Tracie had torn off and devoured its second head, and Monica and I were firing arrows of light and shells into it.
Rain poured down as the shells exploded. Tracie, its body faintly glowing, bled from where its severed head had been and glared our way.
Monica had run out of armor-piercing shells and switched to high-explosive rounds. Then she said one thing.
"High-explosive rounds won't be effective, I see."
I set the cannon down on the deck. It had grown hotter than before, with rain and seawater hitting it and sending up steam.
"The flashy explosions are right up my alley... but the effect is pretty thin, huh?"
As I said that, Tracie emerged from the smoke, its body faintly glowing, those red eyes fixed on us as it let out a roar toward the sky. Then, with sharper movements than before, it dove beneath the waves and headed straight for us.
I called out to Vera.
"Push us to maximum speed. It looks like it's getting serious."
The reply that came back was:
"Cutting off your own head to get stronger — what kind of logic is that?! Fine, I'll increase the speed, just do it!"
Monica pulled out a large hammer from between her clothes and apron, raising it into position.
"No wonder the development of firearms got held back. The countermeasure is just too unfair. What even is a barrier?"
It was the Seventh Generation inside the Jewel who agreed with Monica's complaint.
"Exactly. The power gets drastically reduced, and nobody would admit it costs a fortune... but it's definitely an excellent weapon."
It was certainly excellent, but perhaps it wasn't yet at a level where widespread adoption was realistic.
I drew my bow and loosed an arrow straight toward the water's surface.
It pierced the surface, striking Tracie head-on and detonating. But its movements hadn't slowed at all compared to before.
"Three heads... Were they making it harder to move within the same body? It's moving better than before."
While I was marveling at the sight, I noticed Shannon—still watching Tracie's movements—being held in May's arms. She spotted me and screamed.
"Why do you look so happy about this?! Take it down before it gets serious!"
Fair point. But I couldn't help it—I simply hadn't been able to finish it off.
"I wanted to do that too, but I couldn't take it down regardless. Well, I don't exactly hate chipping away at things, but I guess it's time for the next move."
Monica seemed to share the same opinion.
"Mathematically speaking, even Chicken's long-range attacks won't be enough to take it down. As for me, I've only got one high-explosive shell left."
At those words, Shannon's eyes filled with tears.
"W-we can actually win this, right?!"
I ran my right hand through my wet hair.
"Don't be stupid. If we lose, we die. What's the point of thinking about what happens after a loss? I only ever think about winning—that's how I live."
Shannon, still held in May's arms, thrashed about.
"When this is over, I'm definitely punching you!"
"Stop squirming, will you? This isn't exactly easy for me either, you know?"
I grinned.
"That's the spirit! After we win, I'll give you all the attention you want. Anyway, just using the bow is getting stale. How about we try something different this time?"
I transformed the bow into a halberd and swung it around on the deck, striking a pose.
Right after that, Miranda called from behind.
"Sorry to interrupt while you're having fun, but we're about to get caught up, you know? If this keeps up, won't we get dragged to the bottom of the sea?"
I gripped the halberd in my right hand and raised my left.
"No problem. At my current level, Tracie's nothing to worry about. Everyone, our speed's about to go up, so brace yourselves... UpDown."
When I used the skill, the ship's speed suddenly increased, and Tracy's movements became sluggish. But even so, Tracy kept closing in on the ship.
Having its two heads severed must have unified its body's movements, making things more troublesome.
As I scratched my chin with my left hand...
"The three-headed state was actually the easiest to defeat, huh..."
Then Clara's voice reached me.
'...Well, once we're done, I'll try to record this. Not that it's a monster likely to appear again anytime soon, though. Also, the results are in.'
Through Clara, connected via my skill—Connection—information flowed to me. What I'd asked her to look up was data on underwater monsters.
What kinds of attacks they used, what characteristics they had—
This was to infer from monsters similar to Tracy.
As a result, it seemed many giant monsters had a tendency to drag ships down into the ocean.
"A tendency to drag things underwater. So that's what Tracy's likely to do too? And its special move would be—"
While I was pondering, a voice came from Novem, who was at the ship's bow. She sounded slightly more urgent than usual.
'Lord Lyle, ice has appeared ahead. It's quite large.'
Checking Novem's visual information, I saw Vera, who had shared the information faster than I had, react.
"Hard to port! Everyone, grab onto something!"
The ship tilted sharply, avoiding the mountain of ice that had appeared. However, its course changed, allowing Tracy to catch up.
Rising from the sea surface as if to cover the tilting ship, Tracy rammed its belly against us, trying to sink us.
However—
"Your timing's a little off, Tracy."
I grinned, leaped into the air, and sliced at Tracy's scaleless belly with the halberd.
When I swung the halberd, I felt resistance before my blade even touched Tracy's belly. I followed through with the swing, carving a gash several meters long, and blood erupted from the wound.
The splatter didn't reach me, but at the same time, I instinctively understood that this wouldn't be enough to take it down.
When I landed, I was barely at the stern of the ship.
Miranda looked at me.
"You're being reckless as always... but more importantly, it's way too big. How do you even expect to bring that thing down?"
The ship slipped out from under Tracy as it tried to crash down on us, and I watched a massive column of water erupt behind us.
I checked the halberd to confirm it wasn't chipped, then looked at the sea surface where Tracy had sunk.
Miranda looked at me again.
"You did cut it, right?"
I shook my head.
"I thought I could get through its belly, but it was protected by magic. I managed to slice through, but... it was too shallow."
Considering Tracy's enormous body, the wound I'd inflicted was tiny.
I returned the halberd to my Jewel, then activated the Skill around my neck—Box—and pulled a Saber from the treasure chest that appeared.
"Hey, if a silver weapon didn't work, how is a mass-produced Saber supposed to do the trick?"
Meeting Miranda's skeptical gaze, I—
"This one's for a different kind of Monster. Looks like they've been drawn to us."
Miranda had noticed too, and was scanning the surroundings. A swarm of sahuagin was converging on the ship. More precisely, the ship had plowed straight into a swarm of sahuagin.
There was nowhere else to go, so I couldn't really blame Vera.
Vera issued her orders.
"Arm the crew with weapons! Hold the entrance and keep them from boarding! You don't need to set foot on the deck!"
With six sabers at my waist and one in each hand — eight in total — I leaped from the water's surface and cleaved a Sahagin in half sideways with a saber.
Miranda also drew her knives and hurled them at the Sahagin leaping out of the water.
"They bit into me, and yet they're still quick enough to think."
Trashy, who had blocked our path and sent the horde of Sahagin charging at us, slowly emerged from the water's surface and opened its massive mouth toward us.
Not a mass of magic power — instead, water gathered from the ocean surface and began to compress.
I…
"Novem!"
The moment I shouted Novem's name at the top of my lungs, several walls of ice materialized in front of Trashy.
It released the compressed water, and the ice walls were pierced with ease. But then, Vera—
"Hard to port!"
The ship dodged the burst of compressed water. As Trashy shattered through the ice walls and drew closer, I cut down the approaching Sahagin while issuing orders.
"May, how's your side?"
"We're fine. Monica's here with me too."
In the center of the deck, May and Monica fought the Sahagin, shielding Shannon and Novem.
More and more Sahagin swarmed toward the rear as well; the doors were breached, and Sahagin began pouring into the ship's interior.
Miranda produced threads from the tips of both her hands, snared the surrounding Sahagin, and picked them apart one by one.
"That's incredibly useful."
When I said that, Miranda—
"Useful, right? They're hard to cut through, and you can use them to strangle, too. And if you're creative about it—"
The threads coiled around the Sahagin. And then, the heads of the writhing, suffering Sahagin were cleanly severed.
The Fifth Generation's voice came through the Jewel.
"…She's like a spider."
I couldn't disagree.
"Yeah, Miranda really is like a spider."
Miranda said that with a smile while fighting off the surrounding Sahagin.
"Oh? Want to get tangled up in my threads too, Lyle?"
She said that, so—
"Make sure you tie me up tight so I can't get loose. Well, you are a spider, so…eh, whatever. Be my guest! Go ahead and wrap me up good with those threads!"
Miranda laughed a little.
"Okay, then I won't hold back…Oh, by the way, everyone can hear this whole conversation, you know?"
"Is that supposed to be a problem?"
When I asked with a straight face, Miranda answered cheerfully.
"Once we're back to normal, I'll stop teasing you about what we talked about. But when you're of sound mind, whisper your love to me, Lyle."
"I'll tell you anytime!"
As I cut down the Sahagin gathering around us, the Sabers in my hands grew stained with blood and started to chip.
"Time to swap."
I drove both Sabers into the Sahagin in front of me, then let go and kicked it away.
Drawing the Sabers hanging at my waist, I spun and slashed through the Sahagin attacking from both sides with their harpoons.
Aria's voice rang out.
"Hey! Don't be flirting in the middle of a fight! We've got Sahagin breaking through over here too…Stop slacking off, will you?!!"
It seemed that Sahagin had broken through to Aria's position as well, and she was stabbing them to death one after another with her spear.
From Aria's visual feed, I could see the other crew members staring in shock. She was a little tomboyish but cute like that...
"What, are you sulking? I love the wild side of you too, you know."
I said with a laugh, and then Vera spoke.
"Shut up! Ah, I'm not talking about you. Don't force yourself to fight — hold them at the door! Focus on that Traashy later! ...No! It's a Trident Sea Serpent!"
She sounded flustered, and our conversation and her commands from the bridge were getting mixed together.
"It's fine as Traashy, isn't it?"
I thought it was a cute name, but Vera apparently didn't like it. She was barking out all sorts of orders from the bridge, putting the crew to good use.
From Eva came:
"...Hot. And the Sahagin are at the door... my clothes are soaked in sweat."
Clara:
"We're fine for now over here. We've got all our guns in order. Convenient, isn't it? I should get one for self-defense too..."
She seemed interested in guns.
Then Monika:
"Chicken. The Sahagin have started swarming the bridge. If they take that position, we're done for."
And then Novem:
"The Traashy is also coming at us in earnest. What should we do, Lord Lyle?"
The bridge was in a pinch, and to make matters worse, the Traashy was about to charge the ship.
"That's obvious — take care of both and there's no problem!"
I hurled my Sabers into the Sahagin and drew out my third and fourth blades. Then the cannon Monika had placed on the deck came into view.
On the bridge, a fight had broken out against the Sahagin that had pried the door open.
"Damn it!"
Vera drew a pistol from the small of her back and fired at the door the creature was trying to exit through.
The captain grabbed a gun that was sitting on the bridge.
"My lady, please fall back!"
In the rocking ship, Vera was fighting desperately on the bridge too.
"If you're not going to give orders, then what's the point?! Keep the ship steady while I hold them off!"
As Vera released the cylinder of her revolver to swap out the rounds, her attention drifted to the Traashy closing in, and the bullets came loose.
(No! I'm almost out of rounds—)
She fired, driving two of the Sahagin away from the door, but the last one was already closing in. She fired one final shot, and even with half its head blown away, the Sahagin tried to force its way inside.
The gun in the captain's hands was also proving slow to reload. On top of a ship that wouldn't stop rocking. And with the Traashy bearing down on them to boot.
Vera wasn't the only one panicking.
"You... get the hell out of my way!"
Vera whipped her black two-sided-up hair and kicked the Sahagin away with her boot. The creature went flying through the door with tremendous force—and—
"Damn it!"
By the time Vera realized what was happening, the ship had tilted sharply. She had launched a kick toward the door, and now she was sent tumbling straight out through the pried-open doorway...
A Traashy with its massive jaws wide open was right there.
Vera looked at the Traashy closing in on her.
(So this is where it ends?)
As the scenery around her seemed to drift in slow motion, Vera turned back toward the ship in midair and reached out her hand.
On the bridge, the captain and crew were reaching out their hands, unable to reach her. They were shouting something, but Vera couldn't hear a thing.
When she reached out her own hand, the scene felt like it overlapped with a dream she'd had before.
(That dream... it was a premonition, wasn't it...)
She didn't want to sink into the sea, so she reached out. But was the sight of herself crumbling away an omen of death? That's what Vera thought.
(So this is where it ends... I wish I'd properly told them how I felt)
The Traashy's mouth drew closer, slowly trying to swallow her whole, and Vera closed her eyes, ready to meet that moment when —.
"Cover your ears with both hands, and open your mouth for me."
Her outstretched hand was grabbed, and when she opened her eyes, there was Lyle standing there, a massive cannon in his hands.
He pulled Vera toward him, and she ended up clinging to Lyle, who was drenched from the rain and sea spray and splattered with blood.
Lyle said with a grin:
"If the outside won't work, we'll go from the inside... Show me your trump card, God of the Sea, once you've endured this."
"Y-You... you're smiling."
"Come on, cover your ears."
Vera holstered her gun, covered her ears, and opened her mouth. Lyle pulled the trigger as well. He had his mouth open and earplugs in his ears.
The instant the shockwave hit, the Traashy shut its mouth —.