Day two of the voyage.
I woke up in my assigned room aboard the swaying ship.
When I stretched, I heard voices from the corridor.
It was Eva and Clara.
"H-Hey... I can't take any more of this..."
"I-I feel awful..."
Scratching my head, I realized the two had been seasick since yesterday, not being used to ship travel. As I sat up, Monica greeted me.
"Good morning, Chicken."
I rubbed my sleepy eyes and looked at Monica. She had definitely been getting ready in my room.
"...I locked the door, didn't I?"
Looking at the door, the knob was indeed locked.
"That kind of lock is nothing before the great Monica! When it comes to the noble cause of looking after Chicken, such a trifle poses no obstacle at all! Ah, since it's so rocky, I've prepared a wet towel for you today."
Accepting the towel soaked in cold water, I wiped my face and decided not to think about Monica. That kind of lock felt like something she could easily open.
So, I asked about the others.
"Eva and Clara are still struggling, but how are the other members?"
Monica took the wet towel from me, then from somewhere between her skirt and apron, pulled out a morning grooming kit and offered me a chair. As I sat, she began arranging my hair.
"That scoundrel Novem is nursing Aria and May. Miranda is dealing with little Shannon, who's in a terrible state. Things got a bit hectic during the night. Speaking of which, you look rather pale yourself, Chicken?"
Naturally not used to ship travel, and being only the second day, I was feeling the fatigue too. Letting out a sigh, I asked about Shannon, who seemed the worst off.
"Shannon's the worst, huh? Cleaning her room must be a real pain then."
Then, once Monica finished styling my hair, she handed me a cup with a smile. It wasn't an offer to drink—the liquid in the cup she held out for me to rinse my mouth was a translucent green.
I took a sip and swished it around my mouth, and Monica held out a small bucket for me.
"No problem at all. This Monica Full Option Version isn't just for show. I've completed everything from cleaning the room to the laundry."
From inside the Jewel, I heard the Seventh Generation's voice.
"This Automaton... she's actually quite capable, isn't she? Her usual words and actions are utterly unbelievable, but perhaps it's true that the ancients pooled their wisdom to create her."
Looking at her usual behavior, it was easy to forget, but Monica devoted herself to me wholeheartedly. And thanks to her performance, there had been many times she'd gotten us out of trouble.
The Fourth Generation, however, still didn't seem fully convinced.
"More importantly, why did the ancients build an Automaton like this? It feels like such a waste of technology, or... Oh, wait—Lyle, are you feeling all right? We haven't reached the planned sea region yet, but you're not unable to move or anything, are you?"
We had taken on the job of escorting the Vera Trace because the ship would be passing through waters where damage from Monsters was thought to be increasing. It was a route that couldn't be avoided, and upon learning that numerous ships had been destroyed and sunk, anyone would hire an escort.
That said, given the Trace family's reaction, I doubted they believed the Goddess of Fortune would let anything happen—but they'd commissioned the job out of a better-safe-than-sorry mentality.
Though I still felt a bit of sluggishness in my body, I gripped the Jewel and assured the Fourth Generation that I was fine. When I stood up, Monica held out a change of clothes for me.
"You... forget it."
When I took them, Monica wore a triumphant expression.
"Hmph. At this rate, you'll become a helpless person who can't live without me. Don't worry. I'll take care of you until you die."
Uttering words that brought me no joy whatsoever, I tossed my jacket at her.
Outside—I stepped out onto the deck after a light meal, wanting to get some fresh air.
The one who followed me out was Eva, looking rather pale. She'd said she wanted fresh air and tagged along, but in the end I was the one supporting her on my shoulder.
"Hey, are you really sure you're all right?"
Eva, her breathing ragged and her face a sickly blue, replied:
"I-I'm fine. Someone told me that if I'm outside, I can just throw up into the sea."
This guy is clearly not all right at all. Thinking that, I let out a sigh and headed somewhere out of the way of the deck.
When I grabbed the railing, Eva was staring off into the distance. It looked like she was trying out a remedy for seasickness that she'd heard from one of the crew members.
"...I should have stayed at the mansion."
Eva's eyes were brimming with tears, but I had been the one who suggested she stay behind at the mansion. And yet, both Clara and Eva had shown interest in foreign lands and ended up tagging along.
As I rubbed her back, I spoke with a weary sigh.
"You came along, so just deal with it. You'll get used to it in three days or so. Still, I can't believe the shore is that far away."
Off to the left in our direction of travel, the coastline was visible far in the distance.
Eva gazed at the land and said:
"I want to go back to shore."
It was nothing but a whimper.
While I was rubbing the back of the exhausted Eva, a voice called out from behind me. I turned around, and there stood Vera, holding up a red parasol, her two-sided-up hair swaying in the salty breeze.
"You look absolutely miserable. First time on a ship?"
"Both my companions and I have hardly ever done this. My hometown is Banseim, so we never really had much to do with the sea."
There was almost no sea in Banseim. There were lakes, sure, but it was never a place with any real connection to the ocean.
Vera held her parasol in her right hand, brushed her hair back with her left, and came closer to me.
"Personally, scenery without the sea is what's rare for me. I've never even climbed a mountain or anything. Is it actually fun?"
When I tried to recall climbing a mountain, the memory of a family picnic came back to mind. There were guards all around us, watching over our family with smiles.
Back then, Father and Mother were both gentle, and Ceres was...
When my thoughts got that far, I pressed my left hand against half my face.
(Ceres was... wait, what kind of expression did she have back then?)
Even though I tried to remember, I couldn't. Just then, Vera approached me.
"Are you alright? Don't push yourself. You should rest. The waters with work are a few days away, so it would be good if you could get used to the ship by then."
I shook my head.
"No, I'm fine. Eva too—"
When I looked at Eva, she was puffy-cheeked, blue-faced, holding her hand over her mouth.
"Eva!"
"I... I can't take it anymore..."
Vera smiled wryly, spinning her parasol, and gave me some advice.
"It's tough when your stomach's empty and you want to throw up. Eat something, no matter how little, or have some water. Alcohol is no good."
When she held out a handkerchief and I took it, I was taken aback. It looked like an expensive handkerchief.
"Use it. Wipe her mouth. It'd be a shame to ruin a beauty's face."
When I did as she said and wiped Eva's mouth, the sailors rushed out onto the deck in a flurry.
Then, the sailor in the lookout tower rang the bell and bellowed at the top of his lungs.
"Enemy attack! Enemy attack!"
Vera folded her parasol and tossed it to me. She drew a golden pistol from the holster at her hip, a gun with a black grip embedded with jewels.
"That's my favorite, so don't lose it."
The Seventh Generation got excited when he saw the golden pistol.
"A revolver type! In my day, they were bigger and only held four shots... Hmm, this one holds six? The barrel is long, but it's not round; it's square? The hammer is more compact... I like it! I want it, Lyle!"
I didn't particularly want it, but I had to admit it looked cool. Besides, it felt like it suited Vera perfectly.
She brushed her hair back, checked the cylinder, and looked around.
"As usual! Don't let it turn into friendly fire! If you sink the ship, we're all fish food!"
"Got it!"
"Leave it to us, miss!"
"We'll turn 'em into Swiss cheese!"
The crew had gathered on deck with weapons in hand. Sabers, mostly. Some of them carried guns too — not handguns, but roughly one-meter-long firearms meant to be braced with both hands.
The Fifth Generation spoke up.
"Do they all have knives attached to the front?"
The Fourth Generation had noticed something.
"When they run out of ammo, they become spears... Come to think of it, maybe guns aren't so bad?"
The Seventh Generation said excitedly.
"See? See? Guns really will change the world!"
The Third Generation, however, was skeptical.
"...They fight with those? That metal part on the gun — the part that fires the bullets — it doesn't bend?"
The Seventh Generation offered an excuse.
"...Well, they're delicate, so they can break sometimes. But! You can just repair them! Besides, isn't it a wonderful weapon that lets you fight even after you've run out of ammo?"
Listening to the voices of the Successive Heads, I snapped my fingers and materialized a treasure chest on the deck. Two sabers shot out from inside it.
I picked them up and handed the parasol to Eva.
"This thing seems important, so don't get it dirty. Well, this'll probably be over soon anyway."
I drew the saber and handed the sheath to Eva as well.
"I won't get it dirty. But she definitely gives off a vibe like she can handle herself in a fight too. Were we actually needed?"
Eva's doubts were perfectly reasonable, and as I was thinking so, the Second Generation's skill—*All*—alerted me to the presence of Monsters nearby. Hostile ones, launching themselves out of the sea toward us.
Their form—Sahagin. Like the ones I'd seen in the Dungeon before.
But compared to the Sahagin I'd encountered previously, more of them had eerie-colored scales and skin, dotted with wounds here and there.
Their movements, too, were sharper somehow than the Sahagin I'd seen in the Dungeon.
Vera fired her golden gun with one arm.
Smoke erupted from the barrel, and the head of a Sahagin that had leaped from the sea and landed on deck was blown apart.
As the deck was stained with grotesque greenish-blue blood, that became a signal—more Sahagin, harpoons in hand, began launching themselves out of the sea one after another.
I stood to shield Eva on my back. One of the leaping Sahagin rolled across the deck and rose up in front of me, taking a fighting stance.
But then a gunshot rang out, and the Sahagin was blasted sideways.
I turned my gaze in the opposite direction from where it had been blown, and there was Vera, expressionless, her gun still raised.
The Seventh Generation was getting excited.
*"You upgraded your gun into a Mana Tool! You've come that far already... And to handle a gun with that kind of caliber with just one arm!"*
I was glad to see them so cheerful, but I broke into a cold sweat.
"Please don't shoot this way."
Meanwhile, Vera had shot a Sahagin that was closing in, then opened the cylinder and swapped out her rounds.
As spent casings clattered to the floor, light metallic sounds rang out one after another. Around us, the crew had also begun fighting, and gunshots and shouts filled the air.
Vera, loading her rounds.
"Try not to move around too much, okay? And—here comes the next one."
Whether she was perceiving a wider area than the Second Generation's skill—*All*, I couldn't tell, but when I followed Vera's gaze, I saw more Sahagin launching themselves from the sea.
Despite the considerable height from the sea to the ship's deck, I marveled at their jumping power as I slashed a Sahagin that was charging toward me, harpoon raised—from bottom to top, cleaving it cleanly in two.
Vera remarked, still picking off different targets with her shots.
"You really do live up to your reputation. Another clean cut, I see."
She said this while shooting down the next target without missing a beat. I broke into a cold sweat watching her calmly mow down Sahagin one after another.
Her dress wasn't spattered with blood. But I could have sworn it was dyed crimson with it.
"Here they come again. There's just so many of these things."
Vera said, sounding exasperated, and fired three shots in rapid succession toward the sea. The Sahagin she'd shot out of the air plunged into the water below.
Then a sailor keeping watch screamed.
"Big one! A headless bastard just popped up!"
Vera immediately raised her left hand sideways and bellowed.
"Ready the cannons! The enemy is slow! Take your time aiming!"
I looked out at the sea and saw a turtle shell breaching the surface. Hundreds of tentacles extended from the shell as it bore down on us.
"So it's a Shell Jellyfish, huh? I'd heard they were called Headless or One-Eyed, but..."
As I moved closer to the railing, Eva also rose to her feet, staring at the monster floating on the sea's surface — it was half the size of the ship.
"If that thing charges us... Laiel, get down!"
At her words, I looked down at the hull. Panels opened along the side, and cannons emerged. But these weren't like any cannons I'd known.
"Awfully narrow barrels."
I hurled the saber from my left hand at a Sahagin closing in from behind. The blade spun through the air and impaled the Sahagin's head. It toppled slowly backward and went limp.
When I turned my gaze back to the sea, Vera was already issuing commands.
"Are we ready?"
"Anytime!"
The crewman was listening to something through a tube-like device mounted on the wall, then gave Vera a thumbs-up to signal they were ready.
Vera broke into a grin.
"Don't think ramming tactics will keep working forever. ...Fire!!"
Five gun barrels extended from the hull and unleashed their flames, rocking the entire ship. Then Novem and Miranda burst out onto the deck.
"Lord Rael!"
"Tch! If you'd just listened when I told you not to go outside... Wait, what is that over there..."
Novem relaxed upon seeing me, while Miranda was watching a massive Monster sink into the sea, its shell blown to pieces.
Looking around, I could see the sahagin fleeing. The battle was drawing to a close.
Watching the Monster slowly sink into the ocean, its shell shattered by cannon fire, blood spraying from its wounds, Vera holstered her pistol.
"That's our real power. So? Do you still think we need an escort?"
At her provocative gaze, I managed a wry smile.
"Fair point. But if you've got this much firepower, why hire us in the first place? You must have been really worried."
I was laughing self-deprecatingly, absolutely certain they had no need for our help. But Vera brushed back her hair with a slightly sad expression.
"That's just an excuse. I want you to think I did everything I could. It's always like this. Tying me down to a ship. The Goddess of Fortune herself would be exasperated hearing this."
Vera's profile as she gazed up at the sky looked as though she was enduring something painful.
...At that same moment.
(Wait... what? My vision is starting to wobble... and my body suddenly feels so heavy)
As I swayed on my feet, Novem and Miranda rushed to my side.
"Lord Rael!"
"You're kidding me. Not now, of all times..."
I broke into a cold sweat over the strange changes happening to my body.
"......Why......why now, of all times"
Inside the Jewel, the Successive Heads spoke.
"Oh ho. It's finally come. The timing's off again, isn't it?"
"No, isn't this perfect?"
"There's still time. As long as I can recover before we reach the destination waters..."
"Well, in any case... Rael really does have it in him. To 'grow' at this very moment..."
In my heart, I—
(No way. How could this be... Someone, please tell me this is a lie!!)
I was terrified by the fact that I was experiencing growth.