9

His objective was to eat Elias’s seafood dishes. In that case, just as Arabetta said, the fish becoming impossible to catch would mean Ains’s objective could not be fulfilled.

Ains smoothly lowered his left arm.

Arabetta breathed a sigh of relief at seeing Ains appear to reconsider using lightning-element magic. However, even so, the current situation had not been resolved.

“Lord Ains, what will you do?”

Arabetta stood beside Ains and turned her gaze toward the sea together with him.

Behind her, several knights were waiting. Among them, there were likely some who could use magic, as Arabetta had said, since some were holding staffs.

“…As I thought, we should all work together and start by dragging that thing out onto the sea’s surface.”

“That won’t be necessary, Arabetta-san. I will change the method so it does not affect the fish living in the sea, but that does not mean I intend to take my time.”

Arabetta peered at Ains’s profile, and it did not look as though he was bluffing. He likely still had something capable of slaughtering the “guardian of the sea.”

“For now, I’ll go out to sea. If I do that, it should send out its legs.”

“Lord Ains, we have not even arranged a ship yet—”

Even if he suddenly said he would go out to sea, who would willingly send out a ship under these circumstances? It was not that no one would send one, but it would probably take Arabetta, as the lord, directly negotiating before they might finally agree.

However, Ains began walking forward and reached the point where one more step would bring his foot onto the water’s surface.

“Lord Ains, surely you don’t intend to swim!?”

An artificial leg and an empty right sleeve.

Even looking at him favorably, Arabetta could not imagine that Ains could swim properly. In addition, even if he could swim, she could not imagine him being able to face a kraken that could move freely in the sea, where he would be unable to move nimbly.

However, Ains merely smiled faintly at Arabetta’s words and jumped down from the embankment.

In addition to his physical handicaps, Ains jumped into the sea while still wearing his clothes. Clothes soaked with water would become weights and affect his swimming.

Arabetta hurriedly ran to the edge of the embankment and looked down at Ains, who had jumped.

“Huh?”

At the end of Arabetta’s gaze was Ains, standing straight on the surface of the sea.

“It is certainly hard to swim, but in that case, I only need to walk on the surface of the sea.”

Ains walked forward as if he were walking on land.

“Wh-What does that mean?”

Arabetta doubted her own eyes. She rubbed them and checked the sight of Ains walking on the surface of the sea.

The knights waiting beside Arabetta were also staring at Ains in astonishment, just like her. The elites trained under Arabetta could not help murmuring at the sight of him walking on the sea’s surface.

“Is that… ice?”

Arabetta, who was watching Ains closely, noticed that a film of ice had formed under his feet.

Every time Ains walked, films of ice formed one after another on the surface of the sea where his feet touched. Ains was not walking on the sea’s surface; he was creating films of ice on the sea’s surface and walking on top of them.

“To do something that delicate…”

Ains showed no sign of chanting.

He was instantly creating films of ice beneath the soles of his feet without chanting. Arabetta unconsciously turned her eyes toward the knights waiting behind her.

They too understood why Ains was able to walk on the surface of the sea, but if asked whether they themselves could perform such a feat, it would be impossible first of all. They quietly lowered their eyes under Arabetta’s gaze and shook their heads.

“Lord Ains, just who are you…?”

There was probably no excellent mage in Elias, or even in the kingdom, who could handle magic so freely. No, perhaps a sorcerer called the Eternal Witch could do it, but that meant the Ains before her eyes was someone as skilled in magic as the Eternal Witch, and Arabetta watched the scene unfold with a shudder.

“Now then, where will it come from?”

Ains, who had advanced and moved away from the embankment, looked around while staying alert for the kraken’s attack.

Around the point where he had moved away from land and the sea had grown deep, the waves had also become more restless.

As far as Ains could confirm, the kraken could not be seen near the sea’s surface. However, he could feel an unpleasant gaze. It was probably watching for Ains to show an opening from beneath the water.

“It might be surprisingly intelligent.”

If it were a magical beast, it would generally leap at prey in front of it according to its instincts. However, the kraken called the “guardian of the sea” in Elias seemed to possess enough intelligence to observe its target.

“…”

There was nothing around Ains, who stood absentmindedly on the film of ice, to block the wind.

Once, an especially strong gust of wind blew through.

Ains’s silver hair streamed greatly, and Ains instinctively closed his eyes for an instant. His awareness also left the kraken for only that instant and turned toward the intense sea breeze.

At that moment, the unpleasant gaze clinging to Ains grew even stronger.

With a great splash, something appeared from the sea’s surface.

“! …You really are a sneaky magical beast.”

Ains immediately opened his eyes.

The moment he confirmed the giant tentacle rising from the sea’s surface with those eyes, he immediately leapt to the side.

In the next instant, the writhing, extended tentacle struck hard at the sea’s surface where Ains had been standing. After sending up a splash, the tentacle hid itself beneath the sea again, but several other tentacles appeared from the sea’s surface.

They moved skillfully as if to pincer Ains and violently struck the surface of the sea.

While leaping away over the film of ice, Ains sometimes manifested pillars of ice to parry the tentacles’ attacks. However, each time the tentacles attacked Ains, violent splashes rose, and his vision was blocked each time.

“Judging from the tentacles, I think the main body is quite large, but how high do I need to go before they can’t reach me?”

When Ains jumped from the film of ice, an ice pillar rose from the sea’s surface.

Ains had risen higher, but the tentacles stretched upward to try to catch Ains’s body as he stood on the ice pillar.

“They still reach even here?”

Ains manifested another ice pillar, jumped across, and rose even higher.

The ice pillar he had manifested earlier was shattered by another tentacle, and a huge lump of ice fell into the sea.

At a height of about ten meters, higher than the roofs of the warehouses visible in Elias, Ains checked where the main body was hiding.

“So that’s where you were hiding.”

A single large black shadow could be seen in the blue sea. Ains thought that this was likely where the main body of this host, the “guardian of the sea,” the kraken, was hiding.

“Now that I can see you, this isn’t difficult anymore. Since you seem like a shut-in, I think I’ll drag you out by force.”

He dodged another tentacle that stretched toward him and rose even higher with an ice pillar.

“Restriction Release: Miracle Right Arm.”