Chapter 25

"Uh, could you be...?"

Freezing wine hardly deserved to be called a skill for a wizard of his caliber, but it was enough to send the sailors into a panic. Ordinarily, only someone of a captain's standing was qualified to deal directly with exalted figures such as wizards.

He had not revealed whether he was a knight or a noble, but either would stand far above mere sailors.

"Well, to have someone so distinguished in such a humble place..."

"Please, speak freely. I'm the one asking you to hire me."

"No, I couldn't possibly."

Turan's courteous tone seemed to make the sailors even more uncomfortable. It was human nature to scorn humility in the powerless as servility, yet squirm as though one had done something wrong when the powerful bowed their heads. That was one of the things he had learned since coming down into the world and meeting people.

"So, would it be possible?"

"Pardon?"

"For me to sail as a passenger. Naturally, if pirates or merfolk attack, I'll help drive them off."

"That's not something I have the authority to decide."

"Then I'll need to meet your captain."

"I'll fetch him right away!"

At Turan's request, the sailor who had mentioned sailing to the Enril Desert hastily rose. The man across from him gave him a pitiful look, as if begging not to be left alone, but the sailor fled without a backward glance.

"He's not running away for good, is he?"

"S-surely not. Ha ha..."

The two sat at the table for nearly ten minutes without exchanging another word. Much to the sailor's relief, his departed companion soon returned with the captain, breaking the silence.

"Well, I'll be off, then."

"Let's have another drink sometime."

While the two sailors said their goodbyes, the man who had been fetched sat across from Turan and bowed politely. He was in his forties, with a patch over his left eye. His sun-darkened skin and deep wrinkles spoke of long experience.

"I'm Pires, captain of the Marlin."

"Turan."

Perhaps his rank had given him plenty of experience with wizards, for Pires studied Turan rather than bowing and scraping like the sailors. After they regarded each other in silence for a moment, Pires spoke first.

"I understand you'd like passage aboard my ship."

"Yes."

"Perhaps we should discuss this somewhere quieter. Waiter! Do you have a private room available?"

"We do, Captain."

Evidently familiar with the tavern, Pires asked the waiter to show them to a small room. Once seated, the first subject he raised was Turan's identity.

"First... are you a noble or a knight?"

"A knight."

Turan lowered his status because he thought the captain might otherwise be too frightened. If a knight mutinied aboard ship, several dozen sailors armed with swords and spears might be able to deal with him. To a noble, they would be little more than an exercise after dinner.

As expected, the captain looked more at ease upon hearing he was a knight.

"Given that you've chosen such an unofficial channel, I take it you're not in House Karmine's service. May I ask what brings you to Enril...?"

"Personal business."

"Of course."

The captain readily nodded when Turan made his reluctance to answer clear. It seemed he had merely been trying his luck. Then Captain Pires abruptly lowered his voice.

"As you said, we do need a knight. But frankly, I would have difficulty hiring you without knowing whether your fighting skills are sufficient."

Unlike nobles, knights did not differ greatly in their mana reserves. That did not mean their fighting abilities were similar, however. Many factors came into play, from the hand-to-hand combat and weapons skills they practiced to compensate for their limited mana to their magical proficiency and combat experience.

And to Pires, Turan did not look particularly capable or reliable. His youthful face, which could hardly belong to anyone older than twenty, was without a scratch, and his only weapon was a dagger at his waist. About the only point in his favor was a solid physique that looked reasonably well trained.

"My abilities, then. How would you like me to demonstrate them?"

"I'm no wizard, but I do know a few of the essential skills for working at sea. Can you manipulate water and ice?"

As it happened, those were the very skills he had practiced on his way here. Turan summoned a waiter for a glass of water, then casually demonstrated his control before Pires. He started by moving the water about, then instantly turned it to vapor or froze it, reshaped the ice, and finally moved the ice around as well.

It was nothing compared to the Karmine bloodline's reputed mastery over water and ice, but more than enough to satisfy the captain.

"Impressive skills. Have you worked at sea before?"

"No, this is my first time at sea."

"Hmm."

The captain seemed unsure whether to believe him. After a moment, he nodded and spoke in a gloomier tone than before.

"Your skills certainly seem sufficient. However, as you've already heard... our ship's budget doesn't stretch to a salary befitting a knight."

The shipowner had refused to provide the money to hire a knight as a guard, hadn't he? Turan nodded in understanding.

"I have personal reasons for traveling to the Enril Desert anyway. I'm willing to accept a low salary."

In truth, he was prepared to pay for passage if necessary, but he did not mention that. There was no need to spend money he didn't have to. His words brought a little color to the captain's face, though the man remained just as grave.

"And one more thing. My apologies, but I'm afraid I can only pay you after we arrive."

"Why is that?"

"Because we have no money at all right now."

According to the captain, nearly all their money had gone into purchasing the cargo now filling the merchant ship. They would have funds to spare only after reaching the Enril Desert and selling it for a profit. If he was saying this even after Turan had offered to work cheaply, he really must have been short of money.

"Well... all right. I can accept that."

"What a relief! It's an honor to have you aboard."

The instant he heard the answer, the captain's grave expression vanished into a beaming smile. Seeing the outwardly imposing one-eyed man behave that way, Turan couldn't help letting out a bemused laugh. Whatever else he was, the man certainly had an affable charm.

* * *

After concluding their negotiations, Turan spent the night at a comfortable nearby inn recommended by Captain Pires. Expecting good meals to be scarce aboard ship, he ordered the inn's finest full-course meal for breakfast the next morning.

"Your meal is served, sir!"

The cuisine of seaside Abacha was unlike anything Turan had encountered so far. There were shellfish dishes, steamed and grilled saltwater fish, seaweed, pickles, and salted, fermented seafood. Some things, such as oysters, were too fishy for his taste, but he enjoyed most of the grilled fish.

With time to spare after his meal, he visited a bookstore he had spotted the previous day and bought two books: a collection of merfolk tales and a rulebook compiling the regulations aboard sailing ships.

By the time he had attached two leather straps to his bag and tied on the books, since there was no room for them inside, the appointed hour was drawing near. At the location he had been given, he found a huge sailing ship with three sails moored in the harbor. Looking around, he spotted the sailor from yesterday giving orders and approached him.

"Put that right at the bottom! It's heavy enough to throw off our balance if you leave it up top... Welcome aboard, Sir Knight!"

"Can I board now?"

"Yes, sir!"

Under maritime regulations, the knight responsible for a ship's safety ranked alongside its captain, so Turan spoke to the man as a subordinate. Judging by his manner, the sailor seemed more comfortable with that as well.

"Come to think of it, we never properly introduced ourselves yesterday."

"First Mate Osvan, sir!"

"First mate? Does that mean there's a second and a third?"

"That's right, sir!"

He had only been making an offhand remark, and the earnest reply left him inwardly taken aback. Turan nodded and stepped onto the rope ladder. In just two leaps, he cleared the several meters to the deck, drawing the eyes of every nearby sailor.

"Whoa..."

"Did you see that? Did you?"

"Incredible."

"Quiet! Haven't you lot got work to do? Want to scrub the deck again?"

Apparently knights rarely put on such displays. The Marlin's lower-ranking sailors stared in astonishment, then scattered as their superior bellowed at them to get back to work. Having chased them off, the man, who was in his early thirties, gave Turan a broad grin.

"Pleasure to meet you, Sir Knight. Renak, the boatswain."

His manner was rough, but it felt more hearty and informal than disrespectful. Rubbing a cheek flushed red as though he had been drinking, he welcomed Turan aboard.

"The lads we lost on our last voyage were all my direct subordinates, as it happens. That fucking bastard of a shipowner thinks replacing dead lads is no different from caulking a hole in the hull. If it weren't for the captain, I'd have quit long ago."

Despite his coarse language, his affection for his men was plain, and Turan privately thought well of the boatswain. Renak continued pouring out complaints about the shipowner as he showed Turan to his cabin.

"Here we are."

Turan's cabin was so narrow that he could touch both walls by stretching out his arms. It contained only a bed set lengthwise and a storage chest, while the window consisted of two wooden boards attached to hinges.

"It's a little... cramped."

"Aye, well. It is. The captain's cabin is bigger, but there's all sorts of things in there he needs to work with."

Even the boisterous Renak looked sheepish, apparently unable to defend that point. Still, deciding that somewhere to lie down was enough, Turan finished unpacking simply by putting his bag in the chest. He lay back on the bed and looked at the sun through the window, various thoughts passing through his mind.

When he had first stayed with House Berg, Turan's original plan had been to travel south from the Dakayn Plains, then walk east toward the Enril Desert from near Maderi, where he had met Asiz. That was also the route described in the first book he had ever read, An Account of a Journey Around the World.

The trouble was that the route had suddenly become a battlefield between the Dark Elves and House Arabion. If the Dark Elf army caught him, he would be torn limb from limb and made into a meal. And Arabion would certainly not welcome a wizard of uncertain house affiliation wandering nearby during a war.

Under the circumstances, Turan's next-best option was to head straight east to the North Sea, then sail southeast and make landfall north of the Enril Desert.

'I wonder how Maysa is doing.'

Arabion's princess would be in the thick of the war with the Dark Elves by now. That skeletal young woman was so powerful that Turan could not yet dream of defeating her, but no wizard, however strong, was invincible. Once he reached the Enril Desert, he would have to gather news from that front as well.

* * *

"Kiaaaaaah!"

Before a burned fortress, an Arabion knight watched Dark Elf warriors charge him with grotesque cries. Lacking the spiritual power to command wraiths, they were the equivalent of human commoners...

Yet their strength and reflexes were little different from those of seasoned knights. Such was the innate disparity between their races. That must have been how they had trampled humanity and ruled over it in the distant past, before the descent of the Freyans.

"Hah!"

He reinforced the speed and force of his sword strike with mana, cleaving a Dark Elf in two. He seared the face of the next attacker with a jet of fire, then swung his sword again.

But there were far too many to kill them all that way. Two, four, six...

His movements grew increasingly uncoordinated. Attacks slipped through the gaps, tearing again and again into his mana-tempered flesh. Through a vision swimming with blood loss, he saw a longsword descending toward him. Just as he knew death was upon him, a flash plunged among the Dark Elves with a thunderous roar from the sky.

"Aaaaaaagh!"

The screams resembled their earlier cries, but now held rather more fear. A woman with a face as gaunt as a skull flew through the darkened sky. A single bolt of lightning unleashed by Maysa Arabion had split into dozens of branches in an instant, burning every last Dark Elf to death.

"Th-thank you, my lady..."

"Rejoin your unit."

"Yes, my lady!"

Having rescued the straggling knight, Maysa looked down over the battlefield, her face weary. Fighting the Dark Elf army was nothing like an honorable duel.

They sent ordinary soldiers through tunnels to ambush vulnerable points in Arabion's army time and again. The corpses of the knights they killed were dragged underground and turned into wraiths to bolster the wraith sorcerers' forces. None of the enemy was strong enough to face Maysa, but all her strength meant nothing against an opponent who refused to fight head-on.

"Maysa, you're not hurt anywhere, are you?"

"No, Uncle."

Maysa greeted the middle-aged noble flying toward her with only a slight nod. His name was Kadram Arabion, the House Head's younger half-brother and vice-captain of the current subjugation force.

"Don't push yourself too hard. You're worth far more than the lives of a knight or two."

"This much is nothing. More importantly, how is the battle going?"

Despite Maysa's stiff tone, Kadram answered without losing his smile.

"Not badly. At this rate, we should soon retake the area. Though we haven't found the tunnels yet."

"Let me know when you do. I'll go myself."

"You really ought to rest..."

Before Kadram could finish, Maysa lifted herself with magic once more and flew off to one side.

"Tsk. Insolent girl. My brother let her run far too wild."

His earlier kindness nowhere to be seen, Kadram clicked his tongue and glared after Maysa.

"Keep that up, and she'll end up just like her mother and younger sibling..."