The encounter with the plesiosaur happened half a day earlier than planned.
The ship shook violently again, probably from a collision.
However, before I could feel that my life was in danger, help arrived.
“Pino! Are you safe?”
“Belze. Yes, nothing happened to me.”
Belze had wings growing from her back, looking as if she had hurried from the sky.
She hugged me tightly, landing directly on my back, brought her face close to my neck and cheeks, and stared hard at me.
“Um, what are you doing?”
“……Indeed, there seem to be no wounds. Are you safe?”
“Belze, let’s worry more about the dragon right now than me.”
The plesiosaur is going wild.
It slams its long neck against the hull, and the creaking sound and big shaking attack us.
“Whoa.”
“The shaking is intense. Let’s fly for now, Pino.”
Belze took off into the dark while holding my body.
The dragon, wearing a garment of seaweed like a cloak, kept attacking the ship.
I had heard that they are gentle herbivores, but its current state is pure ferocity. It reminds me of that mad cow’s mutation.
“What do you plan to do about this?”
“Do not worry, the Second Knight Order is also a group of pros at monster hunting. It will not take long. Look.”
At the place we looked down together with Belze, the knight order had already started moving.
“Come forth, water spirit horse Kelpie!”
The moment the knights called out, a translucent horse like a clear stream appeared from the sea surface.
Could it be a type of lower spirit?
When the knights mounted their respective spirit horses, they easily rode across the water surface and got down from the ship.
“So that’s how they fight on the sea.”
“Since they are knights, riding horses is a must, I suppose.”
Well, when you say it like that, I guess so.
The sword flashes of the knights, swung one after another like a wave attack, slashed the plesiosaur’s body in various places. And when that long neck reared back—
A particularly shining spirit horse ran across the water surface.
“Ah, it’s Commander Kirul.”
“Watch, it will be over in a flash.”
Knight Commander, Kirul Kissjail.
The man drew his sword.
And by the time he finished drawing his sword, the attack was already over.
A single flash. It silently cut off the plesiosaur’s huge head—
With the dragon’s body sinking into the water behind him, the handsome man landed on the ship’s rail.
“Eh, it’s over?”
The dragon whose head was cut off disappears to the bottom of the sea.
It is too simple of a resolution. It makes me remember that day when Belze instantly killed the high-ranking demon.
The knights also let out a big cheer—
Only Kirul and Belze were still staring hard across the sea.
“…It feels strange. Belze, stay alert and be on guard.”
“I know. They are still coming, from the bottom of the sea.”
Just after the two of them heightened their vigilance like that.
Suddenly, water pillars rose everywhere in the sea.
They welled up from the bottom of the sea.
The plesiosaur that Kirul should have just killed a moment ago—it wasn’t just one, but two, three, four—
Seven bodies.
They shook their long necks all at once and floated on the water surface so as to surround the ship.
“N-No way! I have never heard of such a number of mutants!”
“Commander, what on earth is this situation—”
“Yes, yes, don’t panic! Lure them away from the ship to detach each individual, and defeat them one by one!”
Kirul sharply yelled at the flustered lower-ranked knights, and then the knights started moving.
Belze also fluttered her large wings greatly.
“As expected, it would be bad if I do not join in.”
“Yes, please go.”
“What are you saying, we are going together. Staying by my side is safer than staying on the ship.”
Ah, well, I suppose that is true.
“Rest assured, I swear I will never kill my pet dog again. I will protect you even if I die.”
Uttering sugary words close to a proposal, Belze accelerated.
Belze was like a random street assassin.
She quickly overtook one of the plesiosaurs chasing the knights, and as she passed by, she slashed it with her foot as if it were a side job.
“Mad cow, physical enhancement.”
The trajectory drawn by the tip of her foot blew away the plesiosaur’s head just like that.
The dragon’s head, along with the seaweed garment it wore, spun round and round in mid-air and hit the water.
Its body sank with a delay.
“……Can’t you annihilate this with just Belze?”
“I wonder. Look, it seems they are still welling up from the bottom.”
“Eh?”
The remaining six plesiosaurs—
Or so I thought, but a little while later, two more dragon silhouettes surfaced from above the water.
The seventh and eighth.
Plesiosaurs welling up from the seabed to make up for the number killed.
“I do not know how many there are, but anyway we have no choice but to keep attacking.”
“That’s right.”
Belze moved her wings greatly and accelerated again.
The knights and Belze thoroughly repeated their attacks.
But the number does not decrease.
They pierce with swords, fly off the heads, but the sunk plesiosaurs return after a while by the reduced number.
One decreases, making seven.
From there, one increases, two decrease, making six.
One increases, one decreases, two increase, making eight.
No matter how much you slash them, the next ones well up, making eight.
In the end, it recovers to become eight.
,
While the knight order was getting exhausted in a war of attrition with no end in sight, I remembered something I was suddenly curious about.
“When Commander Kirul first defeated the dragon…”
“What is it?”
“Didn’t you say the feel of it was strange, or something?”
Belze made a face as if thinking for a second and nodded.
“She did say that. Since I am hardening my feet, I could not tell much, but are you curious?”
“Yes. There is something else I am curious about.”
“What?”
“Blood. Even though we are defeating that many, the sea is not stained with blood.”
Belze’s and Kirul’s attacks are too sharp, and the dragon sinks before spraying blood from the cut surface.
But even so, it feels like there is too little blood.
Suddenly, I thought. The strangeness is the number.
The number of dragons floating on the sea is always eight. It never becomes more than that.
Then perhaps, there aren’t a lot of plesiosaurs, but a total of eight dragons are just regenerating and returning underwater as soon as they are slashed? No, in the first place…
Are these guys really dragons?
Their whole body is covered in seaweed, the sun has already set, and only the silhouettes of the necks and backs float in the darkness.
We judge them to be plesiosaurs based only on their outlines, but—
“Ah, I get it.”
“Pino? What do you get?”
“Belze, these guys are not plesiosaurs.”
Blood that does not spurt out even when the neck is cut, a regenerating body, a long neck, and the number “eight.”
A single creature that fits this came to mind.
“It’s an octopus.”
“An o-octopus…?”
Yes, an octopus.
This octopus is mimicking its eight legs into dragons.
“Making its legs look like plesiosaurs and luring hunting ships like a lure… It’s an octopus that fishes for ships!”
Probably, something like that.
The eight plesiosaurs—
Renamed, the monster octopus’s attacks were only getting fiercer.
The action of shaking and slamming the neck, seen this way, is just swinging tentacles around everywhere.
Yet, even the aftermath alone has the power and size to easily blow people away.
Perhaps finally considering Belze’s annihilating power dangerous, the tentacles launched attacks simultaneously from multiple directions, causing her to click her tongue.
“Tch, troublesome. Dragging these along toward the ship is rather putting allies in danger. It is certain that we should share this fact quickly in order for everyone to hit their heads, but…”
“Then throw me.”
“Ha?”
While dodging the fierce attacks and flying, I made a proposal.
“T-throw? Where to?”
“To the ship. I will tell Commander Kirul.”
“Don’t be an idiot, it’s dangerous!”
“Since Belze is the one being guarded against, my existence will probably be overlooked. I think the longer this situation drags on, the higher the probability that I will die.”
I have the confidence to die from a single mistake.
When I said that, Belze made a dissatisfied face saying, “Why are you looking so proud?”
“I-I said I would protect you even if I die. I said it.”
“Those are happy words.”
“Throwing you right after saying it, I hate it.”
“It’s fine. Pride that tries to act tough for no reason is something humans forget with time, whether you break it or not.”
“That is completely not following up!”
“I hope we both live to receive your happy words again.”
Belze swallowed hard.
Her eyes swam, she hesitated, thought, closed her eyes, dodged a tentacle, and let out a single sigh.
Then, she opened her eyes and decided.
“Bubble-spitting fish, soap bubble.”
When Belze blew softly with her thin lips, a soap bubble large enough to cover a person was born and enveloped me.
“The fluffy fish you made me eat.”
“Conger eel?”
“The name seems to be bubble-spitting fish. This is a protective membrane created from its slime. Just be safe!”
Belze threw me, sewing through the gaps of the tentacles.
Neither wind pressure nor impact was felt.
The slimy mucin soap bubble protected me from everything.
The scenery passed by in an instant, and before I knew it, I landed on the ship’s deck approaching before my eyes without any resistance.
Looking at the soap bubble containing me bouncing over and over again,
“Hey, what on earth are you doing!?”
Kirul, while genuinely startled, immediately drew his sword, slashed the soap bubble, and pulled me out.
“H-hey, are you okay?”
“I’m fine. More importantly, I have a report.”
“What is it?”
“The true identity of the plesiosaurs is a single octopus. The visible part is just its legs, and it will keep regenerating unless we crush the head hidden on the seabed. Can you pull it out with Commander Kirul’s power?”
When I finished the long-winded report without taking a breath until the end, Kirul absorbed the information while looking amazed.
“Conclusion, explanation, proposal and confirmation… You are good at reporting. You are suited for being a messenger.”
“Thank you.”
“Anyway, I understand. I’ll manage something.”
Kirul stood at the ship’s rail again.
Perhaps it was a magic tool for communication, and she told the pendant at her neck commandingly, “My beloved knights, each of you take your positions.”
And right after, chains extended from Kirul’s hands.
They were black iron chains.
They didn’t just extend from Kirul’s hands, but all the knights riding the spirit horses and racing across the sea also extended chains from their arms before we knew it.
The chains released by the knights wriggled like snakes and headed into the sea.
“My magic is —generating chains starting from myself and the contracted knights, and manipulating them freely. The hardness and power of the chains jump up according to the number of contracted knights!”
When the knight commander, leading a total of over a hundred knights, exercises such magic, what on earth will happen—
The answer was clear.
The octopus’s head, wrapped in countless chains, was vigorously dragged up onto the sea.
A squishy head. Eyeballs shining in gold.
Above all, its epidermis had a bright red color even though it hadn’t been boiled yet.
“Under the seaweed, was it this color?”
“Hmph, what an unpleasing red! Now Belze, you do the rest.”
In front of the giant octopus head hanging in mid-air, Kirul spat that out.
And Belze responded with action.
Before we knew it, the figure of the girl with large wings sprang out right in front of the octopus.
“Well told, Pino. Well dragged out, Kirul. Both of you, praised be.”
One of Belze’s legs was shining in aurora colors.
I thought it was beautiful whenever I saw it. When I glanced next to me, Kirul was also narrowing his eyes intently in front of that beautiful color.
“Muscle enhancement × All-type chaos full burst—”
“Dragon scale.”
I strongly yearn for beautiful things.
At that moment, I could well understand the feelings of Knight Commander Kirul.
The aurora-colored trajectory slashed right through the top of the octopus’s head.
…Ending with Belze’s single strike, the monster perished.
Now, however, the real show for me starts from here.