"Haha!"
I laughed. Cutting through a cliff. I had done it myself, yet it was truly absurd. Since I exhaled the breath I had held while laughing, the darkness gradually faded. A red sky showed through the gap in the separated cliff.
RUMBLE! CRASH.........!
The separated cliff fell with a thunderous roar. And atop it, I saw Leon Dias.
"Howell Crave!"
Leon jumped off the cliff. What was more, he kicked off the slope and surged toward me as though he were running across solid ground.
'Whoa!'
I could only marvel inwardly. Was that even possible? It did not seem to be a Relic that merely transformed him into an ordinary lion. Then again, his mane had been burning from the start.
"I will not let you escape!"
Leon was faster than I was as I fell. At this rate, he truly would tear me apart and kill me. Since I had already hidden once, hiding again was impossible. I thought quickly.
'Could I pierce him with the key?'
I could try to use Open Night with the Key That Opens the Night, but with the darkness gone, the question was whether I could pierce Leon's hide, which even deflected bullets.
ROAR—!
Leon kicked off the cliff and lunged at me.
[Captain, I have called Ines.]
But I did not need to clash head-on with Leon. I had a capable first mate who was also a ship.
CLATTER!
Ines, who had fallen below the cliff, waited in midair at Salkenia's call. After restoring her leg and watching the situation, Ines darted through the air and caught me in midair.
WHOOSH!
Thanks to Ines bursting in from the side, my downward trajectory changed sharply. From Leon's perspective, it was as if his prey had suddenly risen. In truth, I had not risen so much as been flung outward.
"See you later!"
Leon, who had leaped into the air to catch me, had no foothold. In other words, he was falling just like I was. It was no exaggeration to say there was no way for him to catch me here.
"Captain!"
The navigator called out to me from the deck below. Lorenzo had spread a spare sail he had bought across the deck, making a landing spot. It was as though he had expected us to fall there. At this rate, I would land safely on the landing spot, and Leon Dias would fall into the sea.
Grrrr......!
Leon's eyes had not lost their will to fight. With a low growl, he opened his jaws as though to swallow me whole.
FWOOOOOSH!
He breathed fire.
THUMP!
I landed beneath the flames on the landing spot. The several folded layers of sail sank deeply and caught Ines and me. The problem came afterward.
"Captain! The fire!"
The flames Leon had breathed engulfed the ship. Salkenia was a wooden vessel, and wood was naturally vulnerable to fire.
"No!"
I was horrified. The burning sail fell, and the flames began to spread even to the deck.
"Water!"
It would take time to draw up water from the sea. But the flames that had spread in an instant threatened to swallow the entire ship.
"We need to unfurl the sails!"
Then Lorenzo shouted. His order to unfurl the sails that had already caught fire was not immediately understandable, but I chose to trust his judgment.
"Unfurl the sails!"
At my command, the skeleton sailors forcibly drew down the burning sails. The sails caught the favorable wind and swelled, moving us forward as though we were sliding. Then an enormous shadow fell over the deck.
BOOOOOOM!
The cliff separated by the Key That Opens the Night plunged down like a meteor. The sea, pressed aside beneath the cliff, became a massive wave that engulfed Salkenia.
SHHHHAAAA!
Cold waves swept across Salkenia. We were thoroughly soaked, but the huge wave washed away every flame that had been on Salkenia.
"Good! Let's get out of here!"
We rode the enormous wave out of Lindana's cliff region.
***
Jerry could not hide his shock at that irrational sight. Had a god become angry? A suddenly broken cliff rushed toward the Blue Lion.
"Starboard!"
It was like a disaster, but their one stroke of luck was that the Blue Lion had turned its bow sideways to bombard the ghost ship.
"Everyone at the stern! Run!"
But the ship had not entirely escaped from beneath the cliff.
CRAAAAASH!
Debris from the falling cliff struck the port side of the ship's stern. Water sprayed everywhere, along with splinters of wood. Sailors screamed, and water burst.
BOOOOOOM!
The cliff debris that pierced the Blue Lion and crushed the sea created an enormous wave. The Blue Lion, preoccupied with escaping the falling disaster, was helplessly swept away by that wave.
RUMBLE—!
Droplets striking the hull leaped up like a school of flying fish. Having lost its direction, the ship was driven all the way to the beach. Only after its bottom scraped along the sand did it finally stop, lying crookedly on its side.
"Huff, cough. I almost died!"
Jerry, who had held on against the railing of the deckhouse, finally caught his breath. When he raised his head, utter chaos lay before him.
"Haa, haa."
As the ship was swept away, every manner of object on the deck was flung off, and naturally, people had been flung off as well. The stern had been half-destroyed, exposing its interior, and the rear sail was torn.
"What a fucking mess."
It was a disaster. Who could have expected a cliff to suddenly fall away? Before long, Leon Dias staggered out of the sea.
"Captain!"
Leon's shirt and trousers had been torn by the aftermath of his transformation. He wore only the spare pair of trousers he always kept on hand. Seeing that, Jerry immediately tossed him the waterskin hanging from his waist.
"Seeing you naked, I take it you used it."
The lion-tooth necklace, Roaring Fire, swayed from side to side at the nape of Leon's neck as he caught the waterskin.
"I did. What about the sailors?"
"Well, if they thought they were going to die, they probably jumped overboard."
Jerry had sent the sailors stationed near the stern, which the cliff debris had half-destroyed, to safety beforehand. Some sailors were nowhere to be seen, perhaps because they had been flung away, but unless they had the bad luck to encounter a sea monster near shore, they would soon swim out.
"Though they nearly all died."
Jerry spoke cheerfully to reassure Leon, but even now, thinking back on it made his blood run cold. Having a boulder the size of a ship fall on one's head was not a particularly enjoyable experience.
"Was there suddenly a landslide? Where is Howell Crave?"
"I lost him. And it was not a landslide."
"Pardon?"
"He cut it."
"......I am glad you still have enough energy to joke!"
With a blank look, Jerry tried to understand what Leon said, then interpreted its meaning however he pleased. Leon shook his head.
"No. It is true."
"A person cut a cliff?"
"He was not just a person. He was a Relic owner."
"Then you can cut a cliff too, Captain?"
"I might be able to break off a corner. But I am not confident I could cut one away like that."
Leon looked up at the cliff with an empty expression. It had been cut roughly and unevenly, but the cross-section itself was strangely clean.
"I saw him climb to the top of the cliff, but how did you lose him?"
"He hid himself with a flicker, then jumped off."
"Then he must be dead. Shall we check the sea?"
"No. He survived."
Leon was certain. Howell's fall had been entirely deliberate. He had climbed the cliff with the intention of cutting it in the first place.
'The skeleton caught him in the middle, so he surely survived.'
While Jerry and Leon briefly assessed the situation, sailors began crawling out of the sea. Some swam ashore, and others seemed practically to have been washed in by the waves.
"As soon as we finish accounting for the crew, we will pursue him."
"I'd like to, but."
Jerry showed Leon the rear of the Blue Lion, which had been out of Leon's sight. No matter how he looked at it, it was in no condition to continue sailing. Leon clicked his tongue.
"Tch."
"We should repair this first, right?"
"Indeed."
Having given up, Leon clenched his teeth as Howell's face came to mind.
'That bastard.'
Leon recalled his brief encounter with Howell. Most people were terrified when Leon took the form of a lion. But Howell had not been. Oddly, Leon thought he knew why.
'He did not pay much attention to me. More precisely, his attention was fixed on something other than me.'
Howell had coveted Roaring Fire. It had only briefly shown through what seemed like restraint, but because Leon had been transformed into a lion, his senses had been sharpened, and he had noticed it. It was chillingly pure greed, which could not be satisfied by the Relic Howell already possessed.
'He said he wanted Roaring Fire.'
It had not been a cheap provocation or a meaningless empty remark. But he would not want something he could not possess. Leon recalled the dagger he had glimpsed at Howell's side. That dagger that seemed to hold the night.
"Jerry, can an owner possess two Relics?"
"Pardon? You would die from that."
Each owner possessed a single Relic. That was because overlapping curses killed their owners.
'The ghost ship was definitely a Relic. A flicker must be the ghost ship's ability. Howell Crave said so himself. Then what was that dagger he used to cut away the cliff? An Artifact? No. Only a Relic can do something like this.'
The answer Leon could infer by gathering the scattered pieces completely defied his common sense.
'Can Howell Crave possess multiple Relics?'
No owner in history had ever possessed two Relics. The same was true even if he were a Relic owner who had killed another Relic owner.
'It is an impossible hypothesis. But if it really is true.'
Leon had thought of Howell as mere prey. His opponent was a novice who had only just entered the sea. But after facing Howell directly, Leon had no choice but to admit that he was wrong.
'He may not be a contemptible petty criminal, but a young monster.'
For now, he might be no more than prey. But if it were true that he could possess multiple Relics, Howell's potential for growth would be truly limitless.
'He climbed that cliff, jumped off it, and even cut away the cliff to block the Blue Lion's pursuit. It may have been a coincidence, but the aftermath of the fallen cliff put out the fire as well.'
His actions had been thoroughly calculated. That boldness and judgment were clearly the qualities of a captain. On top of that, even luck was taking his side. Before long, Howell Crave would become a rival, and one day, he would surely grow into a predator.
'When that day comes, I will be the prey.'
The lion clutching Roaring Fire bared its teeth.
'I should devour him before he grows.'