Volume 2, Episode 14
“Aaaah! Boss!”
“Airen-sama!”
Seeing the Varzian leader’s back as he plunged into the sea after the boy, the vice-captain, Jin, immediately tried to climb over the rail and follow. But she couldn’t; a tearful Casio had latched onto her waist like a limpet.
“I’m sorry! It’s an order!”
“Let go of me, Casio Drake!”
“Ugh. I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do here, so cut me some slack!”
Even as Jin struck him in the elbow, Casio refused to let go.
In truth, if she’d wanted to beat him down with force, she could have done it easily enough. But she didn’t. For all his bulk, Casio Drake was a frail scholar who had never trained in martial arts, and, more importantly, he was the order’s one and only precious beast tamer.
Jin shot him a glare through her tears, still clinging to him like a prisoner bound by ropes, then tightened her grip on the rail and looked down at the seawater foaming below.
Even then, the ship kept dutifully moving forward. The water that had swallowed Airen and the slave boy looked only black and bottomless.
“Everyone, stand by.”
The order slipped from Jin’s lips. The Winter Knight Order members who had gathered behind her stopped at once, faces rigid.
This isn’t a truly dangerous situation. Airen-sama can summon a wind spirit.
Jin steadied herself by judging Airen’s abilities.
“Go ask them to stop the ship.”
The reason everyone could remain calm even after their leader had leapt into the middle of the sea was simple.
“We wait until the captain returns.”
Trust in him.
Airen swam skillfully through the water.
As the vice-captain had guessed, he used a wind spirit to keep from being swept away by the current, and he could even see clearly underwater while breathing there as well.
Where is he?
He searched for the slave boy who had fallen into the sea, but couldn’t find him anywhere. Airen decided the child might have been carried far off by the current and immediately called forth Daisy, the lightning spirit.
First, I need to light up the area.
At his contracted partner’s desire, the spirit burst into radiance. A moment later, star-like sparks illuminated the darkness beneath the sea.
There!
As soon as Airen spotted his target in the glittering light, he swam toward him at once. The boy was drifting along like a leaf, swept helplessly by the current. Airen stretched out both arms and held him tight.
Shaaa!
The moment he lifted his head above the water, the sharp sunlight stabbed at his eyes. Airen frowned and spat out the salty seawater in his mouth.
“Hey, hey. You idiot, wake up!”
He patted the boy’s cheek several times, but the unconscious child gave no response. With no other choice, Airen held the slave boy tightly and looked around. Far away across the endless open sea, he could see the huge ship that had stopped moving. Though the distance was considerable, it seemed, thankfully, to be waiting for the boy and Airen after their fall into the water.
Airen exhaled in relief and quickly resummoned the wind spirit.
“Edelweiss.”
Green currents gathered in a circle around the two of them. But then, after a moment, the strong wind that had seemed ready to lift them into the air abruptly dissolved into nothing.
“Huh?”
Airen called the name again in alarm, but it was useless. The wind that had been gathering as though it would soon take form scattered once more and slipped past him.
“What the hell? Why isn’t it working?”
It was rare for a spirit to defy a spirit master’s will.
Realizing, for reasons he didn’t understand, that this could not be anything good, Airen hurriedly turned toward the ship.
“Aaaaah!”
There was a commotion aboard the ship far off in the distance. People pointed toward Airen’s direction and shouted something in panic.
Then one of those cries, carried by the wind, pierced his ear.
“It’s a serpent!”
“...Huh?”
Airen’s face went blank before he could stop it, and he looked down beneath the water with a feeling of dread. A black shadow had begun to spread under the roiling sea.
No way!
As the shadow deepened, chills ran down his spine. Airen reflexively cried out the name of the lightning spirit.
“Daisy!”
Flash!
Like a bolt of lightning, the world beneath the sea was suddenly laid bare.
For one brief instant, Airen stared unflinchingly at the underwater scene revealed beneath the heaving waves, and his face locked into a strained smile.
“Well. I really should’ve just not looked.”
The shadow’s true form was a sea serpent the size of a house, its jaws gaping wide.
Its blue-scaled body and the huge fin slicing through the sea were closing in with terrifying speed. If they stayed here, there was no doubt they’d be torn apart by those sharp teeth and become nothing more than a one-bite meal.
“Damn it! Edelweiss!”
Feeling the edge of true desperation, Airen once again poured a great deal of mental power into summoning the wind spirit.
This time, it worked.
Along with a dizzying spin, a fierce gale erupted and wrapped around their bodies.
Just as Airen, carrying the boy, rose high into the sky, the blue monster that had burst from the sea devoured the place they’d been standing, along with the seawater itself.
Gooooo!
The serpent snapped its teeth in empty air and let out a furious roar.
Airen clenched his jaw so hard it felt like he might cry.
So that’s why Edelweiss wouldn’t answer the summon—with a thing like that holding the area down!
Aqua Serpent.
A water-fae race said to control currents as freely as they pleased.
Though it wasn’t widely known, they were fae, and as such they could easily hinder spirit summoning by controlling the mana within their territory.
Airen stared down at the creature with a face tight with tension.
The blue-scaled serpent that had burst from the sea unfurled the five horns on its head. Even drenched head to toe, his mouth had gone dry as dust.
Either way, I can’t die here.
He’d told them he’d be back soon.
The moment that thought crossed his mind, the serpent’s heavy body began to writhe. It bared its vicious teeth through the spray, then shot toward him like a hawk stooping on its prey.
Airen couldn’t afford to stand still either. He held the unconscious boy tightly so he wouldn’t slip from his arms and moved with sharp precision.
Whoooosh—
Wind glowing green scattered like dandelion seeds, glittering as it flew. At the same time, the bodies that had been lifted into the air began to drop again.
No matter how much of a spirit knight Airen was, he couldn’t keep burning mental power forever. If he let his mental energy drain beyond its limit, a spirit tamer would lose consciousness and become unable to act.
So even in a crisis like this, he had to divide his power carefully. Watching the serpent’s tightly packed teeth draw ever closer, Airen focused his mind once more.
Crackle, crackle!
Golden sparks snapped at his fingertips.
The falling pair and the sea serpent leaping upward from the waves were closing in on each other at a terrifying speed.
In the blink of an eye, before the serpent hunting for prey could even notice, lightning pierced through the white clouds overhead and struck down.
“Goo-eeeng!”
The Aqua Serpent, charging in with murderous force, twisted in fright. But the lightning missed its body and vanished like a mirage. The problem was that it wasn’t only the lightning that had disappeared from that spot.
“Goong?”
The sea serpent, having just been hunting its meal, rolled its eyes in confusion. Airen and the slave boy, who had been there only a moment ago, had vanished without a trace.
The serpent cried out in a series of bewildered squawks, like a lost seagull, then splashed back into the sea.
Of course, Airen had not vanished.
Among the spirit arts he wielded was a short-range movement technique that allowed him to ride lightning and relocate in an instant. Using both lightning and wind together, he had merely hidden himself within the clouds drifting nearby.
With the giant sea serpent gone, Airen, concealed in the pale mist, clenched his fist tightly.
“Got it—!”
But just then, a shadow swept over his head. The sunlight was blocked, and the world’s colors seemed to drain as though a curtain had fallen over his eyes.
Airen tilted his head in bewilderment.
There wasn’t just one or two. The bodies buried beneath the sea were so long that the sky had already become the territory of the Aqua Serpent pack. From every direction came the sound of low, metal-scraping growls that bored straight into his eardrums.
Rrrrgh.
Kyarrrk.
The Aqua Serpents, excited by the sight of the brilliant lightning, were occupying the sky with threatening growls.
Airen looked up at them with a sinking feeling of disaster.
Damn it! There wasn’t just one of them!
Below him was the sea churning with violent waves; above him, the enraged serpent pack.
No matter which way they were swallowed, there was no escaping death.
“Ah, those guys...”
Jin, Casio, and the entire Winter Varzian Order still aboard the ship, waiting for their leader.
The faces of everyone he’d left behind flashed through his mind like a lantern scene. Airen glanced at the surrounding serpent pack, then let out a crooked smile.
“They’re gonna be mad.”
It looked like he wouldn’t be able to keep the promise he’d made to his people after all.
But Airen wasn’t giving up.
Should I break through?
The distance covered by the instant-movement technique of his lightning-and-wind spirit synchronization was short enough to see with the naked eye. Even if he tried the same trick recklessly, there was no way he could fool the eyes of so many serpents at once.
This was a situation where every second mattered. With the tension pulled tight as a bowstring, the moment he moved, the serpent pack would surely charge like a flock of starving crows and tear them apart with their savage claws.
He needed even the briefest opening—just a moment to draw their attention away.
Then someone tugged at his sleeve.
“Huh? You’re awake.”
The slave boy, whom he’d thought was unconscious, had somehow come to and was looking up at him. The child’s eyes were the same dark shade as his hair.
Airen lowered his voice so as not to provoke the serpents.
“Sorry the situation’s like this the moment you wake up. I know you’re scared, but can you keep your eyes closed just a little longer? Once we get out of here safely, then—”
But the boy shook his head.
The slave child, taught from birth to be a servant, could not speak. Instead, he moved his still-undeveloped fingers to write in the air. Slaves owned by noble households were taught letters and culture, so his level of knowledge was higher than that of most commoners.
Only, everything slaves learned was used for their masters’ sake.
Because of the curse carved into their bodies.
Watching the boy’s fingers carefully trace words in the air, Airen soon frowned.
“You want me to abandon you?”
“...”
With a small nod, the boy agreed. Again those dry fingers wrote in the air.
That is.
The most.
Efficient path.
As the child said, if Airen abandoned him as bait right now, there was a chance he might still survive on his own somehow.
But Airen tightened his arms around the boy as though such an option had never existed in the first place.
“What are you talking about? If I’d cared about efficiency, I wouldn’t have come all the way here to save you in the first place.”
“...”
If he lived, he would live and return together with everyone else. If he died doing what he had set out to do, then that was simply how it would be. It was a plain way of thinking, but it was the way Airen had always lived.
Having rejected the boy’s proposal, Airen calmly searched for an opening.
The serpent pack, which had seemed impossible to escape, changed in an instant.
“Goo-eeeng!”
One enormous sea serpent suddenly turned its head and let out a strange cry. The moment Airen followed its gaze, his face went white.
No!
That way led straight toward the ship carrying the people aboard it.