“Good Morning, Captain. You’re up early.”(Aisha)
“Yosh~”(Yuusuke)
It was just before dawn when Aisha awoke to the darkness, Yuusuke was standing on the road in front of the inn while gazing at the lake. Near the pier, one could see the lights waving from the boats that went out to the lake to fish in the early morning.
“I was thinking about this yesterday, there seem to be only small boats around.”(Yuusuke)
“Yes, because the moon mirror lake is known as a sacred lake, they didn’t want to have too many huge ships moving around on the lake.”(Aisha)
“If it’s like that, I feel that it’s just superstition.”(Yuusuke)
According to the legends, if one were to put a big ship in the moon mirror lake, it is said that the boat will be dragged to the bottom by the master of the lake. Thus following the traditions, they had been rowing their boats even til today.
In the legends, “located at the bottom of the lake was an ancient sunken city. Within it lies an enormous sleeping treasure trove, and the master of the lake is said to be protecting the place, preventing any large ship from trying to approach the treasure.”
“Hmm, are there any people who have went diving to investigate it?”
“I think there was? But the sunken city is yet to be found, as you don’t normally hear stories about what is going on at the bottom of the lake.”
For better or worse, the old convention is still protecting this port city until today, as Aisha commented on the state of the city. If there were big ships, we would be able to cross the lake with the carriage, but that is only for one’s own convenience, so it can’t be judged whether it’s good or bad.
“Well, if one were to consider the opportunity of trading with the 4 countries, it’ll be better if one could use a bigger ship.”
The sun slowly rose along the horizon, as Yuusuke spends his time chatting with Aisha.
After breakfast, the Darkness God Corps and the ambassador party began to make their final preparations to board the boat. With almost no luggage, Yuusuke and his gang headed towards the pier to check on the boat which they were suppose to board.
“Ng~?”(Yuusuke)
Yuusuke checked the state of the boat through the customization menu and began to groan suspiciously, he selected a certain portion of it and zoomed in.
“Captain, did something happened?”
Curious by why Yuusuke was clad in his divine skill aura while doing the usual ritual of his fingers wandering in the air, Vermeer called out to him. Every now and then, he could see Yuusuke’s finger move to a certain location and seemingly push onto something, as it happens light effects would dance on the boat.
“For some reason, there is some gimmick-like function that will cause the boat to sink in the middle of the voyage.”(Yuusuke)
“....gimmick?”
Vermeer’s face turned pale and he started looking around the area. As Yuusuke customized the other boat, he saw a clay like material which seals a hole that is located at the bottom of the boat, it’s description was that this clay will erode little by little as it is traveling along the water.
“That should do it.”(Yuusuke)
“Were those things prepared for us?”
“This boat had been prepared for us, so most probably yes.”
“What the, I wonder who it was that did that….”
While in a whispering tone, Yuusuke discussed the possibility that it could be the work of someone who might be obstructing the allying of Fonclanc and Nossentes. If one were to simply consider it, they would come to suspect Gazzetta, who is currently in a cold war with Nossentes, but ~~
“There is that suspicious armed group that we have been hearing about recently too.”
Even now, there is still the floating suspicion of whether Nossentes was the string puller behind the armed attacks that had happened in Fonclanc. It also can be considered that in order to prepare Nossentes for the future against Fonclanc, they might want to bury the threat which is known for the most feats of valor awarded and the strongest combatant group of Fonclanc, the Darkness God Corps.
“Perhaps, within this country of Nossentes, there are collaborators from the armed group?”
“Thinking about it, it’s highly possible, during the Blue Garden’s incident, Shinha could get in and out of the country pretty easily.”
The suspicion will never end if they start here, as there were too many possibilities, thus Yuusuke ended it with a shrug. Even Shinha’s conjecture of that armed group being from Nossentes had in fact not been proven.
Also it is known that Gazzetta did not want to kill off Yuusuke from the Darkness God Corps. It was Shinha and Shinha’s forces intention, although there are ones who goes against Shinha’s indifferent policies and principles. Shinha claimed that there were no fanatical groups within Gazzeta that would pull off such stupid deeds such as forming armed groups, but there was no basis to assume that it was true.
There isn’t enough information to determine this issue, Yuusuke concluded.
“We should at least report this to the HQ.”(Vermeer)
“True, inform Isotta to transmit it.”(Yuusuke)
As soon as the transmission about a sabotage happening during the mission was sent, the palace told them to carry on with the mission and immediately dispatched a soldier troupe to investigate the port city.
The boat carrying the Darkness God Corps was rowing towards the peninsula of Trent Rietta, with a figure looking into a telescope from a room in a budget hotel. According to that figure’s calculation, the hole in the boat should begin flooding with water in the middle of the trip between the port city and the peninsula.
“It seems that it’s impossible for me to check the result from here, I can’t see the boat from here, maybe it has already sank into the lake.”
“But, was it a wise idea? Didn’t the Divine parliament want to ensnare the Darkness God Corps’ Captain…?”
“Hmph….as if that’s possible, that out of date old man wanted to control such a monster. Well let’s just prepare a quick apology and it should be fine.”
“Wa,Har….”
「は、はぁ……」
While the squad was dispersed and lurking around the port city, the captain of the armed squad Volmes, who ignored his orders and acted arbitrarily without consultation, bewildered his subordinate as he walked towards the door.
“Where are you going leader?”
“Breakfast, there seem to be delicious fish dishes only available here in the port city.”
As he said that, Volmes, who is currently attached to the Nossentess special force as the captain of the special work group, left the room. It seems that the habit of his original “Fire troupe” subordinates calling him “leader” during the time when they were still in Blue Garden’s elite team had been brought along, as the subordinate panickedly followed behind him.
Of the two boats, the 3 ambassadors together with Yuusuke and Aisha were in one. While the rest of the members were taking the other boat to cross the lake. All of a sudden, Isotta felt a weird presence, she キョロ(((ﾟｰﾟ*)(*ﾟｰﾟ)))キョロ around the area, next she titled her head in confusion.
(TL note: Don’t ask me why but there is just an emoticon in the author’s work)
Nearby, on the surface of the water, the head of a huge fish appeared, but it seems that Isotta was looking out for something different as she shaked her head. “Was that my imagination?” she muttered to herself.
“Prepare to Disembark~”
Hearing Yuusuke shouting without any energy, the Darkness God Corps placed their luggage on their shoulder in preparation for landing. Thus, they have arrived in the peninsula of Trent Rietta just before lunch.
Since there wasn’t anything like a jetty or pier, the boats had to land directly onto the shore. It seemed like if one were to keep carrying their luggage, one would break their back, so in order to support his subordinates Yuusuke got off the boat empty handed and began to customize the ground near the water’s edge, making a temporary pier.
The boatmen’s eyes immediately opened up, making a bitter smile, as they rowed in towards the peninsula.
“Are we on schedule?”
“Yeah, up until now we are on schedule.”
After seeing off the boats which headed back to the port city, they began eating their lunch on the lake’s bank. After performing a wide-range scan of enemies, they set off towards the south. It seems that some magical beast presences were detected by the winds arts, and as it was a magical beast infected area, it wasn’t wise to use too much of a wide range search.
Even though it is said that they do not act in herds, there is the danger of attracting wandering magical monsters by using wide range search.
They headed south along the forest, they were around the middle of the peninsula as it began to turned dark, thus they decided to camp in that location.
“Wow, even after arriving here you aren’t really showing signs of fatigue, you are amazing captain…...captain? What’s wrong?”(Aisha)
“Nothing, it’s just that I have a bad feeling….”(Yuusuke)
From the landing site till here, everyone except Yuusuke were showing signs of fatigue on their face, with Aisha full of admiration towards Yuusuke. But, in actual fact it was due to the equipment which Yuusuke had that could recover his stamina. It’s not like he wasn’t tired.
As of now, the ability to enhance equipment is known to take time to create even one, thus Yuusuke won’t take the chances of creating it so easily in presence of the ambassadors. Yuusuke was reflecting on his lack of preparations, if only he had prepared some “Rings of strength/stamina.”
“Everyone take a good rest.”
Yuusuke began ordering the members to leave the campsite and start the preparations for the meal, next he opened his customization menu on the ground. As instructed by their captain, Aisha and Isotta stopped putting up the tent and went to prepare the food.
Vermeer and Shaheed headed and split up in the woods to forage for fruits, while Fonke who had been constantly using his movement assist wind arts, was lying flat in the pile of luggage.
As the Sun began to set, the 3 ambassadors wore a puzzled look, as the members of the Darkness God Corps have yet to set up a single tent.
“Ah, you guys….the preparations for the camp?”
“Should be fine, because captain said so.”
“Erm, no, but it’s…..”
The nights will be chilly, there might be quite a lot of insects bites. And it might even rain. These ambassadors have yet to try camping before, to sleep outside with just a cloth on the ground felt too harsh, thus they had requested for a tent but ~~
“It’s okay, look over there.”
In order to appease the ambassadors, Aisha pointed towards the Captain who was doing his own thing in a remote location.
Yuusuke was customizing the ground into hardened block materials like stone bricks, it took around 30mins for the whole process including the assembling of the bricks into a robust hut. After he performed a final check in the customization screen, he implemented it.
“Execute.”(Yuusuke)
“Look.”(Aisha)
“What the!”(Ambassador, I don’t know which one)
The hut was built with private rooms for everyone, with the appearance of such a building one could hardly call it a camp. The 3 Ambassadors marveled in surprize, as they just witnessed the rumored ultra high speed construction, the special god move of the Darkness God Captain.
Incidentally, since the ground was used as material, the surrounding area around the hut experienced a little depression. After securing their beds, the Darkness God Corps and the ambassadors, settled down with a simple dinner. Finally, they went to bed early to recover from their fatigue today, in preparation for tomorrow’s trip.
During the night, after finishing his dinner, Yuusuke who was creating some stuff walked out his room and left the hut for a night breeze.
“Ah, Captain.”(Aisha)
“Oh Aisha, thanks for your work today.”(Yuusuke)
As it was Aisha job to recover the party member’s stamina through the journey, a frequent and constant usage of water arts is required to accomplish this. Although, she should have been as tired as Fonke who had been constantly using his wind arts for movement assist.
“I’ll get everyone to equip this tomorrow, it should greatly ease their fatigue.”(Yuusuke)
“What’s that?”(Aisha)
“Ring of Stamina, a stone version of this area.”(Yuusuke)
The looks of these rings were cheap, and the shape wasn’t as nice like the ones he had made before, “these were ones I had made before, but due to it being ugly I didn’t want to use it”, thus he will be using this as a reason why these rings weren’t being brought out earlier for use.
From here on, they will be heading into the forest towards the borders of Nossentes. This is expected to be the hardest part of the journey, unlike previous days. In case of an emergency, he wanted to hold back as much of the recovery and moving assist skills that were being used.
“Here, this is a ring type jewelry. This stone version buffs 3 times the effect.”(Yuusuke)
Yuusuke took out a translucent ring while he was talking, Aisha looked at the ring and Yuusuke alternately as she voiced out in confusion.
“Eh? Erm, eh…..?(Aisha)
“You seemed to be in tired the whole time right? I was watching you all the time trying to help the recovery of stamina, especially on the 3 ambassadors who don’t seem to have much physical strength.(Yuusuke)
“That is to say, it’s a special bonus from me to Aisha for her working so hard”, as Yuusuke placed the ring of recovery onto her hand. Aisha was grateful for her boss’ thoughtfulness.
“Than, Thank you very much, captain. I will…..cherish this preciously.”
She held the ring close to her chest while gripping it tightly as soon as it was bestowed to her. If one were to look from a 3rd person stance, it might look like a completely different situation, thus Yuusuke tried not to think so much about it.