"So then… what should I do?"
Rest hovered in the air, deep in thought.
Below him stretched a blue expanse of ocean. The sound of waves lapped intermittently, and sea birds flew overhead.
The weather was fine, but the season had already turned cold.
Chilly wind brushed against Rest's body, and had he not used magic to form a protective layer of air around himself, he would have frozen solid.
"Needless to say… the sea is really big. Finding a single monster from up here is going to be a hassle…"
The monster was enormous, but the ocean was even more vast.
He had been searching for over two hours now using the presence detection magic, yet he hadn't managed to pick up any trace of a suspicious presence.
(If it's lurking beneath the seabed, there's a good chance the presence detection wouldn't reach it in the first place…)
In his past life, there had been nature documentaries about tracking whales for filming, and that was exactly the kind of mood Rest found himself in right now.
Since he was the only one conducting the search, the effort involved was probably even greater.
(It would be so much easier if it spouted like a whale… but honestly, does that monster even breathe through lungs, or through gills?)
If it was an aquatic mammal like a whale, an orca, or a dolphin, it would need to surface periodically to breathe.
But if it was one of the gill-breathing fish, it could remain submerged indefinitely and never come up for air.
(From the looks of it… yes, it appeared to be a giant serpent. Or perhaps a dragon.)
A long, scaled body and fins.
He hadn't been able to see its full form, but its appearance was strikingly similar to an Eastern dragon.
"A sea serpent… a sea dragon, then."
Rest drew information about one particular monster from his memory.
The sea serpent was a monster said to rival the kraken as the most powerful creature in the ocean.
It was believed to be a subspecies of dragon, but… no one really knew for certain.
Sightings were rare, and subjugations even rarer. There were almost no records of a sea serpent being defeated, and the amount of available information was pitifully small.
(The ocean had been full of mysteries in that other world too, with so much left unknown… and in this world, that was doubly true.)
Finding the monster.
Defeating the monster.
Neither objective had made any progress.
He couldn't think of a spell that would dispatch the monster without affecting the fishing village, and without letting it escape as it had the other day.
Even if he had infinite mana, all it did was drive home just how insignificant a human being he truly was.
(That said… he couldn't afford to wallow in self-pity. He had to do whatever he could.)
"GRRRRAAAAAAAHHH!"
Just as he descended to just above the water's surface, a massive shadow burst out of the sea.
It wasn't the monster he was looking for. It was only slightly smaller than an elephant—hardly even comparable.
A shark-like creature with a single horn jutting from its head lunged at Rest, who hovered above the ocean.
"Wind Blade."
"Gck…"
Having already sensed its presence, Rest dodged the horned shark's fangs with ease and retaliated with a spell in a single fluid motion.
A razor-sharp blade of wind sheared through the horned shark's head, and crimson blood spread across the sea.
"A fine souvenir. Looks like a fish with plenty of meat on it."
Rest collected the horned shark's body.
If this was a type of shark, it was probably edible.
When it came to shark cuisine, dried shark fin was the classic, but shark was also used as a raw material for things like fish cakes.
He had never actually eaten it himself, but he had heard it could be prepared fried, simmered, or even served as sashimi.
"Hm?"
Rest was about to head back to the fishing village with the shark levitated by magic, but his senses caught several presences in the air.
A number of presences, both large and small. They were roughly the same size as this shark, or slightly smaller.
"Graaah!"
"GRAAAAAAAAH!"
What appeared were several horned sharks.
Had they come to avenge their kind? That was what Rest assumed, but the horned sharks were thrashing about on the water's surface, fighting over the severed head of the shark he had cut down.
"Ugh... they're cannibals..."
It seemed they had been drawn out by the scent of blood.
He had heard that sharks were sensitive to the smell of blood, and it appeared that was true.
"Well, no matter... I'll take as many as I can carry..."
With a grimace at the grisly sight, Rest launched another blade of wind, deciding to grab one or two more on the way back. A horned shark's head was severed, and blood spread across the water.
The fishing village had been unable to go out to sea because of the monsters and was running short on food, but with this, they should be able to eat for a while.
Celestine had been securing relief supplies as well, so it seemed no one would go hungry.