DAR Vol. 6 Chapter 25 Part 1

Chapter 25 – Sea Serpents

“Honestly, the second I take my eyes off you people, you go and cause another incident.”

Cornelia was scolding them in a voice laced with anger. Even so, her expression was bright. She was probably just happy to be able to move around again.

They were currently aboard the merchant ship Captain Sabas had seized. They had shifted position slightly, but they were still almost exactly where the merchant vessel had been captured, right around the border of the Kingdom of Nereus’s territorial waters, near the tip of the peninsula jutting out as though it were encircling the inlet of the royal capital.

At Queen Scarlet’s command, Cornelia and Bernhart had joined them there.

Cornelia had boarded a dispatch boat from the harbor, picked up Bernhart, who had been on the royal castle island, along with the weapons that had been prepared for them, and come all the way out to the ship on the open sea.

After Roa accepted the request to subjugate the Sea Serpents, the Queen had immediately left the scene.

Her means of travel was flight.

She had flown through the air alone, using magic.

Flying freely through the sky was not something an ordinary mage could do. That fact alone made it obvious what a monstrous sorceress she was. It required not only extraordinary magical skill, but a vast reserve of magic power as well.

“So that crappy Queen really means to make us handle this all by ourselves.”

Ignoring Cornelia’s reprimand, Dietrich spat out the complaint. Just as the Queen had declared, the only reinforcements were Cornelia and Bernhart.

The moment she returned to the royal castle, the Queen had issued orders to Cornelia and Bernhart and arranged for whatever weapons might be necessary. Dietrich thought that, at the very least, she could have sent along one naval vessel while she was at it, but there truly were no other ships.

There was only Captain Sabas’s ship and the merchant vessel they had captured.

Even the dispatch boat that had brought Cornelia and the others had turned back almost immediately, judging it too dangerous to remain.

Dietrich let his gaze sweep the surrounding waters.

Beneath the brilliantly clear blue sky, there was not a single ship in sight. No merchant vessels passed by, and no fishing boats were out on the water. There was not even one little skiff to be seen.

That was all by the Queen’s order.

The moment she learned there was a danger of the Sea Serpents surging in, she had issued an immediate command and pulled every ship back into port, not just civilian vessels, but military ones as well.

“Well, considering the kind of woman that Queen is, this was only to be expected.”

The one who answered Dietrich’s mutter was Captain Sabas.

The merchant ship Dietrich was currently standing on was being commanded by Captain Sabas and operated by the crew from his own vessel. Since Uncle Gry had sliced the sails clean off, it could only move by magic now, but that posed no problem.

This ship was, in a sense, nothing more than a foothold, or a shield.

The plan was to lure the incoming Sea Serpents close to this vessel and kill them there.

If they were going to fight Sea Serpents, serious damage to the ship was unavoidable. Captain Sabas was confident he could keep it from sinking, but even so, the odds were high that it would suffer catastrophic damage or be twisted out of shape by the impacts badly enough to be rendered unusable.

Using his own ship when he already knew in advance that they would be fighting Sea Serpents was absolutely out of the question, or so Captain Sabas had insisted, which was why they had decided to use Adad’s captured merchant vessel instead.

Captain Sabas’s own ship was waiting at a distance from the merchant vessel in case a rescue became necessary.

“I suppose this is better than sending useless soldiers to their deaths for nothing, but…”

“The hell, you think you’re some elite chosen few or something? Don’t get so full of yourself!”

Though Dietrich had dismissed them as useless, that was not how he truly felt.

Even soldiers or adventurers whose training was lacking could still hold back a large Sea Serpent if they had a squad-sized force, forty or fifty people. Still, getting through it without a single casualty would be impossible.

Standing in front of Captain Sabas, an old acquaintance of his, Dietrich had felt awkward saying something that made him sound softhearted, so he had deliberately dressed it up in cynicism. In truth, he was even grateful for the current situation, one in which so many deaths and injuries could be avoided.

Captain Sabas had seen straight through that, and that was why he had told Dietrich not to get full of himself for worrying about total strangers more than his own safety.

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“Do you think Roa and the others will be all right?”

“…”

“What’s wrong?”

The instant Roa became the subject, Captain Sabas made a pained face, fell silent, and clutched his head.

“…What the hell is with that brat?! Sure, I did say I wouldn’t mind teaching him! But he’s been bombarding me with questions nonstop! And not just about Sea Serpents either, but geography and even the flow of the tides! He kept at it without a break. And if I so much as hesitated for a second, he’d pile more questions on top and force me to keep talking no matter what. There’s a limit to everything, you know?!”

“Yeah…”

As Captain Sabas suddenly shouted and slammed his fist against the rail, Dietrich looked at him with pity in his eyes.

After that, Roa had kept Captain Sabas under constant interrogation.

True, Roa had asked him to teach him, and Captain Sabas had agreed. But he must have underestimated the depth of Roa’s intellectual curiosity. He had never imagined he would be bombarded with questions for hours on end without even a moment to catch his breath.

“And when I finally hit my limit and tried to yell at him or make a run for it, that Gryphon and those magic wolves started threatening me, damn it! Are Gryphons really that spiteful? I used to think they were cool. I even admired them.”

“No, I think it’s probably just that particular Gryphon who’s spiteful, nasty, and rotten to the core…”

“That damn Gryphon… he kept watching me the whole time… and whenever I tried to leave my seat, he’d just glare at me in silence… he wouldn’t even let me go take a piss!!”

Perhaps the memory of it had come back to him, because Captain Sabas’s face turned pale.

Uncle Gry would do absolutely anything to make Roa’s wishes come true. Threatening someone was as easy for him as breathing. In fact, it was fair to say he had shown that much restraint only because Roa had been there.

“Well, thanks to that, at least we’ve managed to work out a plan for subjugating the Sea Serpents…”

Speaking soothingly, Dietrich placed a hand on Captain Sabas’s shoulder, gratitude in the gesture.

The method of subjugation had been decided in a meeting with everyone involved, but the basic strategy had been Roa’s suggestion. To begin with, the one the queen had commissioned was Roa. Everyone else had merely been ordered to assist him. It was only natural that they would follow Roa’s lead.

Dietrich let his gaze drift across the still, quiet sea, where not the slightest sign of trouble had yet appeared.

Very soon, this place would become a battlefield.

The spilled Cursed Blood had already dispersed, and the sea had regained its tranquil blue. But it would not be long before it was stained red once more…

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Meanwhile, Roa was on the beach.

The Kingdom of Nereus had a large peninsula.

By developing the inlet enclosed by that peninsula and the surrounding reef zone, they had turned it into a harbor. As a result, the sea routes leading into the port were limited, making it easier to manage the ships coming and going.

Roa and the others were at the tip of that peninsula. It was a place where a sandy shore stretched out and the sea remained shallow far from land.

If Sea Serpents tried to slip into the harbor, any coming from the peninsula side would have to pass near this tip. If they were going to kill the Sea Serpents, this was the most convenient place to do it.

Roa and the others’ plan was a lure operation.

They intended to draw in the Sea Serpents that gathered and lure them even farther toward this spot.

And any Sea Serpents that came from directions they could not handle here would be dealt with by Dietrich and the others aboard the ship.

With Roa were the twin magic wolves, Roo and Phi, Kristoff, and the Sword Saint. Cornelia and Bernhart were aboard the ship with Dietrich.

That arrangement had been made after considering how accustomed each person was to fighting aboard a ship, as well as which attack methods suited them best.

Roa, the twins, and Kristoff were on the shore, but the Sword Saint was sitting a short distance away in the shade of a tree. Ever since he had begun hearing Uncle Gry’s voice, something about him had changed. As though burdened by some private anguish, he now often kept a step removed and silently watched Roa and the others from afar.

“Think we’ll get a bite?”

Roa sat placidly on the sand, gazing out at the sea. Beside him lay a great mass of rope. Every length was tied to trees along the shore, and the other ends disappeared into the water.

<Are Sea Serpents tasty?>

<Sea fish are good, right?>

“Apparently they are? Though I hear they have a lot of bones, so cleaning them is a pain.”

<Can’t wait.>

<Can’t wait!>

“Hey, you all are awfully carefree…”

At the utterly relaxed exchange between the twins and Roa, Kristoff could not help letting out an exasperated remark.

Even if they called it an ambush, there was no way the Sea Serpents would obligingly rush up onto the beach of their own accord. Some kind of baiting or guidance would be necessary.

From Captain Sabas’s explanation, they had learned that not only whale blood, but the blood and flesh of animals in general had the effect of attracting nearby Sea Serpents.

Fortunately, unlike whale blood, other kinds of blood would not lure Sea Serpents from far away. It seemed to affect only those already in the immediate vicinity.

So Roa and the others had decided to carry out a large-scale Sea Serpent luring operation using animal blood and meat.

They would tie chunks of meat to the ropes, sink them into the sea, let the Sea Serpents bite, then reel them in and kill them. In other words, it was fishing.

They probably could not haul them all the way onto land, but if they could manipulate the ropes well enough to draw them into the shallows where they could stand, the fight would become vastly easier.

Dietrich and the others’ ship was likely doing the same thing, scattering animal blood and meat around the vessel so the Sea Serpents would gather there.

Fortunately, Roa had a large quantity of meat stored in his Magic Bag.

That was because he had three ravenous magic beasts and one human among his own companions, but in this case, that worked to their advantage. The meat he already had on hand was sufficient to serve as bait for drawing in the Sea Serpents.

They had also learned that when Sea Serpents smelled the blood of their own kind, they would flee from those waters. According to Captain Sabas’s knowledge, when too many Sea Serpents gathered and began fighting one another, it eventually devolved into cannibalism.

Cannibalism was a threat to the species itself.

It seemed that, by instinctively sensing danger from the scent of their own kind’s blood, Sea Serpents would refuse to approach even waters reeking of whale blood.

Once they knew that, what Roa and the others needed to do was all but decided.

They simply had to keep killing the Sea Serpents they lured in and let great quantities of blood spill into the sea.

There would probably be a slight delay before the other Sea Serpents began avoiding the scent of their own kind’s blood, but with only that much of a time lag, even a small group ought to be able to manage somehow.

A small group hunting a great number of Sea Serpents.

At first glance, it seemed like another outrageous demand from the queen, but with proper forethought, it was not impossible. They only had to kill a few Sea Serpents, spill a large amount of blood, and endure until the rest began to retreat.

“So he really did think this through…”

Roa still remembered the Queen’s words: “Young people need trials.”

If it was something that could be overcome so long as it was handled correctly, then it truly was a trial meant to be surmounted.

“Hm? What is it?”

“It’s nothing.”

Kristoff questioned Roa’s murmur, but Roa simply smiled and dodged the matter.

This trial was probably not meant for Roa, but for Dietrich and the others. Roa and the queen did not know each other that well.

Dietrich had said the Queen had put him through hell again and again, but if all of that had been for Dietrich’s sake, it somehow made sense. After all, despite all his talk about the terrible ordeals she had put him through, Dietrich had never suffered any grave injury, nor had he ever been driven into a situation harsh enough to break his spirit.

“Her Majesty is kind, isn’t she? She’s like Uncle Gry.”

“Huh?”

Hearing words that suited those one human and one beast less than anyone else on earth, Kristoff made a face as though he had just swallowed vinegar.

<You lot, the sea serpents are coming. Prepare yourselves.>

Uncle Gry’s voice rained down from overhead.

Uncle Gry was monitoring the entire field from far up in the sky. Officially, he was in the position of overall commander. Though “commander” might also be described as someone who barked orders without lifting a claw… or rather, someone who simply watched from the sidelines and complained.

<Also, that woman is not kind, you know? She just enjoys watching other people suffer and panic! That is the kind of creature she is! I am far kinder by far!! I am even watching over you like this right now, and I will clean up your mess if it comes to that!>

What he meant by cleaning up their mess was the promise that if they let the Sea Serpents escape toward the harbor and things became hopeless, or if they were on the verge of dying, Uncle Gry would step in and handle it.

At first glance, it sounded like a benevolent promise, but if it came to that, he would brand them immature and subject them to ferocious training afterward.

<It begins!>

In the distance, they could see the water’s surface churning violently.

The battle was beginning.

As though Uncle Gry’s voice itself had been the signal, all the ropes hanging into the sea were yanked taut at once. The trees along the shore bent and groaned loudly under the force of the ropes tied around them.

“They’re here!”

<They’re here!>

<They’re here!!>

Roa and the twin magic wolves cried out at the same time and sprang to their feet. Roa’s voice held a note of tension, but the twins sounded positively jubilant.

The twins dashed forward, seized the nearest rope in their mouths together, and gave it a tremendous pull.

<Caught one!>

<We’re hauling it in all at once!>

The instant the rope was pulled, the sea’s surface frothed and began to spray.

Chunks of beast meat had been tied to the far end as bait. The Sea Serpent that had clamped down on it was now being dragged into the shallows and thrashing violently.

“A little farther into the shallows! Enough for its head to come out!”

<Okay!>

<This is no problem at all!>

The twins carried on as merrily as though they were merely playing tug-of-war and did not seem burdened in the slightest.

Before long, a Sea Serpent’s head broke through the waves. Even as it was dragged all the way to the surf, it refused to release the lump of meat from its jaws.

A Sea Serpent’s head was shaped more like that of an amphibian than a fish. Roa did not know it, but apparently it resembled a moray eel.

Its skin was slick rather than scaled, and sharp fangs lined the mouth clamped around the meat. Its unfocused eyes were eerie.

Roa faltered for a moment at the creature’s repulsive appearance, but after lightly biting his lip, he steeled himself and drew the knife at his waist.

The Sea Serpent they had hauled in was roughly five meters long. It was a small one, as Sea Serpents went. It was small enough that even Roa’s knife ought to be able to wound it effectively.

“All right!”

With that shout, he closed the distance in a single rush.

The tail of the thrashing Sea Serpent whipped past right before his eyes, but Roa kept his gaze fixed on it and dodged cleanly.

“Good, he’s really seeing it.”

<Good, he is evading it properly.>

Kristoff’s voice and Uncle Gry’s voice from overhead overlapped as they watched.

The reason Roa could fight like this now was the fruit of all the training he had undergone.

Watch the enemy’s movements, evade, and strike.

It was basic common sense in battle, but difficult for the unaccustomed. Fear took hold of them, narrowing their attention to one thing and making them incapable of seeing the whole.

Especially against a magic beast like a Sea Serpent, whose skeletal structure, musculature, and every other aspect differed utterly from a human’s, it was impossible to predict its movements without watching the whole body.

A truly advanced fighter could perceive everything around them not only with their eyes, but with their senses alone, but Roa had not yet reached that level.

Maintaining the motion of his evasive step, Roa pivoted in one fluid movement and drove his knife into the Sea Serpent’s head.

“One down!”

The knife sank neatly into the Sea Serpent’s skull.

Roa’s knife was cloaked in wind magic. No matter how tough the Sea Serpent’s skin was, it could not stop that blade. The Sea Serpent convulsed faintly, then fell still.

“Next one!”

<Okay!>

<One person is enough!>

<It really is!>

The twins had originally planned to pull the ropes together because they expected the Sea Serpents to tug with tremendous force, but apparently the pulling strength was weaker than anticipated. Puffing out their chests proudly, they reported to Roa that each of them could manage alone.

<Roo and Phi will fish them up one at a time, so you attack too, Kristoff!>

“Wait! Hold on!!”

The twins fixed Kristoff with eyes shining with expectation. They were saying they would each pull a Sea Serpent up to the surf at the same time, so Kristoff should attack one too.

Those words made Kristoff panic.

“My sword can’t handle Sea Serpents!”

What Kristoff held now was an ordinary sword. To begin with, Kristoff did not have enough magic power to cloak his blade in magic. Uncle Gry had dragged his strength upward by force, and while he had somewhat more magic power than before, even if he managed it, he could only do it once. The precision would be poor as well.

And Sea Serpent skin was hard enough that an ordinary sword could wound it, but never cut it open.

Kristoff was reasonably skilled with a sword, but not enough to kill a Sea Serpent in one blow without cloaking his weapon in magic. And if he only half-injured one and sent it into a frenzy, killing it would become even more difficult.

Kristoff was neither foolish enough nor hot-blooded enough to take that gamble in their current situation.

<Nope! We already started pulling!>

“Hey!”

Ignoring Kristoff’s attempt to stop them, the twins each yanked on a rope and reeled up a Sea Serpent.

Two Sea Serpents raised their heads from the breakers. Just like before, both were small.

Roa moved toward one of them.

Kristoff, however, hesitated.

<Even with an ordinary sword, there are any number of ways to kill one, are there not?>

“Exactly!”

The one who answered Uncle Gry’s merciless words with a bark was the Sword Saint.

The Sword Saint had judged that they still had breathing room and had merely been watching Roa and the others so far. But when he saw Kristoff faltering, he sprang into action.

At the same moment he called out, he rushed at the other Sea Serpent with the speed of the wind and drove his sword into its eye. The strike was so swift it could scarcely be followed.

“No matter how tough a creature’s hide is, it always has soft spots. The eyes, the inside of the mouth, the ear holes, the anus. And those places lead directly to vital weaknesses like the brain and internal organs!”

The Sword Saint’s sword was also an ordinary one, just like Kristoff’s, but it pierced the Sea Serpent’s eyeball with ease and even punched through into its brain.

“Fortunately, Sea Serpents do not have arms like humans to shield their heads. All you have to do is aim properly! It’s an easy victory!!”

“…Right…”

Kristoff answered only because he had been overwhelmed by the Sword Saint’s momentum, but inwardly he was protesting.

Even if it was biting into meat, Kristoff did not possess the dexterity to target the tiny eye of a violently moving Sea Serpent and drive a sword into it.

If he had a light, narrow estoc built for thrusting, it might be possible, but Kristoff’s weapon was a longsword. It was heavy and broad. Far too large to aim at a Sea Serpent’s eye.

He also had an Assassin Knife, but while that could be driven into the eye, the blade was too short, and from the eye socket it likely would not reach the brain.

Roa’s knife was a larger blade that also served for dismantling magic beasts, far longer than an Assassin Knife miniaturized for murder. Roa was also cloaking it in magic and thrusting it straight into the skull. Kristoff could not imitate that.

<Next!>

<Here comes the next one!>

Regardless of Kristoff’s inner turmoil, the twins kept dragging in more Sea Serpents. The ones coming up were still all small.

“Idiots! I told you to wait!!”

<The one who says idiot is the idiot!>

<Kristoff, you idiot!>

The twins shot back at Kristoff’s frantic protest.

<Hm. Just as expected, it seems only small fry are gathering at the beach. Is that because of the shallows, I wonder? This is perfect for the brat’s training.>

Far overhead, Uncle Gry watched the scene and muttered to himself.

Beforehand, they had predicted that large Sea Serpents would not come close to a shallow beach.

And indeed, all they were hauling up now were small ones, proving that prediction correct. Roa and the others were unlikely to attract anything particularly large going forward.

Roa was still a novice who had only just begun training for combat. Ordinarily, even hunting small Sea Serpents would be a crushing burden for a beginner, but with the preparations they had made beforehand and the twins’ support, they were serving as just the right opponents for real combat practice.

Part of the reason for this placement was that they were not used to fighting aboard a ship, but it was also because large Sea Serpents would have been too much for them, which was why the Sword Saint was standing by in case anything went wrong.

<It may be about time for him to switch from the knife to the short sword. Personally, I would prefer him to use magic, but…>

As far as Uncle Gry was concerned, he wanted Roa to use magic rather than a sword. Still, because Roa had his own wishes, Uncle Gry did not force the matter… though he did take every possible opportunity to steer Roa toward using magic.

On the other hand, because Uncle Gry was so relentless about making him use magic, Roa also had a stubborn streak that made him throw himself even harder into swordsmanship, but Uncle Gry himself had not noticed that.

<The larger ones are moving smoothly toward the ship, I see. Apparently, when viewed from beneath the sea, the bottom of a ship looks like the belly of a whale. Naturally.>

Uncle Gry had not seen it himself, but apparently a ship’s hull, illuminated from above by sunlight and visible only as a dark shadow, looked like a great whale swimming along the surface.

For that reason as well, the large Sea Serpents capable of attacking whales were steadily converging on the ship.

<The big ones should make fine training partners for the sleepyheads. They are only stupid snakes, after all. So long as they understand the procedure, even sleepyheads ought to find them easy enough to kill.>

After watching Roa and the others, Uncle Gry finally turned his gaze toward the ship carrying Dietrich and the others.

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