210. Round 2
210. Round 2
"...Ugh... goddamn it, the Icarodite is completely burned out!! We're going down!!"
If only the engine had exploded, that would have been a lucky break—but it seemed the Icarodite that kept the ship afloat was destroyed.
The hull of the Titanic, which had been carving through the sky like magic, began to shudder and gradually sink.
We were crashing just like this?
I was fine.
I had confidence I wouldn't die even falling from this height.
But what about the others?
What about Nina? The head chef of this ship? Could they survive?
"Oh no... Everyone, gather on the deck!!"
The moment I tried to rush outside, Perda shouted.
"Albion, you help too!"
"Ha... I've only done that once..."
It seemed there was at least some kind of safety measure prepared for a fall.
"Uh... is the ship crashing...?"
"Yes, you idiot!!"
I smacked the dazed Gemma on the head and ran around looking for the passengers.
As a result of Casey and me diligently searching, we managed to quickly gather everyone, including the head chef, onto the deck.
"What the hell is going on all of a sudden!!"
"You guys must have some kind of artifact for crash-landings, right?!"
"We don't have anything like that, but we do have a way to land safely."
Perda scattered seeds and used Plant Genesis Magic, causing tree stems of various thicknesses to grow and envelop the people on the deck in a spherical shape.
The outside was filled with the thickest stems. The inside was filled with progressively thinner stems.
It looked like a structure designed to absorb the impact of the fall.
It was a highly plausible construct, but it seemed a bit insufficient on its own.
Albion filled that empty space with clean water using Water Elemental Magic.
"Hurry up and secrete some sap!"
"I'm doing it!"
An intensely thick green scent wafted out.
Sticky sap was seeping out in abundance from the stems filling the outer and middle layers.
Then Albion circulated the water that filled the gaps in the sphere, mixing it with the highly viscous sap.
"Keep it in that state! Boil up...!!"
And just as the mixture of sticky sap and water was maintaining its shape as a shock-absorbing material thanks to Albion, Edgar plunged his Flamberge inside and unleashed an intense heat.
Lemnos's Secret Swordsmanship, which could instantly convert Aura into thermal energy, hardened the sticky liquid in an instant.
The water all evaporated and the sap hardened solidly, resulting in a shock absorber with a sponge-like form riddled with holes, a sort of loofah shape.
The thick tree stems were the frame, and the sap that hardened into a sponge form absorbed the shock—a scientific structure.
All of this happened in less than two minutes.
"Lucia, we need to reduce the impact when we crash. Shall we try something too?"
"...I think I know what you mean."
And watching that, I grabbed Lucia's arm.
Lucia, guessing what the two of us could do in this situation, nodded her head.
"What are you going to do??"
"I'm going to reduce the falling impact with an expanded Aura force field."
"Well then, thanks!!"
The greatsword technique that creates an invisible force field around the blade was originally a skill used to grab opponents dozens of meters away.
It was more than enough to handle about ten people around us.
The airship, which had been falling slowly, accelerated as it got closer to the ground.
"We're falling...!!!"
-Kugugugugung!!!
———————————
In the end, the Titanic was wrecked.
Would it be correct to say it sank in this case too?
The beautiful hull was buried in the dirt, and the impact of the fall had wrecked it so that only about half remained.
Near the wreckage of the shattered hull, a giant wooden ball lay half-destroyed and heavily dented.
It was the escape pod the passengers had worked together to create.
With several layers of shock-absorbing material wrapped around it and finished with the greatsword's force field, the people inside felt almost no impact during the crash.
"How am I supposed to explain this to my father...."
"Just explain it as it is. I'll be your witness."
"Thanks...."
Edgar encouraged the dejected Perda, telling her it was okay.
No matter how much Perda had said she could discard a ship or two anytime, after crashing so futilely like this, she seemed utterly dumbfounded.
Just then, Gemma's sharp voice rang out as she also emerged from the escape pod.
"Hmph. So it was something made by humans after all. To break down so pathetically. It was only shiny on the outside."
Everyone thought that remark was a bit too harsh.
Especially those who had seen why the engine room caught fire wanted to say something, but Perda, the one who had suffered the most damage, just laughed it off, perhaps thinking her relationship with the Dragon Lord was worth more than the airship.
"Haha, that's right. Still, you'll have to compensate me for this."
Perda said she'd laugh it off, but there was clearly someone present who wouldn't.
"Hey."
Atlas glared at Gemma with an extremely rigid expression.
"You nearly killed everyone here, and you have the nerve to say that?"
Everyone held their breath at Atlas's words.
Things were looking serious.
Everyone thought the incident they had predicted would erupt someday was happening right now.
His voice sounded as if he was holding himself back, like he might explode at any moment.
But Gemma, as if asking what that had to do with her, retorted shamelessly.
"Everyone survived, so isn't that enough?"
"That's the result of our efforts. You, who did nothing but cause the problem, don't have the right to say that."
Angered by that answer, Atlas radiated a chill-inducing killing intent in all directions for a moment.
"Eut..."
Seeing that, Shahra's complexion turned pale.
Shivering like an aspen leaf, she breathed heavily as if suffering from respiratory distress.
As if such things didn't even register with him, Atlas directed an even stronger intensity at Gemma as he spoke.
"Apologize to everyone here. If you cause an accident, at least show the decency to help clean it up."
Everyone also understood why Shahra was reacting like that.
She couldn't breathe properly.
She couldn't see Atlas's face clearly as he spoke.
Atlas had his back to the setting sun, so his face was shadowed, but more than that, she couldn't look at him straight on because of the vicious killing intent he was exuding.
Though she couldn't see clearly what kind of expression he was making, one thing was certain.
Things were dangerous as they stood.
"I don't know what you're talking about. Why should I apologize?"
Whether she was dense or confident, Gemma Aurum confronted Atlas's rage, which was directed solely at her, head-on.
She remained consistently brazen, acting as if to say, 'so what?'
At that, Atlas lowered his head for a moment before making a 'decision.'
"I get it now. You're just a beast."
It was a kind of sentencing.
"A beast requires a fitting method of education."
A feeling that something extremely dangerous was about to happen filled the air.
"Atlas, no!!"
"S-Stop him!!!"
Thinking a serious incident was really about to happen, everyone rushed to stop Atlas.
But it was already too late.
Atlas grabbed Gemma and vanished.
"....We're in big trouble."
—————————————-
We were in trouble.
We were in really big trouble.
"Uwaaaah!!! What do we do if he does that!!!"
The usually smiling Perda clutched her head, a rare sight.
The fact that he disappeared right before their eyes was amazing, but that didn't matter either way.
The problem was that Atlas, who had looked ready to kill someone, had disappeared with Gemma.
"He won't... kill her...."
Shahra, her complexion still pale, spoke.
She was still trembling, perhaps because of the killing intent Atlas had emitted.
"If he just moved quickly, could he still be nearby? Couldn't we stop him?"
At Perda's words, Riber and Amy couldn't answer.
Atlas disappearing with that kind of feeling meant he had used his power as a Master.
Using that power, Atlas could literally move anywhere.
Since he moved by folding space itself, a principle similar to warping, he could have gone to the edge of the continent in one leap from here.
The fact that he deliberately vanished before everyone's eyes meant he intended to do something he didn't want anyone to witness.
Riber suddenly recalled Atlas from not long after the semester had started.
On the day he clashed with Edgar, when Edgar had laid a hand on Riber, Atlas flew into a rage and cut the legs off about twenty people on the spot.
He was a person who wouldn't tolerate harm coming to those around him, even more than to himself.
He thought there was no way that would happen, but the way Atlas looked at the end was so terrifying that he couldn't be sure.
"So are we sleeping rough tonight? Or is there a village nearby? Whatever it is, the sun is about to set so we need to find something fast."
While everyone was milling about in confusion, Casey, wearing an indifferent expression, spoke up.
"Right now, finding Atlas comes first."
"Are you that worried about the ringleader of the sky thieves who attacked the airship? As if a runaway kid would actually put in a good word with the Dragon Lord. She was probably just looking for a hole to escape through."
Perda, having been pointed at, laughed bitterly.
"It'll work out somehow. You guys can't find the old man anyway. I was pissed that that brat was living the high life after pulling that stunt, so it serves her right."
Casey started rummaging through the wreckage of the destroyed airship.
"What, are we sleeping on the street? No matter how much you agonize, there's nothing we can do here."
—————————————-
"Uwaht?! Wh-Where is this place!"
"The southern wilderness. If you go a bit further, you'll reach the plains of the beastmen tribes. It's such barren land that few people live here."
Gemma realized that a change had occurred in her body.
"My... circles?!"
"It was fast, but I've restored them to normal."
Gemma's paralyzed circles all began to move as they originally had.
The Dragon Heart pulsed, and her original power began to surge up.
[You released me? I was caught off guard before... but not this time. Prepare yourself, human!!!]
She returned to her original appearance.
That is, the form of a Gold Dragon shining with golden light.
"Good. That's how you should come out."
Humans were usually busy trembling in fear at the sight of this golden-shining form, but Atlas instead smiled.
"I was dissatisfied because there weren't enough spots to beat you up when you were polymorphed into a human."
At that moment, Gemma witnessed a type of light from Atlas's sword that she had never seen before.
It was like the light of the sun seen beyond the horizon at the break of dawn.
It was as if an intensely dazzling light, impossible to gaze directly upon, had fallen upon the earth.
"Even if you bawl your eyes out and beg for forgiveness, it's too late now."