Death on the Swaying Ship (1)
In the lightless dark, I opened my eyes with a low groan.
The pitch-black gloom of the windowless cabin and the cold, stinging roughness of the wooden floor beneath me scrambled my senses. My wrists and ankles were still bound together by rope, but I was no longer suspended.
Faint memories resurfaced. Around the time more than half the sailors had collapsed from exhaustion, someone had cut the rope, muttering that it was easier to simply tie me up than keep me hanging.
My entire body tingled. Muscle aches throbbed in the joints of my limbs and the muscles along my back. The delicate membranes below felt red and swollen. I couldn’t see the color in the darkness, and the ropes kept me in this humiliating position, but even the slightest twitch sent sharp pain radiating between my legs.
Ugh… it burns… Just how many times did they use me…?
I had volunteered to be ravaged, yet my body was still that of an underdeveloped girl. Forcing those rarely used muscles to support me all night, having my fragile insides ground against until dawn—there was no way I could avoid the consequences.
But… why didn’t they untie me before they left?
Though I had offered myself for what amounted to a gang-rape, the reality had been closer to a contractual group transaction. I was a passenger, after all, a mage personally invited by the captain. The sailors knew this. They shouldn’t have forgotten to release me once the day’s “contract” ended.
Are you awake, Mom?
Rin’s voice reached me the moment she sensed my voluntary movement.
“Yeah. You were already awake.”
Yes. By the time you were flushed and lost in pleasure, the alcohol had worn off. But… the mood feels strange.
If my clever slime daughter said something felt off, then something was truly wrong.
“What happened? I thought this was the off-duty sailors’ rest quarters, but it’s too quiet. Even in the middle of the day, at least a couple of men who were up last night should be sleeping now.”
That’s not all. It’s still night—the early dawn, before the sun rises. I’m in contact with the split entities and thought-forms outside, so the time should be accurate.
I see. That only made the situation feel even more wrong.
“Huu……”
Luckily the rope was a single length, binding my wrists and ankles together. My fingers could just reach it. This would do.
"Rewind."
⟨ Time Rewind ⟩
The rope that had bound me rapidly reverted to the fresh plant fibers it had once been, then further still—back to the tender young sprout of its earliest days—until it snapped apart with soft, successive pops.
Mom, every time I watch you do that, it’s so cool. Ehet. I’m a little jealous.
A translucent image of a slime girl bounced in front of my eyes. She was deliberately projecting the sight for me. …Our daughter really was something else.
With my body freed, I shifted my posture, only to grimace as fresh pain surged through me.
“Ugh… My pussy really burns……”
…Hearing you say the word “pussy” so casually, Mom, your language has gotten quite vulgar in just a few days.
“It’s the alcohol’s fault.”
I offered the ridiculous excuse and cast a small spell that required no incantation, filling the dark cabin with gentle light.
The room was in chaos. It didn’t look deliberately ransacked, but it carried the unmistakable air of men who had bolted out in a hurry. My clothes were still here; when I had entered I had been dressed, so my shoes, dress, belt, and robe lay neatly folded in one corner.
I reached for my precious robe first. Beneath the soft glow of the magical light shining from my left hand, the cheap red brooch Iskil had given me sparkled.
That was when the sound came—a noise loud enough to carry clearly even from the lower cabins. This was……
This is that sound, isn’t it, Mom?
“It is.”
The same noise we had heard in the forest where we encountered the cultists, now muffled softly through several layers of wooden walls.
There was no doubt. It was gunfire.
There was no time to waste on shoes or a dress. I threw on only the robe I held, roughly covering my nakedness, snatched up the elven sword, and burst out of the cabin.
The lower corridor reeked of fish oil and the briny stench of stagnant water that had seeped between the planks. Relying on the small light in my hand, I sprinted down it and leaped up the stairs.
The upper corridor greeted me with river wind that brushed softly against my bare skin. At the far end, beyond the door leading to the deck, faint predawn light tinged with moonlight leaked inside.
The gunfire had been real, yet no sounds of combat followed. The silence was unnerving. Not knowing what waited outside, I dispersed the lighting spell.
I moved with extreme caution, placing each bare foot as quietly as possible. The rough texture of the deck beneath my soles and the gentle sway of the ship on the water only heightened my anxiety.
After fifteen careful steps I reached the doorway. Only then did I catch the murmur of voices on the deck.
“Huu… Everything cleaned up?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Our boys?”
“Ten lightly wounded, two seriously wounded, four dead.”
“Four… All of them shot?”
“Yes.”
A wicked chuckle drifted across the deck.
“Well, that’s not so bad.”
I didn’t need to hear more to understand. River pirates, or bandits working from the nearby shore.
Our ship wasn’t particularly large. A massive war vessel would have hulls as tall as castle walls, but a ship this size could be scaled with a rope only slightly longer than a man. They must have rowed small boats under cover of darkness for a surprise attack. The fact that they had taken casualties and that the resting sailors had abandoned me suggested our side had fought back, but… the result lay before me.
Then the most important thought struck me.
I slipped back into the shadows of the corridor and moved silently toward the cabins. Toward the one where Pirel should be sleeping. Please, let her still be peacefully asleep inside.
I opened the door with painstaking care. The moment I saw the empty room, I bit my lower lip hard enough to draw blood.
Pirel was gone.
…Is she hiding?
I called her name in a voice too soft to carry outside.
“Pirel.”
No answer. She might be asleep, or wary. I tried again.
“Pirel?”
Still nothing—not even the rustle of fabric.
I was barely holding back panic when Rin’s voice echoed in my mind.
Mom…
What is it?
I’ve reached the distance where I can share memories with the split entities, and… it’s… over there… Huu. Anyway… go out… to the deck… and look…
Even though the words were transmitted through electrical signals rooted in my brain, Rin’s intent trembled unmistakably.
Wrapped in crushing anxiety, I returned to the corridor entrance that overlooked the deck. Leaning against the doorframe at an angle that kept me hidden, I peered outside.
“Eek…!!”
I had been too focused on the voices earlier to notice, but the deck was a slaughterhouse.
Sailors with throats slit, sailors with bellies opened and entrails spilling out, sailors whose skulls had been smashed. The captain lay dead as well, still clutching his sword—evidence that he had fought until his final breath.
The memory of the bandit attack on the merchant carriage from the Mitenburg Duchy to the Imperial Capital flashed through my mind. Did I truly have such abysmal travel luck?
The sailors weren’t what mattered. I had to find whether Pirel was among the corpses.
“You. Who the hell are you?”
A deep voice came from behind. Startled, I turned my stiff neck.
A man I had never seen—dressed not as a sailor. This was……
“Huh. Thought we killed everyone on board. Where were you hiding? That robe—you a mage?”
He must have been searching the cabins. My hands shook with fear, but he didn’t realize I was armed; the sword and my arms were hidden beneath the robe.
“Ugh…!!”
My slash opened his right flank, but it wasn’t fatal. In that case—
“Hyaargh!!! What the fuck is this bitch?!”
My arm still trembled, but I couldn’t let him keep shouting. I thrust at his chest.
…The stab landed, yet the tip caught on a rib and failed to pierce anything vital.
Maddened by pain and rage, he swung at me with his uninjured left arm. Just some half-trained bandit who had never learned proper combat technique.
…The same could be said of me, but I had crossed blades with beings far stronger than humans. I leaped backward to evade, then swung a final cut across his throat.
“Urk… ugh… glurk……”
Blood sprayed from his neck like a fountain. I felt a sting of conscience for killing a man by ambush without even using magic, but there had been no other choice.
“Huu……”
Yet in the heated afterglow of the one-on-one fight, I had stupidly forgotten the most critical fact.
By jumping back, I had fully exposed myself on the deck.
And the pirates, having heard the scream, were already swarming toward the corridor like a dark tide.
Dozens of footsteps thudded across the wooden planks. Only then did I regret failing to kill my opponent silently, but it was too late.
I raised the sword, pointing its tip at the clearly more than ten men in a threatening stance, but—
“Guh?! U-ugh…! Keh… k-hek… kk… ugh……”
It was useless. Two men who had approached from my blind spot twisted my arm, forcing the sword to clatter to the deck, and clamped down on my throat.
With a metallic clang, Mervin’s blade fell helplessly onto the planks.
And soon my vision darkened from the edges, fading into complete blackness.