hurtling down the sheer rock face with barely a pause.
At this rate, they'll catch us.
A fight on a cliff like this would be genuinely deadly. Simon's mind raced, and then his eyes locked onto the sea churning below.
"Stop! We're dropping it right here!"
Simon and the skeletons bent their knees slightly, then heaved the wooden house out with all their strength.
With a great splash, the wooden house hit the water.
Keong! Keong! Keong!
Simon recalled every skeleton into his subspace and ran.
Hoo!
Then, without so much as a backward glance, he channeled his Dark Step and hurled himself off the edge of the cliff with everything he had. The Wreckers' claws slashed past, missing his uniform by a hair.
The timing is perfect!
KWAAANG!
Simon's body landed dead-center on the wooden house drifting with the current. The boat lurched hard, and seawater foamed white over him, soaking him through.
Yes!
Simon pumped his fist. The boat hadn't sunk, and he'd landed cleanly on top of it.
Far behind, the once-hunters-now-hunted Wreckers barked furiously at the water's edge, cheated of their prey.
[KEHAHAHAHA! Good! Very good!]
Pier laughed like a man taunting a beaten foe.
Moments later, the wooden boat began to race downstream at breathtaking speed. The ride was astonishingly smooth — droplets of spray kept leaping up around them.
"What did I tell you? One shot, straight through."
It was the dead of early morning. While most Kizen students, exhausted from building shelters, lighting fires, and hunting game, lay deep asleep, Simon was cruising toward his destination — the central Kera Island — on practically a free pass.
No one could hope to match his speed, and with dawn barely breaking, the risk of an ambush from other students had dwindled to almost nothing.
[KEHAHAHAHAHA! Now this is more like it!]
Simon and Pier rode the current onward, carving a cool, clean path across the sea.
"I came on the off chance you'd be here."
Dick let out a long sigh. Behind him stood seven Kizen students, weapons in hand.
They were in the zone where the other four islands of the Kera Archipelago connected upward to the central Kera Island. Each pair of islands was joined by a massive stone bridge.
At a glance, they looked like natural bridges that had existed on these islands since time immemorial — but in truth, Kizen had built them specifically for the Island Survival. Runes of dark magic were woven into the stone; unless someone poured a truly absurd amount of firepower into it, the structure simply would not break.
And right now, on this bridge, Dick's hand-picked team stood locked in a standoff with the students holding the far side.
Well, obviously someone would be guarding this place.
Dick scratched his head. To push through to the center, you had no choice but to break through here. That was exactly why he'd deliberately headed out at dawn, when everyone else would be worn out and asleep — and sure enough, other students were holding the line.
"So what's the plan now, Dick?"
asked one of the boys, a scythe-mounted skull slung over his shoulder.
Dick commanded the absolute trust of every teammate here. He could find paths through the densest jungle with ease, build shelters, identify edible fruit, and field-dress monsters — a full suite of survival knowledge and practical skills none of the aristocratic students possessed. In a single day, the entire team had come to lean on him deeply.
"Hm."
Dick folded his arms and thought for a moment.
"There's no clever trick for terrain like this. I'll go negotiate with them first. We'll offer some of our food as trade — and if that fails, we break through head-on."
"Got it."
"We're counting on you, Dick."
Just as Dick drew a deep breath and started toward the bridge—
"Whoa — what is that?"
"It's a person!"
Murmurs rippled through the crowd. Dick turned his head toward the sea, and a smile of pure relief spread across his face.
Simon!
Shaaaaaa!
Riding atop the wooden boat, Simon was following the current straight toward central Kera Island.
"Whoa! He looked at those rapids and thought, boat?"
"...It's certainly unconventional."
Dick fought desperately to keep from grinning as he looked down at Simon.
That's our Simon! That absolute lunatic!
Dick had toyed with the idea of descending to the center by sea himself. But he'd judged it impossible in practice. For one thing, the current was far too strong — no amount of rowing could steer against it. And besides—
"Fire! Hit that bastard!"
The students on the far side of the bridge had no intention of letting him sail by. Jet-Black Arrows and assorted dark spells began raining down toward Simon's boat.
I have to help him.
His teammates here were fine either way — they'd come together out of mutual necessity, nothing more. But Simon was different. He was the most important friend Dick had, the one he wanted at his side for all three years to come.
Dick spun around and shouted.
"Kids, now's our chance! Cross the bridge!"
"...N-now?"
"That guy on the boat is drawing all their fire! We cross now!"
At Dick's urging, the others nodded, and the whole team surged toward the bridge with a battle cry.
"They're coming across from the other side!"
"Shoot them down first!"
The firepower that had been concentrated on Simon scattered toward the bridge. Simon saw it and smiled.
Lucky — they took the bait. Now's my window.
The current quickened, and the boat's trajectory drew closer to the landing point Simon wanted.
Just a little closer, just a little more—
KWAAAAANG!
A deafening blast thundered across the water, loud enough to burst his eardrums. Simon looked up — a shadow had fallen over him. An enormous Jet-Black shell was dropping straight toward his boat.
There was a skilled caster on the far side of the bridge too. The trajectory was dead-on; dodging was impossible.
Simon curled his lips into a grin and ignited jet-black through both legs. Then, without a flicker of hesitation, he leapt from the boat.
KWAAANG!
The shell struck his boat dead-on, blasting it to splinters.
Hoo!
Now was the part that mattered. Simon flung open his subspace and dropped skeletons into the air.
The skeletons' arm bones were hugging clumps of Buresari gathered in the jungle earlier. Buresari floated on water — and a skeleton, being pure bone, floated too.
There!
The skeleton landed exactly where Simon wanted, Buresari clutched tight beneath it. Simon planted his foot on its back and sprang again.
Drop a skeleton from the subspace, land on it, leap again. It was like bounding across a line of stepping stones.
"Whoa!"
"...That's even possible?"
The watching students' jaws hung open at what looked like pure acrobatics. As the bombardment from shore intensified, Simon simply carpeted the water's surface with skeletons and started running across them.
Dark Step!
FWOOSH!
Veering to dodge an incoming Jet-Black Arrow, Simon flew several meters through the air, spun a full rotation, and landed on solid ground in style.
He immediately opened his subspace and dumped out the scattered remains of his skeletons. Most of them were little more than lower halves by now.
Simon looked back over his shoulder and thrust out his right arm.
Restoration!
Bone fragments still drifting away on the current suddenly floated up into the air, then shot back like lightning and snapped into place on the skeletons' bodies one after another.
In an instant, more than ten skeletons stood fully restored. Only the Buresari plants were lost, carried off by the rapids.
"Let's go!"
Simon and his skeletons bolted into the forest.
Kahaha — that kid really is something...!
Dick couldn't hold back his cry of amazement. Not just him — the students across the bridge had gone wide-eyed too.
"Who is that guy?"
"So skeletons can be used like that..."
Then, among the students on the far side of the bridge, one of them abruptly turned his back on the battle. He broke formation without a word.
"Hey — wait! What the hell are you doing?"
The student beside him grabbed his shoulder. In that instant, a jet-black demon's arm erupted from the man's back and smashed the student aside.
"Y-you psycho!"
"What are you doing?!"
A betrayal, at a moment like this! Haren Coke, Black Hand already unfurled at his back, flashed a crooked smile.
"Knock yourselves out. I've got somewhere else to be."
Leaving nothing but those words behind, Haren bolted toward the forest where Simon had disappeared.