Yuu Tanaka Page 13
Eventually, Fran drained the lancer of his stamina, and he fell to the floor.
Finally, we had Naria. The archer wasn’t going to spar with her bow; rather she would
make an attempt with her newly acquired dagger skills. It wasn’t safe to spar with a
bow and arrow on the wide-open deck. The crew could get caught in the crossfire. And
anyway, Fran had more experience with bladed weapons.
She dodged Naria’s attacks easily, but she was more on the offensive this time. She
wanted to teach the archer how to defend at close range.
“Focus on deflecting rather than attacking.”
“Alright!”
“If you can’t block, then dodge.”
“Ow!”
“You’re only using the dagger to buy time.”
Naria went down faster than Miguel and Riddick. There was no shame in it—she was
using an unfamiliar weapon, and Fran was quite relentless. The three of them sat on
deck, panting from exhaustion.
Fran looked satisfied. “Archer, keep training with the dagger.”
“Okay!”
“Greatsword, Lancer, you need to clean up your footwork.”
The three rookies nodded. They’d learned a lot from a single sparring match. I also
noticed something else about them.
“Archer, you can start practicing with your bow again if you want.”
Greatsword, Lancer, and Archer. I was quite sure that Fran had forgotten their names.
Well, that was how she treated anyone who didn’t interest her. I wondered if Fran
would remember their names by the end of the voyage.
***
The next day, Fran continued to instruct her temporary trainees. Stretching, beltwork,
shadow practice, then sparring. They were cooling down when the alarm bells rang.
Four times. We had more pirates on our tail.
“M-Master, let’s go!”
“Dammit! Pirates again? I thought they stayed away from the Kraken’s Nest!”
“We might be up against an armada with the manatech to ward off Krakens.”
“Seriously?! That’s awful!”
“Calm down! You saw how Master took on five pirate ships by herself.”
“Y-you’re right.”
Fran told her pupils to wait and headed to the bow of the ship. She found Jerome
peeking through his telescope. “How many?”
“Fran, glad you could make it. Twelve. There’s a big one among them, too.”
Twelve? That was quite a lot.
“They have the same flag as the five boats you sank yesterday.”
“So they’re related?”
“Definitely. Looks like they’re running this territory.”
“And this is the main fleet?”
“By the looks of it, yeah…” Jerome said with more than a hint of dissatisfaction.
“Something about them, though… It’s weird.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t quite place it, but… there’s something odd about them!”
“Let me see.”
“Use this.”
“Hm. Thanks.” Fran took the telescope and looked through it. The sight of the
meathead and the maiden sharing a telescope would’ve been quite funny if the
situation was less serious.
Spot anything weird, Fran?
“Hmm… that’s odd?”
Okay… but I asked you first.
Fran tilted her head, sharing Jerome’s confusion. “Oh…”
“Notice something?”
“I think I’ve seen that ship before.”
What? My skills allowed me to see farther than the human eye, but not as far as a
telescope. Wh-what? Where?
“Wh-what? Where?!”
I synced up with Jerome there for a second.
“It looks a lot like Miriam’s ship.”
“Miriam?”
“Hm. A friend of mine.”
Miriam was the princess of Seedrun. She liked Fran enough to send her all the way to
Bulbola after the revolution. During that trip, Fran spent a lot of time looking at
Miriam’s Sea Dragon, Aqouis. She was the only captain the creature would acknowledge.
Traditionally, the name of the Sea Dragon was also the name of the vessel it pulled.
“Who’s Miri—hm?!” Jerome raised his voice. The captain had spotted something. “Th-
that’s…!”
“What is it?” Fran asked, taking the telescope again.
“That flag…!” The captain seemed to have remembered something.
Fran, what about the flag?
Hm? There’s another flag on top of the one with the skull and crossbones.
And it’s not a pirate flag?
It’s got a weird mark on it. Looks like a dragon.
That roused my memories.
“Hang on…” Jerome muttered. “You said Miriam, just now?”
“Hm.”
“There’s a general in Seedrun by the name of Miriam…”
“That’s the one. She’s a princess of Seedrun.”
“By the gods! And you say you’ve seen a similar vessel? Are those Seedrunian ships on
our tail? But why would they fly pirate flags…” Jerome said, stricken with fear.
Seedrun was the name of the archipelago as well as the kingdom that lay to the north
of these waters. The kingdom was founded when a powerful federation of pirates
rallied others under their flag. These roguish origins made for an especially rowdy
people, even to this day. Everyone in Seedrun was trained in combat, even its little
girls, and the kingdom was notorious for its fighters. Suffice it to say, they were also
the world’s greatest naval power. Even without their iconic Sea Dragons, the navy was
a force to be reckoned with.
I remembered the day of the Seedrun uprising—how its citizens rioted and overthrew
the previous tyrant. You could imagine how much stronger the marines and veterans
were.
Jerome shook his head at the grim prospect of going to war with Seedrun. “Could it be
a fake…? No, doesn’t look like it.”
“How can you tell?”
I could imagine pirates using the Seedrunian flag as a bluff, but the captain seemed to
have spotted something.
“Look at the bow of their ship.”
“The bow?”
What do you see, Fran?
“Hmm… chains?”
“At the end of those chains is a Sea Dragon. That’s unmistakable.”
Various attempts had been made to tame the monsters for naval purposes, but no one
had succeeded since the first king of Seedrun.
“Only four Sea Dragon vessels exist, but those are enough to put fear into the hearts of
pirate captains everywhere.”
The speed and power of these vessels was on another level, and they were easily the
world’s most powerful battleships. A ship as big as the one Jerome had spotted was
supposed to be slow, but with a Sea Dragon pulling it, it was as fast as a destroyer.
“But there’s no way that Miriam would be a pirate.”
I agreed with Fran. The administration was still a mess in Seedrun because of the
revolution, and sending Sea Dragons out to international waters just didn’t make sense.
Miriam cared far too much for the new queen and her elder sister to leave in a time of
unrest.
Still, I couldn’t rule out Miriam’s pirate activities because of how much respect she had
for her ancestors. Even Sellimea, meek and mild, was cheerfully talkative about
Seedrun’s roguish roots.
“So someone else is driving that Sea Dragon… The flag’s blue, that mean anything to
you?”
“Blue? Miriam’s was green.”
Each Sea Dragon rode under a different flag.
“Wait, so it’s not Miriam.”
“Pretty sure. You know, I think blue’s the color of the last king.”
Suarez! The foolish recently dethroned dictator. I thought he was supposed to be
behind bars. I was pretty sure that I did significant damage to his Sea Dragon when I
went berserk, too… Well, no use thinking of that now. We needed to figure out a way
to take care of this and fast.
“Dammit, what do we do! Run…? No, even at full speed we’re too slow…”
“You won’t fight?”
“Love to, can’t. A single Sea Dragon can sink a hundred battleships.”
“But we can’t run.”
“No… confound it all! Just my luck to run into such a monster!”
Escape was not in the cards.
“We’re on bad terms with Seedrun as it is,” Jerome said. “So I doubt they’d be satisfied
with only thirty percent of our goods…”
Thirty percent was the going rate for pirates to let a ship go. But with a Sea Dragon in
tow, a pirate had no need for negotiation. They could plunder and murder whole ships.
“The enemy is the flagship of the greatest naval force on the planet. We have no choice
but to engage in melee combat…! They wouldn’t fire their cannons at that kind of
distance! We’re counting on you adventurers.”
Melee might be inevitable, but why not send Fran ahead like last time? Jerome had
seen with his own eyes that she was capable of destroying ships.
&nb
sp; “You’re up against a B-Threat Sea Dragon. Getting close is dangerous enough as it is.”
“Then we’ll destroy the ship from the sky.”
I doubted the Sea Dragon could shoot a flying target. We’d exploited this weakness
yesterday, surely we could adapt it to face the Sea Dragon. While we didn’t know
whether we could kill it, there was no way that the vessel was as tough as the monster
pulling it.
Jerome shot down our plan. People had tried going after the ship and not the monster
in the past. In fact, others had actually succeeded. “Problem is, they became fish food
right after they won.”
A Sea Dragon without its rider was liable to go berserk and would seek vengeance on
the one who had attacked it. You could argue with the creature, saying that you were
targeting the ship the dragon was pulling, but the beast was unlikely to understand.
“Even if you managed to sink the vessel, you’d still have a furious dragon to contend
with.”
“I see.”
So much for that plan. The safest course of action was to kill the dragon as well as the
ship… but killing true dragons was difficult, and we had no experience.
We have time before they make contact. Let’s go ask Mordred.
“Hm.”
Fran asked one of the crew members to fetch the veteran, but Mordred was already on
deck.
“Pirates again?”
“Yeah. Not your garden variety, though…”
“How strong?” Mordred frowned. He knew from Jerome’s gritted teeth that we were
up against formidable foes.
“Very.”
“Even for the Black Lightning Princess? Now that’s worrying.”
“No use beating around the bush. The enemy’s a Sea Dragon class vessel.”
“What?” The older adventurer grimaced with fear. He knew full well what a Sea Dragon
was capable of. “By the gods…” Mordred was at a loss for words, but he soon recovered.
He knew that something had to be done. “Excuse me. I was a bit overwhelmed.”
That’s it? He looked totally calm to me. Mordred proved himself reliable time and
again. We started discussing what to do.
“I believe you can handle the escort ships, Fran?”
“Hm. Got it covered.”
“Which leaves the Sea Dragon…”
We had to do something about the Seedrunian flagship if we wanted to get out of this.
Unfortunately, Mordred had never fought a Sea Dragon, either.
“That lightning spell you used against the Dragon Hunter Phelms… that might be strong
enough to kill a Sea Dragon. Can you still use that?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Now, what if it doesn’t work?”
Kanna Kamuy, imbued with Black Thunderfall, might be big enough to destroy the
vessel as well as the monster. But if it didn’t, we would have a mad Sea Dragon to deal
with. That encounter might be more trouble than it’s worth. Was there an attack we
could use to dispose of the dragon while leaving the vessel intact?
Telekinetic Catapult?
You think so, too, huh?
Hm. That’s the only chance we’ve got.
Aiming for the Sea Dragon should be easy enough, since it was literally tied to the boat.
We should be able to kill it by targeting its weak spot, the creature’s defense
notwithstanding.
“What if I just focused fire on the Sea Dragon?”
“That’s one way to go about it… if you can.”
“Hm. I can.”
“I see. I guess we’re in your hands again, Fran… This is getting sad.” Mordred sighed in
frustration. He felt helpless, but this was a matter of effective range.
I could easily imagine his Steel Magic coming in handy when the inevitable cannonballs
started coming. Now, was it actually okay for us to kill a Sea Dragon? Considering the
beast belonged to Seedrun, I imagined an international controversy could easily break
out.
“Is it really okay for me to sink that thing?”
“What do you mean?”
“That ship might’ve been stolen from Seedrun. Wouldn’t your governments start
fighting if I sank it?”
Jerome and Mordred laughed at Fran’s innocent question.
“Don’t you worry about that. Even if it used to be part of the Seedrunian navy, it
revoked all its rights when it started flying that pirate flag.”
“The pirate flag is a warning to nonmilitary vessels that they are armed and willing to
kill. Attacking pirate ships under any circumstance is allowed.”
In that case, how should we handle this? Should we take on the Sea Dragon first or
last? If we went after the escorts first, the Sea Dragon might catch up to the Algieba.
On the other hand, the Sea Dragon was definitely the toughest…
Let’s go after the Sea Dragon first.
If we took it down, the other ships might scatter and flee. Battling anything that could
sink a Sea Dragon was akin to suicide. Still, if we couldn’t outright kill the monster, we
would then divert our attention to the smaller ships. That should slow the pirates
down enough for us to get help.
The crew saw us off as we flew toward the Sea Dragon.
“Be careful out there!”
“We’re counting on you!”
“Don’t get yourself killed!”
“Hm! Come on, Jet.”
“Awoooo!”
The shouts of encouragement must’ve gotten to Jet because he accelerated like a jet
engine. It didn’t take long before we were hovering over the pirate fleet, eleven smaller
ships surrounding one big one. At the bow of the big ship was a pair of gigantic chains
that went under the surface of the water.
Upon closer inspection, I could see that this vessel was exactly like the Sea Dragon
Miriam commanded. They were replicas of each other, from the detail on the railings
down to the decorations on the hull. This was a Sea Dragon, alright.
The pirates looked up, noticing the unidentified flying object that had closed in on
them. They stared at us for a while before deciding that we were hostile. They drew
their bows and took aim. Honestly, it was the sensible thing to do when you saw a
direwolf flying in the sky.
Focus on dodging, Jet.
“Woof!”
Fran, provoke the Sea Dragon so that it pops its head out of the water.
“On it.”
Water resistance would greatly reduce the effectiveness of Telekinetic Catapult. I
needed a clear shot.
“Jet, can you go lower?”
“Woof!”
Fran hung on and prepared a spell to get the beast’s attention. Cannonballs and arrows
flew toward us, but none of them came close to hitting Jet. There were spells mixed in
with the hail of arrows, so there must have been mages on board. These were no
ordinary pirates. Jet came over the Sea Dragon’s head. Just before Fran fired her spell,
the beast roared.
“KROOOO!”
The Sea Dragon lifted its head out of the water before we could prompt it. It had a long
neck covered with thick scales. It still looked draconic, despite the fact that its wings
had adapted into dorsal fins and its claws were now flippers. There was a layer of what
looked like seawater over its body. Maybe it was using magic to stop itself from drying
out.
The dragon looked similar to Miriam’s Aqouis, but it was still distinct. Its body was
covered with wounds and it had a large scar on its back which had yet to recover. You
could still see the patch of pink flesh where the scales were just beginning to regrow.
The beast was watching us. Had it reacted to Fran’s mana? That was certainly possible.
That thing’s senses were probably strong enough to sense Fran’s spell before she
could fire it.
“Krrrr…!” The Sea Dragon snarled menacingly. It glared at us in rage. An appropriate