Shining Gold (13)
The sun hung low on the horizon, turning the blue sea a deep, bloody crimson. By this point, the pirates should have already fled far into the distance….
“Hey! Aren’t we there yet!?”
“This must be a martial arts world! Captain!”
…They hadn’t. All that remained was a perfectly executed escape, but unfortunately the pirates’ piloting skills were thoroughly mediocre. They hadn’t learned any magic for a swift getaway, either. Their grand escape drama never made it very far before the curtain fell.
Vrooooom…!!
The submarine’s propeller churned with fierce determination. Yet the vessel refused to move forward or dive beneath the waves. Binding spells cast by several mages gripped it tight and refused to let go.
The mages had expected an easy victory from there. Their minds were already drifting to the moment they would secretly gulp down the mana crystal while the others weren’t looking. But… the situation had frozen solid.
“Argh, I said let go! O wrath of Atlantis, surge fiercely! Pillar of the sea!”
"O wrath of Atlantis, surge fiercely!"
"Pillar of the sea!"
⟨ Pillar of the Sea ⟩
Boom! Kaboom!!
Huge jets of water exploded upward from beneath the mages’ feet. They abandoned their half-chanted attack spells and scrambled to dodge.
“Uwaaack!”
One mage reacted too slowly. The water column slammed into him like a giant fist and launched him skyward. Unable to maintain his flight magic after the brutal impact, he crashed straight back down onto the surface.
“Damn it. They’re only good at magic and nothing else…”
One of the mages encircling the submarine spat a curse. This was the problem. The pirate scum were terrible at driving their submarine and had zero escape magic. But when it came to magical combat, they were terrifyingly proficient. Every spell they used was perfectly suited for the ocean, and their techniques for turning that magic into lethal attacks showed real experience.
In the first place, lines like “wrath of Atlantis” weren’t actual incantations. They were just inefficient, self-indulgent flavor text the captain thought sounded cool. The fact that the mages still couldn’t gain the upper hand against someone who fought like that was enough to make their blood boil.
“Ah, screw this! I’ll make a floor—you lot attack!”
Finally, one mage who couldn’t stand it anymore stepped up. He abandoned the idea of attacking the submarine himself and instead solidified the sea surface to create solid ground for the others. It would make claiming the mana crystal nearly impossible for him, but he was willing to give that up if it meant screwing over the pirates.
“Hahaha! At least one of you has a brain!”
The pirate captain laughed boldly, but cold sweat trickled down his back. The only reason he’d been able to hold off so many mages was the submarine itself. The others had to waste mana on flight spells or water-repelling magic just to stay dry, but he didn’t. Of course, that advantage alone wasn’t what had kept him alive this long.
“You think I’ll just let you do that? Fire!”
“Yes, Captain!”
At his order, the pirate who had been focused on steering shouted back. A massive burst of bubbles erupted from below the hull and—
Kwaaang!
The torpedo launched from the submarine detonated near the surface. The aim was sloppy, so it wasn’t a direct hit, but the mage caught in the shockwave blacked out instantly and plummeted into the sea. It was lucky he avoided instant death; the homemade torpedoes the pirates had cobbled together had far weaker explosive power than the real thing.
“Ugh… Don’t fall back! There’s no way that tiny submarine can carry many torpedoes! It definitely can’t have more than a few shots left!”
“……”
One mage offered what sounded like a reasonable deduction to rally the others. It didn’t get much of a response.
“Then you go first.”
The muttered reply perfectly captured what everyone was thinking. They kept sneaking glances at one another, none willing to take the lead.
They weren’t really comrades to begin with. They were only working together because they needed to seize the mana crystal from the pirates first. At the end of the day, they were all rivals.
Even so, the rivalry wasn’t fierce enough to stop one of them from helping the others when the pirates got on their nerves. But helping was one thing—risking their own necks was another. Honestly, it wasn’t worth it.
“Uhhahaha! What a pathetic bunch!”
The pirate captain roared with laughter at the sight, but his heart was hammering. Just as the earlier mage had said, he didn’t have many torpedoes left. And since they were homemade, it wouldn’t be strange if half of them were duds. He had to escape before he ran dry, but that was proving far more difficult than expected. The mages might have given up on direct attacks, but they were pouring everything into keeping the binding spell intact.
The stalemate dragged on. Time passed.
Fortunately, time was on the mages’ side.
“What the hell. You only got this far?”
Serpina flew in from the beach and landed lightly.
“Reinforcements!? …Wait, just one person?”
“There’s no one else?”
“Hold on. That woman… I feel like I’ve seen her somewhere recently…”
Some mages looked disappointed that only a single person had arrived. Others reacted with faint recognition. Serpina ignored their reactions completely. Her gaze fixed on the pirate captain, who was poking only his upper body out of the submarine hatch.
“If you return my gold… no, that crystal, I’ll let you off.”
Serpina actually felt a tiny bit of goodwill toward the pirate. After all, he had created an opportunity for her to obtain the gold through mutual agreement. So, in a rare show of mercy, she was giving him one chance.
But not everyone in the world had the sense to grab an opportunity when it arrived.
“That’s going to be difficult! With this tremendous mana, we shall conquer the seas!”
“You can’t even use it anyway. It’s sun mana, right?”
“Nothing is impossible for Atlantis! We’ll figure something out!”
“You. You’d probably get along with the Sun Research Society guys.”
At any rate, it was clear he had no intention of handing over the mana crystal.
“In that case… this is more convenient for me anyway.”
“Ha! Now!”
Splash!
A massive tidal wave suddenly erupted. A three-meter wall of water rose from the sea and crashed toward Serpina and the mages. It was too fast to counter with magic—an instant ambush.
The pirate captain laughed, certain of victory.
“Hahahahaha! You let your guard down! The Atlantis Pirate Crew isn’t just me!!”
There had been another pirate all along. The subordinate steering the submarine had used the moment everyone’s attention was on the captain to chant a large-scale spell.
But the captain’s triumphant laughter died the instant he saw what happened next.
“Yah.”
Booom!!
With a playful little shout, Serpina swung her arm. That was all.
Yet it was enough to punch a gaping hole straight through the oncoming tidal wave. The force didn’t stop there—it blasted away every drop of seawater trailing behind it. The wave that had threatened to swallow everything lost all momentum in a single casual swing and collapsed pathetically.
Swoooosh….
The seawater that had exploded into the sky rained back down. A sudden shower poured from the heavens that were slowly deepening into indigo.
The pirate captain stared in horror as seawater soaked through his clothes.
“What the—what kind of monster is that!?”
“Captain!? What the hell is happening up there!?”
“Fire! Fire every last torpedo we have!!”
“Huh? Y-yes, yessir!”
Magic-infused special torpedoes streaked toward Serpina. One leaped from the surface like a flying fish and homed in on her with perfect accuracy.
Kwaaang!
An explosion far more violent than the previous one erupted. Two more torpedoes slammed into the blast. One transformed the sea surface into a giant bear trap that snapped at her. Another scattered high-voltage currents in every direction. One unlucky mage caught in the electricity blacked out and dropped into the ocean.
Yet when the spray finally cleared, Serpina stood completely unharmed. Every attack had been stopped cold by the hemispherical ice barrier floating in front of her. It had shattered and reformed multiple times during the barrage, but there was no shortage of water nearby to replenish it.
“A torpedo. Never thought I’d get hit with something like that in Korea.”
After taking that much firepower, her only reaction was a calm, almost impressed murmur.
The pirate captain instinctively knew he had poked the wrong creature.
He immediately ducked back inside the submarine and started yelling at his subordinate.
“Hey, hey! Plan B! Execute Plan B right now!”
“But Captain, that’s…”
“Shut up and do it!”
The submarine plunged deeper. The binding magic still held it from diving more than a few meters, but it went as far as it could.
Plop.
With a small sound, the submarine split apart. A much smaller escape submersible emerged, propeller spinning frantically.
Plan B. The final desperate measure: abandon the submarine and flee with only their bodies in the emergency craft. He had saved it until the last possible moment because he hated the thought of giving up the vessel he had spent so long engraving with every kind of magic.
The already cramped submarine became even tighter with two grown men pressed together in an awkward, horrifying tangle, but they had successfully broken free of the binding spell.
“Kuhuk… I will definitely return, so wait for me! Jackson Ho!”
“Ugh, Captain, you’re spitting on me!”
Still, they had protected the mana crystal. A glorious future surely awaited them.
Clinging to that belief, the two pirates dove into the deep sea.
The pirate captain let out a sigh of relief without even wiping away the cold sweat still pouring down his forehead.
“Whew. Where the hell did that monster come from? Hey. You still have the stolen goods, right?”
“Huh? Didn’t you take it with you, Captain?”
“……What?”
Cold sweat ran down both pirates’ spines. When they frantically looked back, they could have sworn they saw the golden glow of the mana crystal shining from the submarine they had abandoned. Even though there were no windows in that direction and nothing should have been visible.
Pandemonium broke out inside the tiny submersible.
“You idiot! How could you leave it behind!?”
“You’re the one who told me to hurry!”
They were arguing furiously in a space so narrow they could barely move their arms and legs.
Clunk.
Suddenly the escape craft jerked to a halt, caught by something.
And through the narrow front viewport… they saw silver hair fluttering gracefully in the water.
The pirate captain screamed in pure terror.
“That window! The window—!”