Editing Godhorn Tech:Volume2 Chapter5 (section)

===Chapter 5, Section 3===

Another morning arrived.

Miyabi Blackgarden had overslept for a variety of reasons, but Alicia Blueforest did not even hesitate to throw open the door to his room. They used to bathe together when he was little, so she did not even bother knocking.

“Hey, that buff pirate is waiting at the port. We need to fix Number 8 and ask him about the 11th. I’ll give you time for some coffee to wake up, but then we need to set sail, cross the ocean, and help out that remote island kingdom.”

“How in the world are you so refreshed?”

“Ha ha ha. Because I was the very first to give up last night!!”

Miyabi had stuck with it to the end (after succumbing to Celina’s tearful puppy dog eyes), so he held Alicia’s head between his fists and rubbed at her temples. It did not actually do anything about his drowsiness, but he still felt a little more awake afterwards.

They joined the others in the inn’s small lobby.

They were leaving Number 8 in a room at the same inn. Carrying the motionless automaton onto a ship could raise suspicions that they were planning to dump a body at sea.

They already knew the inn was untrustworthy, so they went out to eat.

Food was one area where the criminal city excelled. Mornings tended to have limited food options, but there was a wide variety of tasty things for sale. Miyabi noticed something as he observed it all.

“An awful lot of it is made to carry with you while you eat it.”

“Because it was all developed for sailors to eat while they worked on their ships.”

For some reason, a hot dog apparently did not count as a sandwich. Celina explained it all to him while munching on a burrito – chopped vegetables and ground meat wrapped in thin bread known as a tortilla. She managed to look strangely graceful while she walked and ate at the same time.

“Man, that burrito you got looks good.”

“Miyabi. I know boys your age love meat, but you need a balanced diet of meat, vegetables, and grains. An extra-large frankfurter is not enough.”

“She’s right, you know? Munch, munch.”

“You too, elf. Grilled corn is not enough for a meal either.”

Black cat Alma ended up with a perfectly balanced meal since Helen Clockgear fed it some of her small canape topped with vegetables and seafood.

“Burrito…”

“O-okay, fine! Here, Miyabi. You can have one bite. …Hold it yourself when you do!!”

They walked to the harbor while eating a light meal of simple but varied foods. Once there, they found the muscle man needlessly crossing his arms in the sun.

“There you are!”

“You have guts showing up in the light of day, thief!” shouted Celina.

“Men of the sea are early to rise. Also, the continent’s rules don’t apply in the island kingdom, so be careful.”

Onelife Shiftup was not even listening.

That may have been why Helen sounded exasperated when she responded.

“And it sounds like they’re going through a lot of political upheaval.”

“Maybe we should go shopping before we leave,” suggested Alicia.

“How about it!? Nwohhh! Ready to set sail!?”

When Miyabi nodded, the man slapped him on the back with his heavy prosthetic hand.

“That’s the spirit! You can have the imperial automatons, but make sure you deliver my gifts to King Kananka!”

“I’m not sure how to feel about this when you stole it all from us.”

Celina Bodenburg looked up at the stacked boxes in disgust, but then something occurred to Miyabi.

“Wait. You aren’t taking us on your ship?”

“Unfortunately, I’ve got other business to attend to.”

“…”

The one-eyed muscle pirate did not even glance over at the glaring local girl.

“I thought for sure she was only a lookalike, but that really is the Bodenburg Company’s heir, isn’t it!? Gotta go!!”

“The coward is making a run for it!! Stop him!!!!!”

But…

“Drat…he’s already gone.”

“The entire city is on his side, so we would never find him,” said Alicia.

Celina clicked her tongue with her rifle ominously at the ready, but it actually looked comical after how fast Onelife managed to skedaddle. He had mastered the technique of hiding behind cover to escape projectiles. No matter how charismatic he was, he was a criminal at heart.

Helen agreed with Alicia’s assessment.

“Tracking down that utter moron would only exhaust us further. Let’s get this errand done with so we can repair Number 8.”

“That is important, but we need to make sure we really help Kananka,” said Miyabi.

The glasses woman looked troubled and kept her response short.

“Involving yourself in another country’s chaos never ends well.”

“Hm,” groaned Eliza Silverstorm with a shadow over her face.

She may have been thinking of the riot in the Arsenal Kingdom. Being as strait-laced as her was a good way to take damage when no one was even talking about you.

“Even so.” Miyabi looked to the horizon out at sea. “It would be easy to do the bare minimum here and just complete the job without worrying about how it turns out. But the other side doesn’t get to choose who comes to help. They have to accept it even if it isn’t enough.”

If they did that here, it was the 12-year-old king who would suffer.

It did not affect them in any way, but it was not a pleasant thing to consider.

“Let’s truly complete this errand before we fix Number 8. We can’t focus on our job if we haven’t repaid our debts.”

“We don’t owe that thief squat! He stole it all from my company!”



Before long, Miyabi’s party was being rocked by the waves on the ship.

The sailing ship was about 30m long.

Instead of giant gears and shafts, the many sailors used thick ropes and a sail to catch the wind and move the ship, giving it a different charm from the Lucifer Horn or Schwarz Schütze. Tugging on the ropes required great strength, but the manipulation of the sail was a complex and precise task.

As a cargo ship, it was covered in wooden boxes tied down with ropes and wires. Compress Cargo was apparently not an option with the gifts meant for the young king. That magic wrapped the microscopic Palette Dice like a ribbon to compress them, but it did not work with living things or with artwork where authenticity was key.

They had spent two nights aboard a sailing ship abandoned on the land near the ruined Empire, but that did not really count. This was a brand new experience for a boy who grew up in the mountains. Eliza had lived in the north, so she did not even dare approach the railing.

“Oh, ohhh. It keeps shaking.”

“Eliza, it’s been three days.”

“Th-that does not make this any less frightening! Please, Miyabi. Do not let go of my hand!!”

Miyabi was not about to argue when she was clinging to him like this. All the softness he felt had him worried that her miniskirt armor did not provide much in the way of defense. That armor prioritized magical defense, so its design was less straightforward.

“Th-the White Seidr Chosen Knights appear before the people on the king’s orders, so our appearance is a matter of national pride. Our armor was designed with parades and other public appearances in mind.”

“Neat.”

“My point is: wipe that grin off your face. This is a symbol of our kingdom’s courage and strength, so viewing it in a sexual light is an insult to the entire kingdom! Don’t you dare think of this as a lucky break!!”

The fact that she felt the need to warn him suggested she was somewhat aware how it made her look.

Meanwhile, someone else had bigger issues to worry about.

“Urp, blehh…”

“Why have you wilted, Alicia? Do elves plant their roots in the land or something?”

“H-how are just fine after spending three days rocking in the waves? My hair is all gross from the sea breeze and I swear the sun is being extra bright just to spite me. …Oh, no. I don’t think I can hold it in any longer!!”

“Hey! Don’t just open my cover out of desperation! I’m into a lot of things, but low-angle shots of a barfing elf is not one of them!!”

The radio sounded truly desperate this time.

The elf’s long ears drooped (after she barely avoided catastrophe), but the trip was full of exciting new surprises for Miyabi. Unlike Eliza, his excitement won out over his fear of the ocean. He got the crew to teach him how to work out the directions using the stars, how to tie some basic knots, and the trick to washing dishes while preserving their valuable fresh water. It all felt like a grand adventure to him. He was a little disappointed the sailors wouldn’t let him have any of the gin and rum they loved so much.

Eventually, they heard some sea birds crying in the distance.

“Oh, I think I see an island!” exclaimed Celina.

“Ugh, gwehh… A-as long as it has a beautiful forest, nothing else matters,” groaned Alicia.

A seabird flew a large circle through a sky much bluer than on the continent and eventually landed on the ship. The large white bird skillfully alighted on the deck’s railing. Eliza had never seen one up close, so she blinked while clinging to Miyabi’s arm.

“So this is a seabird. Interesting. It looks so different from the birds I am used to.”

“You there. If you have business with my kingdom, I shall guide you.”

The seabird…talked?

Miyabi and Alicia stared in shock, but Eliza gave a firm nod (while still clinging to the boy). The white seabird opened its hard-looking beak to speak more.

“As beautiful as our ocean is, the coral is fairly labyrinthine and there are also reefs to worry about.”

“Interesting. So seabirds know how to speak human language. Smart things, aren’t they?”

“I-I assure you that is not normal!” shouted Helen.

With a loud boom, a sharp conical spike burst vertically from the ocean surface just off the ship’s side. It rose higher than the ship’s mast and it appeared to be made of…maybe stone? It could have easily sunk the ship by piercing it from below, but a head-on collision with it would also have been disastrous. The crew frantically turned the wheel and adjusted the sails to turn the bow as much as possible while a few more of the spikes burst from the ocean.

At this point, they felt more like a metal fence surrounding a mansion’s garden.

They appeared to be forcibly guiding the ship along a certain course.

“Whoa!?”

“Follow the path I provide and you can pass the labyrinth of reefs,” commanded the seabird.

“Is this a type of magic that lifts the ocean floor to pierce a ship’s hull with sharp stone?” asked a Celina in disbelief.

“We call it the Shark Tooth. That said, it was originally peaceful magic that fished a livable island out of the ocean.”

With a splashing sound, a massive silhouette cut by below the surface and below the sailing ship.

Whoever this was had full control. Even if their ship was equipped with cannons, they could not have attacked something lurking below the water.

With a more extended splashing sound, the ocean split open and something emerged.

It was…not quite a ship.

Something resembling a massive shark traveled freely through the watery depths.

“That is the Mother Shark submarine,” explained the seabird. “My kingdom’s Godhorn Tech is unbeatable in the ocean. I am praying you do not make yourselves my enemy, visitors.”

This errand was already off to a rocky start.

Nevertheless, they arrived safely on the southern island.

The wharf was very different from the criminal city’s. There was no more than a simple wooden pier sticking out from the white sandy beach. There was no lighthouse or breakwater. They may have dug deep into the sandy ocean floor to accommodate larger ships, but it still felt a lot more natural.

There were bright red flowers Miyabi had never before seen and blue butterflies that looked like fluttering gems.

The strange trees growing directly from the sand were apparently known as palm trees.

“Coconuts are used in a lot of sweets and drinks, so you can find them for sale at the criminal city.”

If ''Celina'' saw them as a rare delicacy, Miyabi knew he would never have another chance to try one, so he wanted to try everything he could while he was here.

“Ughh…f-finally back on solid ground,” groaned Alicia, looking truly worn out.

She collapsed face down onto the beach and the radio to protested being plunged into the sand.

“Hey, are you okay? How about some water?”

“Thanks. No, wait, boy! That’s seawat- blehhhh!!!”

“?”

Miyabi looked puzzled and Celina rubbed her temples. Beyond the simple freshwater/saltwater issue, a city dweller like her could not believe he would try to give someone water he simply found lying around. Even when journeying outdoors, she made sure to use her mug-sized filter or to boil it in a kettle first.

“Okay, that’s enough of the classic gags, ocean newbies. We need to get moving.”

“Ew, why is it so salty!? Eh? Eh? Is the whole ocean like that?”

“How far behind are you!? Surely even your mountain village has a salt shaker on the dinner table.”

“Wait, wait, wait. Are you saying rock salt isn’t something they dig up from the ground?”

He had seen the ocean at the criminal city, but he had not had a chance to interact with it while on the stone harbor. Same while he was on the ship.

“Sorry, Alicia. I’ll borrow Celina’s thingy to filter the seawater.”

“Not in a million years!! Filtering out that much salt would ruin it in one go! It isn’t designed for that!!”

“Koo,” cheerfully cried Alma.

Miyabi glanced down to see the stuffed animal of a creature had transformed again. This time, it was white with a bluish swimsuit and goggles. The striped one-piece swimsuit was something Miyabi had only ever seen in plays. Except this was a fur pattern, not clothing, highlighting how strange that creature was. Miyabi felt the same as when he first saw a ladybug or butterfly in the forest when he was little.

“Oh, Alma,” said Alicia. “What a cute Kraken you are. I just have to pick you up. I’ll let you nuzzle against me, so come and comfort me.”

“Why is the foul beast the first one in a swimsuit? What about the elf, the glasses woman, the rich girl, or the knight!?”

The sandy radio complained, but the seasick elf was in no mood to respond.

Miyabi looked around curiously.

“So this is the remote island kingdom Onelife was talking about.”

“Ugh, it sure is hot here.”

Eliza’s composed face was dripping with sweat.

Ever-capable Helen looked worried and exasperated at the same time.

“This can’t be a comfortable place for a knight from a snowy kingdom.”

“B-but the place doesn’t feel as on edge as I expected,” said Alicia.

“True. The talk of political upheaval reminded me of the Arsenal Kingdom.”

“Gulp!”

Weakened by the sun, Eliza jumped at the mention of her kingdom’s troubles. Meanwhile, the radio decided to speak some cursed words.

“Who cares about that when there are swimsuits to be worn? This is a tropical island! Where’s all the bare skin!? Of the feminine variety, I mean!!”

There was indeed no sign of rioting or fighting.

A small crab crawled across the white beach without a care in the world.

Standing around near the ship was not going to help anything. The messenger seabird had been flying above their heads, but now it flew inland and above the island’s colorful forest. It may have been asking them to follow, so they nervously prepared to leave the beach for the first time.

But…

“Sneak, sneak.”

“Excuse me, everyone, but someone is attempting to board our ship. Someone who thinks saying ‘sneak’ out loud makes them sneakier, I might add. Attack, attack!!”

A small figure shrieked and jumped straight up.

Acting like a thief was simply not possible with the bright sun shining down on the white sand. Miyabi’s party turned around looking skeptical and found a girl curled up in a pitiful ball on the sand.

She had long wavy hair with a bluish tint to it.

Her skin was abnormally bright and pale for the sunny beach.

And her chest earned at least a “decent” rating.

She looked to be around Miyabi’s age. Kids these days had apparently adopted some bold fashion choices because she wore a tank top and a miniskirt. To be blunt, she looked more fashionable than Miyabi.

But that aside, there were a few major problems. For example, she wore a flintlock gun at her hip, she wore a thick coat to keep the sun and sea breeze off of her, and she wore a black leather eyepatch and tricorn hat that would have looked perfect on a jolly roger.

The gun must have only been a sidearm because she rested a trident on her shoulder. It was unclear if the weapon had its origins in agriculture or fishing, but it would hurt just the same if it stabbed you. Miyabi recalled how a play mentioned that pirates preferred projectiles and long-handled spears or sickles to help attack from one ship to another.

“Let’s gooooooo!!” rejoiced the radio at Alicia’s chest. “No big muscles and no giant beard! This is the kind of sexy fantasy pirate girl I wanted! Who else would you want to nurse you back to health when you come down with heatstroke!? The big hat and miniskirt are so much better than a pathetic bandanna!! Ask anyone what they want in a pirate and this is what they’ll tell you!!!!!!”

Yes, she was a pirate.

Celina was 100% anti-pirate, so her eyebrows arched upwards.

“Heh heh heh. I see, so the vermin of society run rampant in this remote island kingdom too, do they? Very well. I will cleanse this world of them to lay the groundwork for the Bodenburg Company’s greater glory!!!!!!”

“Wait, no, no! I’m not a pirate!! Please take a deep breath and calm down!!”

Helen sighed with a hand on her cheek.

Something about this had bothered her.

“Hm, another fancy-sounding girl. This could get confusing.”

“You even steal my speech patterns, you filthy pirate!?”

“Again, I’m not a pirate!! My name is Charlotte Nightlagoon and I am well-known in the mermaid world. What, did I misinterpret what I saw from the ocean? I can’t believe this!! I thought this was the latest in human fashion!”

The bare-midriff pirate(?) girl’s claim was a little confusing, but then she noticed something and jumped to her feet. Before Miyabi could figure out what was going on, she had pressed up against his back and started whistling nonchalantly.

Some locals with bloodshot eyes arrived.

The brown-skinned men and women in grass skirts and scraps of cloth were carrying fishing nets and harpoons. They wore pots over their heads and held bath covers as shields.

“Where’d she go!? Where did that mermaid go!?”

“She had legs, so she has to still be on the island. If we can only slice up that mermaid flesh, we’d be set!!”

Hadn’t he just met someone who thought saying ‘sneak’ out loud made her sneakier?

He could tell now was not the time to be enjoying the boobs pressed against his back.

He waited until the dangerously-equipped but oddly lighthearted people ran off down the coast before he slowly turned around.

“A…mermaid?”

“Heh heh. Eh heh heh.”

“A well-known one???”

“It’s kind of embarrassing, but I have had several picture books made about me.”

It was hard to notice with her fluffy hair and large hat, but one of her ears looked like a webbed flipper. Miyabi was unsure what to say when he saw her poking her index fingers together in front of her decent or better chest.

“(Wait, so the people on this island eat mermaids? Now I’m worried about this place’s customs.)”

“(Th-their culture might take an ‘anything goes’ stance when it comes to Beast Novae in any form. In fact, I have heard of a country on the continent that slices up only the snake portion of an echidna for food. They apparently have an extreme reaction to certain White Sorcery Items, so the snake tail grows back, giving them an endless food source.)”

Eliza’s unnecessary trivia only worried Miyabi further.

Alicia needed to be extremely cautious as another humanoid Beast Nova, yet she calmly clapped her hands together in realization.

“A mermaid? Oh, is this about the stories of gaining immortality and eternal youth by eating their flesh?”

“Wha-!?”

“Eternal youth…we’d make billions! No, wait. In the long term, we would stop selling anything but the youth-targeted products.”

The glasses woman reacted with excitement and the rich girl by calculating out possible profits, but the legged mermaid waved her hands to stop them.

“W-wait, no, that’s only a superstition! It’s not true!!”

“Hm?”

Alicia only frowned, looking confused, so the long-lived hag elf must not have been too interested in eternal youth.

The mermaid’s gentle tone of voice slipped when she was panicked.

“Mermaid meat doesn’t do that!! Where did that crazy belief even come from? I mean, yikes! I’d dreamed of visiting the land for years, but when I finally get here for a secret vacation, it turns into a terrifying fight for survival.”

Miyabi had a more fundamental question.

“I thought mermaids had the lower body of a fish and swam around in the ocean.”

“I changed that by chugging a magic potion.”

She demonstrated by putting a hand on her hip and tilting her head back.

The way she arched her back pushed out her chest to a troubling extent.

“So I got legs and that was great, but now I can’t get my fishtail back. That means I can’t return to the ocean and I have to live on this hellish island where the superstitions turn my days into a dangerous cooking school of eat or be eaten.”

It was quite possible she was just an idiot.

The oblivious idiot kicked at the white sand with one of the legs she had gone to such lengths to obtain.

“I can’t stand it anymore! If I’m stuck on this remote island any longer, they really are going to devour my delicious body! And not in the sexy way, either! I mean filet me and serve me with your choice of sides!! I need to get off this island! That elf who reeks of grass makes it sound like the superstition has made it to the mainland too, but it should at least be easier to hide there. I just want out of this endless game of tag!!”

“This cargo ship isn’t scheduled to leave for a while, you stupid mermaid who leaves a trail of salty puddles. The ship needs maintenance, it needs to be resupplied with food and water, the cargo bound for the continent needs to be loaded, and the crew needs time off, so it won’t be leaving for two or three more days at least.”

“…”

Charlotte paled and collapsed to the sand. Her soul was trying to escape through her mouth.

“(Miyabi, Miyabi,)” whispered Eliza.

“How about you show her some kindness? The Lucifer Horn can cross the ocean and take her to Horn Fortress. I’ve heard mermaids use an entirely different system of magic from humans, so it can’t hurt to have her on our side.”

The half-dead mermaid lifted her head from the sand.

She got up on her knees, clasped her hands in front of her face, and looked up at Miyabi with unbelievable pressure in her gaze. He could see stars twinkling in her eyes.

“You know a way out of here!? Please let me use it!! I might just find a solution if I can escape to the continent. The alchemist named Holy Gate is practically a legend at this point, but if I can find them, I can have a magic potion made to give me my tail back!”

“Eh!?” This turn of events came as a surprise to pirate-hating Celina.

The against side made their argument:

“We don’t really know who she even is, so we could be accepting a traitor into our midst. We only have her word to go on that she isn’t a pirate, so she might still be a filthy thief. Miyabi, working in a group requires strict management of your wallet. For the above reasons, it would be illogical to accept this suspicious individual into our party. Yes, this has nothing to do with my personal belief that you cannot trust anyone who wants to be a pirate! This is ''nothing but'' a logical analysis of the facts!!”

The for side made their much more succinct argument:

“Mermaid equals clamshell bikini.”

“Welcome aboard, Charlotte!! I don’t know what a bikini is, but something about the word calls out to my very soul!!”

“Four words!? Don’t let her seduce you that quick, Miyabi!!”

Celina’s tearful plea did nothing to overturn his decision. The human girl was not willing to strip for this particular issue.

The eyepatch trident flintlock miniskirt bare-midriff mermaid pirate girl idiot (the list never seemed to end) fidgeted awkwardly.

“Um, so could you please send me across the ocean to the mainland now? How are we even going to leave this remote island anyway?”

“Oh, that’s simple enough. Lucifer Horn, we’ve got another one.”

The mermaid tilted her head. It was much too late by the time she realized what was happening.

A massive shape flew by overhead and a wire whipped through the air and snagged the back of Charlotte’s pirate coat.

“Wait, what!? Surely you aren’t going to send me across the ocean like this! If this is supposed to be a joke about catching a mermaid like a fish, it isn’t funnyyyyyyyyyyy!!!”

The doppler effect distorted her voice.

“Sigh.” Helen stared into the distance. “Goodbye eternal youth…”

“Were you really planning to chop her up and eat her, Miss Aging Skin?” asked Alicia. “Anyway, are you sure that was a good idea? I hope the locals don’t mistake us for a sketchy gang of kidnappers.”

However.

Miyabi continued tilting his head even after Charlotte Nightlagoon was long gone. She had left a very appealing word in his mind.

“So what is a bikini anyway?” asked the mountain village boy.

“Yes, yes. It’s only natural to be interested in that sort of thing, but we’re here to meet with King Fulpen and help him however we can. We don’t really have time for any more detours, so-”

Helen came to a stop midsentence.

She had a good reason for it.

Celina Bodenburg put on a full-face smile, flipped her giant travel bag upside down, and shook it.

A pile of colorful cloth formed on the ground.



And a while later…

“Sorry about the wait, Miyabi. Ho ho ho. You were very right. How could we leave the hustle and bustle of the city, travel all the way to one of the finest beaches around, and ''not'' put on swimsuits? The serious atmosphere made it so hard to let everyone know I had brought enough to share, but this country boy gave me exactly the opening I needed!”

Celina emerged from a thicket, but Miyabi was far too preoccupied to listen.

What was that?

She stood there with a hand on her hip, but all she was wearing were three triangles of black cloth. They only covered her chest and around her hips and were held in place with some strings. They were also decorated with pure gold and red gems.

This was nothing like the swimsuits he had seen in plays. Those covered the entire body down to the feet. Miyabi gathered all of the fragmentary knowledge he had and found only one thing this could be.

“Eh? Eh? Why are you in your underwear!? We’re outside!!”

“Heh heh. You’re the one who wanted to know what a bikini is.”

“But it’s only three triangles, so…ehhh!? Why is this okay, but seeing up someone’s skirt isn’t!?”

“Now, now, Miyabi. There are some questions you just don’t ask. Don’t try to answer a question that no one wants an answer to. When a girl is willing to bare her skin in public, you don’t look that gift horse in the mouth.” The crystal radio tried to make this sound like a serious issue. “Mwa ha ha! Finally! I was getting worried it might never happen, but the swimsuit event is as much a staple as miniskirt Santas on Christmas and kimonos on New Year’s!! We just needed a hot enough environment to make them strip themselves!! The North Wind and the Sun effect has blessed us once again!!!!!!”

As for the radio’s owner, Alicia’s swimsuit was more modest than Celina’s. It looked a lot like a too-short white shirt and skintight shorts, but the two pieces were fully separated, showing off her navel and thighs.

She formed a hook with a finger to fix the butt.

“How strange. I know this is meant to wear in the water, but I can’t get used to this water-repelling material.”

“Oh, right. I forget you were so shameless you always just go skinny dipping.”

“Boy!! Now is not the time to dig up that mistake from your younger days when you saw me in the forest spring and froze up! I have since learned shame!!”

That swimsuit did not belong to Alicia. She had borrowed it from Celina’s collection.

The elf’s long ears cautiously twisted this way and that.

“Are you sure it’s safe to strip down and play on the beach like this? I thought the locals were upset with their new king for being too young. A riot or armed conflict could break out at any time with that kind of political upheaval.”

“What do you think happens if a group of outsiders with a Godhorn Tech shows up and immediately visits their new king?” asked Celina. “The king will assume it is a trap and grow cautious while the opposition might fear he is gathering power and pull the trigger on a civil war.”

“So you want us to take things slow and get a feel for things first?”

“This is a remote island kingdom located well off the continent, but it has enough of a trade infrastructure to receive regular cargo ships. It is also a little-known resort for the wealthy, so this should put them at ease a lot more than rushing in with a Godhorn Tech and control device at the ready.”

Celina’s reasoning was sound, but Miyabi had trouble following it because he had no idea where he was supposed to look. Her bare belly drew his eye far more than he could have predicted. Were all swimsuits like this, was this an indecent trend derived from the criminal tastes of her hometown, or was it Celina’s personal tastes?

(Wait. If all of them were Celina’s, won’t they all be in her size?)

When Eliza emerged from the thicket a little later, she was wearing a trio of triangles just like Celina. Her figure must not have been that different because she wore it without issue, but her greater height changed the overall impression. It accentuated her slenderness first and foremost.

And…

“U-ugh…”

Helen was the real problem.

Instead of a triangle trio or a two piece, hers had the same silhouette as the bunny girl costume. Celina exasperatedly explained that it was known as a one piece.

But why was she so exasperated?

Helen, an adult, had forced herself into a swimsuit in Celina’s size, so it was full to bursting in certain key places!!

Miyabi stared into the distance.

“Helen…”

“Finally stooped to out-and-out seducing the boy to get at Alma, have you?” asked Alicia. “Glad I’m not a government official.”

“N-no!!”

Helen was practically in tears as she desperately tried to hide the parts where the too-small swimsuit was digging into her body, but she could not fully hide what was going on at her crotch and butt. Not to mention her chest, which was noticeable no matter what she wore.

Eliza put a hand on her hip and sighed. The Celina-sized orange triangles were a little small for her, so she kept having to bend her finger into a hook and fix the butt after she moved.

“This is why I said you should wear one of these…bikinis were they called? Since they are tied together by strings, your height doesn’t matter.”

“I thought covering the most skin would be the least inappropriate option! Why am I always the one sacrificed on the altar of sexy!?”

Yes, a bikini had a separate top and bottom and the chest and hips could be adjusted with the strings, so some extra height was barely an issue. The extra size was only so much of an issue because she had chosen a one piece with the top and bottom connected in a single tube of fabric.

Now, the bikini bottoms looked a lot like triangular underwear, but Miyabi was told he could not wear one. He was new to swimsuits, so all the little rules confused him.

“Stop, Miyabi!!” yelled the radio. “The girls can handle all the swimsuits and bare skin themselves. This is enough. I do not want a punchline where you take a step off that figurative cliff!!”

“Pff. Heh heh heh. If you’re into that, Miyabi, my Bodenburg Company will support you wholeheartedly. Now, what would you like? I recommend this thong with cute frills along both sides.”

Meanwhile, Miyabi’s party moved inland from the coast to the green island.

The boy once more tilted his head.

“Wait, I thought swimsuits were for swimming.”

“Miyabi,” said Celina. “No one chooses a swimsuit for being warm and waterproofed. How are you supposed to show off its design if you get in the water? A swimsuit is meant for the beach or the poolside.”

“???”

He was even more confused now. The full-body swimsuits he had seen in plays had been in swimming scenes. But the formula to answer his question would require flipping several chapters back in his rich and sexy tutor’s textbook (Swimsuits II-B).

They of course found more than just a forest.

Even Miyabi could sense people’s presence further inland.

They made their way toward the most populated area and found something like a village in the tropical forest. The trees apparently kept the wind and the sand out. The buildings all had a unique design. First, they were made out of plant stems and thick logs. For ventilation purposes, all of the walls had been removed. Miyabi had lived in a log cabin himself, but it had not been so open.

All the people’s skin was tanned brown by the bright sun. Their clothing looked like a hybrid of colorfully-dyed cloths and palm leaves, so the girls often had their navels and backs exposed. Their well-tanned and healthy skin was dazzling.

The kingdom did not receive many visitors, but it was open to them. The people who spotted them seemed ''used to it''. That may have been the influence of the previous king who had apparently rescued people at sea regardless of their status or affiliation.

They had been chasing after a legendary mermaid with nets and harpoons, but they seemed to be much more relaxed when an unexpected treasure(?) was not in the offing.

None of them seemed fazed by Alicia or Eliza’s swimsuits.

Celina must have been right about the island receiving relatively frequent tourists from the continent. Helen (with her overly small swimsuit wrapped so tightly around her body) opted to hide behind Miyabi. His back stiffened at the various sensations and breaths reaching it.

“This is the holy island ruled by King Kananka Fulpen! The Godhorn Tech our king inherited is super strong! The Mother Shark keeps our island peaceful!”

An energetic boy gave a fairly generic greeting, but they heard some other things as well.

“I don’t care whose butt is on the throne as long as we’re guaranteed a good catch. That’s the king’s #1 job since only he can speak with the invisible spirits. The Godhorn Tech honestly scares me. Makes me think the mainland’s gonna show up to get at its horn.”

The young fisherman described his king in a very different way from the old man who had sat on the Arsenal Kingdom’s throne.

“I look slim? Why, thank you,” said a girl who was proud of her figure. “A diet of fish and seaweed is the secret to health. I’ve never eaten non-seafood meat, so life on the mainland sounds so strange to me.”

The island was overflowing with nature, but it was fairly small. They had to be reliant on the sea to survive. Receiving the sea’s blessings was their top priority, so it sounded like protecting the sea was just one part of that.

Helen nervously looked around from behind Miyabi.

“(Hm, is eating a mermaid the ultimate form of receiving the sea’s blessings?)”

“(I have to wonder if any humans have actually eaten one,)” said Alicia. “(Wouldn’t there be stories of an immortal islander here if they had?)”

It may have been an imaginary food for these islanders. They may have thought mermaids were as real as the tsuchinoko or skyfish. No one had ever caught one, so you could claim whatever you liked about them.

All the islanders mentioned the House of the King and Spirits, which was the largest mansion in the village. But its lack of walls kept it from feeling as imposing as mansions usually did.

It felt more warm than grand or daunting. Miyabi felt at home in this small village surrounded by trees.

He looked up at the building made from palm trees and a grass roof.

“This one is bigger than the others, so is this the place?”

“Only two guards…a-and the entire building feels too simple for a king’s residence,” said Eliza. “Do they not decorate things in their culture? No, they must have gold and emeralds on the island. Maybe they just treat royalty differently from the continent.”

You could view it as a form of honorable poverty.

The lack of walls presented the king as an advisor the people were free to visit.

When the king and the people lived similar lives, there was less friction between them and the king could detect any problems in the kingdom as quickly as the people could.

Even in a small society, the powerful could horde wealth and build themselves up above the rest, but the royalty here did not. Choosing to suppress one’s greed and live alongside the people was a virtue. That gave the island kingdom a very different look from Eliza’s Arsenal Kingdom or Number 8’s Empire.

“But it’s a double-edged sword.”

Celina chose to deflate Miyabi’s honest admiration.

She may have sniffed this out with the senses she had developed in the company her parents had built from the ground up.

“Declining your own majesty allows people to think you don’t deserve the power you have. We already heard someone complaining about the king. This might work during the good times, but when the kingdom is shaken by misgovernment or natural disaster, it may allow others to plot to overthrow the king.”

“You mean kindness isn’t enough?”

“For those in power, standing above the rest is partially a safety measure. An isolated island like this needs to be self-sufficient, so a poor fishing season or a lack of water could easily be blamed on the king’s power.”

Come to think of it, Onelife had been worried about this.

The new king had taken the throne at only 12 after his father died, but not everyone agreed with that.

Kindness was not enough.

An outlaw pirate may have understood those blunt rules more than anyone, so he had sent Miyabi’s party in to break the jinx. He had asked them to help the new king in exchange for the magical automatons.

“Sigh, thank goodness. I shouldn’t need to do that on this peaceful island.”

Since they had found the king’s residence so easily, the glasses woman breathed a sigh of relief (blowing a heated adult breath onto the back of Miyabi’s neck).

“Yes, I shouldn’t need to transform into Venus.”

But Alicia whispered into her ear.

“Don’t be so sure. If the people here have never seen a bunny girl, it might catch on as an explosive new fad.”

“Wow, this place is a treasure trove of possibilities!” rejoiced the radio. “Let’s remake the island into a fishnet stocking empire!!”

“That’s all the more reason not to! I don’t want to be responsible for that!!”

Helen shuddered as the party entered the House of the King and Spirits.

After an aide welcomed them in, a brown boy with short, bluish hair emerged to greet them. His clothing was dyed a bright blue using some fish or flower found in the ocean or on the island, but he was very clearly nothing more than a small child. He was young enough that the distinctions between the sexes were blurred. Miyabi could see why even a criminal like Onelife would be worried about the boy’s wellbeing.

He looked too soft to place in harm’s way in the dog-eat-dog world of royal politics.

“I was already informed of your arrival.” His voice would have sounded regal if it were not such a high-pitched soprano. “You are the foreigners from the mainland, aren’t you?”

“Are you the king?”

There were no chairs or sofas, so the young king sat directly on the empty floor. It was an unusual arrangement for Miyabi’s party, but if the king was doing it, it had to be the polite thing to do. They followed suit. Celina and Eliza were more familiar with the continent’s etiquette, so they were more uncomfortable with this than the others.

“I would like to introduce myself right away, but we have certain courtesies that must be followed in our kingdom.”

“S-such as?”

Had it been rude to visit the king without being invited first?

Miyabi shrank down nervously, but the brown boy shook his head to say the problem was not with who they were.

He winked as he explained.

“The sun shining down from heaven and the azure sea surrounding our kingdom are our greatest treasures and I do understand it must have been exhilarating to see them for the very first time. I am even willing to take it as a compliment. That said, how about you change into ordinary clothing before we discuss the future of my kingdom?”



So…

“Sigh. That swimsuit was weird, but it feels wrong taking it off before ever swimming in it.”

“S-sorry about the wait, everyone.”

Alicia, Helen, and the rest soon returned, back in their normal clothing. That clothing was meant for journeying in, so it was not quite formal wear. Still, it was about right for holding a secret discussion.

“Now, then.”

The brown boy waited until they had all settled in before straightening up himself.

Straightening his spine was all it took to change the atmosphere around them. No matter his age or how he looked, he had what it took to be a leader.

“I am Kananka Fulpen, the new king ruling over the islands, people, and spirits of the Fulpen Maknika Ocean Kingdom.”

“I’m surprised you gave us an audience without an appointment,” said Celina.

“We have long received a lot of useful knowledge from those who arrive on our shores. Plus, one of you owns a Godhorn Tech. Outside knowledge, technology, and excitement is a much-needed cultural stimulant for a closed environment like ours, so I could never ignore this opportunity. That said, we are very busy with the upcoming coronation, so we cannot do much even for valued guests like you.”

“About that.”

Eliza glared at Miyabi for interrupting. She was all about chivalry, so she demanded respect of kings from any culture.

“Do you know a pirate named Onelife?”

“…”

Kananka wordlessly prompted him to continue.

Still seated on the floor, Miyabi explained the situation with plenty of gesturing. Alma mimicked the gestures, but probably didn’t know what any of it meant.

“He asked us to come here and gave us some gifts for you. I just hope there’s something we can do to help.”

“I see. So you know him.”

“Are you saying you really do know him too?”

Miyabi’s face lit up, but something was wrong.

“If I had known, I might have handled this differently,” continued Kananka. “No, enough about Onelife. What is your name?”

“M-me? Miyabi. Miyabi Blackgarden.”

“Miyabi, you do not seem like a bad person. In fact, I quite like you.”

That was an ominously phrased compliment.

And that impression was accurate.

“But unfortunately, you have brought a great calamity to this island.”

“Eh?”

Something rang in his mind.

He recognized the regular, high-pitched alarm.

“What!? I’m detecting…a sorcery bomb!?”

With an island this small, one of those could wipe the entire kingdom off the map.

“Does that mean the 11th is on this island!?”

He sprang to his feet, but Kananka remained calm.

“Wait a moment. I think it must have been hidden among the gifts you brought. Miyabi, you seem capable of sensing this bomb.”

“…”

“But did you think you were the only one in the entire world capable of that? The spirits speak to us all equally. It is just that not many know how to listen.”

Kananka winked and he seemed to be calling n some kind of invisible power or phenomenon that he referred to as “the spirits”.

“Are you, um, using your Godhorn Tech’s power?”

“I see. So you use that to boost your natural ability? Fascinating. That is not what I do. The ability to converse with the spirits is a requirement to rule as king here. I can use this power to predict the weather and the height of the waves. One of the king’s duties is to ensure the people can catch enough fish. Not even I understand how it works. All I can say is I was born this way.”

That put him above Moebius and Miyabi.

But the upshot here was that Kananka could also sense the sorcery bomb’s threat.

Maybe even more accurately than Miyabi could.

“Maybe it used a timer to switch on and maybe its box was shielded in some way. Either one would explain why we did not sense it until now.”

“Why would they be so careful about it this time?” asked Alicia.

“It may be a response to the previous bombs being disarmed,” suggested the radio.

“Meaning?” asked Miyabi.

The philosopher’s stone spat out the correct answer, just as a philosopher’s stone was meant to do.

Even if no one wanted to hear that answer.

“Listen, the last two bombs – the one in the forest and the one at the Schwarz Schütze – were both bluffs by Moebius. That would mean, Miyabi, that this is your first time encountering a sorcery bomb ''from the real 11th''.”

“Oh.”

“Again, Moebius’s bluffs were only meant to draw out the 11th, so they would have been set up so they wouldn’t actually detonate. But that changes from here on out.”

“So the real 11th would have been watching Moebius’s decoy bombs from afar, or sending Number 8 in to check it out for them? So they know everything that happened, including how those decoy bombs were disarmed by someone?”

“That would mean they already see you as a major threat. They go to the effort of disguising the bombs as part of the scenery, remember? But not because they’re bored and setting up a high-stakes game of spot-the-difference. ''The real 11th'' doesn’t want you interfering at all. If they’ve figured out that you can detect them in advance, of course they’ll think up a way of keeping you from doing that.”

That was a truly unpleasant idea.

Eliza was getting antsy.

“We can discuss the reasoning behind it later. This is not my kingdom, but I cannot sit here and let innocent people die!!”

“Like I said before, my Mother Shark is unbeatable in the ocean. It can pierce any warship from below and bring down any flying object. But it’s powerless against an enemy once they arrive on the beach.”

This was not an attack by brute force.

Whoever had set it up had won the kingdom’s trust and learned detailed information on its internal situation before putting together the plan. And they had to know that detonating a sorcery bomb here could destroy the entire island.

“Onelife Shiftup…” muttered Miyabi.

Moebius had had his reasons, but this was different. The 11th had deceived Number 8 into setting up the sorcery bombs. Miyabi knew he should have been more careful after learning their enemy used such underhanded methods. Feeling used, he repeated that hated man’s name to himself.

“So was he the 11th? I should have paid more attention! Now I see why he found every excuse he could to keep us from repairing Number 8!! Because he didn’t want the automaton to give us his name!!”



Miyabi and Eliza rushed from the House of the King and Spirits. They were initially surprised that Kananka didn’t follow them, but then they recalled him saying he was unbeatable in the ocean but powerless on land.

Anything could happen in a confused situation and there were apparently some who did not approve of his coronation. The king had to avoid being killed at all costs. If he was, it would plunge the kingdom into chaos.

“We need to locate and destroy the sorcery bomb.”

The glaring sun worked against them.

Miyabi had to work hard to organize his confused thoughts and figure out what he needed to do.

“We can identify Onelife’s gifts by the wooden boxes. He tricked us, so the boxes should already be inside the village. I’ll just destroy them all until the bomb’s reading is gone!”

“Koo!!”

The threat likely came from the boxes they had brought with them, but those boxes had already been unloaded from the ship and carried to locations around the village. When Miyabi’s party attempted to remove the nails from one, a slender human arm punched through the wood from within.

No, it only looked human.

“A magical automaton!?”

“You mean he loaded the boxes with more than just the bomb!?”

This one did not look as human as Number 8. It was more like a well-made ball-jointed doll. It had no clothing or skin.

Onelife had said he would not send the automatons if Miyabi’s party visited the remote island kingdom instead.

But that promise too had been nothing but words. That traitor had been planning all along to send in this fighting force.

Celina clicked her tongue.

“He said he wasn’t using Compress Cargo on the gifts to preserve the artwork, but now we know the real reason. Sorcery bombs and magical automatons are too complex to store that way!”

The rustic islanders looked confused at first.

They did not properly grasp the threat, so their initial fear may not have been directed at the sorcery bomb or the imperial automatons.

It was only when Alicia’s staff gave a roar and Celina obliterated the automaton’s head with her rifle that the entire village erupted with screams. When the people paled, fled in a panic, tripped, and cowered in place, they were not trying to escape the automatons. They feared the people wielding real violence capable of dealing out death. They shook their heads in protest after seeing Miyabi’s control sword, not the automatons bursting from the boxes.

“Ugh, no good deed goes unpunished, I see!” complained Alicia.

“Seeing their fear is better than seeing them as silent corpses!!” said Eliza.

The pure white knight wielding a giant lance in both hands was the perfect honor student through and through.

Several automatons appeared around Miyabi, the sand crunching beneath their feet.

Miyabi’s eyes met those of one of the automatons.

He thought he might be able to strike back and break through their formation. He thought he might be able to destroy them by ordering an aerial bombing from the Lucifer Horn.

But he hesitated for just a moment.

In that moment, Eliza thrust her enormous lance in from the side, smashing the automaton’s head.

Inorganic parts scattered with a sound deeper than a plant pot breaking.

“Miyabi!! Don’t look at them like Number 8. These are mass-produced models without any high-level intelligence!!”

“Kh.”

His fear must have shown.

But more and more of the boxes were being broken from within and more magical automatons appeared, swinging their limbs wildly. They were targeting the panicked and fleeing islanders.

They only ever fought as ordered.

There was nothing they wished to protect and nothing they detested. Those empty ball-jointed dolls simply carried out their orders one after another.

Miyabi squeezed his eyes shut.

Then he raised his control sword for the sake of the living people here.

“Sorry!!”

He heard a dull impact and the dry crack of something breaking.

He felt the splitting destruction of something inhuman.

He clenched his teeth and felt like vomiting…and he hated that he was able to suppress it.

“That said, the automatons are appearing from multiple locations simultaneously,” said Helen. “The ordinary houses here have no walls, preventing the people from locking themselves in. If we don’t prepare a better location before beginning the battle, we’ll have a hard time protecting all of the islanders!”

“I’m aware of that!!”

Miyabi raised the hand not holding the control sword.

He had a power that sat opposite of destruction.

“Contract Owner: Under Lilith, grant me the power to move the Palette Dice!!”

Something rose from the sandy ground in response. It was an iron hemisphere larger than a tent and made from gathered iron sand. That shelter could protect against the automaton’s blade-hard fingers.

“Get in!!”

He gestured toward a cowering youth and raised his control sword again to buy time. Dodging was not an option, so he had to clash directly with the automaton arms.

His bones strained and pain spread across his palms.

He was receiving the special power of a Godhorn Tech, but he was not actually trained in swordplay. The fragility of his fundamentals was all too clear in a direct battle like this.

But he still clenched his teeth, endured, and pushed back.

“Hurry inside!! You’ll be safe in there!!”

The paralysis finally wore off and the brown-skinned youth took a small child’s hand and rushed inside the metal shelter.

The automaton clashing with Miyabi was destroyed by a giant lance.

Eliza spoke to the boy while they stood back to back.

“Do you know why they were suddenly able to move just now, Miyabi?”

“?”

“Because the people accepted that your sword is a tool to protect them, not a weapon to threaten their lives. So they no longer need to fear it. Now they can rely on it. …Remember this, Miyabi, because this is the joy of being a protector knight. If you never forget this accomplishment, you can always grow stronger!!”

One of those iron shelters was not enough.

They could use as many of them as they could get.

Of course, those makeshift shelters were meaningless if the sorcery bomb detonated. The entire island kingdom could be wiped off the map or sink into the ocean.

So he would not let that happen.

He had put the islanders at ease. He had earned their trust. So now he had to hold up his end of the bargain. He had to locate the sorcery bomb and keep it from detonating. This was his own battle now.

“Ohhh!!”

He would not let it end prematurely.

He clenched his teeth, challenged a new automaton, and asked about something he had noticed.

“These are imperial, right? But they don’t seem as persistent or unpredictable as Number 8.”

“Eliza said these are the mass-produced models, remember?” said Celina. “Their internal parts are mutually compatible, but they are much simpler than the eight primary models that answered directly to the emperor and guarded the Empire from eight directions.”

That meant there were a lot of them, but they brought nothing new to the table.

If they were inferior to Number 8, a tactic that worked against him would work here.

The magical automatons alone would not be enough to destroy the island, which was why Onelife had focused on the sorcery bomb and sent the automatons to buy time as insurance. The automatons were slow and not all that durable, so they were easily damaged with Eliza’s lance and Celina’s gun.

After they had destroyed around half of the boxes, the ground shook and an explosive blast reached their ears.

But it was nowhere near them.

“Whoa!? Wh-what!?”

Miyabi’s jumpiness must have been contagious because Helen clung to the younger boy without thinking. She was certainly soft in places, but he was mostly afraid of the thick knife she was holding and being none too careful with.

“Eek!? Did it detonate!?”

“No, that was too far away. And I recognize this…”

Eliza and Celina joined the conversation because they too had operated one of those strongest weapons.

“That sounds like Godhorn Techs fighting,” said Celina. “But whose are they!?”

“Whatever the answer, there won’t be much left of this island if we don’t deal with the sorcery bomb. We can deal with that later. We need to address with the more immediate problem first!”

With a goal in mind, Miyabi used the resonance alarm ringing in his mind to search out the sorcery bomb.

His sixth sense finally gathered on a single point.

“It’s in that box!!”

He raised his control sword, stabbed it into the box, and smashed up the contents.

Until the sound in his head completely vanished.

The 11th was an artist, just like a top-rate pâtissier who could create sweets indistinguishable from an actual shoe or jewel. The sorcery bomb could replace anything and it was apparently powerful enough to wipe out an entire castle and its castle town once it detonated.

But on the other hand, the detonation method was so complex that it would not trigger when attacked. Finding it was the hard part because it would be smashed by brute force once it was located. Moebius had taught him that, so Miyabi felt no fear.

“Pant, pant.”

“I-is it gone? Is it safe now!?”

The box had been destroyed. Alicia repeatedly asked for confirmation while holding swimsuit Alma tight. Only Miyabi could tell the reading was gone, so of course she was worried.

“Damn that pirate. I bet he was originally going to bring the boxes himself, but he saw an opportunity to have us bring those ‘gifts’ for him!”

They heard footsteps on the forest sand.

Kananka Fulpen was walking their way. The giant weapon in his hand was a bent…what even was it? It may have been his Godhorn Tech’s control device. But his balance was off and he was clearly favoring one leg.

The young king did not let the pain show in his voice.

“Yes, I had a feeling this would happen.”

“King Kananka, you’re hurt!” shouted Helen.

The king himself did not seem bothered.

“I only have my own naivete to blame. The possibility of a trap occurred to me, but I still opted not to sink you and your entire ship.”

He wobbled to the side.

Miyabi rushed over to support him and the younger boy slipped down to the sandy beach.

Eliza looked unwell as she watched.

“W-we need to treat him. If the king collapses here, the panicked and anxious people’s emotions will explode!”

“Gh…don’t worry about me. I simply had some trouble calming the raging spirits. I was caught in the anger erupting from the control wing.”

“The spirits” appeared to be a general term for any unseen powers, but those powers came in many forms. Miyabi’s party was unsure how this one translated into their own words.

Kananka smiled bitterly and waved his giant weapon made of stone polished so bright it shined like a gemstone.

That had to be his Godhorn Tech control device. If that had done it, he must not have been injured in an attack by the automatons. Could damage to the Godhorn Tech itself reach the wielder through the control device? Miyabi had not used his enough to know.

Kananka had called it a control wing, but what was that weapon called? Miyabi was curious, but he could not quite find an answer. It didn’t seem to be a bent sword or club.

“What is that thing? Could it be an axe!?”

“Miyabi, why are your eyes sparkling? Also, that is not an axe.” World-traveler Celina’s eyes widened. “How unusual. Not everyday you see a boomerang.”

“Oh? You’re familiar with them?”

“There is not a product my Bodenburg Company doesn’t sell☆” She winked with a hand on her chest. “But the ones created by the continent’s craftsmen do not actually return to the thrower. They are such a strange device.”

“They are, but why does Miyabi look so disappointed?”

“Oh, this forest-obsessed boy just loves axes,” explained Helen, rubbing her temples.

According to Kananka, his control device had attacked him after his Godhorn Tech went berserk in some way.

The question was what had caused it to go berserk. But…

“You hurt your ankle, didn’t you?” said Alicia. “Miyabi! Go find something to cool it with!!”

According to the villagers who nervously peeked out from their shelters, the blessings of the ocean always took priority on the island. He ended up bringing back several types of seaweed they had in stock. They must have been similar to mint because his fingertips felt a cool sensation as he massaged in freshwater to rehydrate them.

“Will this work?”

“Wrap it around his ankle.”

“The pirate wants to create a diversion and confusion,” said Kananka, seated with his small leg extended. “My Mother Shark is unbeatable in the ocean, so he intentionally caused chaos on land to create problems for the island’s protector. Even the sorcery bomb was a diversion.”

“You mean…?”

Miyabi was cut off by an especially loud explosion.

It was a scary thought, but if true, it meant Kananka could not run away.

“My Mother Shark was defeated while patrolling the ocean. Because I was distracted.”

“It was defeated so easily?” groaned Knight Eliza, but King Kananka was unshaken. He was the kind of leader who accepted his failures and used them to do better in the future.

“There is no denying it.”

“Hm, we should probably fix his ankle in place,” said Alicia

“What about with taping? Are there any vines around here?” asked the radio.

Miyabi entered the forest full of unfamiliar plants, but he was fortunate to find plenty of vines.

“Here you go. Let’s get his ankle fixed up.”

“Yes. It might hurt some when we bind it, but bear with it, new king,” said Eliza.

Kananka did not even wait for them to finish their treatment before continuing the conversation.

“More importantly, the Mother Shark is no longer defending the island. You might be able to mess with one if you’re clever enough, but it takes another Godhorn Tech to actually destroy one. I hate needing to leave the fate of my kingdom in the hands of guests, but what choice do I have?”

Miyabi thought for a bit.

“Onelife supposedly broke off a Wicked God horn and built it into his pirate ship.”

“Th-that has to be an embellishment!”

Rejecting something because it was hard to believe only narrowed your viewpoint.

Celina’s protest was mostly just wishful thinking.

“We’ll know soon enough I suppose,” bluntly concluded Alicia. “The explosion came from the beach. That damn muscle man has brought his whole Godhorn Tech onto the island!”



The battlefield was on the ocean this time.

Miyabi’s party rushed through the forest to reach the beach, hearing enormous artillery shells crashing down all the while. They were hitting much too close for comfort, so Miyabi diverted their aim with Decoy Walls while they ran across the sand.

The tropical forest opened up all of a sudden.

The two Godhorn Techs were all jumbled together.

The sharp ram on the bow of the King Knot pirate ship had pierced the side of the Mother Shark submarine, forming a giant letter T in the waves crashing down on the beach. The 50m ship and the 60m sub created a single massive work of art.

The giant sailing ship had emerged victorious.

The many sails caught the wind to spread out grandly, large cannons lined either side of the ship, and the brutal ram made from the Wicked God horn itself rose up from the bow. This was another ruler of the sea, built with a wholly different design philosophy from Kananka’s. The lord of the deep had been pierced through, pushed up onto the beach, and laid out on the chopping block. Insolent was not enough to describe this pirate.

A strange tingling pain covered Miyabi’s cheeks as he approached.

This was an act of evil, yet it appeared majestic and powerful.

Even the radio could scarcely believe it.

“It really dragged that thing onto the beach. I thought the Mother Shark was supposed to be unbeatable in the ocean!”

“You have to do whatever you can, Miyabi,” said Helen.

Nothing remained to protect the island.

Miyabi stepped forward, control sword in hand, as if to break free of the fear binding him. He finally set foot on the beach. The pirate ship was still functioning. If he didn’t stop it, it would destroy this small island in no time.

A dull rumble shook the air as the cannons on either side of the ship began to move.

A chill ran down Miyabi’s spine.

“Here it comes. Stay away from the Decoy Walls and dodge!!!!!”

A flash of light.

A deafening boom.

The King Knot kept the appearance of a ruler even as it abandoned its mobility by sailing up onto land. It could not be destroyed by any normal means and anyone who so much as approached would be obliterated by a storm of shells.

Miyabi and Celina discussed it after he created a thick wall of sand…which was really camouflage for the makeshift trench he gouged across the beach and rolled inside to hide.

“Fire, water, wind, and earth. Is there anything it can’t do?”

“This is not alchemy. I-it might be using talismans or amulets.”

“Talis-what? Amul-huh?”

“The difference is whether or not they activate automatically. T-think of them as a type of magic charm. They say sailors can tell directions by looking to the stars, so I imagine he’s developed a way of extracting that constellation power and sealing it in a charm. Gh.”

Celina’s logical analysis may have been her way of conquering the fear.

But it wasn’t enough.

This thing’s power was real. Revealing how it worked did not cause that power to wither away.

The rich girl’s slender shoulders trembled. The more she learned about it, the worse it got and she appeared to have hit her limit. She was half in tears as she clung to Miyabi.

He had never before seen the moment logic was overwhelmed by emotion.

“Wh-wh-wh-what can we even do against that kind of firepower!? Th-th-th-this is so stupid! We can’t survive that pirate’s nonsense!”

“I can control the sand, so maybe I can make the ground collapse below it. If I dig into the sand enough, it might fall on its side.”

“Th-that isn’t enough. I doubt it would explode just from falling on its side. Isn’t there some better…more foolproof and perfect plan for- yikes!?”

Just then…

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

A valiant roar erupted nearby.

The strait-laced person was strait-lacedly charging toward the headwind of shells with lance at the ready. And not even in the trench. She was on the flat beach with nothing to use as a shield.

“Th-th-that…strait-laced moron!!!”

Celina’s eyes bugged out, but none of them had expected what happened next.

Eliza made a chance discovery.

“Oh? The cannons cannot target me when I am this close to the ship.”

The cannons were lined up near the deck, so they could not aim down far enough to hit Eliza directly below them.

“Goooo!!” shouted Alicia. “Destroy the cannons while we can!!”

That was no easy feat.

This was a Godhorn Tech, after all. The fear did not go away just because it was motionless on the beach and could not directly fire on you from that close.

Another explosion erupted from the beach.

It was not a direct hit, but the blast still knocked Alicia over onto the sand. The noise of the cannon firing was enough to make you dizzy. Celina was an expert with guns and gunpowder, so she explained that artillery could do direct damage with the shell and indirect damage by wearing down the target’s morale from all the noise and shaking it produced even when it missed. Helen grimaced at exactly that pain and ran over to collect the dizzy elf.

“Damn, that thing’s tough!!” said Celina.

“But it can’t keep this up forever,” said Miyabi. “We’re wearing it down little by little.”

The thick control sword gave a roar and the cannons were destroyed one after another.

They had found a weakness and slipped into a blind spot, but they were still scared. Even in these relatively favorable conditions, there was always a possibility that the ship would crush them all with some kind of brute force attack. What if the recoil of the cannons caused the ship to lift from the ground and crush them? The Godhorn Tech gave off that sort of mythical aura. Enough to make Miyabi worry unnecessarily and nearly come to a stop.

“Contract Owner: Under Lilith, grant me the power to move the Palette Dice!!”

He plugged a cannon’s muzzle with sand, causing it to blow itself up.

His control sword smashed the last of the cannons.

And just as he neutralized all of the pirate ship’s weapons…

“Okayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!”

Someone yelled even louder than the explosions.

The scent of sweat joined the salty aroma of the ocean.

Miyabi looked up to see a man with a prosthetic arm standing on the pirate ship’s deck. He wore a distinctive hat, a gold metal plate in his empty eye socket, and a coat. It was undoubtedly Onelife Shiftup.

“There you are, pirate!!”

“Since you were using the magical automatons and a sorcery bomb, I take it you’re the 11th?”

Onelife responded to Miyabi’s question by jumping down from the ship.

He landed with a boom and a cloud of white sand burst into the air. The bright sunlight glinted off his imperial prosthetic arm and his abnormally large cutlass.

“All those inconvenient facts slipped my mind!” he roared.

“Then I’ll just have to remind you. Control sword – tactical open!!”



A clash had finally developed between the two Godhorn Tech users.

The King Knot was grounded and all of its cannons had been destroyed. The ram on the front was its most powerful weapon, but even that was useless when the ship could not move. But that was no reason to relax. The control device was a powerful weapon in and of itself. Celina and Eliza were still useful in a fight even after losing their Godhorn Techs, so they needed to be prepared for a special attack that combined an ordinary weapon with magic.

Or so Miyabi thought.

And he was not entirely wrong.

But…

“Ugh!?”

After the heavy clang, he was the one who bent backwards along with his control sword. This was more than a clash between swords. It was like a bizarre execution method where he was ordered to hold back a tackle from a rhino or elephant using only a thin metal panel. He could easily die if he did not catch the force in a way that kept his bones from bending and breaking.

Onelife’s sword technique was far from refined.

But he made up for it with such great power that he took complete control of the battle. Weight and weapon meant nothing. Clever tricks were meaningless. When he took a step, the beach exploded and a great mass of air roared out. He was a raging storm of violence that tore through the puny world around him. Miyabi did not choose any of his moves. If he did not react to each of Onelife’s attacks first and foremost, it would all fall apart. He could tell on an instinctual level.

“Bwa ha ha ha!! Pathetic!! Simply pathetic!! You should’ve trained yourself until your steel was a storm and your blade the crashing waves. If you hope to break my control blade and kill the sailor, you’ll need an attack capable of shattering an oceangoing vessel! Clench your fist then and you might just reach me!!!!!!”

This made no sense.

Something was missing here. Plus…

“How is this real? Why is he stronger without his Godhorn Tech!?”

Eliza’s eyes widened, control lance in hand.

Miyabi’s party had him outnumbered, but they could not keep up with him. In fact, he pushed them back and threatened to break their flesh and bones if they let up for even a moment. Like an invisible hand was squeezing at their spines.

“The King Knot is only a trophy celebrating my life.”

The prosthetic arm pirate laughed.

He laughed and easily raised his massive blade.

“A real man does his own fighting!!!!!!”

That meant he was not even using the control device to boost his own magic.

He really and truly was only using his own muscles and the prosthetic arm, yet he could battle Godhorn Techs and had broken off a real Wicked God’s horn. He only saw the cutlass as a stick so sturdy he didn’t have to worry about breaking it.

“I-I don’t understand. What do we do about a musclebound freak like this!?”

Celina decided it would be silly to face someone like him in a close-range battle, so she kept her distance and focused on firing her gun.

Guns promised the same destructive power to anyone who used them, but that also meant not even the greatest expert in the world could increase their power. Celina applied magic to her bullets – primarily alchemy related to lead – but she must have been reaching the limits of what that could accomplish. She clicked her tongue while quickly pushing in more powder and another bullet with the long, skinny rod.

The pirate had a pistol at his hip, but he made no attempt to draw it. He may have only used it to send signals with the light and sound. He knocked all the projectiles from the air with his thick cutlass, but he was gradually forced onto the defensive. Of course, he was enough of a monster to be fighting a long-term battle while fully exposed to the threat of magical bullets.

They outnumbered him but could not manage to surround him.

[[Image:Godhorn_Tech_v02_bw19.png|thumb]]

Miyabi clenched his teeth and stabbed his control sword into the beach.

“Shoot him, Lucifer Horn!!!!!!”

The bomber cut by overhead, dropping a beam of light as it went.

The thick beam tore across the beach, approaching Onelife to envelop his enormous body.

But…

“Hnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!!”

With a boom, the light scattered like ocean spray.

The pirate’s enormous cutlass was held skyward. He had sliced through the Lucifer Horn’s beam, scorching the sand around him.

The beam had not been any weaker than usual.

It had been hot enough to melt the sand into glass. And yet…

“Worthless!! No soul in it at all. If you want to kill me, come at me with love in your blade. Yes, love – a form of admiration. A surprise confession’s enough to scare even me!! I’d be bedridden for a week, you landlubberrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!”

“I-is this idiot impervious to blades and bullets both? Not even Miyabi’s bombing worked! Do his muscles break the laws of physics or something!?”

Helen could handle everything from housework to assassinations, but she was out of breath, her shoulders rising and falling. She was not used to the tropical heat or the sand catching at her feet, so it all sapped at her stamina. At this rate, Miyabi’s party would be worn down first and then a fatal attack could reach them once their movements slowed.

“No, we might still have a chance,” said Celina, rudely wiping the sweat dripping down her chin.

“What a coincidence. I was thinking the same thing,” said Eliza.

“Care to share with the rest of us!?” shouted Miyabi.

“We took out the King Knot’s cannons, but the Wicked God horn remains.”

“Destroy the sealed container to release the horn within, and not even that musclebound freak can ignore it,” explained Celina.

Miyabi finally got it.

“So you’re saying I just have to keep attacking the ship, right!?”

He changed targets.

“Use this, strait-laced girl!”

Alicia tossed a delicate glass container.

The skinny test tube soared into Eliza’s outstretched hand and she gave the colorful liquid within a puzzled glance, so the elf alchemist grinned.

“That’s the secret alchemy potion I use to boost my physical strength. It’s pure magic, so not even caffeine can compete. You won’t be getting a wink of sleep tonight!!”

Not even that would be enough to reach Onelife’s level, but Eliza and her enormous lance was their heaviest hitter. Once the alchemical boost was added to her innate horsepower, they sent her to the ship while Miyabi and Celina faced Onelife.

“Buying time?”

The man took a thundering footstep.

That was all it took to drain all color from their surroundings. The world was deprived of freedom and pressure bore down on them from all directions. An unseen wall pressed in on Miyabi’s party.

“Against me? How? Have you forgotten I slayed a real Wicked God and broke off its horn with just my own two arms?”

But.

Onelife was not the only confident one.

“Oh? Miyabi, this idiot seems to be mistaken about some things.”

“Yeah, we aren’t here to sacrifice ourselves and buy some time.”

Onelife narrowed his one eye questioningly, but it was already too late.

They had achieved their goal.

“We were using your confidence against you to lure you to this very spot.”

A thunderous sound rang out.

Alicia and Helen had rushed in, the former swinging her staff in from the side and the latter holding her thick dagger.

The real threat there was Helen Clockgear whose assassin skills included applying magic or potions to her blade to provide special effects.

Not even an embodiment of thick muscles could ignore a paralysis potion.

“Gh…”

Even then, it only lasted a moment.

The mass of muscles stagged backwards and bumped into his own ship.

No.

He staggered back against the hole in the hull that Eliza had created, bumping against the thick outer shell of the sealed container that kept the Wicked God horn stable.

“Celina!!”

The girl fired a bullet through the crack in the armor to stimulate what lay within. She did not hesitate to pull the trigger because she knew hitting the man would not kill him. Plus, she was not aiming at the pirate. A flash of bluish-white lightning scattered from within the ship.

A hint of panic appeared on Onelife’s face.

“Nhh!?”

“Hey, Onelife. Why didn’t you just come with us?” Miyabi glared at Onelife and held his control sword at the ready so the man’s great strength could not reach Alicia, Celina, or the others. “I doubt we were originally part of your plan, but our presence shouldn’t have kept you from taking that cargo ship. If you had visited the island as part of our group, you should have had an even easier time setting up a trap close to Kananka.”

“…”

“The people at the port adore you and the butler called Rudolf said you didn’t harm any of the crew when you attacked the trade ships. You put your crew first and you don’t harm people doing honest work, right!? I thought you didn’t like earning people’s trust through deception!”

“All those inconvenient facts slipped my-”

“Like hell they have! ''Where is your crew''!? That pirate ship only has a captain!!”

“!?”

Yes.

This had been bothering Miyabi.

Onelife was so adored at the criminal city, yet Miyabi had not seen any of his actual crewmembers. Some youths had so looked up to the man that they had attacked Miyabi’s party with something called electricity to protect him. If he had been recruiting, he would have had a flood of hopeful crewmembers.

No.

It made no sense for him to lack a crew. But then where had they gone?

“A nonsensical mission, a missing crew, and the shadow of the 11th… Yeah, I think I get it now. This is just like with Number 8. I already know the real 11th is willing to trample on people’s feelings and ''make use of'' whatever someone cares about most to get their way. So you’re telling me everything!! What is it you’re dealing with here!?”

Miyabi was done attacking bad people for being bad. With Moebius Entrance and Number 8, he had learned that everyone had their own reasons or circumstances driving whatever they did.

So.

So surely the same applied to Onelife Shiftup.

Control sword clashed with prosthetic hand.

Miyabi was the one pushed back, but then Eliza’s lance joined in. Alicia’s staff and Helen’s thick knife also cut in as soon as one of them was pushed back. They refused to let an opening develop. Celina fired her rifle to scatter the sand at Onelife’s feet, knocking him off balance.

“Contract Owner: Under Lilith, grant me the power to move the Palette Dice!!”

“Nhhh!?”

Miyabi created a large box of sand and simply chucked it at his adversary.

The pirate easily smashed it, but that scattered fine sand everywhere. It got into the joints of his complex prosthetic arm, causing it to groan.

It malfunctioned.

“Onelife!!”

Miyabi leaned in with his entire body weight.

He pushed forward on his control sword, forcing back Onelife and his metal arm.

He pushed him against the hull of the pirate ship, through the broken armor, and toward the sealed container, where sparks were flying.

The sinister serpent of sparks seized his spine.

Not even his extreme muscles could protect him from a direct attack with the horn’s power.

“Gwohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

“Out with it already!! Tell me what led you to do all this!!”

“Miyabi!! Any further and you’ll be caught too!!”

Helen shouted a frantic warning, but the boy did not even look back. He did not take his eyes off of the powerful pirate for even a second.

Even now, Onelife remained a formidable opponent.

He forced his locked-up prosthetic arm to move, pushing his cutlass against Miyabi’s control sword.

With a dull clang, the grip slipped from the boy’s hand. The sword spun through the air and stabbed into the sand a short distance away.

Ordinarily, he might have let his party members take over while he retrieved his sword.

But he moved forward instead.

Because the pirate had thrown aside his enormous cutlass.

That just left clenching their fists.

“Onelife!!!!!!”

“Nwahh!!”

They both threw their punches.

In a pure exchange of fists, Miyabi would have had no way of defeating Onelife. This was the legendary pirate who had singlehandedly slain a Wicked God and broken off its horn. What could a boy who had rarely ever gotten into fights back in his home village do against that?

Miyabi’s punch was terribly light and no match for Onelife’s.

Miyabi’s body was terribly small and no match for Onelife’s.

Miyabi’s speed was terribly slow and no match for Onelife’s.

But.

“Owwaaahhhh!!!!!!”

The roar of agony came from Onelife.

Then his biological fist tore through the air.

Miyabi dodged it so barely a few strands of red hair scattered in the wind while he sent in his own fist!

Yes.

He could not let himself fear because he was more fragile than Onelife Shiftup.

He could not let himself worry because he was smaller than Onelife Shiftup.

He could not let himself give up because he was weaker than Onelife Shiftup.

After all, all of those things pointed to another fact.

''Miyabi had something that Onelife did not!!

“How!? How can you possibly keep up with me in a pure fistfight!?”

He still hadn’t been hit.

He still wasn’t dead.

Onelife was of course surprised by this. Because the boy was showing off some things that the legendary pirate could never hope to have.

He felt fear, so he carefully calculated out the best distance to attack from. His attacks were too light, so he searched for the best way of putting his weight behind them. The haves and the have-nots all had their own way of finding victory under any condition. Miyabi could not pull off the feats Onelife had demonstrated, but Onelife could not struggle as hard as Miyabi. People were not overwhelmingly powerful because they were superior and people were not obsessively persistent because they were inferior. Rock, paper, and scissors were all equal. This was no more than a person named Miyabi clashing with a person named Onelife. All of the preconceptions and added values were unnecessary.

A deafening crack shook the air.

It did not come from Miyabi’s fist.

Onelife’s metal fist had caught the boy’s cheekbone.

“Is…that…”

But there was no victorious grin on Onelife’s face.

He had landed the punch, but he was the one who looked struck.

Even after feeling the heavy blow to his cheekbone, the light in Miyabi Blackgarden’s eyes did not waver.

“Is that all you’ve got, pirate!?”

“Kh.”

This was the legendary pirate. The great man everyone admired.

Was his legend really this shallow?

The boy who should have been knocked out with the very first punch threw his other hand toward Onelife’s face.

It landed.

He was a child who didn’t know the first thing about martial arts, but Onelife’s pillar was definitely shaken.

“You’re the 11th? Defeat you and all our problems are in the past? You really expect me to believe that!!!???”

He shouted.

He roared.

Nothing he said could actually negate the damage done to his body. That one clean hit had dyed the right half of his vision an unnatural red.

But he kept going regardless.

Because there was no other way to reach this man.

“Everyone looked up to you as a pirate, so what would you gain by tricking Number 8 into setting up those sorcery bombs!? None of it fits, so no one would be satisfied with an answer like that!! You said it yourself. You did. You said a real man does his own fighting. So you’d never choose to hide a bomb no one can find and then flee to safety while the city is blown to hell!!!!!!”

More dull impacts rang out.

There was no room for Helen’s assassin techniques or Eliza’s expert warfighting skills.

It was 1-on-1.

For this moment only, the fate of the continent and the Wicked God horns didn’t even matter.

It was simply a battle between men.

“Show me.”

He was beaten and battered.

It was a hellish scene where the boy seemed to be further crushed the more he kept fighting.

Yet he did not fall back.

It was absurd, but it was puny Miyabi who pushed forward, still shouting and showing off his bloodstained teeth.

“Show me the real Onelife Shiftup, the pirate everyone looks up to!! Is the legendary pirate really someone who bites his tongue, clenches his teeth, and does some job someone forced onto him? Is that the true form of Onelife Shiftup who naturally gathers a crowd when he walks down the street, creating an impromptu parade!? Of course not. So please, I’m begging you! Look me in the eye and tell me to my face that isn’t who you are!!!”

He kept pushing.

Fist hit fist and he felt something inside him bending, but he ignored the pain and roared at close range.

A crew had gathered around this man, attracted to his way of life.

Others had unofficially worked, and even committed crimes, to protect the pirate.

Could he really be the cowardly 11th? Was that really how this journey ended? Could Miyabi shove all blame onto him, refused to listen to his side of the story, strike him down as the bad guy, and then return to first village to live happily ever after?

Why did that feel so wrong?

It had to be wrong.

Miyabi Blackgarden had to believe in this. If he could not prove that Onelife was the kind of pirate he was known to be, he would be stomping on all those people’s feelings! And if Miyabi let himself be defeated here, that was exactly what would happen!!

He had to believe.

He had to continue believing and find the true answer. He clenched his teeth to do exactly that.

Just once more. Just once.

As battered as he was, he could still clench his fist one last time!!

“Owaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!”

“Owaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!”

Two fists flew in, compressing the air between them.

A dull sound erupted.

Silence fell.

The one left with a grin on his face was Onelife. Their fists had collided head on. Miyabi’s fist had embedded itself in the pirate’s prosthetic, but it had been flattened in that shape. Almost like a clump of clay thrown against a thick fortress wall.

Onelife had caught Miyabi’s fist on his thick, heavy prosthetic and mercilessly broken it. This was not about technique. There was no trick to avoiding it.

Miyabi had lost in the field of pure solid toughness.

“It’s over, boy. You can’t defeat me.”

“As an outlaw pirate, you must know a thing or two about guns and cannons, right? So it’s funny you overlooked this.”

But.

Something strange happened. The boy with the crushed fist had a cruel smile on his face.

Because…

“You don’t want a bullet that’s just hard and nothing else. Softer lead ''allows it to be crushed and transfer all of its force to its target.''”

Miyabi did not have a gun. Everything he knew about them came from Celina.

But that was no reason to fear every little thing.

He would use even the smallest and most trivial facts to take another step toward victory!!

After a short delay, a powerful force passed through the pirate’s prosthetic arm and entered his body through the shoulder.

Onelife teetered backwards and finally staggered back. His back plunged toward the damaged sealed container revealed through the ship’s broken hull. His great form was swallowed up by bursting sparks.

“You had no reason to attack Kananka and this island,” roared Miyabi, his crushed and badly bleeding fist still held out in front.

His eyes were directed dead ahead.

This was not over yet.

He could not call it a win until he saved this man. It was that conviction that kept him from collapsing no matter what happened.

“And the most unnatural element in all this is the 11th. What did they say to you!? What did they use to make you do this!?”

“What does it matter to you?”

“''Because I’ll do something about it.''”

He didn’t even need to think about it.

“So spill the beans and pass the baton to me!! I’ll fix it all for you!!!!!!”

Onelife’s giant body was shaking.

Miyabi’s attack had been powerful enough to crush his own fist, but it was unclear if it had actually affected the man.

But each of the boy’s attacks had pushed Onelife’s back against the Wicked God horn and all of its energy unleashed by the broken sealed container.

Each attack had exposed him to a shock so powerful an ordinary human – and even a powerful Beast Nova – could not have survived.

He had been knocked back, but it was only when something else inside him broke that he slowly opened his mouth.

“…”

The boy was reckless and foolish, but Onelife was defeated by the look in his eyes. As if to say that had wounded him far more than the fistfight or the sparks coming from the horn.

“Parasites…”

“?”

“My entire crew was infected…and the 11th is the only one who can heal them.”

“That’s more like it.”

That was a starting point.

Onelife had had no choice but to obey. He had clenched his teeth and done things that violated his principles, but he had been fighting all alone the entire time.

He was not the 11th. There was someone else pulling the strings.

Knowing that was enough. Those words brought new life to the boy’s half-broken soul. He had nearly sacrificed his own life for it, but now he was glad he had chosen this path.

This was enough fighting.

There was just one thing he had to say now. He owed it to this man for working up the courage to reveal the truth to him.

“Leave the rest to us. We’ll clean up this mess!!”

In that final moment, the one-eyed pirate smiled.

It was small, but nothing like the other smiles he had given.

“Boy!”

Someone tossed something to Miyabi from the side.

His battered hand caught the control sword that Alicia had thrown and he stabbed the tip into the beach. A large magic circle opened at his feet and he roared a command.



Everything was dyed white.

The King Knot pirate ship and the Mother Shark submarine were both blown to bits in two brilliant explosions when the Lucifer Horn’s beam hit them.



“D-do you think maybe you overdid it?” nervously asked Alicia.

“No, that blast only has him sleeping comfortably. Just all sprawled out there,” replied the exasperated radio.

The pirate was convulsing on the beach and looked unlikely to wake back up anytime soon.

Alicia finally turned back toward the redhead boy who had nearly been caught in the blast but was still sent rolling across the sand.

“Okay, boy, enough smiling and pretending you’re fine. Show me that hand you’re hiding behind your back! God, you really smashed that up good, and I don’t even know if I can make my usual White Sorcery Items with the different vegetation and ecosystem on this island!!”

“Miyabi, this might sound like a lecture from an old hag with stick up her butt, but this is actually a reward. You need to use the ears of your soul to translate this before her usual rebellious phase returns: ‘Oh, why must you always come home covered in mud? You are just hopeless, you know that?’ This world has no more need for towels! So before starting on dinner, fill your heart with her love and compassion and then join her in the bubble baaaaaaath!!”

The radio’s noisy nonsense got it stepped on by the complaining elf while she wrapped a special bandage around the boy’s broken fist. Helen approached, imbued her thick knife with magic, and transferred a purple light to him. But not because he was beyond saving and she wanted to put him out of his misery. She was actually applying some light paralysis magic to help him with the pain.

Eliza glanced over at them and rubbed her temples.

The chosen knight was looking down at the unconscious pirate.

“If only this man could have found a master he could serve. We need to ask him some questions, so how about we dump some water on him?”

Finding a metal bucket in this remote island kingdom would have been difficult, but they did find two empty halves of a coconut lying on the beach. Someone must have already removed the contents. Miyabi’s hand felt weird as it rapidly healed, but he used it to scoop up seawater in the coconut and approached Onelife. He had taken a lot of damage too, but Miyabi mercilessly dumped the water on the collapsed pirate’s face.

“Ugh…”

That was precisely when Kananka came to check on them, still favoring one leg.

“Hm, so is it over?”

“Kananka.”

“Relax, Miyabi. My kingdom has its own standards of propriety. We are not in the habit of beating someone who has already been punished and had a change of heart.”

Kanaka smiled a little. He may have been exasperated to see Miyabi trying to protect someone who had been his enemy just a moment before. But Kananka was little different since the pirate had also tried to destroy his kingdom.

“Our way is to welcome any who reach our shores as guests, remember?”

“…”

Onelife opened his eyes.

Young Kananka nodded and continued.

“I would like to know who our true enemy is. If you do not tell me that, I cannot punish this 11th person.”

“I don’t know when it happened.” The pirate remained on the ground, but the look on his face said this story was even more painful than his wounds. “But my beloved crew started collapsing one after another. I sought out academics, white sorcerers, and experts from the underground before finally learning it was caused by some parasites they had never seen before. But the back alley doctors available to criminals like us couldn’t do anything about it.”

Miyabi could use ordinary doctors and shops, so that was difficult for him to understand.

But someone had definitely suffered because of it.

“Only she could do it.”

“She?”

“She shamelessly called herself an expert.” Onelife gave a self-deprecating smile. “She said the target would show itself if I kept stealing imperial automatons. And if I dealt with that target in a specific way, she would remove the parasites from my crew… It’s silly really. I mean, she was obviously the one who gave them the parasites in the first place.”

“And who is this ‘she’!?”

“I don’t think anyone knows her real name.”

But that did not mean Onelife Shiftup had nothing to say.

“The Necromancer.”

That was her de facto name.

“She owns a Godhorn Tech and she uses forbidden necromancy.”