Chapter 33 - A Night of Counting Stars (7)

“Drop your weapons and surrender!!”

Behind them, the carriage. Its occupants apparently had no intention of emerging until the situation was resolved.

Before them, countless elves. Snarling, with vicious-looking weapons drawn.

Their only escape, the sky far above the ground. One fall, and they would be smashed to pieces.

“Ah, a perfect day to die.”

Eugene delivered the joke with a gloomy expression. Raising his sword and shield, he adjusted his stance—then abruptly shoved Yuri forward.

“Huh...?”

“Go, Yuri Frank! Top student of Jansk University’s Knight Department!”

“Huh...?”

Bewildered, Yuri stumbled a step ahead of him.

“Um, well. I am a frontliner, but... all by myself? Seriously?”

“I’m from the twenty-first century! I’ve never fought anyone!”

“I was an illustrator!!”

“You’re in the Knight Department!”

“You’ve got weapons too!”

“They’re for self-defense!”

As the two began screeching at each other, the elves surrounding them looked on in bewilderment.

They sounded like students. How had they gotten here? And why?

They had come armed for a surprise attack, and now they were shoving each other forward to do the fighting...?

“What do we do with them?”

“Looks like some human nobles out for a bit of fun. Deal with them, but don’t kill them.”

University students were essentially all nobles. They had to afford the murderous tuition, after all. Capturing these ones would therefore offer some leverage in negotiations with the Krasilof monarchy.

At the boatswain’s sighing order, the crew raised their weapons reluctantly. Fortunately, their opponents were young humans who appeared to have neither the will nor the experience to fight.

Behind the two armed intruders, a tall, hooded man let out a deep sigh and raised his hand.

“Idiots. What kind of party has one frontliner and two backliners? Have you never played a game?”

Oswald swept his hand through the air, weaving a spell. Purple mana writhed, forming strange shapes at his gestures.

[Bestow Courage]. It was a low-level spell, but he knew from experience that this Eugene fellow had no immunity to mental magic.

Perhaps that was only natural. Possessors fresh from the twenty-first century could hardly resist mental magic that had to be overcome through sheer will.

WHIIIINE!

“Urk.”

Eugene’s head drooped as the spell took hold.

“Wh-what did you do?”

“Gave him a little courage. I’ll provide support, so buy us some time up front. Until, er, Ivan gets here.”

“Uh... okay. Um, Eugene?”

Eugene was muttering something with his head bowed.

“Sorry? Are you all right?”

“It’s Yevgeny.”

“... What?”

“My name is Yevgeny Novikov Karamzin.”

Eugene made a small sign of the cross with his sword hand, then pressed his lips to the blade and whispered.

“May the Lord watch over our battle this day.”

“Um, Oswald? I think you cast the wrong spell.”

“Impossible. That was definitely [Bestow Courage]...?”

Ignoring the bewildered Possessors’ conversation, Eugene quietly opened his eyes.

His blue eyes blazing with unshakable resolve, he raised his sword high.

“Praise the glory of the Lord. For He establishes virtue through righteousness and brings peace unto this land.” “Uh... um...”

“Did adding courage to a mix of the priest and swordsman classes cause some kind of conflict?”

“That’s really... really something. Don’t use that on me. I’ll manage on my own.”

Had he lost his sense of self? Yuri trembled in terror.

Suppose this was what happened when someone possessed a character in a game setting, lost their identity, and became completely immersed in RP—role-playing.

Then what on earth would become of her own identity if she immersed herself in her role in an academy humiliation porn game?

She would rather pick up a sword and fight. Fortunately, she had considerable talent for swordsmanship. She was the Knight Department’s top student, after all.

“Heathens!! Hear the holy word of our Lord God!! Worship Him! Praise Him!!”

Eugene charged out with a roar and immediately swung his sword.

BOOM!

With a violent blast, pure white light blazed along his blade and exploded.

“[Holy Smite]...!”

“That idiot. He should have learned a healing skill instead.”

Yuri and Oswald grumbled as they followed Eugene’s charge.

The three Possessors had succeeded in causing a commotion on deck. All according to Ivan’s plan.

* * *

Ivan listened quietly as he walked through the dark passageways inside the ship, warning lights flashing around him.

WEE-OO, WEE-OO.

He mapped out every faint sound audible beneath the blaring sirens.

A repetitive noise echoing through a confined interior could serve as a reference for echolocation, provided its source could be identified.

Though less acute than an elf’s, a sufficiently trained agent’s hearing could pinpoint objects through the delays between echoes as sound waves struck them.

That was how Ivan sensed two people standing around the corner before he turned it.

BANG!

He fired almost the instant he came into view. Startled, his target nevertheless twisted hastily out of the line of fire.

So, Line of Fire Detection.

Ivan nodded and drew his axe.

“Who are you!”

The wrong question. It spoke volumes about their training.

Once fired upon, the first rule was to neutralize the attacker before asking questions. Besides, asking the identity of someone so openly hostile was foolish in itself.

So Ivan lunged instead of answering. The naive elf crewman would have to pay for asking the wrong question.

WHOOSH.

CRASH!

“Gah!”

The axe spun in the air and slammed into the elf’s neck. A heavy blow along a clean arc. With a strangled gasp, the elf crashed into the wall.

At the same time, Ivan raised his pistol toward the other man rushing at him. Without even taking aim, he fired.

BANG!!

“You bastard!!”

Naturally, he dodged. He had Line of Fire Detection. But that fleeting instant when he twisted aside to evade the shot was all Ivan needed.

By the time the man turned back, Ivan was already driving his axe up under his chin.

CRASH!!

The elf crumpled with his jaw knocked askew, unable even to groan.

Since Ivan had used the back rather than the blade, he had effectively struck them with a short club rather than an axe. But as long as they didn’t die, what did it matter?

He nudged the elf with the shattered jaw aside with his foot and moved on.

WEEEE-OOOO!

WEEEE-OOO!!

The sirens resounded through the passageway.

Ivan walked with his eyes closed through the noisy corridors, where the red warning lights buzzed.

WEE-OO, WEE-OO.

He calculated the delays between sound waves scattering into every corner.

* * *

Onest, captain of the Kaleon archipelago’s Wolfstahl-class aerial battleship Glory of Boil, was frowning in his cabin.

The last report had clearly stated, “Unidentified students have attempted a surprise attack. We are working to subdue them.”

The attack had come just as he was preparing a secret agreement with Crown Prince Alexander’s envoy, which had put him on edge, but that was all.

Wasn’t mooring the ship above a university a mistake in the first place?

Hot-blooded youngsters of that age might well have a drink and attempt to sneak aboard somehow, perhaps using levitation magic.

It was perfectly normal to want to prove one’s courage or nerve at their age.

But, but...

“Why haven’t there been any further reports?”

By all accounts, there were three young students.

Every student at Jansk University was either a noble or at least from an influential middle-class family, so he had ordered them taken alive. However arrogant elves might be, they could hardly kill another nation’s students on that nation’s soil.

Even so, they were only three students. There were limits to how much they could have learned, and however bold they might be for their age, they were still only students.

Whether they had been captured or had somehow managed to escape belowdecks, ten minutes had passed since the attack. There should have been some kind of follow-up report by now.

“Is anyone there? Guard! Go check the situation on deck!”

He shouted irritably. He could not go up to the deck himself.

Crown Prince Alexander’s envoy would have arrived there by now. Going out to greet the envoy in person would diminish a captain’s dignity. At a moment like this, on the eve of a secret pact between nations, being looked down on would spell the end.

“Is anyone there? What are you all doing! And shut off that damned siren! I can’t stand this racket!”

At last, Onest rose from his seat.

He stalked across his cabin and flung open the bulkhead door.

WEEE-OOO!

WEEEE-OOO!

Yet there was not a single light in the corridor where the sirens blared.

Had something broken? The thought briefly crossed his mind, but he soon shook his head.

This was no malfunction. This was an attack.

“Tch!”

His face twisting into a fierce scowl, he quickly ducked behind the door. He took down the ceremonial sword mounted on the wall, drew it, and gulped in air.

“Did Elizaveta send you!”

“...”

“Damn it, I know you’re there! Answer me! A student attack? What a joke. You’d even use students for a diversion!?”

He had no idea how the confrontation on deck was going, but at the very least it could not be over yet.

However formidable the attackers were, a mere three could not slaughter the entire crew in ten minutes.

So he would hold out for now. Long enough for Crown Prince Alexander to grasp the situation and consider deploying troops.

Neither Onest nor Alexander wanted Elizaveta to discover them at this stage.

Then a voice rang out.

“The Palace Minister must have made herself clear.”

“What...?”

Onest turned toward the low voice coming from the far end of the corridor.

The speaker was probably at the end of the compartment passageway outside his cabin. At that distance, even a destructive spell capable of wiping out a company would not reach the captain’s cabin.

He nodded and intertwined his fingers. Vivid blue mana flared, weaving itself around his fingertips.

Then.

WHOOOOSH!!

With a sound that tore through the air—

CRAAAASH!!

Something flew through the open doorway and smashed into the round table in his cabin.

A spell? Destructive magic? Onest whipped his head around, readying himself to cast a defensive spell in case it was explosive magic.

“... An axe...?”

An axe with a rope tied to it was buried in the round table, half of which it had smashed apart.

Onest muttered blankly.

“She actually meant... a woodsman?”

To think it had been a plain statement, without so much as a malicious metaphor.

Onest gave a hollow laugh.

TWANG!

The rope tied to the axe snapped taut.

CRUNCH!

The axe tore free along the rope, spinning with the force of the recoil and slamming into Onest’s leg.

“Ghh!”

Fortunately, it was the back rather than the blade that struck him. His ankle buckled, and he rolled across the floor out of the axe’s reach.

The axe vanished as though sucked into the darkness at the end of the passageway. As Onest shakily hauled himself upright, using his sword as a cane, footsteps sounded in the dark.

THUD. THUD.

A vivid blue gaze flickered among the shadows.

Then came a shaggy beard.

Arms with tendons standing out like snakes, and an axe held firmly in one hand.

And a pistol aimed at him.

“Let’s negotiate.”

“Those weren’t my orders.”

BANG!

In the unlit corridor, flame spat from the muzzle of the pistol.