Chapter 103

“Whoa!?”

Amid the tremendous blast wind, Badadam desperately braced himself and struck the sea surface with his oar to keep the boat from flipping over.

I crouched down as if pressing my body against the bottom of the boat and grabbed the edge in a frenzy.

Just when I thought we had endured the blast wind powerful enough to blow us away, a gigantic rough wave tossed the small boat around next, and I felt as if everything in my stomach would come out.

By the time I realized we had somehow avoided capsizing, I opened my eyes and looked ahead.

There, a sight that did not seem to belong to this world spread before us.

“…Amazing.”

The reason it felt terribly dark was because the sun had been blocked.

Even when I looked up at the sky until my neck hurt, something like pure white water vapor was still gushing up far into the heavens.

The column of spray was so enormous that its movement looked terribly slow.

What came to mind was footage of the hydrogen bomb tests once conducted at Bikini Atoll during the Cold War.

A sight on that scale was spreading before me, and when I finally remembered Roran’s fleet and looked offshore, it was in terrible shape as well.

They had been quite far from the explosion itself, but the blast wind and violent waves had knocked several ships onto their sides, and while they had avoided capsizing, they had been thrown into a great confusion where ships were piled over one another.

A proper battle was already impossible.

“Badadam-san.”

When I called out to Badadam, who had been dumbfounded, he snapped back to himself.

Then Badadam looked at me with eyes as if he were seeing something that did not belong to this world.

It was true that I was not someone of this world, and the hellish sight before us had clearly been brought about by the movement of the tip of my sword.

That said, I was not a magician, and in a direct sense, this was not my power.

However, the power to move magicians dwelled in the tip of my sword.

“Can you approach the other boat?”

At those words, Badadam looked toward the small boat drifting a little distance away and nodded repeatedly.

When he rowed the oars and brought us closer to the other boat, the beastman rower on the other side came back to his senses.

Cole’s older brother and the magician were still standing there in a daze, stunned by the sight that had suddenly appeared before their eyes like the collapse of the world.

“Wind.”

There, I faintly heard Cole’s voice.

What he released was a small wind spell.

That was enough to knock down the scarecrows standing there blankly.

The magician and Cole’s older brother both fell into the sea before they could even cry out.

Magic stones were fairly heavy in terms of specific gravity, so the magician, who had packed a mountain of magic stones beneath his cloak, sank at a ridiculous speed. Cole’s older brother, having removed his sword, had some leeway to flail at the surface.

I saw the beastman aboard the other boat sigh.

Then he immediately jumped into the sea and chased after the magician, who had sunk with tremendous speed.

He seemed to catch him safely, and after a while, he surfaced.

The magician who emerged from the water was naked from the waist up, so his clothes had probably been cut apart underwater.

The beastman carrying the limp magician on his left shoulder held Cole’s panicking older brother with his right arm and quietly looked at us from the surface of the sea.

“You will become our prisoners.”

The beastman rower must have considered the possibility that he would simply be sunk by magic.

He nodded with a somewhat relieved look.

When I glanced at Badadam, he brought the boat closer and first received Cole’s older brother.

Then he hauled up the limp magician and tied his hands tightly behind his back. Cole stripped off the man’s lower clothing as well and tightly wrapped that cloth over his bound hands.

Since a magician could reverse the situation in one shot if he had a hidden magic stone, this was probably the standard response in this world.

After confirming the state of his masters, the beastman rower swam toward his own small boat and skillfully pulled himself aboard.

Cole’s older brother, who sat dazed on the boat, looked as if he wondered whether this was the afterlife, but soon came back to himself.

Whether because of noble pride or sheer stubbornness, he glared at us bravely despite his face being completely pale.

“I-I told… you… cough… I cannot serve… as a hostage.”

I had certainly heard that.

But he had misunderstood my words.

I shook my head and corrected him.

“By ‘you,’ I mean every ship over there as well.”

“…W-what?”

Soaked through, Cole’s older brother looked at the fleet, then back at me.

“That magic just now deliberately missed, but naturally, the fleet is within range. If even a little of it grazes you, you will instantly become seaweed in the ocean. You understand that, right?”

“…”

Kururu and Gerario, who were probably watching this scene right now, should be somewhere along Jirenu Territory’s coast, likely atop a cliff with a good view.

The two of them were probably pulling out a composite magic stone the size of a seat cushion and preparing a second shot.

This was what we had tested at the reef several days earlier.

Even without a large-scale magic circle, I wanted to know how far the power would rise if a simple magic circle was enlarged absurdly and engraved into a magic stone.

As a conclusion, it seemed that simple magic circles had a limit to their power, but even so, it was more than enough. Far, far too much.

Probably because it could blow away any enemy within sight all the way to the far side of the moon.

“Y-you… people… are…”

Just as Cole’s older brother was about to say something with his trembling jaw.

The surroundings suddenly darkened, and then a strange sound came from the sky.

Then came a violent downpour.

No.

By the time I realized that the water blasted into the sky had finally fallen back down, we too were panicking at the unexpected phenomenon.

The amount of water was so incredible I could hardly breathe, and the sunlight was completely blocked out, making everything pitch black.

Actually, the simple fact was that wherever the water struck hurt.

“It hurts! It hurts! You overdid it!”

It hurt so much that I shouted a curse of displaced anger at Kururu and the others.

Right after I thought the boat might sink like this, the rainfall suddenly stopped, and before long, the sunlight returned.

“Hah, hah…”

I really thought I was going to die.

Of course, the people in the enemy fleet must have been even more shaken than we were.

Cole’s older brother, who had fallen over on the boat, did not move an inch with his eyes still open.

I wondered if he had fainted, but apparently water had flowed into his nose and mouth, because he started coughing, lay on his side, and began vomiting hard.

And before long, he started whimpering and crying.

When I looked at Cole, he was watching his brother with a face like a Tibetan sand fox.

Perhaps he had been thinking, to some extent, that this was where he would settle years of resentment.

When Cole noticed my gaze, he shrugged.

That gesture reminded me a little of the Cole of old.

“So, would you please deliver a message?”

The one I called out to was the beastman from Roran’s side.

“We will keep these people in our custody for now, but please have everyone keep the ships anchored offshore as they are. Tell them that if they approach the island or try to flee, the Fire God’s Strike will attack again.”

The beastman looked toward Jirenu with eyes full of resignation, then returned his gaze to me.

“Also, please have the person in charge board a small boat and come to the harbor. If we learn that a magician is aboard, we will turn everyone into fish food at that point. Any questions?”

The beastman shook his head.

However, Badadam cut in there.

“These people are definitely better than your masters.”

The enemy beastman looked somewhat blank, and Badadam indicated his neck and wrists.

Even though he had been shackled, the beastman had immediately jumped into the sea to save the magician, so he had probably been forced by violence to act that way. So much so that his body moved faster than thought.

He, who had likely accepted that this was simply what life was, gave a small smile and rowed his boat away.

After watching him go, I brushed up my wet bangs and waved toward Jirenu Territory, though I did not know whether anyone could see me.

“Let’s return too.”

Badadam shrugged as if to say “good grief,” then took up the oars.