The sun was shining in a tropical paradise.
The sea was a beautiful mix of blue and green and the beach was covered with fine white sand and colorful flowers. Instead of normal conifer and broadleaf trees, the forest was mostly made up of mangroves growing directly up from the beach. The hermit crabs were larger than someone’s fist and the butterflies were a breathtaking blue. The rules governing this place were so strange, all the way down to the insect varieties never seen on the Static Continent.
The ocean seemed so different from the Static Continent where everything was built up into harbors.
Very few artificial objects could be seen in the pure and bright ocean here.
The only unnatural presence there were the leisure yachts and the giant railroad bridges connecting two continents. That and a bent metal tower sticking up from the island’s forest.
“What is that?” Mamilis tilted her head. “It’s bent.”
“One of the island’s famous lightning cloud cannons. When thick lightning clouds arrive, those blow them away. They should swivel like a construction arm.”
This would probably be a comfortable place for the Harpy, Cat Sith, and others freed from the 3rd class cars. Mermaids had great influence over the island of Laguntreat, so the oppression of demons was almost entirely absent here. Some might even decide to settle down here.
They saw a giant squid known as a Kraken and an enormous crab known as a Karkinos.
There were even some more unusual demons like a Nagaraja, Ketos, or Afanc that ordinary people would have a hard time picturing from the name alone.
Aquatic and decidedly nonhumanoid demons regularly appeared on the beach and in the ocean here. Despite looking like a picture book scene of a demonic world, the atmosphere was relaxed and everyone was taking it easy.
Of course, demons were not the only ones on the beach.
A young human man was staring blankly at a graceful older Mermaid lying nearby and a lost human child was clinging to a Lizardman’s leg and crying.
Most of the buildings that dotted the beach were built using wood from the palm trees and mangroves and a lot of them had an open design with the walls removed, allowing the wind through. That would make crime prevention difficult, but it created a relaxed and open atmosphere that made one think there was no strife here.
This was Laguntreat, the island of mermaids and decursing.
The remote island was located in the sea south of the Static Continent and it had gathered attention as a midway point to other continents ever since the age of ships.
But once the ocean railroad had opened and intercontinental travel had become a lot less risky, it had needed to find a primary industry other than trade.
“The answer they found was decursing using their pure spring water. In other words, medical and health treatments using sorcery. I believe the Oceavita Water Therapy Institute now manages all of the island’s spring water.”
Straitlaced Striker Henrietta explained what she knew while still wearing her hot armor even though this tropical paradise was better suited for swimsuits and tanned skin.
After walking along the bridge, they had arrived at Leonardo Station. Since it was not just called Laguntreat Station, it was probably named after a mayor, someone who helped get the railroad built, or someone else of note.
They had not seen any desert islands between the stopped 3rd class cars and here, but maybe they would have found one if they had walked long enough in the opposite direction.
Henrietta’s armor clanked heavily as she walked.
“You have heard of the hot spring towns built in volcanic regions on the Static Continent, I assume? This is similar to that.”
“Are you saying the mountain here will erupt someday?”
Dark Elf Mamilis did not quite get it and she looked vaguely uneasy, but that may have been due to living in a sky city all her life.
Henrietta shook her head, which also shook her blonde ponytail braid.
“No, the powerful demon at the mountain peak is the main factor here. Laguntreat has 143 officially registered springs, but they all come from that mountain.”
It was a fairly tall mountain. The top was surrounded by thick clouds and snow, which seemed unusual for the tropical climate. The colossal silhouette visible through the white curtain was obviously not a mountain ridge.
Henrietta seemed somewhat exasperated by the ridiculous scale of it all as she placed a hand on her hip and winked.
“That is Water Lord Fleurelisia, who is also known as the Ocean Queen. She is a giant winged fish that slithers on land like a snake. She uses her land, sea, and air forms to rule water in all of its forms: solid, liquid, and gas. I believe she measures at around 450 esoule[1] She is powerful enough to be known as one of the demonic Four Lords. She has been inactive of late, simply lying motionless up there on the mountain peak for several combo-years now, but I have heard that has created permafrost toward the top of the mountain. No one can hope to predict when she will move again.”
“The Water Lord,” muttered the Dark Elf like she was viewing a clock counting down to the end of the world.
Did her fear come from her experience with another of the Four Lords, that gargantuan fire dragon? Or had she been reminded of nearly being captured by human traffickers when the dragon attacked?
The human tourists reacted much like her, but the local demons did not seem to care. They might see the Water Lord like a guardian deity.
“It would be simplest to think of her as similar to Fire Lord Blasthogg, the giant dragon that attacked the sky city. I am hesitant to blindly accept it as fact, but based on what those dangerous individuals said, they were apparently involved in the very origin of magic.”
Incidentally, short and busty Teleria Nereid Aquamarine was pale and trembling instead of listening to any of this.
“Ahhh…”
(How do I even describe this? It’s like a weird itch on my back. Why is someone I know talking about my mother with a solemn look on her face?)
It was fortunate that Henrietta did not remember the Water Lord’s middle name onward. That would have been bad. She had 98 excuses ready to go already, but it would be hard to explain away a matching middle and last name. And she was not at all confident she could convince Ayato once he grew suspicious.
Mamilis kept glancing over at her with an unreadable expression. That Dark Elf was one of the few people who knew her secret.
She placed a hand at the center of her large chest and took a deep breath.
(It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. I just have to avoid making him think I have any connection to the demons here. I am Sorcery Trainee Teleria from the Academy Towers and I am currently journeying with Ayato as a bounty-hunting Forward. Good, my roleplaying is flawless. I won’t let anything rouse his suspi-)
“Princess? Why didn’t you inform us you were returning for a visi- mgh!”
“Abwagwah!!!!!!”
A graceful older Mermaid sunbathing atop a woven grass mat (lying face down with her shell bikini strap undone) spoke up in puzzled surprised, so Teleria immediately placed a hand over her mouth to silence her.
Black-haired Ayato looked even more puzzled than the Mermaid.
“Princess?”
“Y-y-y-yes, that is a very strange thing for her to say, Ayato! They must have a local custom of calling travelers that. You know, like when we were in the commercial capitalist city of Drizzagrad and came across those weird cafes where they called everyone ‘master’ or ‘mistress’!”
Ayato’s head remained tilted and Teleria maintained her smile despite looking like she was about to cry.
Meanwhile, brown Mamilis kicked at something hard.
“More importantly, we need to deal with this ice coffin. Coach, let’s carry it to the spring or wherever to get him decursed. We’re way too conspicuous with this thing.”
“Good point. That might be why we are gathering salespeople,” said Henrietta, annoyed by all the people trying to sell her large, round striped fruits chilled with ice.
Yes.
They were dragging along the rectangular ice coffin using the ropes tied around it. It was certainly a bizarre sight, especially with the human silhouette vaguely visible through the frost.
Dark Elf Mamilis tilted her head.
“Coach, why is everyone on this island selling watermelons? Are they a local delicacy?”
“Yes, but that isn’t limited to Laguntreat. They’re a standard beach food. Especially for that thing where you put on a blindfold, spin around, and break them open with a stick.”
“Is that some kind of ritual???”
She now seemed to have more questions than before.
Henrietta shooed away a Harpy, a swimsuit girl with seabird wings, who was trying to sell her something.
“Dangerous individual, you seemed to know a lot about that sorcery gun’s curse. Oceavita Water Therapy Institute will select the best spring for you based on the type of curse. If they need to determine what kind of curse it is for you, you have to wait in line and it takes a long time, so it would be much faster if you told us everything you know.”
“The Queen Astaroth Revolver is essentially a contract with a devil. The world’s laws are distorted to your benefit, but that can also be turned back against you to destroy you. That is a popular form of curse, but this one is exceptionally powerful.”
“Isn’t that all the more reason to leave this in the hands of the experts?”
Mamilis was tall and cool, but she was a grandma’s girl deep down, which made her generally obedient.
There were apparently 143 officially registered springs. The many options explained all the simple wooden arrow signs seen all over the place.
“Ah!”
They ran across several children fully engrossed in bug catching.
Despite her Mimic Option, Dark Elf Mamilis immediately reached up to her ears as if to hide them. The kids of course did not notice at all.
While most of the stores and other buildings had an open design without walls, the therapy institute was built of white marble. It looked different on the most fundamental level.
Once inside, a mechanical cool breeze born of sorcery created a refrigerator-like chill. A shiver ran up brown-skinned Mamilis’s spine.
That may have been a luxury for the people of the island. They could see people lying on the lobby benches and it was unclear if all of them even had anything wrong with them. One girl had partially stripped off a seal-like costume, leaving her upper body almost entirely bare, so she must have been a Selkie. Surprisingly, that was a type of Mermaid. A large beaver-like Afanc was trying to hit on her, but she was not listening.
The boy’s group crossed the lobby to reach the reception counter.
The receptionist in a nurse cap, a long work dress, and an apron smiled as she jotted down notes based on Ayato’s description and the symptoms they had seen.
“Understood. This patient appears to have been part of some sort of criminal activity, so who is authorizing this treatment?”
“That would be Henrietta Split Destrius here. She is a knight from Sky City Celedileka.”
“Wait, dangerous individual. I never said you could use my name here.”
But Sorcery Hacker Ayato and his partner Teleria were on the run and Mamilis was a Dark Elf, so that straitlaced Striker was the only one who could safely use her name on this kind of paperwork.
In addition to the clipboard held to her chest, the receptionist held a hand over a spherical Media Summoner on the counter. It looked a lot like a fist-sized crystal container or a snow dome.
“Okay, your registration is complete. We will take the patient now.”
Once the ice coffin was in the institute’s care, this was a job for the sorcery medical professionals. They received a wooden block with a number carved into it, so they left the white marble building.
The tropical forest had plenty of shade, but all the moisture made it humid and buggy. That was enough for Ayato’s group to head back to the beach where Mamilis raised her arms and stretched her back.
“It’s weird how it feels cooler here.”
“It might be a humidity issue,” answered Ayato.
Nearby, a girl with countless snakes for hair was sunbathing while lying face down on a sheet made from an herbivore’s tanned skin. Was she an Echidna? A Medusa? No, she may have been a Nagaraja. Whatever she was, it was rare to see demons so relaxed and unguarded in public places. Her thick serpentine lower body was lazily wiggling side to side as she basked in the sun.
In her armor and tight skirt, Henrietta rubbed her fingers against her temples.
“It takes a full day before the first report back? And if they haven’t decursed him then, they will probably have to try another spring? We definitely need a hotel now.”
“Coach, what should we do? We spent a lot of time in our room on the train, so I’m sick of just sitting around.”
“Why not go sightseeing? It isn’t everyday you travel outside the continent.”
“Eek!” Teleria paled and trembled. “(Oh…oh, no, no. If we split up, I won’t be able to control things and they’ll figure it out. No, wait, I just have to solve each problem in turn! Don’t give up yet!! Mamilis already knows my identity, so she isn’t a problem. I only have to worry about what Ayato and Henrietta do, so if I can keep them together…)”
“Miss Teleria?”
“I’m fine! I’m definitely not acting weird! Why would you even think that!?”
The blonde girl straightened up a little too quickly, making her large breasts shake vertically.
“But, Coach.” Mamilis tilted her head. “Do we have the money for a hotel? I mean, the Henrietta casino plan was just you manipulating the odds with your Sorcery Hacking to delay her inevitable loss, so you weren’t really expecting anything from that, right?”
“What. Did. You. Just. Say?”
“Miss Mamilis, I think we need to have a chat about when to keep your mouth shut. But regardless, we will be fine. We completed our job as Forwards on that train, remember?”
Ayato snapped his fingers.
“Yes, yes. You want your reward, don’t you?”
Teleria shrieked at the sudden voice.
Their client – a long-haired woman – had traded her classic maid uniform for a purple bikini. She was lounging on a beach chair made from woven vines. The glass on the side table may have contained a mixed drink made from mango and pineapple juice. A glass straw leaned against the side of the large glass which was decorated with a red flower.
This was Micha Angelos.
Her actual age was unknown, but Ayato recalled that she did not drink alcohol. That apparently dated back to a bitter experience when her bull man of a master had offered her a glass of an amber liquid and a single test lick with the tip of her tongue had messed her up something fierce. Then again, with the tourist markup, that fruit drink had probably cost more than an entire bottle of an ordinary alcoholic drink.
She shooed away a girl carrying a silver halide camera used to try to sell people commemorative vacation photos.
“This is your glorious reward from His Excellency. Please accept it with appropriate joy.”
“Joy? While picturing that minotaur in my head?”
“Do it.”
“We were the victims here. I already have him to blame for feeling weird when I eat a 0.2 rayker[2] rib roast. And medium rare ones were one of my favorite foods.”
While lying on her back in a way that seemed designed to show off her large chest, she grabbed a small bag of gold[3] between two slender fingers and dropped it in his hand. The purple beauty then placed both hands behind her head as a pillow.
“Interested in another job?”
“Nothing interests me more than that sun oil on the side table there. Eh heh heh. I see it contains a stimulation dulling herb. Does that mean your fine skin reacts very sensitively to potions, Micha Angelos? Why didn’t you tell me you had such a cute side?”
“Sorcery Hacker, I will only state this merciful warning once, so listen very carefully. Lay a single finger on this skin I keep pristine for His Excellency and I will dismember you on the spot.”
“Aha, a loophole!! I am free to touch the swimsuit-covered parts as much as I want as I will not be touching your ski-”
“I was not kidding about the dismemberment.”
Her smile did not reach her eyes, so he decided to take her at her word and raised his hands away from her.
“In that case, I am in the mood for some time off.”
“If you say so. But once you are sick of taking it easy, you can come crying back, Mr. Workaholic. We both know you lack the mental complexity needed to enjoy a vacation.”
That was the end of it.
Ayato blinked and those sexy curves were nowhere to be found. Instead, a purple nocturnal butterfly made of adult lace and bright jewels was flying away. The scene was so calm it did not disturb the other sunbathing girls like a chilly Asrai or a Nagaraja with snake hair and a serpentine lower body.
They had some funds now.
Most of the hotels came in the form of raised-floor cottages on the beach. After checking in at the manager’s room, you would head to one of the villa-like cottages dotting the beach. The puppy-like mermaid waiting behind the counter greeted them while seeming unsure what to do with her long fish tail.
“Welcome back, Princess. You want the cheapest room we offer? I wouldn’t dare! I would be punished for providing such poor service to you of all people!”
“?”
“Ho…ho ho ho. It’s so cute how they call everyone princess instead of ma’am! Now, Ayato, stop letting their standard lip service get the better of you! We need to go!!”
When they received their room key in the manager’s room, Ayato could not help but check what level it was as a sorcery device. They walked along a pier-like wooden walkway to carry them out into the ocean instead of just on the beach. There was no ocean railroad bridge or other cottages to block the view of the sun setting over the horizon from here. It had to be the nicest cottage in the area. For some reason, the entire place was oddly luxurious and its Media Summoner was unusually large. A bottle in a bucket of ice sat on the table as a welcoming gift.
Silver-haired Mamilis’s eyes widened and she poked at the bottle full of a toxically bright pink liquid.
“Wow, is this alcoholic?’
“I doubt it. Alcoholic drinks have the cork sealed with a special sticker to let you know. Also, the chateau or distillery likes to advertise their brand, the production region, and the shipment date on the label.”
“You know a lot about this, Henrietta. You’re so mature.”
“Thanks to the nightly parties those nobles threw after losing the courage to fight. To be clear, I learned all this so I would not drink any by mistake.”
While Dark Elf Mamilis and Striker Henrietta discussed that, Teleria quietly observed the cottage. She checked each room in turn and found red flower petals scattered atop a large canopied bed. There was even a message card on the pillow: “I see you have finally captured a man in the outside world and brought him home with you. Since there are no male Mermaids, that is a trial we all must face if we intend to have a child, which is especially important for you given the line of succession. I should have known you would overcome that trial so easily, Princess! The drink we have provided has a fantastic effect on men, turning them into a runaway freight train, if you know what I mean. Good luck tonight, Princess!”
“What does that say, Miss Teleria?’
“Nwuhthing at all, Ayato!! Ha ha ha. Just some silly advertisement, so don’t bother looking at it. And don’t even think about touching that bottle!!”
She balled up the unwanted message card in record time while blushing bright and speaking at a rapid pace. She was starting to suspect this cottage might be littered with traps, so she would need to do a thorough cleaning of every single room.
“Coach.”
Then Dark Elf Mamilis poked just her head into the bedroom entrance. As a grandma’s girl deep down, she could behave oddly childishly despite her tall and slender build.
Since no one could see them here, she had removed her Mimic Option earrings to let her long ears show.
“Should we choose rooms now?”
“I vote we all share the same room, Miss Mamilis. Yes, let us all sleep in the very same bed!!”
“In that case, I will assign rooms to everyone. But once that is done, we need to find some way to kill time. A full day is a long time.”
“Miss Mamilis, the laws of nature tell us precisely what we must do here, do they not?”
The brown bare-midriff girl tilted her head and Ayato made an awfully powerful suggestion.
“This is a tropical paradise, so how about we swim in the ocean?”
The humidity was lower out toward the ocean, but it was still plenty hot. The sun shined down from overhead and the fine white sand reflected it up from below, so the cool waves were a relief.
“Hold on. Are these really the rental swimsuits?”
“Hurry it up, Henrietta.”
“But these are no more than long, broad strips of cloth. At least tell me how I am supposed to wear it!”
“You only need two of them. Twist one around at the center and wrap it around your chest so it functions as cups. Like this, see? Then you can pass the other one vertically and horizontally while wrapping it around you to cover your butt.”
“This requires far too much creativity!”
Their cottage sat out over the ocean.
Did the girls realize their vivid silhouettes showed through the white curtain partition thanks to the sunlight shining through the window behind them? A conversation that did a lot to fuel the imagination was playing out beyond that thin curtain, but one voice was missing.
“Miss Teleria, why are you sitting over in the corner? You should join them.”
“Please just ignore meeee.”
The blonde girl was curled up with her arms around her knees and she rubbed her big toes together through the black tights she still wore. Those tights were actually a Mimic Option and removing them would reveal her mermaid parts. Unfortunately, she could not think of a swimsuit she could wear while still wearing tights.
However, Ayato rubbed his skinny chin in thought.
“Why would a girl sadly sit on the sidelines watching the others swim? …Oh!? How thoughtless of me. Forget I asked anything.”
“(I really, really want to punch him, but that would only make him ask further questions!!)”
With the sound of a flapping cloth, the thin curtain partition was pushed aside.
“We’re ready, Coach.”
Tall and slender Mamilis wore something akin to a bikini. White silk strips of cloth as thick as her arm were wrapped around her, covering her chest and hips. She had gone to the effort of twisting them at the center of the chest and the sides of her hips for a nice fashionable touch. Still, she really only had strips of cloth wrapped around her, so the angle around her hips seemed a bit sharp.
“Is it coming loose anywhere or did I leave any gaps?”
“Not that I can see.”
“But maybe I was too cautious because it’s a little tight. Nh, yeah, it rides up when I move my legs.”
“Miss Mamilis, you always put me in the most philosophical mood. You clearly know what makes a good swimsuit, even if you are not consciously aware of it. Good, you even know to bend your finger like a hook to fix the butt.”
Meanwhile, Henrietta had a strip of cloth hooked over her neck and then pulled down to cover the three important points of her two breasts and her crotch. Overall, it formed something like a V-shape. With his eyes on her, she held her arms around herself and twisted her body while trying not to look his way.
“What do you want, dangerous individual?”
“Well, Miss Henrietta, I was simply noting that people are full of surprises. That is a truly wonderful design that displays your inner self flawlessly.”
“One word more and I’m punching you! I couldn’t wrap it around me as skillfully as she could, so I had no choice but to do it this way!!”
“Wa ha ha! Perhaps we should call you Miss Jigglyetta from now on!”
She had started to attack him (with so much of her bright skin showing), but his comment made her gasp and then shriek as she quickly covered her chest with her hands. Yes, that V-shaped swimsuit was a little too playful. Or rather, it was much like a suspension bridge in how it turned the slightest movement into a lot of shaking.
“But it would seem you need more training in the way of the swimsuit, Rare Navel-Exposure Henrietta, so a word of warning. Bending over to cover your body is all well and good, but with a swimsuit like that, you are only letting the cloth go slack, widening the gaps. Can’t complain about the view, though.”
“Enough. If it comes to it, I will grab a stone and use this cloth as a sling. If I am going to die of embarrassment, I’m taking you with me.”
He seemed to have awoken the berserker’s wrath. Viewing everything through the lens of battle may have been her way of avoiding the reality before her. She seemed to be as much of a workaholic as Ayato.
Since the cottage was situated over the ocean itself, they did not need to head out onto the beach and set up a parasol. Ayato had discovered it while casting a fishing rod out the window, but the ocean was only hip deep here. That meant they could jump right off from the terrace.
And so Mamilis tilted her expressionless head in her bikini.
“You aren’t going to swim, Teleria?”
“Um, I couldn’t find a swimsuit I liked.”
“Henrietta, you grab her arms and I’ll grab her legs.”
“Wait, what are you two planning!?”
“We don’t want you to feel left out, so let’s forget all about swimsuits. Okay, swing her side to side and…go!”
After being swung like a pendulum and chucked out the window, the girl’s scream was drowned out by a loud splash.
Brown Mamilis followed after her by running to the end of the terrace with her arms raised horizontally.
“Yay!”
“Hey, dangerous individual. Is it just me or is that girl getting weirder by the day!? You’re clearly a bad influence on her!!”
“Coach, shut her up by shoving her into the ocean.”
“Eek!?”
A gentleman like Ayato could never wield that sort of violence, so he instead grabbed the back of her V-shaped swimsuit and tugged upwards. With the sound of cloth digging into flesh, she turned her legs inward, shrieked, and jumped up, causing her to fall off the edge of the terrace.
“Bwah!? D-d-dangerous individual!!”
“What about you, Coach?”
“Miss Mamilis, that is an extremely attractive offer, but unfortunately, there were no men’s swimsuits. Plus, a wet guy would be a public nuisance instead of a blessing. I was thinking of engaging in the truly cultured pastime of attempting to remove your swimsuits with this fishing rod, so how does that sound?”
“It sounds like you want me to climb back up there and punch you!”
“Ha ha ha. You say that, Miss Teleria, but what is that floating right next to you? Your blazer, blouse, and black tights are wet but otherwise untouched, so how in the world did landing in the water cause just your bra to come off and float away in the waves? And I was under the impression you always went with the pure white option, so I thank you for this correction.”
Teleria screamed and covered her chest with her hands while she ducked down to bring the water up past her mouth. She began blowing bubbles and looking tearfully up at him. He felt a little bad for her, but that reaction had earned an unbelievably high score in his book.
Needless to say, Ayato was so reluctant to enter the water because there was no such thing as absolute safety. There was the unsettling incident involving that ice coffin, but there was also a chance of a robbery, a mass shooting, or a random attacker arriving by pure coincidence. If they all set their weapons aside, they would have no way of responding to an unexpected attack, but the girls had different plans.
“W-we need to work together. Splash him with water! Especially in the face. Don’t give him a chance to swing that fishing rod!!”
“Got it!”
“Hm, this sounds fun. Get ready, Coach.”
The three girls began splashing at the hip-deep seawater with their hands, but while (happily) accepting their coordinated attack from one step back from the edge, he noticed something.
(Yes, I hadn’t imagined it. Their skin color is showing through an awful lot. Especially where the seawater has soaked into it.)
It was especially noticeable with Mamilis’s brown skin. The wet white cloth was plastered to her smooth curves in a way that suggested it had little to no waterproofing. That may truly have been ordinary silk.
“Agh! By the way, Miss Mamilis, where did you get these swimsuits?”
“Using the rental service offered on the Media Summoner. It contacted some young woman called a…coordinator, I think it was? Anyway, she brought them to the front door.”
“She brought the swimsuits?”
“She said we could wear them to look prettier.”
Ayato gained an incredibly soft expression.
Prettier. He could guess these were optional accessories meant to provide additional decoration, not swimsuits themselves. That meant they had zero protection against growing see-through when wet, but Ayato was a gentleman. There was no need to wound the sensitive maidens’ pride by pointing out their mistake.
“And letting them frolic in the water while mistaking that thin cloth for swimsuits will bring about much greater transparency-related happiness.”
“Hold it, dangerous individual! What did you just say!?”
The cottage built from tropical logs was a lot like a rental villa, so unlike a normal hotel, it had a kitchen. Night had fallen and they were all feeling hungry. There were restaurants and food stands out on the beach and they could order room service from the Media Summoner, but all of that would come with the delightfully happy tourist markup. Their funds would not last forever, so Teleria ended up in the kitchen.
“(If we order a dinner to be delivered here, who knows what kind of unwanted ‘substances’ they’ll add in!)”
“?”
Ayato gave her a puzzled look while she wore a frilly white apron over her uniform, but she was not about to explain.
Mamilis must have had a lot of trust in her because the Dark Elf’s long ears were twitching as she made a bold statement.
“Teleria can cook anything, can’t she?”
“She can. Which has helped me out immensely.”
She supposedly had trouble with fire magic, but she looked right at home operating the stove with her sorcery gun. The household level magic must have been simple enough for her to manage.
“Come to think of it, Coach, I’ve never seen you cook.”
“I would always go to the dining hall or use the microwave. Anyone can cook if all it takes is placing the ingredients in a box and turning the dial.”
“Microwave?”
“That was a tool they had in the Academy Towers.”
The Academy Towers was an educational institution on the Static Continent. Some saw it as a collection of geniuses and others as a cage for eccentrics. Neither assessment was exactly wrong, but one was a lot more accurate than the other. It was the peak of magical research. It was said an endless supply of new magical methods bubbled up from there like water from a spring, but it was also a tower of disaster that had created all sorts of ruinous human knowledge.
Ayato and Teleria’s blue blazers were the uniforms of that school.
Henrietta gave them an exasperated look.
“This dangerous individual certainly fits the stereotype of the eccentrics that place is known for, but not Teleria. It’s hard to believe such a sensible person wound up there.”
“You might want to see the place for yourself before jumping to conclusions about it.”
“But I heard it is like a cursed box, so simply peeking inside will drive you mad.”
Unfortunately, that description was somewhat accurate, so he had no rebuttal.
Instead, he shrugged.
“Anyway, that just means this girl earned a spot in the Academy Towers through something other than eccentricity. It is high time you appreciated Miss Teleria’s skill.”
“Teleria’s a genius girl?”
“Be careful, Miss Mamilis, because that questioning tone makes it sound like you are doubting her intelligence.”
“Yeah, but…”
Mamilis did not hesitate to stare at the blonde girl standing in the kitchen. Teleria was humming and chopping something up with a knife and she did not have the look of a “genius girl”.
But looks could be deceiving.
“I cannot use a sorcery gun, so she always stands in harm’s way for me. That requires the skill to both protect me and herself from whatever danger we face. And I have rarely if ever seen someone control water magic better than her.”
“Now that you mention it.”
Mamilis preferred suppression tactics using her full-auto shotgun with fire magic. That was a cost-effective combination because it allowed even a rookie to do fairly well just by continuing to fire, but that was because she lacked the fine control needed to protect someone while she fought.
“Magical combat requires heavy use of the mind and body. So a powerful fighter must be smart too.”
On the other hand, Ayato could no longer use a sorcery gun.
That meant he could no longer display his intelligence that way.
“By the way, Miss Henrietta was right about me finding a place in the Academy Towers through something other than being a genius. I might look smart because of all the strategizing, Sorcery Hacking, and other intellectual work I do, but do not let the flashy appearances fool you.”
“If you are aware how dumb you really are, then work to improve yourself, dangerous individual.”
“If personal effort is enough to change someone, you can hardly call them a true eccentric.”
And.
Dark Elf Mamilis’s eyes widened when she saw the dishes lined up on the table.
“Wow, what is this? A white stew?”
“It’s just meat simmered in milk. That is similar to a stew, but the meat is the main dish, not the broth. It is common in tropical dishes for the strong-flavored ingredients to be lightly cooked with some spices before being simmered in coconut milk. Really, you can think of it as a relative of honey chicken, so it may be more like a white sauce than a soup. Drinking all of it would mean a lot of fat and sugar, so consider yourself warned.”
“You sure know a lot about the local cuisine.”
“Eh? Ha ha ha. No, no. Not at all, Henrietta! There was a collection of local recipes hanging from a string on the kitchen wall, so I used that!”
Instead of a bread or rice based diet, this used doughy steamed dumplings made from potato starch. There was plenty of water here, but the island may not have been able to grow any grains due to the high temperature.
Anyway, it was time to eat.
Henrietta’s classiness as a knight was evident at times like this. The way she held her knife and fork exuded fine manners.
“Hm. I was so sick of chicken I thought I never wanted to see it again, but it tastes so much different with these seasonings. I still have so much to learn.”
“Oh, that’s not chicken. It’s fruit bat.”
“?”
“You know, a bat. With wings.”
Henrietta Split Destrius very classily spat out the food in her mouth. Ayato looked unsure how to respond since he was sitting directly across from her. He knew he could not let it anger him, so this called for a more philosophical stance.
“Would it bring me happiness to view this as a long-distance version of feeding me mouth-to-mouth? Yes, instead of viewing it as a tragic accident, I can create a psychological cushion by viewing it as an avant-garde version of blowing a kiss.”
“Coach, I really think you should just sadly wipe off your face. Here’s a towel.”
Henrietta had not heard a word they said.
“Ugh, cough, you…bat!?”
“Yes, the texture makes it a lot easier to eat than snake or frog. It doesn’t fall apart as you chew it.”
“Dark Elf, I don’t care if those are only hypothetical alternatives! Just stop! My life is over if I can no longer trust what I’m eating!!”
Now, it was a mystery why Mamilis knew what it was like to eat snake and frog since she had lived on that urban sky city just like Henrietta. Perhaps all Dark Elves were forest dwellers deep down.
Teleria handed Henrietta a cup of ice water.
“Well, if you don’t like that, how about some seafood instead?”
“I know you worked hard to cook this and I do apologize, but thank you. By the way, what kind of fish is in this?”
“Eh? It’s not fish. That’s a boiled octopus and vegetable marinade.”
Henrietta crashed backwards in her chair. Evidently, the urban Striker could not stand eating slippery and slimy octopuses or squids either.
“Uh, ughhh.”
“You sure are a picky eater. Did you always get to eat what you wanted while growing up in a rich noble family?”
Mamilis was from the same sky city, but she had grown up as a commoner and was reacting very differently now. She was munching on the food without any problem. The Dark Elf’s analysis was biased, but the knight could not argue back since she indeed could not bring herself to eat this food. Still on the floor, she glared up at Ayato in a dejected way.
“From now on, I will only consume water and potatoes. Dangerous individual, that revolver boy’s decursing will be complete tomorrow, correct? And then we will have no more reason to stay on this island, correct!?”
“That is the soonest possible result and it assumes everything goes well. They might have trouble and need to try different springs. But the Oceavita Water Therapy Institute are decursing experts, so let’s hope they are successful before you grow sick of your potato diet.”
She might as well have been a bug flipped on its back.
She covered her face with her hands and started to sob, so she may have been feeling homesick already.
Falling water could be heard in the ocean cottage, but not because a midnight squall was pounding on the roof. Henrietta was taking a shower.
Ayato Criminaltrophy shut his eyes and sighed while seated on a sofa in what would have been the living room of a normal villa.
He was beginning his mental sorcery experiment he called self-maintenance. That required no special tools or equipment, so any Sorcery Hacker would do that during any spare time. It may have been like a squirrel stuffing its cheeks full of nuts or a gymnast stretching to keep their body limber.
But.
“Coach.”
“Mgh!?”
He was hit by a surprise attack.
A weight plopped down on his thighs. He ended his work and opened his eyes to find the tall Dark Elf seated on his lap. She looked like a cool beauty, but she was quite the grandma’s girl, so she was very communicative once she opened up a bit with you.
She kicked her long legs.
She seemed to be toying with some kind of device in her hands.
“I want to know how this cartridge device works, so can you teach me?”
“Hm?”
Everyone could use sorcery guns for easy magic use these days, but that had indeed introduced the new troubles of maintaining and supplying ammo for those guns. A cartridge device was a tool used to create your own ammo.
“Yeah, they probably do have clay target shooting here, but I bet the wealthy have their own equipment brought in for that. The island’s shops probably don’t actually sell ammo.”
He had a feeling that was a hobby brought here by the 5th Prince. He was an indoorsy type who liked to tinker with sorcery devices and he used sports as a reason to get out of the house, but he would meekly smile and say he was not willing to shoot animals for sport. Ayato really wished a certain Minotaur could take a lesson from the guy.
On the other hand, sorcery guns were used as more than just weapons. They were also an ignition source for household stoves and heaters. However, there was a lot he did not know about how that equipment found its way to the island’s people.
“I want to learn how to do this while I have a chance, Coach. Where should I begin?”
“Let’s see.”
Mamilis was not a small child, so he had trouble seeing the device itself while she sat in his lap. He had to effectively embrace her hips from behind to use his sense of touch to check on the cartridge device she was toying with.
The device itself appeared to be a rectangular piece of steel about the size of a toaster.
Thumb-sized cylindrical holes were evenly spaced across the upper surface like a honeycomb, making it look something like a strange cooking appliance.
“First, check the knob on the side. Make sure the heat really is switched off.”
“Okay.”
“I can explain the basic principle behind it while you work. The standard bullets used by sorcery guns are made from mist mana.”
This reminded him of his time in the Academy Towers.
“First, the actual bullet,” he said while her long, twitching ears hit him on the cheek. “That is made from disintegrating lead. You generally want to make basic bullets that can be used for anything, but if you know what element you want from the beginning, you can use an arrangement specialized for fire, water, wind, or earth.”
“Everything I do is with fire.”
“The actual magic is formed by the muzzle flash that is given a specific pattern similar to a firework by carving grooves into the bullet with your willpower. Sending the power of mana through that creates the magic.”
But if that was all you wanted, you could simply pour dull gray powder inside and shape it by crushing it down with the rounded end of a wooden stick. A shotgun self-replicated a single type of magic and scattered it in a fan shape, which required focusing on multiple bullets instead of one even mass, but that was a separate issue.
The magical part of this job was coming up.
“Once the bullet portion has solidified, it’s time for the next step. Take concentrated and liquefied mana and rub it onto the inside of the tube.”
“You can touch mana with your finger? I thought you would pass right through it. Isn’t it called Intangible Mist?”
“Which is why you rub an impurity on the inside of the tube beforehand. It’s generally a powder, but the cream type might be easier for a beginner. Both options only keep the mana there for a short period of time, but you just have to get it heated and solidified before then.”
Mamilis’s movements were hesitant, but she was brimming with curiosity.
In terms of the Academy Towers, she seemed to see it like a summer break research project.
She leaned forward and rocked side to side, so his arms looked something like a seatbelt holding her in.
“Now turn the previous knob to heat up the entire device. For a shotgun, you’ll want to crank it up a little more. A thicker casing means more stability. Oh, and make sure you don’t touch the metal portions while it’s heating.”
“So this will create a tube, Coach?”
“Exactly. Mana generally passes through everything, but it can’t escape walls made of mana. The casing will quickly harden like a shell once you heat it and you can fill it with mist mana then. That you won’t harden. But overfill it and the high concentration will liquefy it, so be careful.”
“Okay.”
“Once you turn the knob back to stop the heating, you just have to shield the opening with a detonator and seal it up.”
When she pulled down the small lever on the side, a set of brand new bullet cartridges popped out of the cylinders. A cartridge device like this could make 20 rounds at a time. They popped out as easily as toast from a toaster.
Shops loved to sell “first class” sorcery gun ammo said to be made by specialists, but most people would just make their own. Especially Forwards who might not be able to visit a shop depending on their circumstances.
But anyway.
“I did it,” said Mamilis in a way that would probably have made her weapon developer grandma weepy.
The shotgun shells she had made all glowed red like jewels.
He had shown her through the standard method here, but the end product could vary significantly based on the creator’s quirks and the materials used. Teleria’s and Henrietta’s would shine with a unique light all their own.
“There is almost no chance of the creator being identified from a used cartridge since they lose their color and disintegrate on their own. But you could be in trouble if you drop an unused shotgun shell on a job, so be careful how you handle them.”
“Got it, Coach.”
“You have to wait for the device to cool before you can make another set, but you can use an incombustible gas for that. Submerging it in cold water would crack the device, so don’t do that. Regardless, I recommend doing it with me or Miss Teleria around for the time being.”
“Incredible. I can make as many bullets as I want with this.”
She sounded like a small child who had been given an ice cream maker that was more or less just a toy.
Back in the sky city, she had feared the weapons people wielded, but making them herself may have helped her conquer that fear by understanding how they worked.
“The experiment is not over until you have cleaned up your equipment. Once you finish that, you can take a shower and get to bed early. Even if we were using a sleeper train, we did just complete a long journey.”
“Hm? You don’t want me to review what I’ve learned now???”
“This is not quite the same as my self-maintenance work. One lesson I have learned the hard way is that you will accomplish nothing by trying to learn when you are feeling sleepy and your eyelids are growing heavy.”
The ocean was enshrouded with the late-night darkness.
Since Laguntreat’s primary selling point was as a health retreat, the night was fairly peaceful for a tourist location. The giant crab Karkinos was flipped over, fast asleep. It had something like white bubbles coming from its mouth, but not because it was suffering.
A Lizardman must have shed their skin at some point because a skin shaped just like one was sitting there on the beach.
The moonlit ocean looked different than it had during the day. A faint and cold light rose from its surface and thin, pier-like walkways connected the cottages built over the water. Someone was slowly walking along one of those.
It was Teleria Nereid Aquamarine.
“…”
She had snuck out of their cottage and she doubted anyone had noticed. They had fought a hard battle on the ocean train during the day, they had played in the ocean, and they were staying in an unfamiliar place. Mamilis and Henrietta must have been exhausted, not to mention Ayato. It was hard to tell from the outside whether he was sleeping or performing that mental work of his, but one of his strongest points was his ability to sleep anywhere and quickly recover through that sleep.
That was why no one caught the blonde girl.
For a Mermaid, the ocean was best at night. The view from the walkway was so enticing she wanted to jump right on in, but the ocean at night was also heavily associated with death.
She was here to check on something.
She wanted to see again how she viewed herself.
“Ah.”
Her lips moved slightly when she saw the moon reflected in the dark ocean.
Once the figurative ball began rolling down the slope, there was no stopping it.
“Okay, fine!! How am I supposed to resist this!?
She stripped.
She started with her blue blazer and blouse, she skipped to her leather shoes for now, she took a detour to the twin holsters for her guns, and then she hesitated a moment before removing her white bra too. At that point, there was no use in waiting any longer, so she unzipped her skirt and stuck her thumbs under the sides of the black tights she wore. Those were actually a Mimic Option, so once she pulled them down, her hidden Mermaid lower body was revealed with a sticky sound.
The moonlight shined palely on her silhouette, which contained a combination of immature and mature.
“There.”
The rest came naturally to her.
She leaped into the ocean, traveling in a beautiful crescent moon arch from the pier-like walkway.
Any Mermaid would be itching to dive in after seeing that watery expanse before her. She had been resisting it the entire time they were on the ocean railroad and the beach cottage had been the last straw. The ocean was way too close by. The clear seawater, the strong scent of the sea breeze, the crashing of the waves, and the summer sun on her skin had all pierced directly into her instincts.
The dark water inspired fear in some, but it was more comforting than a bed sheet to her and she could not resist wrapping her entire body in it.
“Pwah. Maybe I overdid it.”
She made that belated realization after bringing her face above water. She had been starving for the ocean, but fulfilling that urge may have helped clear her mind. Even Laguntreat’s ocean had things floating through it, but all of that would break down naturally. Teleria grabbed a palm leaf floating in the waves and wrapped it around her ample chest with practiced hand. She had trouble with detailed needlework, but that was because Mermaids did not do much sewing.
“Nh.”
Mermaid clothing was generally made by wrapping waterproof fabric or giant leaves around their body or by drilling holes in shells and passing thick strings through that to create a shell bikini.
She lay on her back and spread out her arms to look up at the moon and float on the surface for a while.
She could live in human society with her Mimic Option, but using it for too long left her lower body bloated and the pressure of keeping secrets from people built up inside her like sediment. She wanted some kind of release. She wanted to blow off some steam. And the azure sea of her home ground was far too powerful. Not even visiting a cake buffet the day after a diet would have permeated the core of her being quite like this.
“Ayato, you dummyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!”
She had managed to fool him today, but what about tomorrow?
She also had to wonder why he could not see through her lies.
“He’s so dumb I can’t believe it,” she said much more quietly.
Achieving your goal did not always feel good. Keeping up her act for another day pricked at her heart like a small thorn. The foolish boy was left behind with his happy dreams while this girl continued to grow.
When would she finally be able to reveal this to him?
She was so very jealous of Mamilis who could reveal her long Dark Elf ears around him and even get him to rub her head. She knew that jealousy was an ugly thing, but she could have had that position for herself. If she had chosen differently back at the beginning, she was certain she would not have had to hide her Mermaid tail from him.
But she did not see that happening as things were. In the end, Teleria was Teleria. She could not do what Mamilis did at this point.
Too much time had passed.
The supposed trust she had built up with him only worked against her now.
She only had herself to blame. This was a comedy brought on by her weak will and her self-serving logic, so she knew all her resentment had to be directed at herself.
“Sigh.”
(I wish I could just go to sleep out here. I wish I could turn to sea foam and dissolve into the water.)
She knew that could never happen.
She even knew she would tearfully beg for her life if it did come to that.
And just then…
“…!?”
Her incoherent thoughts were dragged back to reality by an intense pressure. She flipped over from her back, dove down into the ocean, and then treaded water with her hips on down below the water.
This was not a blatant attack.
She could not sense any killer intent or even hostility.
She felt a violent “aura” like a wooden hammer to the heart, but it was more like someone stirring or rolling in their sleep than anything.
“It…can’t be.”
She could only think of one possibility.
Her gaze slowly rose from the ocean surface. The mountain visible from anywhere on Laguntreat was capped with thick clouds and white snow despite the tropical climate. All the island’s water came from there. Beyond the cloudy curtain was a silhouette of something very different from a mountain ridge.
It was 540 esoule[4] long.
That gargantuan winged fish slithered along the land like a snake.
But the weird people who had been observing it for many long years would notice that its position had changed. It had clearly moved closer to the base of the mountain.
The blonde Mermaid spoke with extreme caution in her voice.
It was only a whisper, but her voice was quavering.
“Mother?”
That was Water Lord Fleurelisia Nereid Aquamarine.
That Ocean Queen was one of the Four Lords of the demons.
She was also like a horrific alarm clock that would trigger a collapse of balance for everything here.
The Water Lord, who was Teleria’s biological mother, was moving for the first time in several combo-years?
The sun was shining in a tropical paradise.
The sea was a beautiful mix of blue and green and the beach was covered with fine white sand and colorful flowers. Instead of normal conifer and broadleaf trees, the forest was mostly made up of mangroves growing directly up from the beach. The hermit crabs were larger than someone’s fist and the butterflies were a breathtaking blue. The rules governing this place were so strange, all the way down to the insect varieties never seen on the Static Continent.
The ocean seemed so different from the Static Continent where everything was built up into harbors.
Very few artificial objects could be seen in the pure and bright ocean here.
The only unnatural presence there were the leisure yachts and the giant railroad bridges connecting two continents. That and a bent metal tower sticking up from the island’s forest.
“What is that?” Mamilis tilted her head. “It’s bent.”
“One of the island’s famous lightning cloud cannons. When thick lightning clouds arrive, those blow them away. They should swivel like a construction arm.”
This would probably be a comfortable place for the Harpy, Cat Sith, and others freed from the 3rd class cars. Mermaids had great influence over the island of Laguntreat, so the oppression of demons was almost entirely absent here. Some might even decide to settle down here.
They saw a giant squid known as a Kraken and an enormous crab known as a Karkinos.
There were even some more unusual demons like a Nagaraja, Ketos, or Afanc that ordinary people would have a hard time picturing from the name alone.
Aquatic and decidedly nonhumanoid demons regularly appeared on the beach and in the ocean here. Despite looking like a picture book scene of a demonic world, the atmosphere was relaxed and everyone was taking it easy.
Of course, demons were not the only ones on the beach.
A young human man was staring blankly at a graceful older Mermaid lying nearby and a lost human child was clinging to a Lizardman’s leg and crying.
Most of the buildings that dotted the beach were built using wood from the palm trees and mangroves and a lot of them had an open design with the walls removed, allowing the wind through. That would make crime prevention difficult, but it created a relaxed and open atmosphere that made one think there was no strife here.
This was Laguntreat, the island of mermaids and decursing.
The remote island was located in the sea south of the Static Continent and it had gathered attention as a midway point to other continents ever since the age of ships.
But once the ocean railroad had opened and intercontinental travel had become a lot less risky, it had needed to find a primary industry other than trade.
“The answer they found was decursing using their pure spring water. In other words, medical and health treatments using sorcery. I believe the Oceavita Water Therapy Institute now manages all of the island’s spring water.”
Straitlaced Striker Henrietta explained what she knew while still wearing her hot armor even though this tropical paradise was better suited for swimsuits and tanned skin.
After walking along the bridge, they had arrived at Leonardo Station. Since it was not just called Laguntreat Station, it was probably named after a mayor, someone who helped get the railroad built, or someone else of note.
They had not seen any desert islands between the stopped 3rd class cars and here, but maybe they would have found one if they had walked long enough in the opposite direction.
Henrietta’s armor clanked heavily as she walked.
“You have heard of the hot spring towns built in volcanic regions on the Static Continent, I assume? This is similar to that.”
“Are you saying the mountain here will erupt someday?”
Dark Elf Mamilis did not quite get it and she looked vaguely uneasy, but that may have been due to living in a sky city all her life.
Henrietta shook her head, which also shook her blonde ponytail braid.
“No, the powerful demon at the mountain peak is the main factor here. Laguntreat has 143 officially registered springs, but they all come from that mountain.”
It was a fairly tall mountain. The top was surrounded by thick clouds and snow, which seemed unusual for the tropical climate. The colossal silhouette visible through the white curtain was obviously not a mountain ridge.
Henrietta seemed somewhat exasperated by the ridiculous scale of it all as she placed a hand on her hip and winked.
“That is Water Lord Fleurelisia, who is also known as the Ocean Queen. She is a giant winged fish that slithers on land like a snake. She uses her land, sea, and air forms to rule water in all of its forms: solid, liquid, and gas. I believe she measures at around 450 esoule[1] She is powerful enough to be known as one of the demonic Four Lords. She has been inactive of late, simply lying motionless up there on the mountain peak for several combo-years now, but I have heard that has created permafrost toward the top of the mountain. No one can hope to predict when she will move again.”
“The Water Lord,” muttered the Dark Elf like she was viewing a clock counting down to the end of the world.
Did her fear come from her experience with another of the Four Lords, that gargantuan fire dragon? Or had she been reminded of nearly being captured by human traffickers when the dragon attacked?
The human tourists reacted much like her, but the local demons did not seem to care. They might see the Water Lord like a guardian deity.
“It would be simplest to think of her as similar to Fire Lord Blasthogg, the giant dragon that attacked the sky city. I am hesitant to blindly accept it as fact, but based on what those dangerous individuals said, they were apparently involved in the very origin of magic.”
Incidentally, short and busty Teleria Nereid Aquamarine was pale and trembling instead of listening to any of this.
“Ahhh…”
(How do I even describe this? It’s like a weird itch on my back. Why is someone I know talking about my mother with a solemn look on her face?)
It was fortunate that Henrietta did not remember the Water Lord’s middle name onward. That would have been bad. She had 98 excuses ready to go already, but it would be hard to explain away a matching middle and last name. And she was not at all confident she could convince Ayato once he grew suspicious.
Mamilis kept glancing over at her with an unreadable expression. That Dark Elf was one of the few people who knew her secret.
She placed a hand at the center of her large chest and took a deep breath.
(It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. I just have to avoid making him think I have any connection to the demons here. I am Sorcery Trainee Teleria from the Academy Towers and I am currently journeying with Ayato as a bounty-hunting Forward. Good, my roleplaying is flawless. I won’t let anything rouse his suspi-)
“Princess? Why didn’t you inform us you were returning for a visi- mgh!”
“Abwagwah!!!!!!”
A graceful older Mermaid sunbathing atop a woven grass mat (lying face down with her shell bikini strap undone) spoke up in puzzled surprised, so Teleria immediately placed a hand over her mouth to silence her.
Black-haired Ayato looked even more puzzled than the Mermaid.
“Princess?”
“Y-y-y-yes, that is a very strange thing for her to say, Ayato! They must have a local custom of calling travelers that. You know, like when we were in the commercial capitalist city of Drizzagrad and came across those weird cafes where they called everyone ‘master’ or ‘mistress’!”
Ayato’s head remained tilted and Teleria maintained her smile despite looking like she was about to cry.
Meanwhile, brown Mamilis kicked at something hard.
“More importantly, we need to deal with this ice coffin. Coach, let’s carry it to the spring or wherever to get him decursed. We’re way too conspicuous with this thing.”
“Good point. That might be why we are gathering salespeople,” said Henrietta, annoyed by all the people trying to sell her large, round striped fruits chilled with ice.
Yes.
They were dragging along the rectangular ice coffin using the ropes tied around it. It was certainly a bizarre sight, especially with the human silhouette vaguely visible through the frost.
Dark Elf Mamilis tilted her head.
“Coach, why is everyone on this island selling watermelons? Are they a local delicacy?”
“Yes, but that isn’t limited to Laguntreat. They’re a standard beach food. Especially for that thing where you put on a blindfold, spin around, and break them open with a stick.”
“Is that some kind of ritual???”
She now seemed to have more questions than before.
Henrietta shooed away a Harpy, a swimsuit girl with seabird wings, who was trying to sell her something.
“Dangerous individual, you seemed to know a lot about that sorcery gun’s curse. Oceavita Water Therapy Institute will select the best spring for you based on the type of curse. If they need to determine what kind of curse it is for you, you have to wait in line and it takes a long time, so it would be much faster if you told us everything you know.”
“The Queen Astaroth Revolver is essentially a contract with a devil. The world’s laws are distorted to your benefit, but that can also be turned back against you to destroy you. That is a popular form of curse, but this one is exceptionally powerful.”
“Isn’t that all the more reason to leave this in the hands of the experts?”
Mamilis was tall and cool, but she was a grandma’s girl deep down, which made her generally obedient.
There were apparently 143 officially registered springs. The many options explained all the simple wooden arrow signs seen all over the place.
“Ah!”
They ran across several children fully engrossed in bug catching.
Despite her Mimic Option, Dark Elf Mamilis immediately reached up to her ears as if to hide them. The kids of course did not notice at all.
While most of the stores and other buildings had an open design without walls, the therapy institute was built of white marble. It looked different on the most fundamental level.
Once inside, a mechanical cool breeze born of sorcery created a refrigerator-like chill. A shiver ran up brown-skinned Mamilis’s spine.
That may have been a luxury for the people of the island. They could see people lying on the lobby benches and it was unclear if all of them even had anything wrong with them. One girl had partially stripped off a seal-like costume, leaving her upper body almost entirely bare, so she must have been a Selkie. Surprisingly, that was a type of Mermaid. A large beaver-like Afanc was trying to hit on her, but she was not listening.
The boy’s group crossed the lobby to reach the reception counter.
The receptionist in a nurse cap, a long work dress, and an apron smiled as she jotted down notes based on Ayato’s description and the symptoms they had seen.
“Understood. This patient appears to have been part of some sort of criminal activity, so who is authorizing this treatment?”
“That would be Henrietta Split Destrius here. She is a knight from Sky City Celedileka.”
“Wait, dangerous individual. I never said you could use my name here.”
But Sorcery Hacker Ayato and his partner Teleria were on the run and Mamilis was a Dark Elf, so that straitlaced Striker was the only one who could safely use her name on this kind of paperwork.
In addition to the clipboard held to her chest, the receptionist held a hand over a spherical Media Summoner on the counter. It looked a lot like a fist-sized crystal container or a snow dome.
“Okay, your registration is complete. We will take the patient now.”
Once the ice coffin was in the institute’s care, this was a job for the sorcery medical professionals. They received a wooden block with a number carved into it, so they left the white marble building.
The tropical forest had plenty of shade, but all the moisture made it humid and buggy. That was enough for Ayato’s group to head back to the beach where Mamilis raised her arms and stretched her back.
“It’s weird how it feels cooler here.”
“It might be a humidity issue,” answered Ayato.
Nearby, a girl with countless snakes for hair was sunbathing while lying face down on a sheet made from an herbivore’s tanned skin. Was she an Echidna? A Medusa? No, she may have been a Nagaraja. Whatever she was, it was rare to see demons so relaxed and unguarded in public places. Her thick serpentine lower body was lazily wiggling side to side as she basked in the sun.
In her armor and tight skirt, Henrietta rubbed her fingers against her temples.
“It takes a full day before the first report back? And if they haven’t decursed him then, they will probably have to try another spring? We definitely need a hotel now.”
“Coach, what should we do? We spent a lot of time in our room on the train, so I’m sick of just sitting around.”
“Why not go sightseeing? It isn’t everyday you travel outside the continent.”
“Eek!” Teleria paled and trembled. “(Oh…oh, no, no. If we split up, I won’t be able to control things and they’ll figure it out. No, wait, I just have to solve each problem in turn! Don’t give up yet!! Mamilis already knows my identity, so she isn’t a problem. I only have to worry about what Ayato and Henrietta do, so if I can keep them together…)”
“Miss Teleria?”
“I’m fine! I’m definitely not acting weird! Why would you even think that!?”
The blonde girl straightened up a little too quickly, making her large breasts shake vertically.
“But, Coach.” Mamilis tilted her head. “Do we have the money for a hotel? I mean, the Henrietta casino plan was just you manipulating the odds with your Sorcery Hacking to delay her inevitable loss, so you weren’t really expecting anything from that, right?”
“What. Did. You. Just. Say?”
“Miss Mamilis, I think we need to have a chat about when to keep your mouth shut. But regardless, we will be fine. We completed our job as Forwards on that train, remember?”
Ayato snapped his fingers.
“Yes, yes. You want your reward, don’t you?”
Teleria shrieked at the sudden voice.
Their client – a long-haired woman – had traded her classic maid uniform for a purple bikini. She was lounging on a beach chair made from woven vines. The glass on the side table may have contained a mixed drink made from mango and pineapple juice. A glass straw leaned against the side of the large glass which was decorated with a red flower.
This was Micha Angelos.
Her actual age was unknown, but Ayato recalled that she did not drink alcohol. That apparently dated back to a bitter experience when her bull man of a master had offered her a glass of an amber liquid and a single test lick with the tip of her tongue had messed her up something fierce. Then again, with the tourist markup, that fruit drink had probably cost more than an entire bottle of an ordinary alcoholic drink.
She shooed away a girl carrying a silver halide camera used to try to sell people commemorative vacation photos.
“This is your glorious reward from His Excellency. Please accept it with appropriate joy.”
“Joy? While picturing that minotaur in my head?”
“Do it.”
“We were the victims here. I already have him to blame for feeling weird when I eat a 0.2 rayker[2] rib roast. And medium rare ones were one of my favorite foods.”
While lying on her back in a way that seemed designed to show off her large chest, she grabbed a small bag of gold[3] between two slender fingers and dropped it in his hand. The purple beauty then placed both hands behind her head as a pillow.
“Interested in another job?”
“Nothing interests me more than that sun oil on the side table there. Eh heh heh. I see it contains a stimulation dulling herb. Does that mean your fine skin reacts very sensitively to potions, Micha Angelos? Why didn’t you tell me you had such a cute side?”
“Sorcery Hacker, I will only state this merciful warning once, so listen very carefully. Lay a single finger on this skin I keep pristine for His Excellency and I will dismember you on the spot.”
“Aha, a loophole!! I am free to touch the swimsuit-covered parts as much as I want as I will not be touching your ski-”
“I was not kidding about the dismemberment.”
Her smile did not reach her eyes, so he decided to take her at her word and raised his hands away from her.
“In that case, I am in the mood for some time off.”
“If you say so. But once you are sick of taking it easy, you can come crying back, Mr. Workaholic. We both know you lack the mental complexity needed to enjoy a vacation.”
That was the end of it.
Ayato blinked and those sexy curves were nowhere to be found. Instead, a purple nocturnal butterfly made of adult lace and bright jewels was flying away. The scene was so calm it did not disturb the other sunbathing girls like a chilly Asrai or a Nagaraja with snake hair and a serpentine lower body.
They had some funds now.
Most of the hotels came in the form of raised-floor cottages on the beach. After checking in at the manager’s room, you would head to one of the villa-like cottages dotting the beach. The puppy-like mermaid waiting behind the counter greeted them while seeming unsure what to do with her long fish tail.
“Welcome back, Princess. You want the cheapest room we offer? I wouldn’t dare! I would be punished for providing such poor service to you of all people!”
“?”
“Ho…ho ho ho. It’s so cute how they call everyone princess instead of ma’am! Now, Ayato, stop letting their standard lip service get the better of you! We need to go!!”
When they received their room key in the manager’s room, Ayato could not help but check what level it was as a sorcery device. They walked along a pier-like wooden walkway to carry them out into the ocean instead of just on the beach. There was no ocean railroad bridge or other cottages to block the view of the sun setting over the horizon from here. It had to be the nicest cottage in the area. For some reason, the entire place was oddly luxurious and its Media Summoner was unusually large. A bottle in a bucket of ice sat on the table as a welcoming gift.
Silver-haired Mamilis’s eyes widened and she poked at the bottle full of a toxically bright pink liquid.
“Wow, is this alcoholic?’
“I doubt it. Alcoholic drinks have the cork sealed with a special sticker to let you know. Also, the chateau or distillery likes to advertise their brand, the production region, and the shipment date on the label.”
“You know a lot about this, Henrietta. You’re so mature.”
“Thanks to the nightly parties those nobles threw after losing the courage to fight. To be clear, I learned all this so I would not drink any by mistake.”
While Dark Elf Mamilis and Striker Henrietta discussed that, Teleria quietly observed the cottage. She checked each room in turn and found red flower petals scattered atop a large canopied bed. There was even a message card on the pillow: “I see you have finally captured a man in the outside world and brought him home with you. Since there are no male Mermaids, that is a trial we all must face if we intend to have a child, which is especially important for you given the line of succession. I should have known you would overcome that trial so easily, Princess! The drink we have provided has a fantastic effect on men, turning them into a runaway freight train, if you know what I mean. Good luck tonight, Princess!”
“What does that say, Miss Teleria?’
“Nwuhthing at all, Ayato!! Ha ha ha. Just some silly advertisement, so don’t bother looking at it. And don’t even think about touching that bottle!!”
She balled up the unwanted message card in record time while blushing bright and speaking at a rapid pace. She was starting to suspect this cottage might be littered with traps, so she would need to do a thorough cleaning of every single room.
“Coach.”
Then Dark Elf Mamilis poked just her head into the bedroom entrance. As a grandma’s girl deep down, she could behave oddly childishly despite her tall and slender build.
Since no one could see them here, she had removed her Mimic Option earrings to let her long ears show.
“Should we choose rooms now?”
“I vote we all share the same room, Miss Mamilis. Yes, let us all sleep in the very same bed!!”
“In that case, I will assign rooms to everyone. But once that is done, we need to find some way to kill time. A full day is a long time.”
“Miss Mamilis, the laws of nature tell us precisely what we must do here, do they not?”
The brown bare-midriff girl tilted her head and Ayato made an awfully powerful suggestion.
“This is a tropical paradise, so how about we swim in the ocean?”
The humidity was lower out toward the ocean, but it was still plenty hot. The sun shined down from overhead and the fine white sand reflected it up from below, so the cool waves were a relief.
“Hold on. Are these really the rental swimsuits?”
“Hurry it up, Henrietta.”
“But these are no more than long, broad strips of cloth. At least tell me how I am supposed to wear it!”
“You only need two of them. Twist one around at the center and wrap it around your chest so it functions as cups. Like this, see? Then you can pass the other one vertically and horizontally while wrapping it around you to cover your butt.”
“This requires far too much creativity!”
Their cottage sat out over the ocean.
Did the girls realize their vivid silhouettes showed through the white curtain partition thanks to the sunlight shining through the window behind them? A conversation that did a lot to fuel the imagination was playing out beyond that thin curtain, but one voice was missing.
“Miss Teleria, why are you sitting over in the corner? You should join them.”
“Please just ignore meeee.”
The blonde girl was curled up with her arms around her knees and she rubbed her big toes together through the black tights she still wore. Those tights were actually a Mimic Option and removing them would reveal her mermaid parts. Unfortunately, she could not think of a swimsuit she could wear while still wearing tights.
However, Ayato rubbed his skinny chin in thought.
“Why would a girl sadly sit on the sidelines watching the others swim? …Oh!? How thoughtless of me. Forget I asked anything.”
“(I really, really want to punch him, but that would only make him ask further questions!!)”
With the sound of a flapping cloth, the thin curtain partition was pushed aside.
“We’re ready, Coach.”
Tall and slender Mamilis wore something akin to a bikini. White silk strips of cloth as thick as her arm were wrapped around her, covering her chest and hips. She had gone to the effort of twisting them at the center of the chest and the sides of her hips for a nice fashionable touch. Still, she really only had strips of cloth wrapped around her, so the angle around her hips seemed a bit sharp.
“Is it coming loose anywhere or did I leave any gaps?”
“Not that I can see.”
“But maybe I was too cautious because it’s a little tight. Nh, yeah, it rides up when I move my legs.”
“Miss Mamilis, you always put me in the most philosophical mood. You clearly know what makes a good swimsuit, even if you are not consciously aware of it. Good, you even know to bend your finger like a hook to fix the butt.”
Meanwhile, Henrietta had a strip of cloth hooked over her neck and then pulled down to cover the three important points of her two breasts and her crotch. Overall, it formed something like a V-shape. With his eyes on her, she held her arms around herself and twisted her body while trying not to look his way.
“What do you want, dangerous individual?”
“Well, Miss Henrietta, I was simply noting that people are full of surprises. That is a truly wonderful design that displays your inner self flawlessly.”
“One word more and I’m punching you! I couldn’t wrap it around me as skillfully as she could, so I had no choice but to do it this way!!”
“Wa ha ha! Perhaps we should call you Miss Jigglyetta from now on!”
She had started to attack him (with so much of her bright skin showing), but his comment made her gasp and then shriek as she quickly covered her chest with her hands. Yes, that V-shaped swimsuit was a little too playful. Or rather, it was much like a suspension bridge in how it turned the slightest movement into a lot of shaking.
“But it would seem you need more training in the way of the swimsuit, Rare Navel-Exposure Henrietta, so a word of warning. Bending over to cover your body is all well and good, but with a swimsuit like that, you are only letting the cloth go slack, widening the gaps. Can’t complain about the view, though.”
“Enough. If it comes to it, I will grab a stone and use this cloth as a sling. If I am going to die of embarrassment, I’m taking you with me.”
He seemed to have awoken the berserker’s wrath. Viewing everything through the lens of battle may have been her way of avoiding the reality before her. She seemed to be as much of a workaholic as Ayato.
Since the cottage was situated over the ocean itself, they did not need to head out onto the beach and set up a parasol. Ayato had discovered it while casting a fishing rod out the window, but the ocean was only hip deep here. That meant they could jump right off from the terrace.
And so Mamilis tilted her expressionless head in her bikini.
“You aren’t going to swim, Teleria?”
“Um, I couldn’t find a swimsuit I liked.”
“Henrietta, you grab her arms and I’ll grab her legs.”
“Wait, what are you two planning!?”
“We don’t want you to feel left out, so let’s forget all about swimsuits. Okay, swing her side to side and…go!”
After being swung like a pendulum and chucked out the window, the girl’s scream was drowned out by a loud splash.
Brown Mamilis followed after her by running to the end of the terrace with her arms raised horizontally.
“Yay!”
“Hey, dangerous individual. Is it just me or is that girl getting weirder by the day!? You’re clearly a bad influence on her!!”
“Coach, shut her up by shoving her into the ocean.”
“Eek!?”
A gentleman like Ayato could never wield that sort of violence, so he instead grabbed the back of her V-shaped swimsuit and tugged upwards. With the sound of cloth digging into flesh, she turned her legs inward, shrieked, and jumped up, causing her to fall off the edge of the terrace.
“Bwah!? D-d-dangerous individual!!”
“What about you, Coach?”
“Miss Mamilis, that is an extremely attractive offer, but unfortunately, there were no men’s swimsuits. Plus, a wet guy would be a public nuisance instead of a blessing. I was thinking of engaging in the truly cultured pastime of attempting to remove your swimsuits with this fishing rod, so how does that sound?”
“It sounds like you want me to climb back up there and punch you!”
“Ha ha ha. You say that, Miss Teleria, but what is that floating right next to you? Your blazer, blouse, and black tights are wet but otherwise untouched, so how in the world did landing in the water cause just your bra to come off and float away in the waves? And I was under the impression you always went with the pure white option, so I thank you for this correction.”
Teleria screamed and covered her chest with her hands while she ducked down to bring the water up past her mouth. She began blowing bubbles and looking tearfully up at him. He felt a little bad for her, but that reaction had earned an unbelievably high score in his book.
Needless to say, Ayato was so reluctant to enter the water because there was no such thing as absolute safety. There was the unsettling incident involving that ice coffin, but there was also a chance of a robbery, a mass shooting, or a random attacker arriving by pure coincidence. If they all set their weapons aside, they would have no way of responding to an unexpected attack, but the girls had different plans.
“W-we need to work together. Splash him with water! Especially in the face. Don’t give him a chance to swing that fishing rod!!”
“Got it!”
“Hm, this sounds fun. Get ready, Coach.”
The three girls began splashing at the hip-deep seawater with their hands, but while (happily) accepting their coordinated attack from one step back from the edge, he noticed something.
(Yes, I hadn’t imagined it. Their skin color is showing through an awful lot. Especially where the seawater has soaked into it.)
It was especially noticeable with Mamilis’s brown skin. The wet white cloth was plastered to her smooth curves in a way that suggested it had little to no waterproofing. That may truly have been ordinary silk.
“Agh! By the way, Miss Mamilis, where did you get these swimsuits?”
“Using the rental service offered on the Media Summoner. It contacted some young woman called a…coordinator, I think it was? Anyway, she brought them to the front door.”
“She brought the swimsuits?”
“She said we could wear them to look prettier.”
Ayato gained an incredibly soft expression.
Prettier. He could guess these were optional accessories meant to provide additional decoration, not swimsuits themselves. That meant they had zero protection against growing see-through when wet, but Ayato was a gentleman. There was no need to wound the sensitive maidens’ pride by pointing out their mistake.
“And letting them frolic in the water while mistaking that thin cloth for swimsuits will bring about much greater transparency-related happiness.”
“Hold it, dangerous individual! What did you just say!?”
The cottage built from tropical logs was a lot like a rental villa, so unlike a normal hotel, it had a kitchen. Night had fallen and they were all feeling hungry. There were restaurants and food stands out on the beach and they could order room service from the Media Summoner, but all of that would come with the delightfully happy tourist markup. Their funds would not last forever, so Teleria ended up in the kitchen.
“(If we order a dinner to be delivered here, who knows what kind of unwanted ‘substances’ they’ll add in!)”
“?”
Ayato gave her a puzzled look while she wore a frilly white apron over her uniform, but she was not about to explain.
Mamilis must have had a lot of trust in her because the Dark Elf’s long ears were twitching as she made a bold statement.
“Teleria can cook anything, can’t she?”
“She can. Which has helped me out immensely.”
She supposedly had trouble with fire magic, but she looked right at home operating the stove with her sorcery gun. The household level magic must have been simple enough for her to manage.
“Come to think of it, Coach, I’ve never seen you cook.”
“I would always go to the dining hall or use the microwave. Anyone can cook if all it takes is placing the ingredients in a box and turning the dial.”
“Microwave?”
“That was a tool they had in the Academy Towers.”
The Academy Towers was an educational institution on the Static Continent. Some saw it as a collection of geniuses and others as a cage for eccentrics. Neither assessment was exactly wrong, but one was a lot more accurate than the other. It was the peak of magical research. It was said an endless supply of new magical methods bubbled up from there like water from a spring, but it was also a tower of disaster that had created all sorts of ruinous human knowledge.
Ayato and Teleria’s blue blazers were the uniforms of that school.
Henrietta gave them an exasperated look.
“This dangerous individual certainly fits the stereotype of the eccentrics that place is known for, but not Teleria. It’s hard to believe such a sensible person wound up there.”
“You might want to see the place for yourself before jumping to conclusions about it.”
“But I heard it is like a cursed box, so simply peeking inside will drive you mad.”
Unfortunately, that description was somewhat accurate, so he had no rebuttal.
Instead, he shrugged.
“Anyway, that just means this girl earned a spot in the Academy Towers through something other than eccentricity. It is high time you appreciated Miss Teleria’s skill.”
“Teleria’s a genius girl?”
“Be careful, Miss Mamilis, because that questioning tone makes it sound like you are doubting her intelligence.”
“Yeah, but…”
Mamilis did not hesitate to stare at the blonde girl standing in the kitchen. Teleria was humming and chopping something up with a knife and she did not have the look of a “genius girl”.
But looks could be deceiving.
“I cannot use a sorcery gun, so she always stands in harm’s way for me. That requires the skill to both protect me and herself from whatever danger we face. And I have rarely if ever seen someone control water magic better than her.”
“Now that you mention it.”
Mamilis preferred suppression tactics using her full-auto shotgun with fire magic. That was a cost-effective combination because it allowed even a rookie to do fairly well just by continuing to fire, but that was because she lacked the fine control needed to protect someone while she fought.
“Magical combat requires heavy use of the mind and body. So a powerful fighter must be smart too.”
On the other hand, Ayato could no longer use a sorcery gun.
That meant he could no longer display his intelligence that way.
“By the way, Miss Henrietta was right about me finding a place in the Academy Towers through something other than being a genius. I might look smart because of all the strategizing, Sorcery Hacking, and other intellectual work I do, but do not let the flashy appearances fool you.”
“If you are aware how dumb you really are, then work to improve yourself, dangerous individual.”
“If personal effort is enough to change someone, you can hardly call them a true eccentric.”
And.
Dark Elf Mamilis’s eyes widened when she saw the dishes lined up on the table.
“Wow, what is this? A white stew?”
“It’s just meat simmered in milk. That is similar to a stew, but the meat is the main dish, not the broth. It is common in tropical dishes for the strong-flavored ingredients to be lightly cooked with some spices before being simmered in coconut milk. Really, you can think of it as a relative of honey chicken, so it may be more like a white sauce than a soup. Drinking all of it would mean a lot of fat and sugar, so consider yourself warned.”
“You sure know a lot about the local cuisine.”
“Eh? Ha ha ha. No, no. Not at all, Henrietta! There was a collection of local recipes hanging from a string on the kitchen wall, so I used that!”
Instead of a bread or rice based diet, this used doughy steamed dumplings made from potato starch. There was plenty of water here, but the island may not have been able to grow any grains due to the high temperature.
Anyway, it was time to eat.
Henrietta’s classiness as a knight was evident at times like this. The way she held her knife and fork exuded fine manners.
“Hm. I was so sick of chicken I thought I never wanted to see it again, but it tastes so much different with these seasonings. I still have so much to learn.”
“Oh, that’s not chicken. It’s fruit bat.”
“?”
“You know, a bat. With wings.”
Henrietta Split Destrius very classily spat out the food in her mouth. Ayato looked unsure how to respond since he was sitting directly across from her. He knew he could not let it anger him, so this called for a more philosophical stance.
“Would it bring me happiness to view this as a long-distance version of feeding me mouth-to-mouth? Yes, instead of viewing it as a tragic accident, I can create a psychological cushion by viewing it as an avant-garde version of blowing a kiss.”
“Coach, I really think you should just sadly wipe off your face. Here’s a towel.”
Henrietta had not heard a word they said.
“Ugh, cough, you…bat!?”
“Yes, the texture makes it a lot easier to eat than snake or frog. It doesn’t fall apart as you chew it.”
“Dark Elf, I don’t care if those are only hypothetical alternatives! Just stop! My life is over if I can no longer trust what I’m eating!!”
Now, it was a mystery why Mamilis knew what it was like to eat snake and frog since she had lived on that urban sky city just like Henrietta. Perhaps all Dark Elves were forest dwellers deep down.
Teleria handed Henrietta a cup of ice water.
“Well, if you don’t like that, how about some seafood instead?”
“I know you worked hard to cook this and I do apologize, but thank you. By the way, what kind of fish is in this?”
“Eh? It’s not fish. That’s a boiled octopus and vegetable marinade.”
Henrietta crashed backwards in her chair. Evidently, the urban Striker could not stand eating slippery and slimy octopuses or squids either.
“Uh, ughhh.”
“You sure are a picky eater. Did you always get to eat what you wanted while growing up in a rich noble family?”
Mamilis was from the same sky city, but she had grown up as a commoner and was reacting very differently now. She was munching on the food without any problem. The Dark Elf’s analysis was biased, but the knight could not argue back since she indeed could not bring herself to eat this food. Still on the floor, she glared up at Ayato in a dejected way.
“From now on, I will only consume water and potatoes. Dangerous individual, that revolver boy’s decursing will be complete tomorrow, correct? And then we will have no more reason to stay on this island, correct!?”
“That is the soonest possible result and it assumes everything goes well. They might have trouble and need to try different springs. But the Oceavita Water Therapy Institute are decursing experts, so let’s hope they are successful before you grow sick of your potato diet.”
She might as well have been a bug flipped on its back.
She covered her face with her hands and started to sob, so she may have been feeling homesick already.
Falling water could be heard in the ocean cottage, but not because a midnight squall was pounding on the roof. Henrietta was taking a shower.
Ayato Criminaltrophy shut his eyes and sighed while seated on a sofa in what would have been the living room of a normal villa.
He was beginning his mental sorcery experiment he called self-maintenance. That required no special tools or equipment, so any Sorcery Hacker would do that during any spare time. It may have been like a squirrel stuffing its cheeks full of nuts or a gymnast stretching to keep their body limber.
But.
“Coach.”
“Mgh!?”
He was hit by a surprise attack.
A weight plopped down on his thighs. He ended his work and opened his eyes to find the tall Dark Elf seated on his lap. She looked like a cool beauty, but she was quite the grandma’s girl, so she was very communicative once she opened up a bit with you.
She kicked her long legs.
She seemed to be toying with some kind of device in her hands.
“I want to know how this cartridge device works, so can you teach me?”
“Hm?”
Everyone could use sorcery guns for easy magic use these days, but that had indeed introduced the new troubles of maintaining and supplying ammo for those guns. A cartridge device was a tool used to create your own ammo.
“Yeah, they probably do have clay target shooting here, but I bet the wealthy have their own equipment brought in for that. The island’s shops probably don’t actually sell ammo.”
He had a feeling that was a hobby brought here by the 5th Prince. He was an indoorsy type who liked to tinker with sorcery devices and he used sports as a reason to get out of the house, but he would meekly smile and say he was not willing to shoot animals for sport. Ayato really wished a certain Minotaur could take a lesson from the guy.
On the other hand, sorcery guns were used as more than just weapons. They were also an ignition source for household stoves and heaters. However, there was a lot he did not know about how that equipment found its way to the island’s people.
“I want to learn how to do this while I have a chance, Coach. Where should I begin?”
“Let’s see.”
Mamilis was not a small child, so he had trouble seeing the device itself while she sat in his lap. He had to effectively embrace her hips from behind to use his sense of touch to check on the cartridge device she was toying with.
The device itself appeared to be a rectangular piece of steel about the size of a toaster.
Thumb-sized cylindrical holes were evenly spaced across the upper surface like a honeycomb, making it look something like a strange cooking appliance.
“First, check the knob on the side. Make sure the heat really is switched off.”
“Okay.”
“I can explain the basic principle behind it while you work. The standard bullets used by sorcery guns are made from mist mana.”
This reminded him of his time in the Academy Towers.
“First, the actual bullet,” he said while her long, twitching ears hit him on the cheek. “That is made from disintegrating lead. You generally want to make basic bullets that can be used for anything, but if you know what element you want from the beginning, you can use an arrangement specialized for fire, water, wind, or earth.”
“Everything I do is with fire.”
“The actual magic is formed by the muzzle flash that is given a specific pattern similar to a firework by carving grooves into the bullet with your willpower. Sending the power of mana through that creates the magic.”
But if that was all you wanted, you could simply pour dull gray powder inside and shape it by crushing it down with the rounded end of a wooden stick. A shotgun self-replicated a single type of magic and scattered it in a fan shape, which required focusing on multiple bullets instead of one even mass, but that was a separate issue.
The magical part of this job was coming up.
“Once the bullet portion has solidified, it’s time for the next step. Take concentrated and liquefied mana and rub it onto the inside of the tube.”
“You can touch mana with your finger? I thought you would pass right through it. Isn’t it called Intangible Mist?”
“Which is why you rub an impurity on the inside of the tube beforehand. It’s generally a powder, but the cream type might be easier for a beginner. Both options only keep the mana there for a short period of time, but you just have to get it heated and solidified before then.”
Mamilis’s movements were hesitant, but she was brimming with curiosity.
In terms of the Academy Towers, she seemed to see it like a summer break research project.
She leaned forward and rocked side to side, so his arms looked something like a seatbelt holding her in.
“Now turn the previous knob to heat up the entire device. For a shotgun, you’ll want to crank it up a little more. A thicker casing means more stability. Oh, and make sure you don’t touch the metal portions while it’s heating.”
“So this will create a tube, Coach?”
“Exactly. Mana generally passes through everything, but it can’t escape walls made of mana. The casing will quickly harden like a shell once you heat it and you can fill it with mist mana then. That you won’t harden. But overfill it and the high concentration will liquefy it, so be careful.”
“Okay.”
“Once you turn the knob back to stop the heating, you just have to shield the opening with a detonator and seal it up.”
When she pulled down the small lever on the side, a set of brand new bullet cartridges popped out of the cylinders. A cartridge device like this could make 20 rounds at a time. They popped out as easily as toast from a toaster.
Shops loved to sell “first class” sorcery gun ammo said to be made by specialists, but most people would just make their own. Especially Forwards who might not be able to visit a shop depending on their circumstances.
But anyway.
“I did it,” said Mamilis in a way that would probably have made her weapon developer grandma weepy.
The shotgun shells she had made all glowed red like jewels.
He had shown her through the standard method here, but the end product could vary significantly based on the creator’s quirks and the materials used. Teleria’s and Henrietta’s would shine with a unique light all their own.
“There is almost no chance of the creator being identified from a used cartridge since they lose their color and disintegrate on their own. But you could be in trouble if you drop an unused shotgun shell on a job, so be careful how you handle them.”
“Got it, Coach.”
“You have to wait for the device to cool before you can make another set, but you can use an incombustible gas for that. Submerging it in cold water would crack the device, so don’t do that. Regardless, I recommend doing it with me or Miss Teleria around for the time being.”
“Incredible. I can make as many bullets as I want with this.”
She sounded like a small child who had been given an ice cream maker that was more or less just a toy.
Back in the sky city, she had feared the weapons people wielded, but making them herself may have helped her conquer that fear by understanding how they worked.
“The experiment is not over until you have cleaned up your equipment. Once you finish that, you can take a shower and get to bed early. Even if we were using a sleeper train, we did just complete a long journey.”
“Hm? You don’t want me to review what I’ve learned now???”
“This is not quite the same as my self-maintenance work. One lesson I have learned the hard way is that you will accomplish nothing by trying to learn when you are feeling sleepy and your eyelids are growing heavy.”
The ocean was enshrouded with the late-night darkness.
Since Laguntreat’s primary selling point was as a health retreat, the night was fairly peaceful for a tourist location. The giant crab Karkinos was flipped over, fast asleep. It had something like white bubbles coming from its mouth, but not because it was suffering.
A Lizardman must have shed their skin at some point because a skin shaped just like one was sitting there on the beach.
The moonlit ocean looked different than it had during the day. A faint and cold light rose from its surface and thin, pier-like walkways connected the cottages built over the water. Someone was slowly walking along one of those.
It was Teleria Nereid Aquamarine.
“…”
She had snuck out of their cottage and she doubted anyone had noticed. They had fought a hard battle on the ocean train during the day, they had played in the ocean, and they were staying in an unfamiliar place. Mamilis and Henrietta must have been exhausted, not to mention Ayato. It was hard to tell from the outside whether he was sleeping or performing that mental work of his, but one of his strongest points was his ability to sleep anywhere and quickly recover through that sleep.
That was why no one caught the blonde girl.
For a Mermaid, the ocean was best at night. The view from the walkway was so enticing she wanted to jump right on in, but the ocean at night was also heavily associated with death.
She was here to check on something.
She wanted to see again how she viewed herself.
“Ah.”
Her lips moved slightly when she saw the moon reflected in the dark ocean.
Once the figurative ball began rolling down the slope, there was no stopping it.
“Okay, fine!! How am I supposed to resist this!?
She stripped.
She started with her blue blazer and blouse, she skipped to her leather shoes for now, she took a detour to the twin holsters for her guns, and then she hesitated a moment before removing her white bra too. At that point, there was no use in waiting any longer, so she unzipped her skirt and stuck her thumbs under the sides of the black tights she wore. Those were actually a Mimic Option, so once she pulled them down, her hidden Mermaid lower body was revealed with a sticky sound.
The moonlight shined palely on her silhouette, which contained a combination of immature and mature.
“There.”
The rest came naturally to her.
She leaped into the ocean, traveling in a beautiful crescent moon arch from the pier-like walkway.
Any Mermaid would be itching to dive in after seeing that watery expanse before her. She had been resisting it the entire time they were on the ocean railroad and the beach cottage had been the last straw. The ocean was way too close by. The clear seawater, the strong scent of the sea breeze, the crashing of the waves, and the summer sun on her skin had all pierced directly into her instincts.
The dark water inspired fear in some, but it was more comforting than a bed sheet to her and she could not resist wrapping her entire body in it.
“Pwah. Maybe I overdid it.”
She made that belated realization after bringing her face above water. She had been starving for the ocean, but fulfilling that urge may have helped clear her mind. Even Laguntreat’s ocean had things floating through it, but all of that would break down naturally. Teleria grabbed a palm leaf floating in the waves and wrapped it around her ample chest with practiced hand. She had trouble with detailed needlework, but that was because Mermaids did not do much sewing.
“Nh.”
Mermaid clothing was generally made by wrapping waterproof fabric or giant leaves around their body or by drilling holes in shells and passing thick strings through that to create a shell bikini.
She lay on her back and spread out her arms to look up at the moon and float on the surface for a while.
She could live in human society with her Mimic Option, but using it for too long left her lower body bloated and the pressure of keeping secrets from people built up inside her like sediment. She wanted some kind of release. She wanted to blow off some steam. And the azure sea of her home ground was far too powerful. Not even visiting a cake buffet the day after a diet would have permeated the core of her being quite like this.
“Ayato, you dummyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!”
She had managed to fool him today, but what about tomorrow?
She also had to wonder why he could not see through her lies.
“He’s so dumb I can’t believe it,” she said much more quietly.
Achieving your goal did not always feel good. Keeping up her act for another day pricked at her heart like a small thorn. The foolish boy was left behind with his happy dreams while this girl continued to grow.
When would she finally be able to reveal this to him?
She was so very jealous of Mamilis who could reveal her long Dark Elf ears around him and even get him to rub her head. She knew that jealousy was an ugly thing, but she could have had that position for herself. If she had chosen differently back at the beginning, she was certain she would not have had to hide her Mermaid tail from him.
But she did not see that happening as things were. In the end, Teleria was Teleria. She could not do what Mamilis did at this point.
Too much time had passed.
The supposed trust she had built up with him only worked against her now.
She only had herself to blame. This was a comedy brought on by her weak will and her self-serving logic, so she knew all her resentment had to be directed at herself.
“Sigh.”
(I wish I could just go to sleep out here. I wish I could turn to sea foam and dissolve into the water.)
She knew that could never happen.
She even knew she would tearfully beg for her life if it did come to that.
And just then…
“…!?”
Her incoherent thoughts were dragged back to reality by an intense pressure. She flipped over from her back, dove down into the ocean, and then treaded water with her hips on down below the water.
This was not a blatant attack.
She could not sense any killer intent or even hostility.
She felt a violent “aura” like a wooden hammer to the heart, but it was more like someone stirring or rolling in their sleep than anything.
“It…can’t be.”
She could only think of one possibility.
Her gaze slowly rose from the ocean surface. The mountain visible from anywhere on Laguntreat was capped with thick clouds and white snow despite the tropical climate. All the island’s water came from there. Beyond the cloudy curtain was a silhouette of something very different from a mountain ridge.
It was 540 esoule[4] long.
That gargantuan winged fish slithered along the land like a snake.
But the weird people who had been observing it for many long years would notice that its position had changed. It had clearly moved closer to the base of the mountain.
The blonde Mermaid spoke with extreme caution in her voice.
It was only a whisper, but her voice was quavering.
“Mother?”
That was Water Lord Fleurelisia Nereid Aquamarine.
That Ocean Queen was one of the Four Lords of the demons.
She was also like a horrific alarm clock that would trigger a collapse of balance for everything here.
The Water Lord, who was Teleria’s biological mother, was moving for the first time in several combo-years?
