Arifureta/ From Commonplace to World’s Strongest Vol. 5 Ch. 2

Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest Volume 5.

CHAPTER II: THE SUNKEN RUINS OF MELUSINE.

Blue as far as the eye could see.
The sun dazzled overhead in a cloudless sky. Yet it didn’t feel hot. In fact, the weather was positively pleasant. A gentle breeze blew past, keeping the temperature moderate.
However, there was not a single object in sight, making the scene a somewhat lonely one.
That was to be expected, though. After all, this was the middle of the ocean.
A single boat drifted gently through the waves. Though perhaps boat wasn’t the best term to describe it. At the very least, the people of this world wouldn’t have considered it one.
The not-boat was jet-black, narrow, and had no visible place from which to board. Two wings jutted out from its side in a V-formation, its rear had a propeller of some sort jutting out of it, and its rudder looked like a tail of sorts. Though, it wasn’t in the best of shape, since the entire thing looked like it’d been ravaged by a fierce storm. From a certain angle, it almost looked like a flattened whale.
The people of this world would likely think it was some kind of monster, not a boat.
In truth, it was the top half of a submarine. Specifically, the submarine that had saved Hajime, Shea, and Yue’s lives when the Grand Gruen Volcano had erupted. It had been damaged by its journey through the magma, and was barely holding together.
Hajime lay atop the submarine, admiring the scenery. He’d repaired his melted left arm using some of the material that made up the submarine. Right now, it looked as good as new. Though most of the features and abilities he’d packed into it didn’t work.
“Hajime, how do you feel?” He’d been about to nod off, but a voice from behind brought him back to wakefulness. Yue’s head popped into view. She was looking at him worriedly.
Hajime had taken quite a bit of damage from the white dragon’s aurora attacks, and the poison had slowed the healing of his wounds.
“Pretty good. My wounds have all closed up. They’ll probably be fully healed in another day or so… How about you, Yue? You were pretty exhausted after that fight, right?”
“Mmm… I’m fine. Shea let me drink some of her blood.” Yue climbed out of the hatch and crawled over to where Hajime was lying. Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, she started straddling him. Her plump butt fell directly over a very sensitive part of Hajime’s body.
“Yue, why are you climbing on top of me?”
“Because you’re there?” Yue copied a certain mountain climber’s quote and stared seriously down at Hajime. She didn’t have the same allure around her that she did when she was trying to seduce him.
“Don’t move…” she said as she bent down over his neck. Then, she ran her tongue down it before sinking her fangs inside, lapping up the drop of blood that welled out.
“Mmm, it looks like the poison’s mostly gone. You should be fine.”
It seemed Yue could tell the state of Hajime’s body by tasting his blood.
“I told you I was fine.”

“…Mmm. But I was still worried. I’m glad you’re finally able to rest, even if it’s in the middle of the ocean.”
“Yeah. To be honest, I never expected things to move so fast. I can’t decide if it was good luck or bad…” Hajime smiled wryly and Yue arched an eyebrow.
Neither of them could decide whether they should be grateful they made it out alive at all, or chalk up all the horrible events that led to them riding a magma torrent into the ocean to bad luck.
They had spent almost an entire day riding the underground magma channel after the eruption.
Hajime had spent a sleepless night worrying the current might be taking them to the planet’s mantle. Around that time, there’d been a change in their journey.
Their submarine had been hit by an impact far stronger than any before. So strong, in fact, that it had broken through the Diamond Skin defense of the submarine and damaged the hull directly. The force had sent the sub flying.
Hajime had hurried to make sure there weren’t any leaks anywhere. When he’d checked the outside of the sub, he’d been greeted by an unbelievable sight. They were no longer surrounded by magma on all sides, like he’d expected. Instead, they had found themselves at the bottom of an actual sea, with spiraling ribbons of magma swirling around them.
It seemed the underground channel had taken them to an underwater volcano. The impact they’d felt had been a phreatic eruption that had spit them out into the ocean.
The eruption had damaged the submarine pretty badly, but by a stroke of luck, the hull hadn’t been breached. Though Hajime’s expert engineering probably had more to do with that than luck.

Hajime and the others had breathed a sigh of relief at finally reaching the surface, but their troubles had only just begun. With the propeller and the rudder both broken, they had been forced to manually move the submarine with mana. All the while, they’d been attacked by deep-sea monsters.
First they’d had to grapple with a giant squid. It had been thirty meters long and had over thirty tentacles. Hajime had dubbed it the Kraken.
The Kraken had continually assaulted the submarine as they’d tried to rise to the surface. They’d nearly been caught and eaten, but Hajime’s torpedoes and Yue’s magic had somehow managed to fend it off.
Next, they’d been hounded by a school of sharks that wrapped water around them like a tornado. After that had been a giant marlin with a revolving horn. Then, a giant turtle that spat mines out of its ass… The list was endless.
Eventually, Hajime’s weapon reserves ran dry and they were reliant entirely on Yue’s magic. Yue drained all of her magic accessories as well, and since Hajime was still weak from blood loss, she ended up drinking Shea’s blood to replenish her mana.
The strain from their earlier fight at the Grand Gruen Volcano had taken its toll as well, and they were barely able to fight off all the creatures that attacked them. Shea, who’d hated being powerless to help, had given so much of her blood to Yue that she’d fainted.
Once they’d made it into relatively safe waters, Hajime had sent Yue and Shea to rest as he guided the submarine back to the continent. It had been half a day since then. The weather was perfect and the sea was calm. Since there was no immediate danger, Hajime had decided to stop the sub and treat himself to a little sunbath. It was his first proper rest in quite a while, too.

It really had been one thing after another since they’d cleared the Grand Gruen Volcano. Any other party wouldn’t have been able to survive the journey. Hajime could understand why a certain anime character who punched people into living their lives correctly was always complaining about his misfortune.
“How’s Shea?” Hajime brought himself back to the present and looked up at Yue.
“Still sleeping. I drank a lot of her blood, so she probably won’t wake up for a while.” According to Yue, the amount of mana she got from Hajime’s blood and the amount she got from Shea’s blood were different. Hajime was the one she’d made a blood oath with, so his blood gave her exponentially more mana than Shea’s.
Yue’s blood oath was a double-edged sword. The mana she obtained from the person she made a pact with rose drastically, but the amount of mana she obtained from others fell.
“I see. Well, we can take it easy for a bit. We have no idea how far we are from the continent, so there’s no telling how long it’ll take to get back. It’s better to rest now while we have the chance. Who knows what else we might have to deal with later.”
“Yeah.”
The ocean was to the west of the continent, so Hajime was sure he’d reach it eventually if he just went east. Yue could make water for them with her magic, and they could catch fish to eat. There were no fish in the sea that could escape Hajime’s submarine and Yue’s magic, so though it looked like they were stranded in the middle of the sea with nothing, they’d be able to get by easily enough. Plus, it was safer to wait until night so they could use the stars to confirm their bearing. Hence why they were resting for now.
Hajime laid back and relaxed. Yue watched him closely.

“Yue, may I ask what you’re doing?”
“I’m giving you energy.” Yue smiled seductively and leaned in close. She was definitely giving him energy. Only to a certain part of his body, though. As Hajime stared into her eyes, all thoughts of resisting melted away.
“Mmm…Fufu, looks like you’re ready.”
“Never thought I’d be doing this in the middle of the ocean half a year ago.”
Hajime and Yue enjoyed themselves thoroughly, savoring the feeling of still being alive. For a while, the submarine rocked from more than just waves.
“It sounded like you two were having fun…”
The two of them were met by a glaring Shea as they entered the submarine.
“Hm? I didn’t know you woke up. How’re you feeling?”
“Thanks for glossing over that like it never happened. All of your rocking and moaning woke me up. All that loneliness and sadness gave me strength, so I’m feeling a lot better now. Well, enough to smack you right now, in fact.”
“That’s good.”
Shea groaned at how casually Hajime took her pointing out that she could hear their sexual escapades. Realizing he was being a bit too cold to Shea, Hajime smiled and invited her to sit next to him.
Shea had felt really left out when she’d woken up to the sounds of Hajime and Yue having sex on top of the submarine, and she made up for it by clinging to Hajime even more than usual.

Yue, too, took a seat beside Shea instead of her customary place by Hajime. She started stroking Shea’s ears in an attempt to improve her mood.
With that, Hajime started pouring mana into his sub and propelled it eastward.
Monsters still came out to attack them occasionally, but Yue was able to fend them off with ease.
Hajime drove them through the night, and he spotted land finally around the time dawn was beginning to break.
He’d triangulated their position from the stars during the night. By his estimation, they were somewhere north of Erisen. That meant if he followed the coastline south, he’d eventually reach Erisen and the port that connected the sea to the Gruen Desert.
Relieved, the party followed the coastline south for two days. Around noon on the second day, Hajime stopped the submarine and the group went up to the deck to eat lunch.
Lunch consisted of fish, just like it had for the past two days. Hajime was reminded of his days in the abyss as he used Lightning Field to grill the fish. Since he’d given Tio his Treasure Trove they didn’t have any seasonings or dishes.
Still, the three of them enjoyed their meal as they gazed out at the sea. In a way, the spectacular scenery provided flavoring for their meal. It was the same way food tasted different on a beach, or at a festival.
Just as Shea was finishing off some unknown species of fish, her ears twitched. She instantly began moving.
A split second later Hajime noticed it too. His mouth, which was full of giant fish, turned toward the water.

A number of human-shaped silhouettes surrounded the submarine. They leaped out of the water and pointed their tridents at the three of them.
There were at least twenty of them. Upon closer inspection, Hajime noticed they all had emerald-green hair and fins for ears. They were all dagons. They watched Hajime and the others warily.
The one standing directly in front of Hajime thrust his spear out and asked a question.
“Who are you people? Why are you here? And what is that thing you’re riding?” Hajime’s mouth was still full of fish, so he couldn’t answer. It was rather unfortunate as he had no intention of fighting these dagons, but the fish was surprisingly tough and hard to chew through. It would take some time to get it all down.
Hajime wanted to take this conversation seriously, but even he knew it must’ve looked like he was making fun of them. Instead of talking, he was just casually eating his lunch.
A vein pulsed in the man’s forehead. His anger seemed a bit overblown for just having found humans in the sea. Realizing the situation could blow up at any minute, Shea tried to placate the man.
“U-Umm, please calm down. We’re just—”
“Silence! A mere rabbitman like you has no right to speak!”
It seemed even outside the sea of trees, rabbitmen were looked down upon by the other beastmen. There was also the fact that they wanted Hajime himself to answer. To them it seemed as if he were looking down on them by continuing to eat his lunch. The man turned his trident on Shea and thrust at her.
The man’s attack would likely not even have scratched her due to her body strengthening, but she still dodged out of the way. He’d aimed for her cheek, hoping that injuring Hajime’s comrade would make him take the encounter more seriously.
He seemed almost desperate. From what Hajime remembered, the dagons weren’t such an aggressive race.
But regardless of what circumstances they had that had driven them to such aggression, they shouldn’t have turned their fangs on Hajime or his friends. Even if it was just meant as a warning, Hajime didn’t like anyone attacking his friends. And so, he unleashed a wave of Intimidation so strong that it sent ripples through the ocean.
The lead dagon man turned to Hajime, his eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets. A second later, there was a loud thud. The dagon man flew through the air in a tailspin and bounced off the surface of the sea a few times before sinking into the ocean.
The other dagons turned to look back at Hajime. He was holding one of his grilled fish, and it looked like he’d just smacked a golf ball with it.
The sea glimmered in the sunlight. Hajime’s dead fish glimmered, too.
“Wh-What?” The dagons still couldn’t grasp what had happened.
Hajime slung the half-eaten fish over his shoulder and glared at the dagon man standing next to the one he’d sent flying. He’d already been scared senseless by Hajime’s Intimidation. The added pressure of his glare made him snap, and he charged forward with a wild yell.
“Zaaaaaah!” It was perhaps the most noble moment in that man’s life. In the face of certain death, he’d unleashed the strongest attack he could. However, Hajime blocked it with his dead fish. The man’s trident stuck fast inside the fish’s mouth.

“Huh? Wh-What the…” Hajime spun the fish, pulling the trident clean out of the man’s hands. The trident’s shaft struck the other dagons as it spun, leaving them reeling.
Then, Hajime swung the fish again as they clung to their bloody noses.
The dagon who’d lost his spear stared dumbfounded at this human boy who was glowing dark red and slapping them around with a fish.
“Bwah!?” Hajime sent this one flying the same way he had the last. A faint stream of water trailed behind him as he flew off into the ocean.
“Gulp. Okay, now I really don’t want to fight you guys, so let’s calm down and talk this through. I won’t hold back if you try and hurt my comrades, but… Oh, I went easy on those guys I sent flying, so they should still be alive.” The red glow surrounding Hajime faded and he released his Intimidation.
Even Hajime didn’t want to fight Myu’s people. He wouldn’t be able to face her if he accidentally ended up killing her neighbor or something.
However, it seemed the dagons weren’t interested in talking. Even if he hadn’t killed their comrades, he’d still knocked them around. More importantly, however, it hurt their pride that Hajime didn’t even consider them worth fighting when he was the one at a disadvantage in the sea.
Plus, they were still wary of humans and didn’t trust Hajime’s words. They weren’t going to let their guards down around him. The dagons backed up and prepared to throw their tridents.
“Is that how you tricked her? Are you here to kidnap more of our children!?”

“We won’t let you use magic again! The sea is our domain! Don’t think you’ll be making it home in one piece!”
“We’ll get her location out of you even if we have to rip your limbs off!”
“Don’t worry, we won’t kill you. We need you as a hostage to trade with the kingdom, after all.”
There’s definitely something strange going on here. They weren’t just wary of Hajime, they hated him. Judging by what they’d said, Hajime could guess it had something to do with Myu. Did they mistake us for the criminals that kidnapped her? They’d come in on some strange machine, with what seemed to be a rabbitman slave in tow. It was only natural that they’d be suspected.
Beastmen were known for being extremely close-knit. They were protective even of other species, but especially so of one of their own.
The Haulia tribe had abandoned the sea of trees for Shea, and the bearmen had ignored the council’s decision to try and get revenge for their leader. The dagons were no exception. Even if Myu wasn’t their daughter, they were just as protective of her.
She had all of these guys to choose as her dad, so why’d she pick me?
Hajime smiled bitterly to himself. He decided to bring up Myu in order to solve the misunderstanding.
“Uh, about that girl that was kidnapped—” “Get him!”
But before he could, the dagons threw their tridents at him. They were all swimming in the ocean, and yet they still managed to put a lot of force behind their throws. From the way they aimed at his shoulders and legs, Hajime guessed they really didn’t plan on killing him. They attacked the submarine from below as well, making it shake.

Any normal opponent would have lost their balance and been unable to dodge. They might even have fallen into the sea to be torn apart by the waiting dagons. Of course, Hajime was no normal opponent.
“Liquid Rampart.” The sea rose up around them, knocking down all of the tridents. While the dagons were still marveling at Yue’s ability to cast magic without an incantation, she created twenty balls of electricity.
As the walls of water crashed back into the sea, the dagons saw the electric balls flying at them.
“Ah!? T-Take coveeer!” One of the dagons cried out. Their faces paled and they quickly tried to swim away, but it was already too late.
The balls homed in on each of the dagons and hit them with a powerful shock. They spasmed and screamed for a few minutes before floating limply to the surface.
“Nice job, Yue.”
“Yeah… Hajime, the thing they were talking about.” “Yeah, they probably meant Myu.”
“You just have to cause a commotion wherever you go, huh? I guess I should expect this by now. We haven’t gone through a single town without making a stir…”
“Oh come on, Shea. To be honest, I do feel a little bad about this. Damn… This wouldn’t have happened if we’d had Myu with us…”
Hajime sighed and started collecting the dagons’ unconscious bodies.
Hajime dumped the dagon men into the impromptu trunk he’d crafted into the submarine and headed toward the city.

Yue had kindly held back, so they woke up relatively quickly. Once they were awake, Hajime explained the situation to them.
A few of them had thought he might still be the culprit because he was able to describe Myu’s features so well. They tried to jump at him, but he slapped them silly with a fish until they calmed down. Eventually, they were convinced as well.
Patience is an important virtue when it comes to persuasion.
Their cheeks were swollen, but the dagon men were finally willing to listen to Hajime. When he told them Myu was waiting in Ankaji, they requested to first stop by Erisen and then choose a few members to accompany Hajime.
Though they still weren’t sure they could trust Hajime, they chose to believe his words. However, they were still going to accompany him to make sure he was telling the truth.
Hajime agreed to their request and started steering the submarine to Erisen.
He learned along the way that all of the dagons who had attacked him knew Myu personally.
Myu’s kidnappers had hurt Myu’s mother pretty badly as well, so the men held a deep-seated resentment against them. Hajime didn’t want Myu to see all her friends with Afro hair and bruises, so he reluctantly healed them all.
After a few hours, they spotted Erisen.
“Ah, Hajime-san! There it is! I can see a city, and people!” “Hm? Wow, it actually is in the middle of the ocean.”
Shea pointed excitedly at the city. Hajime looked over and saw a city literally floating on top of the ocean.

He headed to one of the many docks he saw jutting out of it. Dagons, visiting human tourists, and traders all watched in awe as his mysterious vessel rode past. Hajime ignored them all and stopped at an empty dock.
The dagons specifically began murmuring worriedly to each other when they saw a few of their unconscious brethren riding in the trunk.
“Hey, explain the situation to them. The more time we waste dealing with stuff here the longer it’ll take to get to Myu.”
“O-Okay!” One of the dagon men nodded, trembling. He didn’t want to face Hajime’s fish slaps again.
The youth spotted a contingent of human and dagon soldiers making their way over to them and quickly intercepted. Hajime wanted to hurry up and rendezvous with Tio, Kaori, and Myu, so he didn’t want to have to waste any time here. He watched impatiently as the dagon youth talked to the soldiers’ captain.
Sadly, things were never as simple as Hajime wanted them to be. The soldiers shoved aside the youth and marched up to the sub. They surrounded Hajime, leaving him trapped on the tiny dock.
“Until we know what your intentions are, we’ll have to detain you. Don’t resist.”
“Hey, did you even listen to that guy?”
“I did. We will send some of our own men to confirm your story. You, however, will stay here.” The man spoke curtly. Hajime didn’t like his attitude one bit, but he restrained himself. Remember, this is Myu’s home.
“Okay, look here. I’ve got comrades waiting for me back there. I was planning on heading straight back there, but I took a detour to deliver these guys to you. They’re the ones who attacked me, you know?”

“And we have yet to verify whether or not they were justified in doing so. If the kidnapped child really isn’t in Ankaji, you’re just a suspicious boy who came in on an unknown vessel. What proof do we have that you won’t try and run once you leave Erisen?”
“That’d be kind of pointless, don’t you think? If I wanted to run, I could have just left these guys in the ocean and gone somewhere else.”
“About that. You are within our territory without permission. Furthermore, you attacked one of our patrols. We cannot let you move freely within the city.”
“They’re the ones who attacked without even listening to us. What, did you want me to just sit there while they chopped my limbs off? Gimme a break.” Hajime narrowed his eyes dangerously. The man frowned, seemingly unperturbed by the enormous pressure radiating from Hajime.
Hajime recognized the crest on the man’s uniform. It was the Heiligh Kingdom’s coat of arms. That meant he was the captain of the peacekeeping force assigned to Erisen. That explained why he wasn’t affected by Hajime’s glare. Hajime wasn’t even using Intimidation yet, after all. Though the dagon captain’s face paled, he also held his ground against Hajime.
Hajime really didn’t want to cause a stir in Erisen. Not only was it Myu’s hometown, he would likely spend some time here searching for the Sunken Ruins of Melusine’s entrance. It was another one of the Seven Great Labyrinths, so he needed to conquer it.
He knew Myu was in Ankaji, so there was no worry of them finding nothing there. But after everything this world had thrown at him, it was almost a reflex to fight back against anything that tried to stop him. He’d sworn he wouldn’t back down to anyone when he’d crawled his way out of the abyss. He wasn’t feeling like breaking that oath here.
Still, he also didn’t want to cause an uproar, which made the situation rather dicey.
Just when he’d convinced himself that he should accept their conditions for Myu’s sake, he heard something.
“Hm? What’s…” Shea’s bunny ears perked up and she started scanning the sky.
Hajime turned away from the captain and followed her gaze.
“What’d you see?” he asked. However, before she could reply, Hajime heard a familiar voice.
“…dy!”
“Huh? What was that?”
“…dy!”
“Wait, no way!?”
“Daddy!”
Hajime looked up and saw a vaguely human-shaped object falling from the sky. She had her arms spread wide and was smiling happily.
“Myu!?” It was indeed Myu. It seemed she’d gone skydiving without a parachute.
He then noticed Tio, in her dragon form, following closely behind with Kaori riding on her back.
His body moved faster than he could think. He activated Air Dance and Supersonic Step, then shot into the sky.

The force of his jump destroyed the wooden dock, making the soldiers scream as they fell into the sea, but Hajime didn’t even notice.
He used Aerodynamic again in the air to propel himself further upward and activated Riftwalk. He caught Myu in slow-motion and expertly controlled the speed of his descent to kill the impact of her fall.
With Myu safely in his arms, he zipped back to the ground. His whole body was covered in cold sweat.
“Daddy!” Unaware of how panicked she’d made Hajime, Myu happily nuzzled his chest. Tio had probably told Myu she’d spotted Hajime.
Then, either by accident, or perhaps on purpose, Myu had fallen toward him. Judging by her smiling face, she’d had no doubt that Hajime would catch her.
Still, it took a ridiculous amount of courage to jump off a dragon’s back in the middle of the sky. What kind of four-year-old does that!? Hajime frowned, then began scolding Myu for being reckless.
“Hic… Hic…” Myu stood next to the destroyed dock, crying. The area was filled with onlookers and soldiers, but none of them said a word.
The girl who’d been kidnapped had fallen from the sky, and a young boy had caught her in midair with superhuman abilities. Not only that, there was a dragon flying overhead. But what surprised everyone the most was that the boy was scolding Myu. That, and the fact that Myu called him her father.
“Hic… I’m sorry, Daddy…”
“Do you promise not to do anything that dangerous again?”

“I promise…”
“Then it’s fine. Now, give me a hug.” “Daddy!”
Hajime kneeled down and Myu launched herself into his chest. The whole exchange had looked exactly like a father scolding his daughter. In many ways, Hajime really had become Myu’s father.
Everyone watched with dumbfounded amazement. They would never have expected a dagon girl to start calling a human boy her father, especially since she’d been kidnapped. They were all thinking the same thing.
What the hell is going on?
Hajime lifted Myu into his arms and gently patted her back. As if that was some unsaid signal, the onlookers all started talking at once.
Hajime ignored the commotion and started walking back when he felt someone hug him from behind. He turned around and saw Kaori resting her head on his shoulder. She was trembling.
“Thank goodness… I’m so glad you’re okay…” Now it was Kaori’s turn to start crying. Though she’d acted strong, she’d been worried sick. She’d believed Hajime was still alive, of course, but that hadn’t stopped her from worrying. Especially since he’d disappeared shortly after she’d finally reunited with him. She’d been through a lot.
“Sorry I made you worry. But as you can see, we’re all fine. So… please don’t cry. If a certain someone found out I made you cry… Well, she’d probably kill me.”
“Waaah… Hic… Th-Then, let me stay here like this for a while longer…”

Hajime looked away awkwardly, but he used his free hand to gently pat Kaori on the head. Her tears didn’t stop though, and she buried her face into Hajime’s shoulder. She hugged him with all her might.
“Hey, you. What on earth is going on? I demand an explan— Bwah!?”
“Hm? Oh, my apologies.”
The captain had dragged himself out of the water and stalked up to Hajime, dripping wet. Before he could start yelling at Hajime he was knocked back into the water by Tio. She’d turned back into human form upon landing and had accidentally bumped into the captain in her haste to get to Hajime.
Tio didn’t seem sorry at all, and she grabbed Hajime’s head and pulled him into her bosom.
“Whoa!? Hey, Tio!”
“I believed in you. I believed… you would return… Still, you made me wait quite some time, Master.”
Hajime extricated himself from Tio’s massive melons and looked up at her face. Tears dripped from her eyes. She hugged Hajime tight, as if he would vanish if she let go. He’d put Tio through a lot, so he let her do as she wished for a little while.
Myu joined in as well, hugging Hajime around the neck. Yue and Shea didn’t feel like being left out, so they crowded around Hajime and joined in on the fun.
Hajime was buried underneath a pile of girls of all ages and sizes.
The confusion gradually faded from the onlookers’ faces, replaced by a gentle warmth. Even the dagons who’d attacked Hajime before lowered their weapons. Though a few other guys picked up weapons of their own. As always, there were some that were jealous of Hajime’s harem.
“You bastard… Not once, but twice now! Interfering with a royal soldier’s duty is a criminal offense!”
The captain dragged himself out of the water again and stalked toward Hajime. He held his weapon at the ready.
Considering Myu’s attitude toward Hajime, it was unlikely he was the kidnapper, but there was still a lot about this situation that didn’t make sense to him. He still wanted to interrogate Hajime.
Since escorting Myu back to Erisen had been an official request from Fuhren branch chief Ilwa, Hajime hadn’t worried about being arrested. His explanation would have cleared things up. The only problem was that he hadn’t had any proof of the request. Fortunately, now he did.
Tio gave Hajime his Treasure Trove and he pulled out his Status Plate and the letter Ilwa had given him.
“What? Just showing me your identity now won’t— Wait, you’re a gold rank adventurer!? And you have a personal introduction from Fuhren’s branch chief!?”
Hajime also pulled out the letter detailing his request and handed it to the captain. The letter was originally addressed to the mayor and the captain of the guard anyway, so Hajime would have given it to him eventually even if this hadn’t happened.
The captain scrutinized the letters. Once he was done reading, he sighed. After a moment’s hesitation he shrugged his shoulders and saluted.
“I verify that you have indeed completed the assigned task, Hajime Nagumo-dono.”

“Glad to know I’ve been cleared of suspicion. I’m sure there’s a lot you want to know, but we’re kinda busy here. Could you hold off on your questions for a bit? I want to bring Myu to her mother first. Is that alright?”
“I suppose so. However that dragon, those unbelievable abilities of yours, and this strange boat are all things I cannot overlook.”
The captain was no longer talking down to Hajime. In fact, he was being almost respectful. But still, he had to do his job, and his job required investigating all of these things.
“It’s fine if we talk about all of that later, right? We’re planning on staying in Erisen for a while, so it’s not like we’re going anywhere. Besides, there’s no point in sending a report to the capital. They already know all of this.”
“Hmm, I see. In that case, as long as we can talk, I’ll be satisfied. You said you want to take her to her mother, but… do you know what kind of state her mother is in?”
“No, but it shouldn’t be a problem. We’ve got some of the best medicine in the world and a top-class healer here.”
“I see… Very well, then. In that case, I shall return once things have settled down.”
The captain gave Hajime his name, which was Salze, and got to work dispersing the onlookers. He seemed very dedicated to his job.
All of the people who knew Myu came up to talk to her, but Hajime silenced them with a look. He appreciated their enthusiasm, but if they got started now they’d never make it to Myu’s mom.
“Daddy, Daddy. I wanna go home. Mommy’s waiting! I wanna see Mommy!”
“Yeah. Let’s go see her.”

Myu excitedly took Hajime’s hand and dragged him toward her house. It had been nearly two months since she’d last seen her mother. Her excitement was only natural. She’d laughed and smiled around Hajime and the others, but at night she’d cried for her mom.
As they made their way to Myu’s house, Kaori worriedly walked up to Hajime and asked something.
“Hajime-kun. About what that soldier said earlier…”
“Well, it seems her life isn’t in danger at least… Her wounds are pretty bad though, and it must have been a shock to lose her daughter. Seeing Myu again will probably help with the latter. I’ll be counting on you for the former.”
“Don’t worry. Just leave it to me.”
Their conversation was interrupted by a commotion coming from further down the street. One of the voices was female, while the others were male.
“Remia, calm down! You can’t go anywhere on that leg!”
“He’s right, Remia-chan. We’ll bring Myu-chan to you!”
“No! She’s my daughter! I have to be there to greet her! I have to!”
The men were trying to hold the woman back. It seemed someone had told Myu’s mother about her return.
When she heard her mother’s voice, Myu’s face lit up. She called out to the twenty-something woman collapsed at the entrance of her house and dashed off toward her.
“Mommy!”
“Ah!? Myu!? Myu!”
Myu tottered up to her mother and leaped into her arms.

Mother and daughter embraced tightly, and the onlookers watched with smiles on their faces. A few of them even teared up.
Remia apologized to Myu over and over. Hajime couldn’t tell whether she was apologizing for taking her eyes off Myu, or for not coming to get her. It might have been both.
Tears streamed down Remia’s cheeks. She was both relieved to have her daughter back, and angry at herself for being unable to protect her. Myu patted her mom’s head reassuringly.
“It’s okay, Mommy. I’m here. It’s okay.”
“Myu…” Remia stared at her daughter. She hadn’t expected to be consoled by her.
Myu stared back at her mother, worry etched over her face. Before she’d been kidnapped, Myu had been a spoiled child who was quick to throw a tantrum. Despite that, even though she must have suffered far more than her mother, she was the one worrying about others.
Myu smiled, and Remia hugged her daughter tight. She’d spent many sleepless nights agonizing over what kind of horrors her daughter might be facing, but while Remia had been fretting, Myu had grown stronger over the course of her journey.
Remia smiled, admiring her daughter’s growth. Her tears dried up and the tension drained from her shoulders.
The pair hugged each other again, but then Myu suddenly shrieked.
“Mommy, what happened to your legs!? Do they hurt!?” Myu had finally noticed the wounds on Remia’s legs. They’d been bound with bandages, and looked pretty bad.
Hajime remembered what Salze and the dagons who’d attacked him had said. Not only had the slavers kidnapped Myu, they’d hurt Remia so badly that she couldn’t even walk.

No one had actually seen what had happened when Myu had gone missing, so at first they couldn’t be sure she had actually been kidnapped.
However, their suspicions turned to certainty after Remia had run into them.
She’d gone searching for her missing daughter, and ran into a group of shifty-looking men trying to cover their tracks at the beach. She hadn’t wanted to approach them, but she needed all the information she could get, so she’d gone up to ask if they’d seen her daughter, and they’d attacked her.
Realizing they must have been the group who’d taken Myu, she’d evaded the men’s attacks and tried to get her daughter back, but Remia had no combat skills to speak of. She could only dodge for so long, and eventually one of the mages’ fireballs had hit her legs. The attack had sent her flying back into the ocean, and left her unconscious.
The other dagons had grown worried when she didn’t come back and sent out a search party. They’d found her floating in the sea and brought her back.
They’d managed to save her life, but the injuries had been grave, and she would likely never be able to walk or swim properly again. Naturally, Remia had tried to continue searching for her daughter anyway, but with her legs the way they were, she’d been left with no choice but to leave the search to the other dagons and the kingdom.
Even now, Remia could barely stand.
She didn’t want to worry her daughter anymore, so she smiled reassuringly and just muttered that she was fine.
Still, now Myu had Hajime on her side, and he could do anything, so she turned to him for help.

“Daddy! You have to help Mommy! Her legs are hurt!”
“Wha!? M-Myu? Did you just say…”
“Daddy, hurry!”
“Huh? Daddy? Myu, who’s Daddy?” Remia stared at her daughter in confusion.
The other dagons all started whispering to each other, too.
“Did Remia…remarry? No way.” “Remia-chan’s finally found a new husband! How wonderful!” “No way. Someone tell me this isn’t real… My Remia-san…” “Daddy!? She didn’t mean me, right!?” “It’s probably just a nickname or something. I’m sure everyone calls him that.” “Guys, we need to hold an emergency meeting! Gather all of the members of the Remia and Myu protection committee!”
It seemed the two of them were quite popular within Erisen. Remia was still young, being only in her mid-twenties. And though she’d grown gaunt in the months since her daughter’s absence, one could tell she’d originally been quite pretty. Once she regained her health, she’d likely be turning heads in the street again.
Hajime grimaced. I really don’t want to deal with those guys.
He was sure if he’d explained Myu had just started calling him that because she didn’t have a real father and that he wasn’t interested in marrying Remia the other guys would understand, but rumors often spread quickly.
Still, this was a stroke of good fortune. Hajime could leave Myu with her mother and continue his journey without worry. Once they’d cleared the Sunken Ruins of Melusine, he’d have to say his farewells. She’d initially clung so tightly to Hajime and the others because there was no one else she could trust so far from home, but now that she was back with her mother, she’d soon start forgetting about them.

She’d probably cry at first, but she’d get used to it in time. Especially since it seemed the other townspeople cared a great deal for her.
“Daddy, hurry! You have to save Mommy!” Myu looked over at Hajime, and everyone’s gazes turned to him. Many of them only just noticed his presence. Hajime resigned himself to dealing with this misunderstanding and walked over to her.
“Daddy, Mommy’s…”
“It’s alright, Myu. We’ll heal her, so don’t cry.”
“Okay…”
Hajime patted Myu’s head and turned to Remia. She stared blankly back at him.
The surrounding guys’ whispers grew even more heated. For now, Hajime figured he should focus on healing Remia. That’d be easier to do inside her house.
“Sorry about this.” “Huh? Wha!?”
Hajime effortlessly hoisted Remia into his arms and followed Myu into her house. He could hear some of the guys screaming behind him, but he ignored them. Remia was too flustered to say anything at all.
As they entered the living room Hajime spotted a sofa, so he put Remia down on it. Then, he sat himself down next to her and called Kaori over.
“Kaori, how’s it look?”
“Let me examine her. Remia-san, I’m going to need to touch your legs. If it hurts, please say something.”

“O-Okay? Umm, what’s going on?”
Not only was there some guy Myu was suddenly calling daddy, he was surrounded by a bunch of beautiful girls. Remia’s confusion was certainly understandable.
Kaori finished her examination and told Hajime that while the injuries were serious, they were within her capabilities to heal.
“But it’ll take some time. A lot of fragile nerve endings were damaged, so I’ll need a few days to heal her completely. It might be a little inconvenient, Remia-san, but please bear with it. I promise I can cure you.”
“Oh my… I didn’t think I would ever walk again… I don’t know how to thank you…”
“Hehe, it’s fine. We can’t leave Myu-chan’s mom like this.”
“Oh, about that… What kind of relationship do you have with my daughter… Also, umm… why is Myu calling you daddy?”
Hajime explained everything that had happened since Fuhren as Kaori began healing Remia. Including the events at the slave auction that had led to Myu calling him daddy.
When he finished, Remia bowed her head and thanked Hajime over and over again, tears in her eyes.
“I don’t know how to thank you… It’s all thanks to you that I was able to see my daughter again. I swear I will repay the favor, even if it takes me my whole life. If there’s anything I can do for you, anything at all…” Hajime and the others told her not to worry about it, but Remia insisted. She couldn’t accept not doing anything for the people who’d saved her daughter’s life.
Eventually, Kaori’s treatment reached a point where she could stop safely for the day. Hajime and the others began discussing where they would stay for the night, and Remia interjected that they were free to use her house.
“Please, at least let me do this for you. Fortunately, my house has plenty of space. There’s enough rooms for all of you. At least for as long as you’re in Erisen, think of my home as yours. Besides, I’m sure Myu would be happier that way, too. Isn’t that right, Myu? You want them to stay with us too, don’t you?”
“Huh? Are you going somewhere, Daddy?” Myu, who’d been dozing in Remia’s lap, groggily got up and looked at Hajime in confusion. It appeared to her that the fact that Hajime would stay here had already been a guarantee. In fact, she couldn’t even understand why her mother had bothered to ask.
“I was thinking it might be better to spend some time away now that she’s back with you…”
“Oh my… Don’t you know a father should never leave his daughter?” “Well, I mean, I told you before, we’re…”
“I know you’ll be leaving on your journey eventually, but that’s precisely why I’d like for you to act as her father for as long as you’re here. Don’t you think parting with her after spending time apart would be even more sad?”
“Well, I guess you’ve got a point…”
“Ufufu… You’re welcome to stay here as her father forever too, if you wish. I did say I would do anything to repay you…” Remia blushed and put a hand to her cheek. Normally, Hajime would have been reassured by seeing her smile, but he could feel the room temperature dropping rapidly.
“Please don’t joke around like that. A certain someone might kill me if you do…”

“Oh my, I see you’re quite popular already. Still, it’s been nearly five years since my husband passed away… and Myu seems to be pining for a father.”
“Huh? But Daddy’s already my daddy.” “Ufufu… There you have it, Daddy.”
If the room got any colder, Hajime would freeze to death. It felt like he’d just stepped into the tundra.
Remia didn’t seem to notice, or rather she didn’t seem to care. She continued joking with Hajime despite the cold glares Yue, Shea, Tio, and Kaori were giving her. Remia weathered their ire with a smile. She was surprisingly strong-willed.
In the end, Hajime and the others decided to stay at Remia’s house. She caused another stir later by saying “Husband and wife are supposed to sleep in the same room, right?” And Myu had only made things worse by following up with “Daddy and Mommy are going to sleep together~” It was late by the time Remia and the girls finally stopped feuding with each other.
They’d begin their hunt for Melusine tomorrow, so Hajime wanted to spend the night repairing his damaged gear, creating new weapons, and testing out the new ancient magic they’d acquired. However, he’d also wanted to make the most of his remaining time with Myu, so he made sure to play with her a bunch. By the time he crawled into bed, he was dead tired.
Five days had passed since Myu had reunited with her mother.
The dagon men had been extremely jealous at how close Remia and Hajime looked. He’d had to fight a good number of them off, and deal with all of the neighborhood ladies’ gossip. Thanks to that, Yue and the others had come on to Hajime even more aggressively, and he’d spent every night pinned to the bed by Yue. In the end, they hadn’t gotten any real exploration done the past few days, but now they were finally ready to embark.
Even though this parting would only be for a short while, Myu was still sad to see Hajime go. She clung to him for dear life, but Hajime eventually managed to pull her off and head to his newly repaired submarine.
Myu waved and shouted goodbye as Hajime ducked through the entrance hatch.
“Goodbye, Dear!” Remia shouted. Hajime still couldn’t tell if she was being serious or not. If nothing else, it certainly looked like his wife and daughter had come out to see him off at work.
He could feel Yue and the others’ sharp glares behind him. Out in front, the dagons were glaring jealously at him, too. Maybe I should just leave right after we clear the ruins.
They traveled roughly three hundred kilometers northwest.
That was where the Sunken Ruins of Melusine were hidden, according to Miledi Reisen.
However, they hadn’t had time to get its precise location out of her before she’d flushed them out. On top of that, she’d mentioned something about the moon, and needing Gruen’s crest.
For now, Hajime decided to find the ruins’ location, and then go from there. They arrived at the location Miledi had mentioned around noon, and began searching the bottom of the ocean. Unfortunately, they found nothing of note. Since it was a sunken ruin, Hajime had expected to find some trace of it on the floor, but there was nothing.

The only difference was the depth. The surrounding areas were around one hundred kilometers deep, but the supposed location of the ruins was slightly shallower.
The party reluctantly cut their search short and decided to do as Miledi had said. They patiently waited for the moon to come out.
At present, it was sunset. The sun had almost completely sunk beneath the horizon, and was illuminating the sky with the last of its rays. Both the sea and the sky were dyed a dazzling shade of vermillion. A single streak of light ran through the water, connecting the horizon and the sun.
No matter the world, nature’s beauty was unchanged. Hajime anchored the sub and headed up to the deck. Maybe if I follow that ray of light all the way to the sun, it’ll lead me back to Japan… Hajime thought idly. Heh, how ridiculous. He smiled at his own foolishness.
“What’re you thinking about?” Kaori walked over to him.
She’d just gotten out of the shower he’d installed into the submarine, and her hair was damp. Yue, Shea, and Tio followed behind her.
It seemed they’d all been taking a shower, as their skin was slightly flushed and their hair damp. It was quite an alluring sight. The shower poured hot water directly from the ceiling, so it was possible for them all to take one together. Guess they’re all getting along now.
The reason Hajime had come up to the deck in the first place was because he hadn’t wanted to get roped into joining them in their shower.
Tio had actually invited Hajime to take a shower with her earlier, which of course meant Yue, Shea, and Kaori had all insisted they join in as well.

Hajime had made it clear that the only person he wanted to see naked was Yue. However, Kaori and the others had completely ignored him. Tio and Kaori had pinned Hajime down, while Shea attempted to knock him out with Drucken.
In the end, he’d fled up to the deck, fearing for his life. Though he was beginning to wonder if he was a failure of a man for not accepting their advances. Hajime shook his head, banishing such dangerous thoughts, and turned to Kaori.
“I was just thinking about Japan. We have the same kind of sunset back home.”
“I see. Yeah, you’re right. It’s exactly like the sunsets we used to see in Japan… How nostalgic. I can’t believe it’s only been half a year since we came here.”
“It feels like the days here stretch on forever.”
Kaori sat down next to Hajime and nodded, her eyes gazing off into the distance. She was thinking back to their days in Japan.
Feeling lonely at being left out of the conversation, Yue tottered over to Hajime and sat down on his lap. She leaned back and looked up at him.

Her eyes were begging to let her into the conversation. Yue was interested in hearing more about Hajime’s homeland. Though it was hard to resist Yue’s cuteness, Hajime could feel Kaori’s devil stand rising up again. He leaned over to Kaori and pinched her cheeks.
That seemed to be enough to improve her mood, though that wasn’t what he was going for. He couldn’t understand why they were all so obsessed with him, especially since he’d made his intentions clear. He didn’t say anything, though. He felt it would be a betrayal of their feelings to ask something so crass.
Shea came up to Hajime too, her eyes sparkling. She obviously wanted his attention as well. He patted her bunny ears with his spare hand. She grinned and leaned closer.
Tio walked up and sat down, leaning against his back. She didn’t ask for anything, just quietly sat there. He could tell from her posture that she was completely relaxed, though. He’d been expecting her to ask for something perverted, so he was surprised when she didn’t give him a reason to chuck her into the sea.
Though it seemed just sitting next to him was arousing enough, as her breathing grew heavy before long. The five of them quietly sat there, enjoying the sunset. There was still some time until the moon came out. Hajime decided to spend the time until then telling everyone stories of his homeland.
Yue and the others listened with rapt attention, while Kaori chimed in with stories of her own.
Time passed in the blink of an eye, and the sun set before they knew it. The moon appeared in the sky, shining brightly.
Hajime pulled Gruen’s pendant out of his pocket and held it up. The design engraved on it was that of a woman holding up a lantern,

framed in a circle. The lantern had been cut-out, leaving a hole in the center.
While in Erisen Hajime had tried pouring mana into the pendant or holding it up against the moon, but nothing had happened.
He still couldn’t figure out what he was supposed to do with this pendant, but he tried holding it up to the moon again just in case. He angled it so the moon was visible through the lantern-hole.
He kept it like that for a while, but nothing changed. Sighing, Hajime took the pendant down and thought of other ways he could use it.
But just then, the pendant began to glow.
“Look, the lantern’s shining. It’s so pretty.”
“You’re right… How strange. There’s a hole there, but it’s glowing…”
Kaori and Shea examined the pendant with great interest. The lantern had seemingly absorbed moonlight, and now glowed with a pale silvery light. It filled the hole, spreading out like a wispy liquid. Yue and Tio leaned in as well, and Hajime held the pendant up for them.
“It didn’t do that last night…”
“Hmm, Master. I suspect it only activates in this location.”
Tio’s probably right.
Once the entire lantern was saturated, it shot a stream of light directly downward, to the bottom of the ocean.
“That’s an impressive trick. Better than Miledi’s, at least.”
“Totally. This is like something straight out of an RPG. It’s pretty cool.”

Hajime and Yue watched in awe as the moonlight quite literally showed them the way. Shea, who’d been with them for the Reisen Gorge, seemed impressed as well.
There was no telling how long the light would last, so they decided to hurry. They scrambled back into the submarine and followed the trail.
The sea was even darker at night. Practically no light made it down past the first few kilometers. It quickly grew pitch black, and Hajime turned on the sub’s headlights. Those, and the light emanating from the pendant, were the only sources of light in the sea.
The pendant’s light easily pierced through the transparent crystal Hajime had used in place of glass for the front windshield.
As they grew closer to the sea floor, Hajime realized the light was pointing to a rocky section of the bottom. Countless massive boulders were next to each other, creating an underwater mountain range of sorts. When they’d explored that section in the afternoon, there had been nothing there. The light hit a specific part of a boulder, and the entire formation began to shake with an ominous rumbling.
Part of the rock crumbled away, almost like a door. It revealed a passage leading further inside. The passage was pitch-black, like the gateway to some hellish underworld.
“I get it now. No wonder we couldn’t find anything no matter how hard we looked. It was all a waste of time.”
“We had the time anyway, and it was fun.”
“Yeah. Sightseeing at the bottom of the ocean in another world was a great experience.”
Hajime slumped his shoulders dejectedly, but Yue and Kaori seemed to have enjoyed the undersea adventure.

Hajime steered the submarine into the newly-revealed passage. The pendant still had around half of its light left, but once they were in it suddenly stopped emitting any. All that remained to illuminate the surroundings was Hajime’s headlights.
“Hmmm… I’ve been thinking about this since I heard the ruins were underground, but normal people would be unable to even reach the entrance.”
“Yeah… You’d need a really strong barrier.”
“On top of that, you’d need to create air, and light, and hold back the waves at the same time.”
“You can’t even enter unless you’ve cleared the Grand Gruen Volcano, though. If you can beat a labyrinth, you’re already not someone normal.”
“I guess the expectation is you’d use air magic to make it down here.”
They discussed how they would have made it down here if Hajime hadn’t built a submarine as they continued down the passage. Considering you’d need a party of extremely skilled mages just to make it to the entrance, I’m betting this labyrinth is harder than the others.
Hajime and the others steeled their resolve and stared warily out of the windshield. Just then—
“Uoooh!?” “Hm!?” “Wawah!” “Kyaaa!” “My word!?”

Something hit them from the side, sending them spiraling in the other direction. Like before, the submarine flipped around in the current, but unlike the time with the magma, Hajime had countermeasures in place. The weightstone comprising the bottom of the ship’s hull grew heavier, stabilizing the sub.
“Ugh, I was hoping we wouldn’t have to deal with this again.” Shea paled and shook her head. She hadn’t enjoyed the ride out of the Grand Gruen Volcano one bit.
“Don’t worry, I stabilized us already. The real question is where this current is taking us…” Hajime grimaced and looked out of the front windshield.
The green glowstone headlights chased away the darkness and illuminated the cavern. From the looks of it, they were being pushed down a long tunnel.
Hajime stabilized the sub, but otherwise let the current take them where it would. After a while, Hajime’s alertstone picked up on a number of creatures that were glowing dark red.
“Something’s coming toward us. It’s probably monsters. Nothing else glows like that.”
“Should I kill them?” Mana gathered in Yue’s hands as she casually offered to wipe them out. Her harsh words were a stark contrast to her cute face.
“Nah, let’s try out my new weapons. I wanna see how effective they are.”
Hajime activated one of the mechanisms he’d added to the rear of the sub. A barrage of small torpedoes shot out of the sub’s stern. He’d painted images of smiling sharks on all of them.

They had to fight against the current, so they didn’t travel very fast. As a result, they ended up sitting in place, creating a minefield behind Hajime.
The monsters closed in on the minefield, and the party got a good look at them for the first time. They were shaped like flying fish, just much larger. They swam headfirst into Hajime’s torpedoes.
Then, there was a huge explosion. It was so massive that it made the entire tunnel shake. The flying fish were enveloped in a cloud of frothy water. The explosion tore them apart, and chunks of flesh whipped past the submarine, blown along by the current. There had been so many of them the water was dyed red with their blood.
“Yeah, this is definitely better than before. Looks like my upgrades worked out.”
“Whoa, Hajime-san. I think I just saw a dead fish’s eyes staring at me.”
“You probably did. I just killed a lot of them.”
“I was thinking about this for a while, but the artifacts you make are completely broken, Hajime-kun.”
They ran into schools of other monster fish, but they had no problem dispatching them.
As they were underwater, Hajime had no way of tracking how long that went on for.
Eventually, though, Hajime felt a subtle change in their circumstances. The current had carried them to a place where the walls were severely damaged. Dead eyes stared at Hajime from the cracks in the rock, and he realized the fishes he’d blown up had become stuck there.
“Have we been here before?”

“Seems like it… Guess we’re going in circles?”
They’d just been looping around. Hajime had thought he’d been advancing further through the labyrinth, but it turned out they’d just been shunted into a regular underwater cavern. He stopped letting the current carry them along, and the group carefully searched the cavern as they advanced.
Upon closer inspection, the group realized there was more to the place than met the eye.
“Ah, Hajime-kun. There’s something there too!” “That’s the fifth one…”
They’d been finding fifty-centimeter stretches of wall where Melusine’s crest had been engraved. Her crest was a five-pointed star, with a line going from the top vertex to the center. Said center had a crescent moon housed inside it. There were five of those crests in total.
Hajime moved the submarine back to the first crest they’d found in order to examine it more closely. The current was pretty strong, so it took effort to keep the sub anchored in place.
“So we’ve got five five-pointed stars and this half-lit pendant…” Hajime took the pendant hanging around his neck and held it up to the crest. As he’d expected, the lantern began to emit light again. The beam of moonlight hit the crest, which absorbed it and began to glow.
“This would be pretty hard for people who came here using magic… You’d have to catch on quick or your mana would run out.” Kaori was right. Completing these series of steps while struggling to keep yourself from drowning would not be easy. It seemed this labyrinth had been designed to test one’s limits in a completely different way than the Grand Gruen Volcano.

They went around lighting up the remaining crests, and it wasn’t long before they reached the last one. The lantern had lost a proportional amount of light at each crest, and it had just enough to light up one more.
As Hajime lit up the last crest, part of the rock fell away, revealing yet another passage. There was more rumbling as the boulder slid away.
They advanced inside and found a passage heading straight down. Hajime angled the sub down and descended. As they entered the passage, something pushed them down with force. The sub fell so fast that everyone felt weightless.
“Whoa?”
“Mmm.”
“Hyaaah!?”
“Nuoooh!”
“Hawawawa!”
All five of them yelped as they fell. Hajime felt the same kind of tingling in his crotch that he did when rode a roller coaster.
The submarine landed on something solid with a resounding thud. Everyone groaned as they landed, especially Kaori, who was physically weaker than the others.
“Ugh… Kaori, are you alright?”
“Ugh… I-I’m okay. Where are we?” Kaori grimaced and looked outside the windshield. They weren’t surrounded by water anymore. There didn’t seem to be any monsters nearby either, so Hajime and the others tentatively stepped out of the sub.
They found themselves in a large dome-shaped cavern. Directly above them was the hole they’d fallen through. Due to some trick of magic, the water didn’t cascade through it. Not a single drop fell through as the water swayed to and fro within the top half of the hole.
“I guess this is where things get serious. Looks like we’re not underwater anymore, either.”
“It’s better that it’s not all underwater.”
Hajime put the submarine back into his Treasure Trove and called out to Yue before they advanced.
“Yue.”
“Okay.” Yue immediately deployed a barrier around them.
A second later, jets of water slammed into it from above. It was the same Rupture spell Yue had made use of back in the Reisen Gorge. The water jets had enough force behind them to cut people to ribbons, but Yue’s barriers, even makeshift ones, were made of tougher stuff. It easily deflected the barrage of water jets. Hajime had instantly detected the surprise attack, and Yue had easily picked up on Hajime’s thoughts. Their superhuman combination made surprise attacks largely ineffective. Naturally, Shea and Tio had sensed the attack coming too, so they weren’t surprised in the slightest.
However, Kaori wasn’t on that level.
“Kyaaa!?” She screamed in surprise and staggered backward. Hajime caught her as she stumbled.
“I-I’m sorry.”
“Eh, don’t worry about it.”
She glanced at Hajime, pale-faced. Normally, she’d be blushing at the opportunity to be in his arms, but right now she was just depressed at being the only member of the party to be shaken by the attack.
She was also still in shock at how amazing Yue’s magic skills were.

Back when she’d been in Kouki’s party, Kaori had often supplemented Suzu’s barriers with her own, so she knew a fair amount about defensive magic. She’d trained herself to death in order to reduce her casting time for barrier spells to the same level as Suzu’s.
Compared to Yue though, Kaori’s skills were nothing.
She’d felt like this when Hajime had saved her back in the Great Orcus Labyrinth too. That feeling of inferiority she’d pushed down to convince herself she was fit to travel with Hajime reared its ugly head once more.
Am I just slowing everyone down? That thought whirled around her mind.
“What’s wrong?”
“Huh? Oh, it’s nothing.”
“If you say so…”
Kaori forced herself to smile. Hajime narrowed his eyes, but he didn’t say anything.
Kaori felt both a little disappointed and a little relieved that he didn’t push the issue. She noticed Yue, who was still fending off the torrent of deadly water, staring at her. It felt as though Yue was seeing right through her. Angry, Kaori glared right back.
She wouldn’t let Yue make fun of her feelings any longer. If she let Yue walk all over her, she wouldn’t be fit to even call herself Yue’s rival.
She absolutely couldn’t let that happen.

Yue just smiled faintly at Kaori and turned her attention back to the ceiling. Tio unleashed a gout of flames at the same time, caking the ceiling with fire. Monsters dropped to the ground, burnt to a crisp.
At a glance, they looked almost like barnacles. They were likely what had been unleashing those water jets. They’d been hiding inside the cracks in the ceiling, which was why Kaori hadn’t noticed them. Now that they’d been burned to death, they looked rather disgusting.
It seemed sea creatures like these were especially weak to fire. Tio’s Spiral Blaze had taken them all out in one shot.
With the barnacles dead, the party was free to advance further into the cavern. The passage was narrower than the cavern they’d landed in, and was filled knee-deep with water.
“Grr…” Yue growled to herself. She was so short that the water came up to her waist, which made walking difficult. Hajime nodded to her, then lifted her onto his shoulders.
“H-Hajime… This is a little embarrassing.”
“But it looks like the water gets deeper further in. Besides, don’t you like it more up here?”
“I guess…”
The party continued wading through the water. Yue blushed, feeling like a little child. She wrapped her thighs around Hajime, hugging him tight. Shea and the others didn’t seem jealous at all. In fact, they were all snickering. They gave Yue looks that were full of pity.
Yue felt even more embarrassed, and shrunk back. Hajime had never seen her like this.
“Hehehe, you look really cute right now, Yue-san.” “Ugh…”

“I see you’ve taken over Myu’s favorite spot.”
“Ngh…”
“Fufufu… Should we start calling you Yue-chan from now on?” “Do you want to die, Kaori?”
“How come I’m the only one you’re yelling at!?”
Yue blushed with embarrassment, but when Kaori joined in on the ribbing her glare turned stone cold. Hajime watched the exchange with a laugh.
Their lighthearted banter came to an abrupt end when another wave of monsters assaulted them.
These monsters resembled shuriken. They came spinning at Hajime and the others. Hajime calmly unholstered Donner and shot them all down. As they fell lifeless to the ground, Hajime realized they were actually starfish who had been spinning so fast they looked like shurikens.
Yue noticed a horde of sea snakes slithering toward them right after, and skewered the lot of them with ice spears.
“Aren’t these a little too weak?” Everyone except Kaori nodded.
Normally, the monsters that appeared in labyrinths were dangerously powerful on their own, or had abilities that made them annoying in groups. Or both. However, the monsters they faced were around the same level as the monsters who’d attacked the sub when the underwater volcano had spit them out. In fact, they might have even been a little weaker. Certainly nowhere near labyrinth level.
Only Kaori, who didn’t have any experience with labyrinths, wasn’t confused by their weakness. But they didn’t have to ponder for long, as the answer was revealed in the next room.

“What the…” The corridor opened up in a massive room. As they walked inside, a translucent, jelly-like substance blocked the passage forward.
“I’ll get it! Oryaaah!” Shea leaped forward and smacked the jelly wall with Drucken. Some of the jelly at the surface of the wall scattered, but the blockade itself remained in place. Some of the jelly splashed onto Shea’s chest.
“Hyawah! What is this stuff!?” She screamed in surprise. Hajime and the others turned to her. The jelly had begun melting through her clothes. Her voluptuous cleavage came into view as the cloth covering it melted away.
“Shea, don’t move!” Tio burned away the jelly with masterfully controlled fire magic. A few stray flames singed Shea’s skin, making it turn red, but the fire otherwise hit only the jelly. It appeared the jelly had caustic properties.
“Watch out!” The party leaped away from the wall, but this time countless tentacles came down from the ceiling. The tentacles’ tips were pointed, like a spear, but they were made of the same jelly as the wall, which meant they were likely just as dangerous. Yue hurriedly jumped off Hajime’s shoulders and deployed a barrier above the party. Tio cast her flame breath at the same time, burning the tentacles away.
“Man, the combination of Yue’s barriers and Tio’s fire is broken.” An ironclad wall combined with one of the most powerful attacks. Frankly, Hajime was impressed.
Confident Yue and Tio could handle things, Shea sidled up to Hajime and puffed out her mostly-visible chest. She blushed and looked up at Hajime.

“Umm, Hajime-san. I got burned a little here, so could you put some medicine on it?”
She never missed an opportunity to come onto Hajime. Truly a clever bunny girl. Sadly, Hajime just gave her an exasperated look.
“Is this really the time?”
“Well… I mean Yue and Tio are unbeatable, so it should be fine. If I don’t show off at times like these, I’ll start losing to even Kaori-san.”
Shea showed off the numerous small burns on her breasts. Just then—
“Grant respite to these divine warriors— Divine Blessing!” Kaori healed Shea’s wounds with a smile.
“Nooo! My chance to let Hajime grope me!” Shea wailed, but everyone just stared coldly at her.
“Hm…? Hajime, this jelly can melt magic, too.”
Hajime looked and it did indeed seem that the tentacles were melting the barrier wherever they touched it.

“Ah, that explains it. I was wondering why my flames had been having so little effect. It seems the tentacles can disintegrate the mana my fire is composed of.” If what Tio was saying was true, then this jelly was far more dangerous than Hajime had initially thought. Plenty powerful, and plenty annoying. This was what he’d come to expect from labyrinths.
Just then, the monster controlling the jelly showed itself.
It squeezed out of a crack in the ceiling, and expanded in midair. It was translucent, and roughly in the shape of a human. Though its limbs were shaped like fins, and its entire body was covered in miniscule, glimmering red flecks. There were also two feelers of sorts growing out of its head.
The way its limbs sort of floated in the air reminded Hajime of a sea angel. A sea angel that was ten meters long and oozed caustic jelly was a pretty monstrous sight, though.
Without warning, the giant sea angel launched a barrage of tentacles from its body. At the same time, it spit out a rain of jelly from its head.
“Yue, you focus on attacking! I’ll protect us! Hallowed Ground!” Kaori’s derivative skill, Delayed Activation allowed her to cast a spell she’d already chanted the incantation for ahead of time. Yue nodded curtly and combined her strength with Tio’s. The two of them shot a barrage of flames at the giant sea angel.
The flames all found their mark, and disintegrated the monster. Yue turned back to Hajime proudly, but instead of praising her he yelled out a warning.
“It’s not over yet! I’m still sensing something. Kaori, keep that barrier up. What the hell is this? I can sense it everywhere in the room…” Hajime’s Sense Presence was picking up a reaction from every corner of the room. When he checked with his Demon Eye, he saw the entire room covered in dark red. It was almost as if the room itself was a monster. Hajime looked around warily. He’d never seen anything like this before.
His fears had been well founded, as the giant sea angel reformed itself in the center of the room. Upon closer inspection, he noticed a large number of the starfish and sea snake monsters they’d defeated earlier melting inside the sea angel’s stomach.
“I see… So the monsters we found too weak were nothing more than this creature’s sustenance. Master, if it keeps regenerating indefinitely we’ll be worn down. Where is its mana crystal?”
“Come to think of it, how come we can’t see it? The thing’s transparent.”
Shea nodded and looked over at Hajime. Hajime focused his Demon Eye on the sea angel, but what he saw only confused him.
“Hajime?” Hajime scratched his head and reported what he’d seen.
“There isn’t one. I can’t find one anywhere inside it.” Everyone stared at him in shock.
“H-Hajime-kun? If it doesn’t have a mana crystal… does that mean it’s not a monster?”
“Beats me. I guess if I had to say, its whole body seems like a mana crystal. The whole thing shows up dark red on my Demon Eye, and so does the rest of the room. Be careful, guys. It’s possible we’re already inside the thing’s stomach!”
The giant sea angel attacked again as Hajime finished his explanation. This time, it sent chunks of its body out like torpedoes in addition to the tentacles and jelly rain.

Hajime pulled a giant black rifle out of his Treasure Trove. There was a compressed gas canister where the magazine would normally go. It was too large in radius to be a bullet of any caliber.
Which made sense, since it wasn’t actually a rifle. Whooooooooosh! It was a flamethrower.
He’d created it out of liquid flamrock. The flamrock ignited as it left the barrel, spreading unquenchable 3,000 degree flames everywhere. His target was neither the giant sea angel, nor the jelly attacks it had sent at them. Instead, it was the walls of the room. He knew Yue and the others could handle the sea angel’s attacks.
It seemed the sea angel could use camouflage as well. For when Hajime’s flames hit the wall, parts of it peeled away, transforming into jelly as it burned. Hajime breathed a sigh of relief. Thank god the whole room isn’t the monster.
But no matter how much of the jelly Hajime burned, more of it kept oozing out of cracks in the walls and floor. A sizzling sound came from his shoes.
Yue and the others redoubled their attacks on the sea angel as well. It seemed to finally be taking them seriously, and an unbelievable amount of jelly trickled out of every crack and hole in the room. The water level began to rise as well. At first it had only come up to their knees, but now it was up to Hajime’s waist. For Yue, it was already up to her chest.
No matter how many times Yue and Tio destroyed the giant sea angel, it just absorbed the nearby jelly and regenerated. There didn’t seem to be any end in sight.
Unless they found a way to eliminate it for good, they’d just be wasting their strength. On top of that, the rising water levels meant they’d soon be fighting underwater. The worst part was they couldn’t even hole up and hold out. Both Yue’s barriers and Hajime’s submarine wouldn’t last long against that caustic jelly.
It might be best to retreat for now. The problem was, all the exits were covered by jelly. Hajime desperately examined his surroundings. He noticed one of the fissures in the floor had a small whirlpool above it.
“Let’s retreat and regroup! There’s a room below us, though I don’t know where it leads. Be prepared for anything!”
“Okay.” “Roger.” “Understood.” “Alright!”
Hajime swung his flamethrower around, burning all the jelly around him. Once the area was clear, he transmuted the floor around the fissure. It grew wider, forming a hole large enough for them to jump through.
Hajime ducked underwater and pulled a small, cylindrical fifteen centimeter long object out of his pocket. It had a snorkel and a mouthpiece attached to the middle. The canister was actually an oxygen tank. He’d used creation magic to enchant the canister with air magic. The space inside was much larger than it seemed, all filled with air.
He’d originally wanted to make the space as large as his Treasure Trove’s, but he hadn’t had time. While in Erisen he’d prioritized repairing his damaged equipment. On top of that, he found enchanting things with air magic was extremely difficult for him. As it was, one of these canisters only had 30 minutes of air in it.

Keeping the time limit in the back of his mind, Hajime continued transmuting the hole, digging deeper until he finally hit open space. Then, he pulled out his pile bunker. He anchored it underwater and began charging.
It let out a loud hydraulic hiss as the mechanism engaged. A second later, it bore through the floor Hajime had weakened.
The sound was muffled by the water, but the vibrations could still be felt by everyone.
Water started rushing through the massive pit he’d created. The current was so strong that it knocked everyone off their feet and carried them to the hole.
Hajime pulled a massive boulder and a few incendiary grenades out of his Treasure Trove. He held fast against the current long enough to toss them before letting himself be swept away.
The boulder blocked the hole he’d made, while the grenades exploded all around the sea angel. Though Hajime had no way of telling if that had actually bought them any time, it felt like the smart thing to do.
“Ugh, ack…”
“Haaah… Haaah, you alright, Kaori?”
“Y-Yes. Somehow… How’s everyone else…?” Kaori looked around, coughing up water. She noticed Hajime was holding her up, and that they were on a sandy beach of some sort. A dense jungle stretched out in the distance, and water floated near the ceiling above. Kaori didn’t see anyone else nearby. It seemed there was some sort of barrier keeping this area clear. The beach was massive.
“Looks like we got separated… Well, I’ve given everyone mini Treasure Troves, so they should be fine.”
“Yeah…”

Hajime put Kaori down and scratched his head. He could tell that hadn’t really reassured her.
Kaori watched as Hajime started changing right in front of her, then thought back to how they’d gotten here.
They’d all had to retreat from the giant sea angel. The giant room they’d fallen into had dozens of holes in the floor. Seawater gushed out from some, but flowed into others. The water’s currents had been unpredictable and wild, like a storm. The group had tried to stay together, but the water mercilessly tore them apart. Yue tried to control the current with her magic, but it was so random that she didn’t make much headway. Shea had managed to use her gravity manipulation and Drucken’s natural weight to fix herself in place and somehow link up with Tio.
Hajime had wanted to pull out his submarine and herd everyone inside, but the current made it impossible. And so, he’d grit his teeth and pulled out some extremely dense rocks from his Treasure Trove. He’d been hoping to use their weight to anchor himself like Shea had.
Luckily, Yue was being carried toward him as well. If he could just stay in place they’d collide with each other. Tio and Shea had already fallen down one of the holes and had vanished from sight.
Hajime had been about to reach out to Yue when he’d spotted Kaori being swept away to one of the holes. His eyes met hers. He turned back to Yue, who had her hand outstretched to him.
He had two options at that point.
If he caught Yue, Kaori would likely be swept down a hole, alone. And if he caught Kaori, it would be Yue who would be alone.
As it was, Hajime only had the ability to grab one of them. Time slowed to a crawl as Hajime deliberated. He exchanged one last glance with Yue, and made his decision.

Hajime pulled more stones out of his Treasure Trove and sank like a rock. On his way down, he grabbed hold of Kaori. He decided to prioritize her over Yue.
Kaori’s eyes opened wide in surprise, but then she had to shut them a second later as the current beat against her. Hajime held Kaori tight as they were sucked down a hole.
He activated Diamond Skin as they fell, then covered Kaori, protecting her from the stray boulders that hit them on the way down. Finally, the current began to weaken, and Hajime saw a light above them. He floated up to it.
When he surfaced he’d found himself at the coastline to the beach they were now standing on.
“Hey, Hajime-kun. Why… did you save me?”
“Huh?” Hajime had his back turned to Kaori, as he was still in the
middle of changing. Where’d that come from?
“Why did you save me and not Yue?”
“I mean, if you fell by yourself you’d probably die. I figured Yue’d be fine on her own. Yue wanted me to save you too. I could tell from her eyes.”
“You really trust her, don’t you?” “Of course I do. We’re partners.”
“……” Kaori’s expression grew even more glum. She noticed a shadow above her, and looked up. She saw Hajime looking down at her, his face inches from her own. They were practically touching. If he moved just a little closer, they’d be kissing. She stared into Hajime’s eyes. The moment was ruined as he grabbed her cheeks and pulled.

“Owww! What was that for!?” Tears sprung to Kaori’s eyes.
Hajime ignored her protests and continued toying with her soft cheeks. By the time he was done, her cheeks were red and swollen. She looked at him reproachfully, and Hajime snorted
“There’s no time to sit around moping. We’re in the middle of a labyrinth here. How long were you planning on staying in those soaked clothes? Or were you hoping to earn my sympathy by walking around like that?” Kaori blushed at Hajime’s rebuke. It was as if he’d just told her she didn’t belong here.
“Th-That’s not it! I just spaced out for a bit. I-I’ll change right away. Sorry.”
“……”
Kaori hurried to her feet and pulled out a spare change of clothes from the mini Treasure Trove Hajime had given her. He’d made one for everyone at Erisen, though they were far smaller in scope than Oscar’s. Hajime nonchalantly turned around. Normally, Kaori would have tried to flirt with him and say something like “It’s fine if you want to watch,” but right now she didn’t feel in the mood.
“I-I’m done. So, what are we going to do now?”
“Let’s see. Even if we went back we’d have no idea where the others are, so I guess our best bet is to keep searching for the labyrinth’s end. Yue and the others are probably doing the same.”
Hajime stared at the jungle for a few seconds before turning back to Kaori. She smiled and nodded, trying to hide her melancholy. Hajime narrowed his eyes suspiciously, but in the end he didn’t say anything.
Sand crunched underneath their boots as the pair made their way to the jungle. Thick grasses and dense bushes barred their way forward,

and Hajime pulled out a machete to hack through them. Kaori followed silently behind him.
After a few minutes, Hajime suddenly came to a halt and turned back to Kaori. He wrapped a hand around the back of her head protectively.
“Huh? U-Umm, Hajime-kun? Th-This is a bit sudden…” She blushed, but when she saw the thing Hajime had pulled off her neck the blood drained from her face.
It was a spider. It was as big as Hajime’s hand, and it had twenty legs. Purple liquid dripped from its fangs. Its feet grew not only from its abdomen, but also from its back. Kaori had never seen anything so disgusting.
“Don’t let your guard down. These labyrinths are way more deadly than the upper floors of the Orcus Labyrinth. If you think the monsters you face will only be as strong as the ones you fought there, you’ll end up dead.”
“O-Okay. I’m sorry. I’ll be more careful.” “…..”
The spider Hajime had picked up didn’t have a mana crystal. That meant it was just a very ugly spider, and not a monster. Kaori felt even more depressed. Not only had she almost been killed by something that wasn’t even a monster, she’d needed Hajime to save her again.
In Kouki’s party she’d been one of the best mages they’d had. But here, she was just dead weight. That fact continued to nag at her. She kept an even more vigilant eye on her surroundings as they advanced, not even breaking her concentration to talk to Hajime. The two of them continued silently through the jungle.

Eventually, they found something.
“Is this a… ship graveyard?”
“Amazing. I never realized ships were so huge…”
Once they’d made it out of the jungle they found themselves in a rocky plain. A number of massive sailing ships nestled among the boulders, their masts rotting and their sails tattered. Every one of them must have been at least a hundred meters long. Some of the larger ones Hajime saw were more than three hundred.
The two of them stopped in their tracks to admire the surreal sight, but they couldn’t gawk forever, and eventually they shook off their awe and started walking forward again.
They marched their way around the boulders, climbing those they couldn’t circumvent. At times they walked across the ships’ decks as well. Though all of the ships were rotting, they hadn’t decayed to the point where they were completely falling apart yet.
“You know… these all look like warships.”
“Yeah. That really big one in the back looks like a passenger ship, though. It’s all decorated and stuff…”
The warships here didn’t have gunports like the ones Hajime was used to seeing back on earth. His reason for believing they were warships was all the battle scars they had. From the looks of it, they’d all been bombarded with magic. Some of their masts had been cut clean through, while others had burn scars all over their wooden decks. Some of them even had their sails and ropes petrified.
Since there were no gunports, Hajime imagined long distance battles between warships had been done via magic in the past.
It turned out that he was right. When they were about halfway through the graveyard, they were attacked.

“Uwooooooooooooh!” “Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” “Wh-What the!?”
“Hajime-kun, around us!” Hajime heard the screams of countless men and his surroundings began to warp.
Hajime and Kaori stopped in their tracks. Everything blurred, and a second later they were standing on the deck of a ship.
They were no longer in the graveyard of ships. Instead, they were in the middle of the sea. Hundreds of ships lined up against each other, and men yelled as they brandished their weapons.
“Wh-What on…”
“H-H-Hajime-kun? Am I dreaming? Are you seeing this too? You are, right?”
The two of them were so shocked all they could do was blankly examine their surroundings.
A flare rose up in the sky, and the mass of ships on Hajime’s side began advancing forward. Another flare rose up from the other side, and those ships advanced as well.
Once the two sides were close enough, they began exchanging volleys of spells. Neither side slowed down, though, and it looked like they were planning to ram into each other.
“Whoa!?” “Kyaaa!”
Fireballs raked the deck, burning holes through the wood. A raging tornado attempted to splinter the mast. Chunks of the ocean froze over, stymieing both sides’ advance. Grey spheres flew through the air, petrifying any sails unlucky enough to be struck.

The deck Hajime and Kaori were standing on had caught fire. Sailors hurried to cast water magic to put it out.
This was a war. That was how large the scale of the battle was. A chilly breeze rolled past the combatants. Then, a fireball came hurtling toward where Hajime was standing. If he didn’t do anything, it would hit him head-on, but he was still dumbfounded.
How on earth did we wind up in the middle of a naval battle? The question whirled around inside his head as Hajime pulled out Donner and fired at the fireball.
A streak of red light struck it, but contrary to expectations, the fireball didn’t disappear. In fact, Hajime’s bullet passed right through it and vanished into the sky.
“What!?” He let out yet another yell of surprise. He made to grab Kaori and dive out of the way.
“Wait, I’ll stop it! Light Wall!” She deployed a beginner-level light barrier.
Hajime had figured it’d be best to dodge, since even shooting through its core hadn’t dispersed the spell, but he didn’t want Kaori to feel useless. So he stood there, activating Diamond Skin just in case.
However, Hajime needn’t have worried. Kaori’s barrier stopped the fireball.
Did I miss? Hajime thought dubiously to himself. He tried again, aiming for yet another fireball. He watched with his Demon Eye, making sure he shot precisely through the core of the spell. But once again, his bullet passed cleanly through the fireball, vanishing in the distance.
“So that’s how it is.” Hajime had figured out why his attacks hadn’t worked, and attempted a different tactic. He stopped Kaori, who was about to put up another barrier, and wreathed his revolver in a Gale Claw. Then, he leaped out of the way and sliced through the fireball. This time the attack connected and dispersed the flames.
“Umm, Hajime-kun?”
“It looks like this isn’t just a hallucination. Though it’s not exactly reality either. Physical objects can’t interact with the vision, but mana can. Though I still have no clue what the hell is going on.”
Hajime sighed and shook his head. Just then, he heard a man scream behind him. He turned to see a youth double over, holding a cutlass in one hand and his stomach in the other. There was a pool of blood at his feet, a bloody icicle dropped on the ground next to him. He had been hit in that earlier barrage.
“Are you alright!?” Kaori rushed over and began casting healing magic on him. Lavender light enveloped the youth. A priest of Kaori’s skill should have been able to heal a wound like that instantly, yet that wasn’t what happened. The moment Kaori’s healing magic touched him, he faded away.
“Huh? What? Wh-Why did he…” Hajime lapsed into thought. After a moment, he explained his hypothesis.
“I think as long as mana touches any part of this illusion it’ll fade. It doesn’t matter what kind of spell you use.”
“Then that means I-I… killed him…”
“Kaori, none of this is real. It’s an illusion that we can interact with, that’s all. I mean, you can hardly call something that literally disappears from being healed human.”
“Hajime-kun… Yeah, you’re right. I’m sorry. That surprised me a little, but I’m fine now.”

Hajime wasn’t blaming Kaori this time, but she still drooped her shoulders and apologized. However, she quickly recovered and smiled at him. Hajime thought back to how she’d been earlier too, and muttered something.
“Always an apology, huh?”
“Huh? Did you say something?”
“It’s nothing.”
Hajime turned away from Kaori. Not because the conversation was over, but because he’d sensed something coming.
He looked around and noticed quite a few of the sailors were staring darkly at Hajime and Kaori.
Kaori noticed the change in Hajime’s attitude and looked around as well. With a resounding battle cry, the sailors attacked.
“My life for Ehit!”
“Glory to Ehit!”
“You damned heretics! Die in the name of our lord!”
The men had gone completely mad. Their eyes were bloodshot and spittle sprayed from their mouths. It was obvious they weren’t thinking rationally.
Hajime had already guessed this was some dispute between two neighboring countries, but now he understood the reason for it too. It was a holy war. He could hear similar cries coming from the other side as well. The only difference was the name of their god.
Kaori was stunned into silence.

Hajime pulled Kaori close and started firing Donner over his shoulder. Instead of firing physical bullets, he was shooting off rounds of pure mana.
Mana Manipulation’s derivative skills, Mana Emission and Mana Compression let him do such a thing. Since the mana wasn’t structured behind a spell of any kind, normal enemies wouldn’t have taken any physical damage. They would have just had their mana shaved off.
However, both humans and monsters became unable to move once their mana dried up, so it was a great way to immobilize targets without harming them. Until now, Hajime’s enemies had all been too dangerous to simply immobilize, so he hadn’t used it much.
In this situation, though, it was perfect. Streaks of red light shot through the foreheads of battle-crazed sailors. Each of Hajime’s mana bullets pierced through multiple sailors, who dissipated when shot.
“Kaori, I’m gonna jump! Make sure you don’t bite your tongue!” “What? Kyaaaaaaaaa!”
Hajime didn’t want to deal with being surrounded on the narrow deck, so he grabbed hold of Kaori and leaped into the sky. She hadn’t expected him to shoot up with such force though, so she screamed in surprise.
Hajime shot down the sailors on the crow’s nest and appropriated it for himself.
The sailors down below glared at him with bloodshot eyes.
They’d been so busy fighting each other until just recently, but now for some reason some of the sailors had focused on the two of them. Though they’d been enemies seconds before, they were united in their hatred of Hajime and Kaori. The madness spread like a disease. At first only a small knot of sailors had targeted the pair, but before long the entire ship was after them.
Sailors locked in combat with each other froze and turned to face Hajime and Kaori instead. Then, with the same fanatical battle cries, they pointed their cutlasses at them. The insane spectacle had left Kaori pale-faced.
“Now then, how are we supposed to get out of this crazy vision?”
“Is there an exit somewhere… maybe?”
“We’re in the middle of the ocean, remember?”
“Maybe one of the ships has a portal out? You know, like the Anywhere Door?”
Hajime raised an eyebrow as Kaori brought up a certain blue cat robot’s very convenient tool.
“There’s around 600 ships here… I don’t think we can check every one of them. The battle’d end before we do.”
“Hmmm… It looks like some of the ships are already sinking, too. Maybe we’re supposed to end this war?”
“End it… I see, I get it now. You’re saying we’ve gotta kill everyone, right? You’re pretty sadistic, you know that?”
“Huh? No, wait that’s not what I—”
“Yeah, that’s gotta be it. I can’t really think of anything else, and this suits my style anyway.” Hajime casually shot down a few sailors who were trying to Tarzan their way to the crow’s nest using the mast’s ropes. I should have made some mana bullets for a situation like this. He used the derivative skill Remote Manipulation to shoot down a barrage of incoming fireballs as well.

“Kaori, I know you’re not really skilled at offensive magic, but here even healing magic’ll kill these guys. I’m still not 100% sure killing them’s how we get out, but since they’re coming at us we’ve got no choice but to take them down.”
“O-Okay!” Kaori berated herself for hesitating and began chanting. The insanity in these ghost soldiers’ eyes had shaken her, but she didn’t want to break down in front of Hajime, so she held her ground and fought.
Hajime surveyed his surroundings, protecting Kaori from any attackers.
Looking down, he noticed there were still pockets of sailors fighting each other in places. Unlike when Hajime killed them, the illusions bled when cut by other illusions.
Gutted entrails and hacked-off body parts littered the ship’s deck. It made for quite a grotesque sight. The men happily killed each other in the name of their gods.
The wind picked up, and a bloody mist rolled across the deck. Despite their losses, the sailors targeting Hajime and Kaori didn’t let up.
Whenever anyone got too close, Hajime mercilessly shot them down. He’d also set up a pseudo-barrier of bullets circling around him to destroy any illusion he missed, and to block any magical attacks sent his way.
This didn’t deter them though, and the sailors continued rushing to their deaths.
A few dozen soldiers used air magic to fly over the crow’s nest and attack Hajime from above. More came from either side, using the mast’s netting to close in. With his Demon Eye, Hajime could see a number of casters on other ships targeting his. They were all casting high level spells.

Just as Hajime was thinking about shooting them down before they took down this ship, Kaori finished casting her strongest spell.
“Divine Mother, smiling down from heaven, encompass all in thy heavenly embrace— Aetherflow!” Ripples of light spread out across the battlefield. They extended a full kilometer out from where Kaori was standing. Every person it touched was wrapped in a faint halo of light.
This was one of the highest-rank healing spells, Aetherflow. It healed everyone in a massive radius.
The actual range of the spell depended on how skilled the caster was and how much mana they put into the spell, but it had a minimum reach of 500 meters. Furthermore, if the caster marked certain targets beforehand, they could control the spell to affect only them. Normally, this spell required the combined mana of a few dozen people, a ridiculously long chant, and a huge mana circle. It was a testament to how overpowered Kaori was that she’d been able to cast it in two minutes all by herself.
The light of Kaori’s Aetherflow covered the battlefield, destroying every illusion it touched.
Kaori stumbled once her spell ended, her mana spent. Hajime caught her before she fell.
“Wow, it’s like we’re floating in a sea of ghost ships now. Nice one, Kaori. I knew you had it in you.”
“Ah, um, i-it was nothing, really. You guys are way more amazing than me, anyway…” Kaori blushed at Hajime’s sincere praise. Still, she was certain Yue would have been able to do a faster and better job. She smiled bitterly to herself and looked away.
In order to change the topic, she muttered something about needing to recharge her mana, and Hajime handed her a magic stone pendant.

Kaori couldn’t control mana directly, so Hajime had engraved it with a magic circle she could use to drain it.
Hajime opened his mouth to say something, but he shut it again when he saw another wave of enemies approaching. They could talk about it later.
Normally, fighting an army of illusions who could only be hurt by mana and had no fear would have been extremely difficult, doubly so on the swaying deck of a ship. However, Hajime and Kaori were anything but normal.
The combined armies of two countries were decimated in just one hour by the two of them.
“Ugh… Sorry.”
“It’s fine, don’t worry about it.”
Once they destroyed the last of the illusions, Hajime and Kaori had found themselves back in their original location.
Hajime had breathed a sigh of relief, glad that killing them all had been the solution to the puzzle. A second later, though, Kaori had doubled over and started retching. It had been some time since she last ate, so she didn’t throw anything up, but it still didn’t look pleasant.
Tears in her eyes, Kaori held up a hand to Hajime, begging him not to get any closer, but Hajime walked over anyway and gently rubbed Kaori’s back. She hadn’t wanted him to see this side of her, but she was still reassured by the warm hand on her back. Before she knew it, she’d fallen into his arms. It didn’t take long for her to calm down and stop retching.

Hajime pulled out a pack of apple juice from his Treasure Trove and passed it to her. She gulped it down greedily, and the color began returning to her face. The sweetness of the juice washed away the taste of bile in her mouth.
“I’m really sorry…” Hajime narrowed his eyes as she apologized.
“It’s totally understandable. I found them pretty disgusting myself. I can’t believe people would let blind faith turn them into something like that. Let’s take a short break. I used up a lot of my mana too, so I need to rest.”
“Okay… Hey, Hajime-kun. What was that? Did it have something to do with all of these rotting ships here?” Kaori sat down on a nearby boulder. Hajime thought about it for a few seconds.
“My guess is that was a war that actually happened in the past, and whoever made this labyrinth recreated it with magic. I imagine the part where all the sailors attacked whoever enters was their own addition… It could be that this is part of this labyrinth’s theme.”
“Its… theme?”
“Yeah. Tio mentioned it in the Grand Gruen Volcano. She thought each of the liberators designed their labyrinth around a certain theme. If she’s right, then…”
“The theme of this one is to show us the tragedy the gods brought upon Tortus?”
“Yeah, looks like it.”
Chills ran down Kaori’s spine as she thought back to what they’d seen. She shivered, her face pale. Their madness had disturbed Kaori enough that she’d thrown up. She’d never seen such religious fanaticism before. Their fervor, their actions, and the fact that their faith had led them to slaughter each other disgusted her.

Worst of all though, they’d been laughing as they fought. Some of them who’d known they were dying had even ripped out their own hearts to offer up to their heartless gods. Others had stabbed right through their comrades to get a better chance at hitting Hajime and Kaori.
It had been an unbelievably gruesome sight, especially because it had all been done in the name of god. Hajime sat down next to Kaori and took her hand in his. He couldn’t just sit and watch when she was grappling with atrocities like that.
Kaori looked up at him in surprise, but after a moment she smiled and tightened her grip on his hand.
“Hajime-kun, thank you…”
“Don’t worry about it. I know how painful it feels… to think you’re going crazy. I nearly lost myself when I fell into the abyss.”
“How did you manage to stay sane? Actually, I don’t even need to ask. It was Yue, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. If I hadn’t met her back then… who knows what I would have become.” Hajime looked off into the distance, reminiscing about those days.
Kaori felt as if a vice was squeezing down on her heart.
“It’s so frustrating. I wanted to be the one to protect you, Hajime- kun… the one to save you. Though I don’t know if I could have done it if it had been me down there. I couldn’t even keep my first promise to you. Haha, I guess it’s going to be tough to beat Yue.” Hajime narrowed his eyes at Kaori again. Normally Kaori’s smiles were full of warmth, but right now they were bitter, full of self-deprecation.
“You’ve been apologizing a lot since we came here. You’ve been smiling like that a lot, too.”

“Huh? Umm…” Kaori tilted her head in confusion, and Hajime’s next words made her forced smile crumble.
“Hey, Kaori. Why’d you come with us?”
“So I really am just in your way?”
Hajime sighed, and changed topics. This was going nowhere.
“I still remember what you told me that night, when you came to my room and we drank my shitty tea. That’s why I don’t understand why you still like me so much, after how I’ve changed.”
“Hajime-kun, I…” Kaori opened her mouth, but Hajime cut her off. He wasn’t done yet.
“But I have no intention of denying your feelings, or saying they’re a lie. I’m sure you have your own reasons for still loving me. No one else has the right to deny you that, or your determination. I already gave you my answer, and if you still say you love me despite that, then that’s fine. It’s not like Shea’s any different, after all. In fact, she’s so persistent that I’m worried she’ll just attack me one night.”
Her physical abilities had only continued to grow in the time they’d traveled together. It had gotten to the point where Hajime was worried he wouldn’t be able to fend her off if she seriously tried to overpower him. Kaori smiled wryly and nodded.
“Yeah, even I’m amazed at how outgoing and positive Shea is.”
“Even I have to admit I was pretty mean to her in the beginning. Yue was the only person special to me, so I just wanted her to give up.”
“…….”
“But no matter how roughly I treated her, no matter how much I told her she had no chance, she still looked like she was enjoying herself. Sure she cried and got mad and yelled at me, but she never looked unhappy. Even though she had no aptitude for magic and wasn’t nearly as strong as Yue, she never stopped looking forward. She never let herself wallow in her own inferiority.”
“I-I’m not wallowing…” Kaori trailed off weakly. She wanted to protest, but even she knew he was right.
“Did you know? All you’ve done since we came here is apologize. Even the way you smile’s changed.”
“What?”
“Hey, Kaori. Quit looking down. Look me in the eye.”
It was only after he said it that Kaori realized she’d been avoiding making eye contact with him, even though she’d always met his gaze before… She looked up with a start.
“I’ll say this one more time. I love Yue. Even if other people end up important to me, they’ll never be special like she is. If it really hurts that much, if comparing yourself to me and Yue brings you nothing but pain… then you should leave.”
“Ah…” Kaori looked down again. Hajime wasn’t done yet, though.
“Back then, I agreed to let you come with me because I thought you were like Shea. I figured that was what you really wanted. That it was something you thought was best for yourself. Even though I’d told you I loved Yue, you insisted on coming anyway. So I thought sure, you’d be happier that way too. But that’s not how it seems to me right now.”
Hajime let go of Kaori’s hand.
“I want you to think about this seriously. Decide for yourself what it is that has you so down, and whether you really want to keep traveling with me or not. You’re not like Shea. Shea loves Yue just as much as she loves me. If you think it’s better to leave, I’ll make sure to bring you back to Yaegashi safely, don’t worry.”
“I-I…” Kaori looked down at her hand. She wanted to say something, but the words wouldn’t come out. Things had grown awkward between them now, but they still needed to move forward. This was a labyrinth after all. The pair continued onward, until they reached a massive passenger ship in the back. It was even longer than 300 meters, and at least ten stories tall. Taller, probably, as part of it was buried underground. It was ornately decorated, so much so that even after rotting partly it still looked magnificent.
The two stopped for a moment to admire its majesty. Even on earth, few ships were this big. Those that were didn’t look quite this elegant, either.
Kaori just stared in awe, while Hajime admired its craftsmanship.
“I’m amazed they managed to make something this big out of wood.” He was still a Synergist at heart. Whoever managed to make that deserves respect.
Hajime grabbed Kaori and used Aerodynamic to jump all the way up to the terrace on the top deck. As he’d expected, the air around them began to warp.
“Looks like we’ve got another vision to go through… Prepare yourself, Kaori. We’re probably not going to like this one either.”
“…It’s okay. I’ll be fine.”
Kaori took a second to reply. Hajime mentally berated himself. He should have saved that conversation for when they were out of the labyrinth.

All he’d succeeded in doing was spoiling Kaori’s mood. It was something he’d needed to say eventually, but he could have picked a better time for it.
He just hadn’t been able to bear seeing Kaori smile sadly like that any longer. Still, I could have waited until we cleared The Sunken Ruins of Melusine first. Hajime awkwardly scratched his cheek.
The vision this time put them in the middle of a luxurious passenger ship.
It was night, and the moon was full. Lights glimmered all along the ship’s deck. Decorations hung from every railing and mast, and tables of food were laid out buffet-style. A large crowd of people milled about, sampling the rich food and chatting with each other.
“Is this… a party?”
“Looks like it. A fancy one too… Did I get Melusine’s theme wrong?”
Hajime was caught off-guard by the distinctly not gruesome sight in front of him. He and Kaori were standing atop a raised terrace that overlooked the deck.
As Hajime swept his gaze over the partygoers, the door behind him opened and a few sailors stepped onto the terrace. They lounged around, chatting with each other. I guess they’re here for their break.
Hajime listened in on their conversation. From what he could gather, this party was to celebrate the end of a war. It seemed the war that had been going on for years between these two countries had ended not with one country annihilating and invading the other, but with a peace treaty. The sailors seemed happy about that fact. Upon closer inspection, Hajime noticed that humans, demons, and beastmen were all in attendance at this party. They were all mingling together, with no regards to race.

“I guess a time like this existed too.”
“They must have worked really hard to make this peace happen. I don’t know how long it’s been since the war ended, but I can’t imagine everyone’s grudges have gone away. And yet, they’re all smiling and laughing together…”
“I’m sure the people here are the ones who fought for peace. There’s no way everyone else would be able to laugh like that with the people they’d been fighting a while ago.”
“Yeah…”
Hajime and Kaori smiled as they watched the party. After some time, a middle-aged man climbed up onto the podium at the end of the deck and waved to everyone. The talking gradually quieted down and people turned their attention to him. They were all looking up at him respectfully.
Behind him was someone Hajime guessed was his aide, along with a person wearing a hood. He thought it was rather rude to get up onstage in a hood, but none of the partygoers seemed to mind.
Once the ship was completely quiet, the man began his speech.
“Ladies and gentlemen, all of you who gathered here today are heroes. Brave heroes who fought not to make war, but to make peace. I am honored and humbled that you all agreed to come to this event. I cannot tell you how happy I am that this war has ended with my generation… Seeing peace come between our two nations has been always been my dream.” Everyone listened with rapt attention. The man continued, talking about the missteps they had along the way, the trials they had to face to overcome suspicion, and the lasting cornerstones of peace that they’d finally built. He spoke of the friends they lost along the way, and tears sprung to many of the guests’ eyes.

Some looked off into the distance, while others recalled nostalgic memories.
It seemed this man was the king of the human kingdom. He’d spent his entire life working toward this peace. Hajime could see why everyone respected him.
Finally, his speech wound to a close. He roused everyone at the end with a spirited closer. The audience burst out in cheers. However, Hajime was struck by a sudden premonition. He felt as though he recognized the king’s face from somewhere.
“Now, after a year of peace, I’ve come to realize something… How worthless it truly is.” Everyone glanced about in confusion. They looked to each other, wondering if they’d misheard the king. The speech everyone had thought finished continued.
“Indeed, utterly worthless. Raising toasts with beasts and consorting with heretics… What is it, if not folly? Do you understand, ladies and gentlemen? You are all a pack of fools.”
“Wh-What are you saying, Aleister!? What’s gotten in to— Gah!?” The demon who’d stepped forward to protest coughed up blood. A sword was sticking out of his chest.
The demon’s eyes widened in surprise. He turned around to see a human behind him holding the weapon. From the demon’s expression, Hajime could tell the two must have been close. He fell to the ground, an expression of disbelief frozen on his face.
Everyone started talking at once. Cries of “Your Majesty, please!” rang out. Many of the guests were unable to comprehend what was happening.
“Now then, ladies and gentlemen. Like I said in the beginning, I am honored you all agreed to come. You have made my job that much easier. It grated me day after day to watch as you ungodly heretics attempted to create your own nation. As if monsters who’ve turned their backs on Ehit, the sole creator of the world, could ever be equal to humans. But that all ends today. You barbarians who worship a heretical god do not deserve to exist on Ehit’s holy Tortus. We will only have true peace when vermin like you are eradicated! If only you knew how much joy it brings me that all the leaders of all the nations willingly gathered here today. Believers of Ehit, bring down the iron hammer of retribution on these nonbelievers! Lord Ehit, are you watching!?”
King Aleister sunk to his knees and gazed up at the heavens in prayer. The sailors took off their uniforms, revealing gleaming soldier’s armor underneath. They surrounded the guests.
There was a massive mast right in the center of the ship’s deck. The terrace was built atop that mast, and so the soldiers positioned there had an unobstructed view of the entire deck. Unless the guests could somehow escape into the sea, the soldiers had an overwhelming advantage.
The various lords and ladies of every country realized that as well. Despair colored their faces.
A second later, the soldiers loosed magic at the undefended guests. They tried to fight back, but outnumbered and outmaneuvered as they were, their desperate struggle amounted to little.
A few managed to escape, but after a few seconds the majority of the guests were lying in puddles of their own blood.
Just a short while ago they’d been happily eating and drinking. Some of the guests had tried leaping into the ocean, but Aleister had prepared for that. Small boats packed to the brim with soldiers had been lying in wait, and killed anyone who jumped over. The water around the ship had turned crimson.

“Ugh…” “Kaori…”
Kaori leaned against the railing, one hand against her mouth all the while. She tried very hard not to throw up. This vision was even more horrific than the last. Hajime gently patted her back.
Once the slaughter was over, King Aleister went below the deck with his soldiers. He was probably going to hunt down the few who’d escaped into the bowels of the ship.
His aide and the hooded figure trailed behind him.
However, before heading downstairs, the hooded figure turned to look at the terrace. Hajime caught a glimpse of silver hair in the moonlight, or at least he thought he did.
Their surroundings began to warp again. It seemed there was no test in this vision. Melusine had just wanted to show it to them.
“Kaori, rest for a bit.”
“It’s okay, I’m fine. That was a bit graphic but… was that it? It ended without us doing anything.”
“This is the end of the ship graveyard. We could craft a barrier and explore the ocean, but judging from what we saw, I assume we’re supposed to go inside now. At the very least, the vision seems to be leading us there. Melusine wanted us to burn the atrocities the gods committed into our memory before letting us continue, I guess… Can’t say it’s a very pleasant experience. It’d probably be even worse if we were from this world.”
Almost all the humans in Tortus were believers of Ehit. It’d likely be quite a shock to see visions of what kind of monsters their faith could turn them into.

In order to conquer this labyrinth, powerful magic was a necessity. The ability to use magic depended greatly on the user’s mental state. In many ways, it was the complete opposite of the Reisen Gorge. Fortunately, Hajime and Kaori weren’t from this world, so it wasn’t like their entire worldview was being shaken.
Still, the massacre had been horrific. They looked down at the deck, which had soaked up so many people’s blood, and thought back to what they’d seen. Hajime was just annoyed that Melusine was making them go through all this crap.
Once they’d prepared themselves, Hajime took them down to the deck and they entered the same door Aleister had in the vision.
The interior of the ship was pitch black. It was bright outside, so Hajime had expected light to be pouring in through the windows, but for whatever reason it wasn’t, so he pulled a green glowstone lamp out of his Treasure Trove.
“About that vision from before… The king betrayed them after they’d already made peace, right?”
“Looks like it. But don’t you think it was a little weird? It looked like everyone really respected the guy… Would they have really looked up to him like that if he secretly hated all the beastmen and demons?”
“You’re right. Based on what he said, it had been a year since the war ended. Something must have happened in that time that changed him so drastically. The question is, what?”
“There’s no doubts the gods were involved somehow. You heard what he was saying. He sounded pretty crazy at the end.”
“Yeah, he reminded me of Ishtar-san… It was like he was in a trance. It was almost pitiful to watch.”

Hajime almost felt a little bad for Ishtar. A high school girl thought the pope of the Holy Church was cringeworthy.
They walked forward for a while longer until Hajime’s lamp illuminated something. A white, fluttering something.
The pair stopped in their tracks. Hajime pointed the light upward. It revealed a girl, wearing a pure white dress. She was swaying back and forth, her head pointed downward.
Hajime and Kaori both had a bad feeling about this, and Kaori’s face was frozen stiff.
Hajime had no idea what a little girl was doing here, but he pulled Donner out anyway. He wasn’t taking any chances in a labyrinth.
Just then, the girl crumpled to the floor. Her joints bent at inhuman angles, and she started scuttling across the floor toward them like some kind of grotesque spider.
“Kakakakakakakakaka!” Ominous laughter rang out through the hallway. Her eyes, partially hidden by her bangs, glowed with an eerie light. She looked like something straight out of a horror movie.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” “Whoa!? Calm down, Kaori! Let go of my arm!”
This was as cliched as it got, but that didn’t make it any less scary. Kaori clung to Hajime’s arm for dear life. Hajime tried to shoot down the monster, but Kaori ruined his aim.
“Kegyaaa!” With a strange scream, the monster girl leaped at Hajime’s face.
Hajime gave up on trying to shoot her and kicked her in the stomach. He enhanced the kick with Steel Legs just in case a regular one wasn’t enough.

The girl doubled over as she flew backward into the darkness. She bounced off the walls like a pinball, landing in a crumpled heap at the end of the hallway. Her limbs were bent at even odder angles now, and she didn’t get back up. Instead, she melted into the ground and vanished.
Hajime sighed and patted Kaori’s trembling head. She jumped at his touch and looked timidly up at him. There were tears in her eyes, and her lips were quivering. Damn, I guess that really scared her.
“Are you bad with horror stuff, Kaori?”
“Is there anyone who isn’t?”
“Just pretend they’re all monsters.”
“Hic… I’ll try.” Kaori finally let go of Hajime’s arm, but she still kept hold of the hem of his shirt.
Hajime’s words had given her a lot to think about, and she’s been less clingy after their discussion. However, now that ghosts and the like had shown up she’d thrown her reservations out the window. She wouldn’t let go until they were out of here. She was terrified. Absolutely terrified. Even more so than when she’d first confessed to Hajime, really.
They encountered a number of unsettling events after that. Bloody handprints on doors, noises coming from behind walls, water dripping down from the ceiling, ominous scratching noises, a strange monster with a severed head and an axe, the list went on. Hajime easily shot and kicked his way through most of them, but it was still slow going.
“I hate this. I want go home. Shizuku-chan, I want to see you again.” The countless scary events had left Kaori clinging to Hajime’s back. Her mental state had regressed to that of a child’s.

The reason she wanted Shizuku specifically to come save her was because when Kouki had taken them all to a haunted house long ago, Shizuku had been the one to protect her. That was why she trusted Shizuku the most.
The creator of the Sunken Ruins of Melusine, Meiru Melusine, had been determined to mentally unnerve challengers to her labyrinth as much as possible. Hajime had already spent months in the darkness of the abyss, surrounded by monsters who would attack him without warning, so he wasn’t too affected by Melusine’s tactics. However, he had to admit a normal person would be pretty unsettled by her tricks. Though he couldn’t imagine Yue or Tio being scared, either.
What happened to all those serious visions about the folly of man?
Despite her fear, Kaori was holding up pretty well. She mowed down hordes of supernatural apparitions with her Binding Blades of Light as they continued to move forward. Hajime had to keep her from fainting a few times, but he was still impressed by her grit.
After some time, the two of them arrived at the ship’s hold. Hajime pushed open the heavy door and stepped inside. There was still cargo scattered here and there. The pair picked their way around crates and barrels as they headed further inward. Once they were about halfway, the door closed behind them with a slam.
“Hiii!?” “……”
Kaori shrieked and turned back around. Hajime was beginning to wonder if she even remembered what they talked about anymore. He really didn’t want to have that conversation again.
Hajime sighed again and patted Kaori’s shoulder. It was then that he noticed something odd. A thick fog had suddenly sprung up around them.

“H-H-H-H-H-Hajime-kun!?”
“Your voice is starting to sound pretty weird. Don’t worry. It doesn’t matter what we’re up against, all we’ve gotta do is blow it away with magic like everything else.”
There was a sharp whistling noise, and something flew out of the dense fog. It was heading straight for Hajime. He raised his left hand up to block, and found a very fine thread wrapped around it. More whistling noises followed. This time, they came from all directions.
“A physical trap after all those magical ones? God, what a pain! Why’d all the Liberators have to make such annoying dungeons!”
“Guardian of light, lend us thy aid— Holy Shield!” Though Hajime was taken aback by the physical nature of the attack, he quickly recovered. He was easily able to knock down the threads, while Kaori protected herself with magic. A second later, the fog began to swirl around, and a powerful gale struck the pair.
Hajime transmuted spikes from the bottom of his shoes to keep him locked in place. He tried to grab Kaori too, but her shields worked against her here. He missed her by a split second, and she was carried away by the wind.
“Kyaaa!?” The gust dragged her into the center of the fog. Hajime clicked his tongue and tried to pinpoint Kaori’s position with Sense Presence.
However, it seemed this fog possessed the same properties as the fog surrounding the Haltina Woods. It interfered with one’s sense of direction, and nullified sensory magic.
“Tch… Kaori, don’t move!” Before Hajime could do anything though, a knight stepped forward, sweeping away the fog surrounding him with his longsword. Hajime didn’t know what kind of style he was using, but the knight was clearly proficient.

He blocked the oncoming strokes with Donner. Then, once he saw an opening, he stepped in and fired a magic bullet at point blank range with Schlag. It punched a giant hole through the knight’s stomach, making him vanish without a sound.
After that, he found himself up against a gauntlet of powerful knights, each a master of their chosen weapon.
“God, what a pain…” Hajime grumbled to himself and set a number of his magic bullets to circle around him. He then activated Supersonic Step, and went about defeating the knights. He was worried, since Kaori hadn’t responded to him.
Around the same time, Kaori was trembling in fear since she couldn’t see Hajime.
Horror was the one thing she just couldn’t deal with. She’d just freeze up whenever she encountered anything remotely scary, and she hadn’t been able overcome her phobia. Kaori had wanted to prove to Hajime she wasn’t just wallowing in her own inferiority, but she’d just ended up clinging to him again. She hated how weak she was.
She berated herself for being so pathetic and forced herself to stand through sheer willpower.
Just then, something laid its hand on her shoulder. Kaori hoped it was Hajime. He was fond of tapping her shoulder, so it wouldn’t be surprising if it was.
“Hajime-k…” She was about to turn around, but then she realized the hand on her shoulder was lacking in warmth. In fact, it was ice cold.
A shiver ran down her spine. That’s not Hajime behind me, is it? She was sure of it.
So then, who was behind her? She turned around slowly, her head creaking like a badly oiled door. What stared back at her was a girl’s face. It was no ordinary face, though. Her eyes, mouth, and nose were all dark, bottomless pits.
“Awah!” Kaori was so overwhelmed that her brain did the only thing it could to protect her. It shut down.
In only two minutes, Hajime had succeeded in destroying almost fifty knights. Each knight only took a few seconds to dispatch.
As the fiftieth knight met his end, Hajime stopped. Was that all of them? However, the trial wasn’t over yet. Another figure appeared from the fog. The knight this time was massive, and he carried a greatsword taller than Hajime himself.
Hajime sidestepped the knight’s giant swing. The knight had seemingly predicted that Hajime would dodge. He utilized the rebound as his sword slammed into the ground to follow up with a lightning-quick attack.
Hajime leaped into the air and used his Diamond Skin enhanced prosthetic arm to grab onto the sword mid-swing. He swung himself up onto the flat of the sword and fired a mana bullet at the knight’s head.
As the giant knight faded into mist, the nearby fog began to fade as well. Alright, now it’s definitely over.
“Kaori! Where are you!?” Hajime once again cast Sense Presence. Though that proved unnecessary, as he spotted her almost immediately.
“I’m over here, Hajime-kun.”
“Oh good, you’re safe…” Hajime breathed a sigh of relief as Kaori walked up to him. She smiled cheerfully and sidled up close.
“I was so scared…”

“That bad, huh…?”
“Yep. So, won’t you comfort me?” She wrapped her arms around Hajime’s neck and hugged him. Her face was so close that their noses were practically touching. She looked up at him with pleading eyes and leaned in closer. However, Hajime casually pressed Donner against her forehead.
“Wh-What are you doing?” She looked at him in confusion. There was murder in Hajime’s eyes.
“Isn’t it obvious? Killing my enemies, just like you tried to do to me.” He pulled the trigger without hesitation. A crimson mana bullet shot straight through Kaori’s forehead, sending her sprawling backward.
A rusty knife fell to the ground with a clang. It had been hidden up Kaori’s sleeve.
Hajime walked over to Kaori’s prone figure. She raised herself into a sitting position and looked up at Hajime with fear in her eyes.
“Hajime-kun, why are you doing—” He mercilessly fired another bullet into her.
“How dare you talk in Kaori’s voice. How dare you take over her body. I can see right through you. Trash like you has no right to even touch Kaori. Don’t speak. Don’t even move.”
Hajime’s Demon Eye could clearly see the female specter that had taken over Kaori’s body. The ghost grinned wickedly. Now that her identity had been discovered, there was no reason to continue pretending to be scared.
“Ufufu. So what if you know? This woman is already mi—” Hajime knocked Kaori to the ground and straddled her.
“Wait, what do you think you’re doing!? This woman is your lover, isn’t she!? Can you really bring yourself to hurt her!?”

“You’re not a very good listener, are you? I said don’t speak and don’t move. Don’t worry, I won’t hurt Kaori. These mana bullets pass right through physical things. The only one suffering right now is you.”
“If you destroy me, you’ll destroy this girl’s soul too! Are you willing to take that risk!?”
Hajime hesitated. It was possible she was bluffing, but Hajime had no way of knowing for sure. Thinking about it logically, he would surely hesitate to strike again. That was definitely what the specter assumed as well. She grinned and ordered Hajime to get off.
Contrary to expectations though, Hajime just fired another mana bullet into her.
The specter’s pain was conveyed through Kaori’s twisted expression. Panicking, she yelled at Hajime.
“Are you insane!? Don’t you care what happens to her!?”
“Shut up, ghost. If I stop attacking, you’ll get to keep Kaori’s body forever. Besides, if only killing you will destroy Kaori’s soul, then I can do anything to you as long as you remain alive, right? I’ll just have to torture you until you’re begging to leave.”
The specter was at a loss for words. She’d never faced anyone so hell- bent on killing her.
“You hurt someone important to me. Don’t think you’ll get off lightly. Trust me, I have ways of making sure you won’t die no matter how much you suffer. I’ll make sure you’re perfectly lucid for every minute of it, too. Hell will seem like paradise once I’m through with you. You’re one of my enemies… but hey, at least you won’t die.” Ribbons of dark red mana swirled around Hajime, and his white hair stood on end. His gaze was as cold as ice.

Hajime was furious, more than he had ever been. Just killing this specter wouldn’t be enough for him. He would make her suffer every way he knew how.
The specter just stared at Hajime, frozen in terror. She couldn’t even muster the courage to say anything in her defense.
She had realized too late that she should never have picked a fight with the monster staring down at her. Now, she had no choice but to pay the price for her mistake.
Hajime pressed Donner against Kaori’s forehead again. The specter began to pray. Please let this end quickly. The mere thought of what Hajime would do to her already left her wishing she was dead, except she already was.
She was nothing more than what remained of a human’s particularly powerful grudge. Now though, she was even willing to forgo that grudge if it let her leave this plane of existence.
I don’t want to exist anymore! I don’t want to exist anymore! I don’t want to exist anymore! I don’t want to exist anymore! I don’t want to exist anymore! I don’t want to exist anymore! Just as Hajime was about to pull the trigger, Kaori’s body began to glow. She was enveloped in the light of the healing spell Consecration. It was one of the delayed cast spells she’d held in reserve for emergencies.
The specter looked down in surprise.
Don’t worry, I’m exorcising you. This way you’ll be able to pass on.
The light surrounding Kaori grew brighter. It wrapped itself around the specter, and she slowly began floating up to the ceiling. Her consciousness began to fade, and her spirit along with it.
A second later, Kaori opened her eyes. It seemed the specter had been banished.

Hajime looked down at Kaori. He’d confirmed the specter’s disappearance with his Demon Eye, so there was no reason to be on guard anymore. He checked over Kaori, making sure the possession hadn’t left any lingering effects.
Kaori could feel the intensity of Hajime’s gaze. She could tell just how worried he’d been. It almost surprised her how serious he looked.
She met his gaze and lifted herself up. Then, she brought her face close to his, and kissed him on the lips. It was a brief one, but it was nevertheless Kaori’s first kiss.
Hajime had been too worried making sure Kaori’s soul really wasn’t going to be destroyed to dodge the kiss in time. After a brief moment of surprise, Hajime pulled away.
“What’re you doing?” “Giving you my answer?” “Your answer to what?”
“Remember, you asked me why I even decided to come with you… Well, I found the answer to why I decided to travel with you, and why I’ll keep traveling with you.”
She smiled, and it was the usual bright smile Hajime had begun to miss. This was the first time since entering the labyrinth that he’d seen her smile like that.
The whole time Kaori had been possessed, she’d actually been conscious. It was as if she’d been locked inside her own mind, forced to watch her body act against her will. However, since she’d been aware of everything that had been happening, she’d seen just how mad Hajime had gotten for her sake. She’d heard him call her someone important to him.

Seeing him like that had really moved her. She remembered how she had felt when she’d confessed to him.
No matter what anyone else said, no matter how much trouble it caused others, this was the one thing she wasn’t going to give up on. She would make him reciprocate her love. That resolve hadn’t changed.
She didn’t want to be the only one left out of Hajime’s group. She didn’t want to be the only one not by his side. Even if she wasn’t nearly as strong as Yue or the others, she wanted to prove her feelings for Hajime were every bit as strong as the other girls.
“I love you, Hajime-kun. I love you so much. That’s why I want to stay by your side.”
“Won’t that just make it hurt more? Like I told Shea, I have no intention of being with anyone other than Yue.”
“Maybe. I do want you to look only at me. I want to be the only one special to you. I’m definitely jealous of Yue, and I feel like I’m not as good as her… It’ll definitely be painful if I stay.”
“Then you should…”
“But I know if I back down here, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life. I’m sure of it. You’re right that after coming here, I saw the difference between me and everyone else, and I started to lose faith… I began to doubt whether or not coming with you really was for the best. But I’m not worried anymore.” She cupped Hajime’s cheeks and smiled.
He wasn’t sure how to react to that. In the end, though, it was her decision. If this was what she truly wanted, he wasn’t going to refuse her. Happiness had a different meaning for everyone. It wasn’t for Hajime to decide what would make Kaori happy, nor was it his place to dictate such things.

“I see… If that’s what you’ve decided, then I won’t argue.”
“Good. I know I’ll be causing you a lot of trouble, but please don’t hate me for it.”
“Bit late to be asking that. You were causing me heaps of trouble back when we were in Japan even… You’re more of a troublemaker than you look.”
“Hey, that’s mean!”
“Well, it’s true. You’d always come talk to me in school, completely oblivious of what everyone else thought. You didn’t even notice the other guys in the class looked like they wanted to kill me every time you said anything remotely suggestive. Plus, you came to my room at night wearing nothing but a negligee…”
“Ugh… I-I didn’t realize anything back then. I just wanted to talk to you… And that time I went to your room, I got super embarrassed about it afterward…”
Kaori buried her face in her hands. Smiling wryly to himself, Hajime helped her up. He patted her on the shoulder and the pair made their way to the end of the hold. There was a glowing magic circle there.
Kaori grabbed hold of Hajime’s sleeve, holding him back. She was still shaking a little. Clearly, being possessed had been quite an ordeal for her. Though it seemed not to have left any lasting effects, so it wouldn’t take long for her to recover.
“Let’s take a short break.”
Kaori decided to make the most of her break, and jumped onto Hajime’s back.
“What are you doing?”

“It’s better to hurry, right? There’s no telling how long that magic circle will stay active. If we stay here too long, the fog might come back, so this is more efficient, right?”
She’s got a point. Hajime reluctantly allowed her to ride on his back and stepped into the magic circle.
Kaori wrapped her arms around Hajime’s neck and hugged him tight.
Hajime had a hard time concentrating with her pressing so tightly against his back. Plus, Kaori whispering into his ear only made it worse. Her hot breath tickled his ear.
“Hajime-kun… Can you say that again?”
“Say what again?”
“When you got angry at the ghost. Remember?” “Hmm, I can’t say I do.”
“Come on, you could at least say it one more time.”
The two of them continued flirting amicably as Hajime stepped into the magic circle.
And, in a completely different location, pale light illuminated the ocean’s surface as waves lapped against the ceiling.
In the center of the room was a shrine, which was supported by four massive pillars. It had no walls, and the ceiling was held up by the pillars alone. An altar lay in the center of the shrine, with a detailed magic circle engraved on its face. Also, it was surrounded by seawater, and four floating paths jutted out from it along the cardinal directions. They each ended at a circular platform. There were magic circles carved into the floor at each platform.

One of the four started glowing faintly. A second later it exploded into light, and two figures stepped out. Hajime and Kaori.
“Where are we? Hm? Wait, is that the final magic circle? Don’t tell me we beat this labyrinth already…”
“Umm, is that bad?”
“Nah, I just didn’t think we’d finish it so fast. It feels like it was way too easy compared to the other labyrinths… I thought that sea angel thing might come back at the end, but I don’t sense it anywhere…” Hajime was a little disappointed they’d reached the end of Meiru Melusine’s labyrinth so easily. Kaori poked her head out from behind Hajime’s shoulder and grimaced.
“You know, Hajime-kun. I’d say what we went through already was hard enough. First, we had to find our way into an underwater cavern. You know most people don’t have submarines in this world, right? You’d have to use a lot of mana just to get here. If you mess up, you’d drown before even stepping inside. Then, we had to fight that crazy sea angel monster, and after that we had to fight a bunch of illusions. They couldn’t even be hurt by physical attacks, so we had to use mana again. After that, at the end, you had to fight an army of soldiers while exhausted. I wouldn’t call that easy.”
“Hm, you’ve got a point, but still…”
“The people of this world are pretty devout. Seeing something like that would have probably broken them…”
“Yeah, it’s possible just watching them go crazy would have been too much for them to handle…”
What Kaori was trying to say was that Hajime was just too strong. When he thought about it, Hajime realized the Grand Gruen Volcano had been a piece of cake too. Had it not been for Freid’s surprise attack, they would have cleared it without a single injury.

I guess it’s possible the labyrinth was so easy that we cleared it even before meeting up with Yue and the others again. Just as he was thinking that, the magic circle on the platform to his right began to glow.
Once the blinding glow of light faded, Yue, Shea, and Tio stepped out. Perfect timing.
“You guys got here at the perfect time. Is everyone alright?”
“Yeah. Did you… run into difficulties?”
“Ah, are you alright, Kaori-san?”
“Hm? You aren’t injured, are you? Shouldn’t you be able to heal yourself if you are?”
Yue and the others responded cheerfully. When they saw Kaori riding on his back though, their expressions changed to ones of worry. Kaori hurriedly reassured them.
“Thanks for worrying about me, everyone. But I’m fine. I’m just being a little lazy.” She smiled as she said that.
Yue glared at her, while Shea ended up muttering jealously.
“Wow, lucky you… Let me have a turn too.” Tio, on the other hand, simply had a knowing grin on her face.
“I see.”
“Wait, Kaori. You can stand now?”
“Ehehe. To be honest, I could have walked from the start… Sorry.”
“Haaah, just get off.” Kaori smiled guiltily and Hajime shrugged her off his back. The two of them joined up where the paths connected and headed to the temple.
“So what happened between you two? Come on, Master, you have to tell us. Something happened with you and Kaori, did it not? Don’t try to hide it now, I can— Bweh!?” Tio’s persistence was getting on Hajime’s nerves, so he slapped her to shut her up. Tio sank to the ground, a look of pure ecstasy on her face. She was already panting heavily.
“I-It has been a while since I felt such pain. Haaah… Haaah… Mmm… Master, will you please punish me more? You can even kick me if you like.” Hajime ignored her expectant gaze and continued walking toward the altar.
“One more! Just one more slap, please! I beg of you!” They heard Tio pleading with Hajime from behind, but everyone ignored her.
“So? What happened?” Yue asked the same question Tio had. However, her question was directed at Kaori, not Hajime. Kaori met Yue’s gaze and beamed. Her smile had the same warmth that Hajime had grown used to seeing in the classroom.
“We just kissed.” “I see…”
“What!? Really!? Who started it!? Did you kiss him or, wait, did he kiss you!?” An edge of anger slipped into Yue’s voice, but Shea seemed excited for Kaori.
“I kissed him. After seeing how angry Hajime-kun got for my sake, I couldn’t help myself.”
“Wow, it’s just like what happened with me! I did the exact same thing before. We’re comrades now, Kaori-san!”
“Ufufu, I guess so, Shea. Shall we steal him together, then?” “If we’re doing this, we have to make him ours for good.”
It almost sounded as if they were planning on kidnapping him. Cold sweat poured down Hajime’s face. True, it sounded like they were just joking, but there was a dangerous glimmer in their eyes. It scared him to see a pure girl like Kaori and a cheerful bunny girl like Shea stare at him as if they were wolves staring down their prey. Frankly, he never knew Kaori especially could be so aggressive.
“I thought you’d run away with your tail between your legs.” Yue looked probingly at Kaori.
She’d noticed how Kaori was letting her inferiority complex eat away at her. Honestly, she’d expected the labyrinth to break her spirit and convince her to give up on Hajime. Had that happened, Yue certainly wouldn’t have tried to console Kaori. After all, if Kaori’s feelings for Hajime were that shallow, then she had no right to be here anyway.
However, it seemed Kaori had managed to survive. More than that, her resolve was even firmer than before. Yue was curious as to how she’d managed to find her courage again.
“I thought so too. Hajime-kun even said I should leave. Still, it’s a bit too late to care about trivial things like… how much stronger you are.”
“So you’re determined, then?”
“I guess you could say that. But you know, I was determined from the start. I just lost sight of that when I saw how much stronger you all were. I won’t show you anything pathetic like that again.”
“It would have been better if you just gave up.”
“Hehe, scared? Worried I’ll steal Hajime-kun away from you?” “Don’t get ahead of yourself, you troublemaker.”
“Hajime-kun called me a troublemaker too. But I really don’t think I’m that much of one…” Kaori frowned. It was a little disheartening that both the man she loved and her rival thought she was a troublemaker. Still, she got over it quickly enough. In all fairness, Yue, and in fact, all of Hajime’s group were pretty big troublemakers.

Sadly, Yue herself wasn’t aware the word could apply to her just as well.
“Well, maybe you’re right, Yue… But at least now I know I’m someone important to Hajime-kun. All that’s left is to steal the title of ‘special’ from you. I won’t give up, no matter what anyone says.”
“I see. Then like before, I accept your challenge.”
“Yep! Oh, by the way, I don’t hate you or anything. In fact, I feel like we’re just friends that fight a lot.”
“Friends? I’m your friend?”
“Yep, you’re my friend. In Japan there’s a lot of people like that. They show their friendship by fighting with each other. Just like us. We’re rivals in love, but we’re still friends, right?”
“Japan… That’s Hajime’s home. The more I hear about it, the stranger it sounds. But… I like it.”
“Glad to hear it. Ufufu, so let’s try and get along, alright?”
“Okay…”
It should have been a good thing that they were finally getting along, but for some reason it made Hajime feel lonely. He was the only one being left out of the girls’ conversation.
Kaori and Yue’s conversation reminded Hajime of the dialogue between certain Monogatari characters, but he didn’t say anything about it.
Hajime was a patient man after all, so he knew when it was time to wait his turn. Once they reached the altar, the party stepped into the giant magic circle together. As usual, their memories were examined to ascertain whether or not they’d actually cleared the labyrinth. However this time, each group saw the memories the other group had experienced as well. In other words, Hajime and Kaori got to see what Yue, Shea, and Tio had gone through.
It seemed they had traversed through the ruins of a giant underground city. Like Hajime, they’d been shown illusions made of magic. Their vision had been one where two armies had fought in the streets of the ruined city. At first, the invading demon army had attacked the human defenders. But once Yue had used magic, both sides had turned their blades onto them, just like in Hajime’s vision.
They’d made their way to the city’s castle while defeating the enemies that came after them. Once they got inside, they’d overheard a discussion among the country’s leaders.
It appeared the demons had overrun one of the human villages and slaughtered everyone inside. Because of that, the humans had declared war on the demons. However, it seemed the attack had all been orchestrated by the humans’ leaders. They’d wanted an excuse to eradicate all demons from the planet. Before they knew it though, the flames of war spread far beyond their ability to control. Soon enough they were the ones losing, and the humans had been pushed back to their capital.
From the sound of it, it seemed a high-ranking priest from the Church of Light had been the one to push hardest for war. They had also been the ones behind the attack on the human village. The Church of Light was apparently the predecessor to the Holy Church Hajime and the others were familiar with.
Driven into a corner, the humans had turned to desperate tactics. They attempted to sacrifice someone to appease their gods and gain their favor. A hundred little girls were invited into the church’s grand cathedral, where they were summarily slaughtered.

Yue and the others had naturally been appalled at what they saw. Their faces paled as they were forced to rewatch those memories. It even looked like Shea was about to puke.
The memory scan finished, and the circle deemed that they had indeed conquered the labyrinth. Another branch of magic from the age of the gods was inscribed into their minds.
“Of course they’d put this magic here… This is the other tip of the continent, goddammit! Stupid Liberators!
“So this is where we were supposed to obtain the power of restoration.”
Hajime cursed at the long dead Melusine. The magic they’d received was regeneration magic.
Hajime recalled the time they’d gone to the Grand Tree in the Haltina Woods. The stone tablet had told them they would need the power of restoration. In other words, to conquer the labyrinth on the eastern tip of the continent, one would need magic obtained by clearing the labyrinth on the western tip of the continent. For Hajime, who’d gone to the east first, this was unbelievably annoying. At least he had a car to drive, though. Normal challengers would have been forced to make another year-long trek.
The Liberators just keep getting more and more annoying. As the light from the magic circle faded, a rectangular block rose up from the ground. It was like a miniature version of the altar they were on. It began to glow with a faint light, and a second later a vaguely humanoid shape formed above it. Like Orcus, it seemed Meiru Melusine had left behind a message for the labyrinth’s conquerors.
A second later the light coalesced and Meiru’s features could be made out. She was sitting on the block, wearing a white one-piece dress and had long, emerald-green hair. Her ears were also shaped like fins. Surprisingly, it seemed Meiru Melusine had been a Dagon.
Like Oscar, she introduced herself and then began explaining the Liberators’ true goal. She seemed like a gentle person. There was a look of profound sorrow on her face as she spoke of the atrocities the gods committed. Her speech was otherwise not too different from Oscar’s. As she wound her speech down, she left a final warning for Hajime and the others.
“Please, don’t cling to the gods. Don’t rely on them. Don’t grow accustomed to what’s given to you. Struggle on, and grasp what you desire with your own two hands. Decide your own path in life, and walk down it with your own two feet. Remember, no matter how bleak things look, you’ll be able to find the answers inside of you. Only you have those answers. Don’t be deceived by the gods’ honeyed words. Only when you live by your own free will can you find true happiness. I pray the path you walk will be forever showered in fortune.” With that, Meiru Melusine’s apparition faded away. As the light from the circle that summoned her dissipated, Hajime spotted a coin engraved with her crest resting atop the mini-altar.
“And this makes our fourth marker of strength too, Hajime-san. Now we should be able to challenge the labyrinth in the sea of trees. We’ll finally be going back, won’t we? I wonder how my dad’s doing.” Shea gazed nostalgically in the direction of her home. However, when she remembered how her father and the rest of her family had transformed into gangsters, she shook herself back to the present.
Hajime put the coin in his Treasure Trove and similarly tried very hard not to think about the gangster Haulia tribe.
The moment the coin disappeared into his Treasure Trove, the temple began to rumble. A second later, the water level began to rise.

“Whoa!? Tch, looks like we’re getting another rough exit. Everyone, grab onto me!”
“Okay.”
“Wawah, not so rough!”
“I don’t want to go through another Reisen Gorge!” “Water torture… sounds rather fascinating.”
They were completely submerged in seconds. Hajime didn’t even have the time to pull out his submarine. He handed everyone oxygen masks just in case this trip lasted a while, then had everyone huddle together so they wouldn’t be separated like last time.
The ceiling of the room opened up, just like it had in the Grand Gruen Volcano, and the water started flowing into it. The party was carried up by the powerful current, and they found themselves heading for the hole.
Hajime assumed this was the shortcut out of the labyrinth. Still, he would never have guessed that kind, gentle woman would have come up with such a violent way to take them out of the labyrinth. Especially since it was forced. Maybe she was a lot more ruthless than she looked.
After a while, Hajime noticed something. At the rate they were going, the current would crash them into the roof above.
Hajime activated Diamond Skin and moved to shield Yue and the others from the shock. However, just before they hit the ceiling, it too slid away to reveal a hole. The current bore them out and spit them into the sea. Hajime was sure of it now. Meiru Melusine was nowhere near as gentle as she appeared.
Now that they were in relatively calm waters, Hajime pulled out his submarine. He motioned for everyone to get inside.

Still, before they could, they were interrupted. By the worst possible enemy, at that.
“Ah!? Everyone, get out of the way!” He called out a warning with Telepathy.
A giant translucent tentacle slammed into the submarine, sending it spinning away.
Hajime turned back to see the enemy they’d failed to defeat earlier, the giant sea angel. It looked like a fairy, but its jelly melted anything it came into contact with and it could regenerate seemingly indefinitely. It seemed utterly unaffected by water resistance, and shot its countless tentacles at the party at unbelievable speed.
I can’t believe we have to deal with this thing even after beating the labyrinth. Hajime ground his teeth and called out telepathically to Yue.
“Yue!”
“Crystal Coffin!” She immediately created a barrier of ice around them, freezing the surrounding water in place.
The tentacles slammed into the globe of ice protecting Hajime and the others. The impact was so strong that the party was rattled around like dice in a shaker.
“How are we going to handle this, Master!?” Fortunately, Hajime had a plan.
“Yue, we’ve gotta make it to the surface. We’ll just be slowly beaten down by it underwater. I’ll buy you the time you need!”
“Okay.” Hajime used the spirit stone-imbued ring on his finger to remotely control the submarine. The submarine stopped drifting aimlessly and charged headfirst at the sea angel. It did an underwater barrel roll to avoid the sea angel’s tentacle barrage, then launched a salvo of torpedoes at it.
The single salvo contained twenty torpedoes in it. Honestly, it was almost overkill already.
However, Hajime wanted to be absolutely certain he’d buy them enough time, so he launched all the remaining salvos in the sub as well. He set the submarine circling the sea angel with the hull pointed toward it, as he did so. The unnatural movements almost making it look like the sub was drifting.
All in all, he launched a grand total of 48 torpedoes at the monster. They came at it from all directions, and each and every one of them found their mark.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Explosions blossomed one after another. A massive amount of water around the sea angel was displaced. Jets of water broke the surface of the ocean one after another. That was how powerful each of his torpedoes had been.
While the sea angel was distracted, Yue manipulated the current to carry them to the surface. No matter how fearsome its powers of regeneration were, Hajime was sure that would keep it out of commission for a few minutes at least.
Unfortunately, Hajime and the others had underestimated its strength. “Yue, above us!”
“No, I can’t stop in time!”
Hajime looked up and saw a membrane of jelly covering the area above them. In a matter of seconds, the jelly had reformed, and now the sea angel was above them.
It opened its mouth wide and swallowed the ice sphere they were riding in whole. They were now inside the sea angel’s stomach.

“Shit, it regenerates too fast!”
“This isn’t good, Hajime-san. We’re surrounded in jelly now!”
It seemed the sea angel had been spreading its jelly ever since it appeared. It had planned for this exact situation.
“Hajime, my barrier won’t last long! There’s no water inside its stomach, so I can’t freeze more to reinforce it, either!”
“Tch, everyone, brace for impact!”
Yue did her best to slow the corrosion of her ice sphere. Hajime helped as well by coating the ice in Diamond Skin. At the same time, he used his Treasure Trove to pull out a large number of torpedoes and explosives. He placed them outside the barrier, but inside the sea angel’s stomach.
One again, the sea angel’s body was blown to bits, its pieces scattered to the four winds. The barrier was nearly corroded away at this point, and the explosion blew it to pieces. Hajime and the others were sent flying from the shockwave.
They were once again in the middle of the ocean. Hajime called his submarine back, hoping to at least get Shea and Kaori to the surface. The two of them were even more helpless underwater than the others.
However, his submarine had been caught. The sea angel had latched some of its jelly onto the bottom of the submarine, and now there was a huge hole in it. After being filled with water his submarine had become too slow to maneuver properly. Crippled as it was, the sea angel had easily been able to surround it with more of its scattered jelly and render it completely immobile.
Worse, it had realized they were trying to make a break for the surface, so it had created a translucent barrier of jelly directly above them. Considering how quickly it regenerated, Hajime knew it wouldn’t be easy to break through it.
Hajime inwardly cursed as he watched the sea angel devour his prized submarine.
“Yue, you’re going to have to use your trump card.”
“I’ll need forty seconds.”
“I won’t let it touch you. This is our only way out of the ocean now.”
“Okay… leave it to me.” Yue closed her eyes and began concentrating. Kaori and Shea supported her, making sure the current didn’t sweep her away.
Tio barely held back the encroaching tentacles with a rapid barrage of mini breath attacks. However, she knew she wouldn’t be able to keep it up for long. Breath attacks consumed a lot of mana, and down here they were hampered by water resistance. Moreover, because they were linear attacks, they pierced through the tentacles instead of destroying them. In a few seconds, Tio would be overrun.
Hajime quickly pulled massive quantities of ore out of his Treasure Trove and transmuted another globe-shaped barrier around them.
“Master, I cannot hold them back any longer!”
“You held out long enough, Tio! Everyone, get inside my barrier!” Hajime made the sphere large enough to fit all five of them. They all scrambled inside, with Tio coming in last. Once they were in, he sealed the entrance. Dark red mana surrounded the metal sphere. Hajime had strengthened it with Diamond Skin. Furthermore, because he’d incorporated weightstone into the barrier’s design, it wouldn’t sink.
Numerous tentacles slammed against Hajime’s sphere. The mana- corroding jelly ate away at his Diamond Skin spell. Before long, the metal itself was being dissolved by the jelly. Red sparks ran down the sections most worn away by the jelly, and they were filled with new metal.
By continually transmuting more ore into the barrier, Hajime was able to keep it mostly intact. Thankfully, Hajime had stockpiled so much extra ore that he had mountains of it stored in his Treasure Trove. He continued replenishing the walls of his barrier for the full forty seconds Yue needed to finish her preparations.
“Cosmic Rift!” Yue finished casting her teleportation spell. An elliptical ring of light appeared next to the party.
The teleportation spell, Cosmic Rift, was one of the many spatial magic skills they’d learned at the Grand Gruen Volcano. It connected two points in space. In other words, it created a warp gate. As Yue had acquired it only recently, it still took her nearly a minute to cast such a difficult spell.
“Everyone, get in!” At Hajime’s command, everyone jumped into the warp gate. Hajime went last, transmuting the barrier until everyone was through. The gate vanished after Hajime leaped through it, and seconds later the barrier that had been protecting them was dissolved by the sea angel’s tentacles.
As they passed through the gate, Hajime and the others were assailed by a sense of weightlessness. That was mostly because Yue had teleported them into the sky. In order to get them as far away from the ocean as possible, Yue had put the exit point of her Cosmic Rift one hundred meters in the air.
Tio instantly transformed into her dragon form and caught the others on her back. Yue slumped over, and Shea and Kaori hurried to hold her up. Casting that spell had taken all of her mana. She instantly began replenishing her reserves using the magic accessories Hajime had given her.

“Thanks, Yue. I knew I could count on you. Though it looks like spatial magic’s pretty difficult.”
“Haaah… Haaah… Yeah. I did it, but I’m not good enough with it yet that I can use it in combat.”
Spatial magic was far harder for Yue to use than even gravity magic had been. Like she’d said, under normal circumstances it wouldn’t be usable in combat. She’d been forced to use Image Composition to create an imaginary magic circle instead of simply controlling her mana directly like she did for other spells. On top of that, it had consumed twice as much mana as her highest-rank spells did just to teleport them one hundred meters into the air. Its mana consumption was still highly inefficient.
Still, it was thanks to the fact that she could use it at all that they’d been able to escape. Yue blushed as everyone, even Kaori, praised her skills. Everyone smiled in relief, but a second later those smiles froze.
Splaaaaaaaaaaaash! A massive tidal wave bore down on Hajime and the others from behind.
No, massive didn’t do the word justice. The tidal wave rose up so high that it blotted out the sky. It towered over them, even though they were a good hundred meters above the water. At a guess, Hajime put it at five hundred meters tall and at least a full kilometer wide.
“Tch, Tio!”
“Understood!” Tio flapped her wings and shot forward. They couldn’t dodge to the left or the right, and spatial magic wouldn’t make it in time. In that case, the only option was to keep moving forward. Tio flew with a speed rivaling that of her flight from the Grand Gruen Volcano.
“Divine Shackles! Hallowed Ground!”

“Hallowed Ground.”
Kaori cast the spells she’d stocked up while they’d been waiting for Yue. She joined everyone together with her chains while simultaneously casting the same barrier Yue did. Shea closed her eyes and concentrated. A second later, her eyes shot open and she shouted out a warning.
“Tio-san, watch out! That thing is hiding inside the tsunami! It’s going to send its tentacles at you!” She relayed the things she’d seen with Future Sight. Tio reacted instantly, twisting out of the way. Countless tentacles lashed at the spot she’d been in mere seconds ago.
They’d evaded the first attack. However. because of that, the distance between them and the tsunami had shrunk. Hajime fended off further attacks with his flamethrower, but Tio wasn’t able to recover enough speed to get away.
“Shit! Everyone, brace for impact!” Hajime hugged Yue, Shea, and Kaori protectively. A second later, the gargantuan tsunami crashed into them.
Thanks to Yue and Kaori’s barriers, they were able to withstand the impact. Still, the tsunami tossed them around, and before they knew it they were plummeting back into the ocean.
Moreover, the force of the tsunami had completely shattered one Hallowed Ground, and the other was filled with cracks. Had Yue and Kaori only deployed one barrier, they would have been sleeping with the fishes.
Hajime shook his head, clearing the dizziness that had accompanied being tossed around by the tsunami. When he looked up, his expression grew grim.
“So you’re not gonna let your prey go, huh?” The sea angel had caught up to them. It had gotten bigger, too. Now it was over twenty meters long. Apparently, it didn’t think that was big enough though. It continued gathering translucent jelly from its surroundings, growing even larger.
“Y-You’ve gotta be kidding me. It doesn’t die, it can melt anything, and it can even control the sea… How are we supposed to beat it?”
“Hajime-san, can you kiss me? I’m not joking, I want to at least be kissed by you once before I die.”
“In that case, Master, I too wish for a kiss before death.”
Kaori was despairing, but Shea and Tio were smiling faintly, a look of resignation on their faces.
But when they looked up at Hajime, shivers ran down their spine. Even now, his eyes glimmered with determination. Bloodlust so thick it was palpable rolled off him in waves. He glared at the sea angel, completely undaunted.
He hadn’t given up. The thought hadn’t even crossed his mind. All he was thinking about was how to kill the enemy in front of him and make it out alive.
The sea angel they faced was unbelievably powerful. But if Hajime was the kind of person who gave up because the enemy was too strong, he wouldn’t have made it so far. He would have died in the abyss ages ago.
Yue had walked through the abyss with him, so she understood. She, too, was only thinking of how to defeat the foe in front of her. Surrender wasn’t part of her vocabulary.
Kaori, Shea, and Tio’s breath caught in their throat as they watched Hajime. They stayed like that for a while, until the sea angel, which was now thirty meters long, attacked and brought them back to their senses.

Kaori hurriedly put up another Hallowed Ground. Shea tried to use her Branching Paths ability to find a way out of this mess. Tio fired her breath at the sea angel. If Hajime hadn’t given up, then they wouldn’t either. If they didn’t show their grit here, then they had no right to travel at Hajime’s side.
Yue hadn’t been able to come up with a solution, so she added her strength to theirs, hoping to at least buy time.
Hajime stood stock still, thinking furiously. He’d activated Riftwalk to accelerate his thought processes even further. He knew he needed to find a solution soon, or they were all dead. He went over all the information they’d gathered on the enemy so far. Every little thing was examined in detail in case it offered a potential solution. There was one point he came back to. Back when they’d first escaped from the giant sea angel. Why didn’t it chase after us back then? It could have chased us down easily. What was different between then and now? We’re not…
“We’re not using enough fire.” Last time both Tio and Yue had blasted the sea angel with fire spells. The fire had withered its tentacles, and the burned jelly hadn’t regenerated.
Finally, he saw a ray of hope. He wasn’t one hundred percent certain his conjecture was correct, but it seemed the sea angel couldn’t regenerate indefinitely. It just had so much jelly that it appeared that way.
Furthermore, it likely could create more jelly given enough time. It seemed creating more jelly took a lot more time than regenerating what was already there, though. That was why it had taken it so long to recover after they’d burned so much of it last time. They’d been able to escape because it had prioritized replenishing its jelly reserves over chasing them.

So to defeat it, they simply had to do the same thing as last time. Burn it down faster than it could regenerate and replenish. However, they were surrounded by ocean. Fire magic wouldn’t be very effective with all this water around. Tio’s breath was powerful, but she couldn’t keep it up for long enough to burn away all the jelly. They had no weapons capable of burning it away.
In that case…
“I just have to make one.” Hajime pulled out a large amount of ore and torpedoes from his Treasure Trove and started transmuting.
“Hajime? Did you think of something?”
“Yeah. This is the only way we’re gonna be able to use fire around water. If this works, we’ll be able to kill it.”
“Do you really mean it, Hajime-kun!?”
“I knew I could trust you, Hajime-san! I never doubted you for a second!”
“Shea, were you not the one asking Master for a kiss before you died just moments ago… At any rate, good job, Master!” Tio joked around with Shea. The two of them had relaxed a little. The man they trusted most in the world had told them they’d make it. There was no reason to worry anymore. All that was left was to live up to the trust he’d shown in them.
“It’s gonna take some time, though. I’m counting on you guys to hold it off.”
Hajime smiled fearlessly, and the others smiled back at him. Then, he activated both Riftwalk and Limit Break while he worked. Bolstered by those skills, he transmuted faster than ever.
He finished one weapon and quickly started on the next. This new weapon of his required an unprecedented amount of precision and skill to craft, so he couldn’t mass-produce them like his bullets. However, he needed a lot or it wouldn’t be enough to burn away all of the sea angel’s jelly. Firing them off one after another would just delay their inevitable demise. Either he got it all at once, or not at all. Limit Break caused dark red mana to swirl about him, and it looked like he was caught in a small crimson tornado.
Unfortunately, their situation was still looking rather bleak. Overpowered as they were, Yue and the others still couldn’t hold back the sea angel for long. The ocean just gave it too great of an advantage.
They all tried their best to hold on, but it didn’t look like they would be able to endure long enough for Hajime to finish making his weapons stockpile.
“Three more minutes, that’s all I need!” Hajime used Telepathy to shout that to the others. The sea angel was almost right on top of them. It opened its mouth wide to swallow the party whole once more.
Hajime reluctantly decided he’d need to fire off whatever he’d made so far. It wasn’t enough, but there was no point in saving it if they were about to die.
Just then, though, a grizzled old voice spoke to them via Telepathy.
“Yo, Young Haj. You seem to be in a spot of trouble. This old man here’ll help you out.”
“W-Wait, I recognize that voice! Is that you, Fish-san!?” “That it is. It’s me, your friend Fish-san.”
To Hajime’s disbelief, the fishman he had freed back in the aquarium at Fuhren was here. Hajime looked around in surprise, and saw a giant silver silhouette tackle the sea angel. The sea angel was taken completely by surprise, and was sent flying off to the side.
The familiar fish monster with a human head appeared beside Yue’s barrier. Yue and the others were stunned. Yue, Kaori, and Tio had never even seen the fishman before, so it was natural, but even Shea hadn’t expected to find him here.
“You’re the guy from back then!” Shea exclaimed, while Kaori shrieked in fear.
“Have you been well, Shea?”
“Fweh!? Umm, y-yes! I’m doing fine!”
“Excellent, excellent. Quit spacing out, Young Haj. You said you needed three minutes to beat that oversized Devourer, right? Then get to work. I can’t hold it off for long.”
“A-Alright. I’m still not sure what’s going on, but thanks for saving us, Fish-san.”
Hajime once again got back to work.
The giant silver silhouette continued fighting with the sea angel, dodging its attacks and keeping it away from Tio. Upon closer inspection, Hajime realized what he’d thought was one silver creature was actually a huge school of fish. Not monster fish, just regular everyday fish. However, there were hundreds of thousands of them all gathered together. With that many, even they could hold their own against the sea angel. Still, they wouldn’t be able to keep it up for long; thousands of fish died in every attack.
Why on earth is a fishman here? Shea stepped up to ask what everyone else was wondering. It was a rare sight to see Yue huddling behind Shea and not the other way around.

“U-Umm, Fish-san? Is it alright if I call you that? Uhh, what exactly are you doing here?”
“Hmph, I wasn’t doing anything. I was just minding my business, swimming along, when I sensed this huge explosion of mana. I heard your Telepathy too, so I rushed over, only to find Young Haj about to be eaten by a giant Devourer. I didn’t really know what was going on, but my friend was in trouble. I wouldn’t be a man if I didn’t help him out.”
“Umm, what about those fish… Also, what’s a Devourer?”
“That thing you’re fighting. They’re known as Devourers. They’re creatures that used to live in the sea long ago… Actually, they’re more natural disasters than creatures. People say they’re the ancient ancestors of monsters. Oh, and I’m controlling those fish with my Telepathy. The kind of Telepathy my species uses lets me communicate to some extent with all sea creatures, even if they don’t have mana.”
Shea’s jaw dropped open. Fish-san was a fishmancer. As he finished his explanation, the last of his fish army melted away. The Devourer once again chased after Tio, determined to swallow them all whole.
Fortunately, he had managed to buy them the three minutes Hajime needed.
Hajime set up his super-sized torpedoes around the edges of Yue’s barrier. In three minutes he’d crafted roughly 120 of them. Floating next to him were a number of small circles equal to the number of his torpedoes.
Hajime poured his mana into the spirit stone and launched all of the torpedoes simultaneously. They left a trail of bubbles in their wake as they sped toward the Devourer. These were no normal torpedoes.

Simple explosives wouldn’t do any lasting harm to the Devourer, after all. It would just regenerate all of the jelly that had been blown apart.
Irked at being interrupted, the Devourer sent out a barrage of tentacles to swat down the torpedoes. However, Hajime guided the torpedoes to weave through the tentacles. With his Limit Break, he was just barely able to control all 120 of them at once.
“You’re not gonna dodge, are you? Hope you like my present, then.” Hajime muttered viciously. He figured since the Devourer dissolved anything that got close to it, it never bothered dodging.
His guess proved to be correct. After making it through the forest of tentacles, Hajime’s torpedoes all smashed into the Devourer. It hadn’t even tried to move out of the way.
However, there was no explosion. The torpedoes slowly melted into the Devourer. All of the black dots sticking out of it almost made it look like it had been poisoned.
Hajime needed to hurry and complete his preparations before the torpedoes melted completely. He pulled a large amount of sticky black liquid out of his Treasure Trove. It was liquified flamrock. Then, he poured the liquified flamrock into the circles floating around him.
A second later, the Devourer was dyed pitch-black. The blackness spread through its body like ink through paper. Black liquid moved to fill every inch of its translucent jelly. The liquid flamrock was being transported from the circles into the Devourer’s body.
The circles were actually all miniature warp gates connected to their respective torpedoes. Anything that fell into the circles around him appeared at the corresponding torpedo. His torpedoes hadn’t actually been the weapon, they’d just been its means of delivery. Their shells only existed to protect the warp gates inside of them from being corroded away instantly.
Naturally, the liquid flamrock itself began to dissolve inside the Devourer as well, but there was so much of it that it couldn’t get rid of it in time. It tried to split itself into pieces to save parts of it from being filled, but Yue and the others weren’t about to let that happen. They used barriers, ice spells, and breath attacks to keep it busy. Hajime hadn’t asked Yue to make the gate because he knew she wasn’t skilled enough with the magic yet to accurately open one inside a moving target. For now, the best she could do was connect two points in space.
The Devourer had gathered all of its jelly in one place to give itself an advantage over Hajime, but that backfired on it now. It would die precisely because it had gone all out. Hajime kept pouring flamrock in until he was sure the Devourer was thoroughly saturated.
He grinned wickedly at the Devourer, a sharp glint in his eyes. There was a small burning object in his hand.
“Let me show you what hell feels like.” He flicked it into one of his warp gates with his thumb. It stuck to the flamrock, pouring through and reappearing inside the Devourer. 3,000 degree flames spread to every inch of the monster’s body, devouring the Devourer whole.
It transformed from black to red in the span of a few heartbeats. As the flames were originating inside of it, the Devourer had no way to fight back. It could only watch in horror as its body was eaten away.
Soon, it couldn’t contain the flames inside it, and gouts of fire shot out of it. However, this just made it catch fire from both outside and in. The flames were so hot that they evaporated the surface of the ocean and a large cloud of steam covered the Devourer.

Jets of water shot up as the hyper-pressurized steam rose to the surface. The sea began to roil and bubble as the parts of the Devourer still underwater burned away. Yue’s barrier kept the choppy waves off them while the party searched the area, making sure no traces of it remained.
They combed the surroundings for a while, but they didn’t see any more jelly. Hajime used his Demon Eye and Farsight to check even more thoroughly, but still didn’t see anything.
Now he was certain. The ancient monster of the depths, the Devourer, was no more.
“Gah… That was hard…” Hajime’s warp gates lost their glimmer and fell to the ground as he stopped powering them. The swirling cloud of mana that had surrounded him so far faded away as well. He slumped to his knees and grimaced. He’d overexerted himself using Limit Break, so now he was left with a pounding headache. Still, his eyes glowed with the joy of triumph. They’d done it.
“Hajime, are you alright?”
“Hajime-kun, I’ll heal you right away, don’t worry!”
Yue walked over and helped him stand, Kaori started casting healing magic, and Shea and Tio ran up and hugged Hajime.
“We did it, Hajime-san!”
“Wonderful, Master. Your murder methods are as creative and cruel as always. That sent shivers down my spine.”
Kaori’s healing magic soothed Hajime’s headache, and he smiled at his comrades. A grumpy old man’s voice interrupted their celebration.
“Hey, Young Haj. Next time you’re about the blow the ocean up, tell me first. I thought I was going to die back there.”

“Ah, Fish-san. Sorry. I was so focused on killing it that I forgot.”
The explosion of pressure caused by the heat had blown the fishman away too. Hajime had been so focused on killing the Devourer that he’d forgotten the fishman was also in the water. He also hadn’t expected an explosion. The interaction between the flamrock and the ocean had surprised even him.
“Well, I won’t deny killing Devourers is pretty taxing. You guys did a good job.”
“If you hadn’t saved us back there, we might really have died. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Though I was just repaying my debts, so don’t worry too much about it.”
“You’re so cool, Fish-san. My thanks to whatever coincidence brought you here.”
“Young Haj, a series of coincidences is what we call fate. It was fate that you saved me back in that city, just as it was fate that brought me here to save you.”
Hajime and the fishman smiled at each other. It almost looked like they were communicating silently. The girls whispered to each other as they watched this bizarre spectacle.
“Is it just me, or does it feel like they really understand each other?” “Is this what friendships between guys are like?”
“Hajime-kun, is the first friend you made in this world really a fishman? I know you didn’t get along with other people back in Japan, but that doesn’t mean you have to turn to other species!”

“They were like that last time, too. I guess it’s the boys’ version of girls’ talk or something? Though he’s talking to an old man and not a boy… Actually, he’s not even an old man. He’s just a fish.”
They were both a little confused and a little creeped out that Hajime seemed closer to a fish than to them. After a while, it seemed Hajime and the fishman’s conversation came to an end.
“I’ll be leaving then, Young Haj. We’ll meet again, if fate wills it.”
“Yeah. Stay safe, Fish-san.”
The fishman turned around and swam off after hearing those words. However, just as he was about to vanish from sight, he stopped and turned to face Shea.
“Good luck. I know you’ve got a lot of rivals, but you can do it. Whenever you two have kids, let me know. I’ll let them play with mine. I’ll introduce you to my wife, too. Bye, then.” He turned back around and vanished into the deep blue sea.
Hajime and the others were stunned. “He’s married!?”
No one had expected that. Hajime had thought the fishman just liked wandering around, but it turned out he was actually a deadbeat dad. It took a while for everyone’s shock to wear off.

Diamond. diamond. diamond.