Chapter 216: One-off Climax
———Lerim———
<1: 04 pm>
The ocean wave is quite calm right now, contradicting the storm that is approaching, figuratively at the minimum.
The scenery of the calm blue ocean is really quite the luxury. Being on a boat and looking at the passing waves is not exactly a frugal activity. This almost feels like a paid vacation. It’s not a paid vacation, obviously, but I can just relax while the boat carries me to the location.
“<Yeesh the sound of the waves is hella loud. Can’t you put it on push-to-talk?>” Seemi requested through the phone. I guess that’s a fair thing to ask for. The splashes are quite loud.
“Sorry about that.” I said as I changed the setting.
“<What the heck are you even doing out at sea anyway? You said it’s business stuff but what? Photoshoot?>” She asked, only knowing that I’m not coming here because of vacation or whatever.
“Something a bit more fancy than that. I can’t really explain it without showing it. You three just have to wait a while.” The usual regulars in the group chat. Idea, Seemi, and Jackman. Karra is obviously not here since this is Friday. It doesn’t matter if she’s in a super privileged school or whatever, she’s not gonna be on call during school hours.
“<Well I can’t see that many reasons for being out in the waters. In this day and age that seems kinda dangerous.>” Idea remarked. They must be talking about all the monsters that are around these parts. From what I do know they only appear in really deep oceans or areas with leylines. Speaking of leylines.
“Hey, old man, is the path we’re going through gonna run into any leylines or any monster territories?” I asked, just so we’re clear on whether we should expect monsters or not.
“According to the map I was given, we shouldn’t run into anything unless the commotion causes a great disturbance, and at that point we’d already arrived there.” He answered. Well that’s good to hear. I really don’t want to deal with monsters constantly. It’d be rather troublesome if I’m not at my peak by the time we arrived.
“Now that’s a bit of good news.” I said before focusing my attention back to the group chat. I have my camera on so they should know what I’m doing, even if they don’t hear it.
“<By the way, is this like a super secretive project? I’d imagine it’s not, if you opened the camera like this.>” Jackman asked.
“Oh it’s quite secretive, but I don’t think these guys care as long as I don’t say anything. In the first place it’s not as if the information would be causing panic or anything if things were resolved smoothly.” And it should resolve smoothly, at least on my end. I don’t think I have to do that much in the grand scheme of things.
“<...That means things could go wrong.>” Jackman pointed out.
“Yeah, but it won’t. I doubt much is going to happen.” I said confidently. It doesn’t actually matter what the odds are. The one thing I should do is not stress out. Being burdened by all the pressure will only be detrimental to my own performance.
“<...Not super reassuring, honestly.>” Seemi remarked. Just think however she wants, she’s not even here.
“<Now now. Just let her have her fun. She’s definitely not someone who gets to enjoy the ocean very often.>” Idea said, showing more optimism than those two, which is actually more reassuring than either of those two giving me a vote of confidence. Idea seems to know a whole lot, so them having faith in me is actually a good sign.
“<...Hey can you give us a better look?>” Seemi asked, and I guess I could do that. Let’s hold the phone and look around… “<Yeah. That’s quite a view.>”
“<How does that look compared to when you were on the cruise ship?>” Jackman asked as I put the phone down.
“<I mean the sights on the phone are very different than with your own eyes. I can’t actually judge it just from that alone.>” Seemi replied. Indeed there is quite a difference. I don’t think any photos could fully simulate the atmosphere of the open ocean or a beach or any other vacation spot. This isn’t a vacation, of course. We’re not here to have a trip for fun, but it is good to bask in the beauty of nature instead of pondering on your job nonstop.
“<Indeed. You can’t really expect to substitute everything with photos or videos.>” Idea remarked. “<By the way, can you at least tell us where you’re going?>”
“Oh, I don’t really have the full details, but if we’re talking about where we are right now, we’re in New York Bight.” I don’t think that’s actually gonna give us much to go on.
“<Huh? Why there?>” Seemi asked, wondering where I’m supposed to go from here.
“<That doesn’t give me too much to work with… Hmm…>” Idea muttered. I can’t really tell if they’re being genuine about being able to figure out what I’m doing with just the location alone. “<Well I guess just stay safe out there. I know there aren't a lot of leylines you could run into, so monster density shouldn’t be high, but you never know for sure.>”
“<What the heck are leylines?>” Jackman asked after Idea basically repeated what I just said with the old man just now.
“<You don’t know? It’s basically an area of concentrated mana. There are many names for it, and it’s considered the place to build sacred grounds for rituals or magic practice. Both men and monsters are attracted to those places.>” Idea explained. “<Some of the more mysterious structures with no known practical uses are actually built on these leylines, and those places are made for people to practice all sorts of mystic arts.>”
“<...How do you know all of that?>” Seemi, rather reasonably, asked. We all know for a while now that Idea knows way too much for them to be an unassuming bystander like the rest of us, but now they are a lot more open with sharing details that no one aside from the select few should ever know. This is probably the most they will open up to us about without sharing their actual name or appearance, sorta. I can tell right away that Idea is ‘Fei’. They weren’t being particularly clever with it, probably because the details are rather limited. Just lone blonde hair doesn’t give me much to work with, I also have long blonde hair, for one, even if the color is a bit duller than theirs. For all I know they might also have green eyes just like me, and at that point there’s a lot of people who they could be. Could be someone famous like that nepotism kid or just a random person no one ever pays attention to.
“<I just sorta know all sorts of stuff, really. I’m pretty sure all of us have more than a few trivias that we know that others don’t. Just some random thing we know simply because we stumble upon it and such.>” They said. While that is true, that couldn’t really cover for them.
“<What normal person knows about something that people don’t even really think existed until last year?>” Seemi pointed out. I only know about leylines actually existing since yesterday because of the talk and me asking Karra about it later on.
“In fairness, leylines are a talking point before all of this, kinda under the same umbrella as magic.” I said to ease the tension that seems to be building inside the group chat.
“<Did you already know about that?>” Seemi in turn asked me instead, as if I can even be considered to be in the same category as Idea.
“Just recently, I asked Karra about it and she knows about it as well. So it’s not like only one person knows about it.” I said just to mess with her a bit.
“<Well that’s just peachy, ain’t it?>” She said, sounding a bit better, probably from feeling left out of all these conversations, even if the topic is something most of the world doesn't know to be true for certain. We basically have two informants here, and in fact she already knows more about magic and other stuff related to it more than most, so she’s really not in the place to complain. If anything she should consider herself quite lucky, she just hasn’t made the best use of the information, otherwise she’d probably brag about how much her guild values her and such. Not that I’d know for certain, since I can’t really just ask her for all the details, and I’m really not all that curious.
“<No need to be so judgemental about how much someone is in the loop. In the first place, you have quite a lucrative opportunity to get involved, yet you didn’t.>” Idea pointed out. “<If we look back at everything that happened so far, the point where you were rescued by Wiina and becoming more motivated to get stronger would’ve been a good starting point to ask questions and so forth. You never ever even ponder on why she came to everyone’s rescue in the first place.>”
“<...What does that have to do with anything?>” She asked with a puzzled expression. Does she never figure it out? That’s rather embarrassing. I already figured out that both her and my rescue was at Karra’s behest. The whole ‘I was just passing by’ reasoning and her constant nonchalant attitude was a bold-faced lie. She’s a good actor, but the circumstances tell a lot more than anything she says.
“<...Nevermind then. You can figure that out later yourselves.>” Idea chose to drop the topic since it doesn’t look like Seemi can follow.
“<The heck does that mean?>” She said, more confused and a little bit irritated.
Well I’m gonna let those guys talk among themselves, I’m gonna mute the group chat for a moment and bask in the moment. I want to appreciate the view just a tad longer. We have been sailing for a long while now and I’d imagine that it won’t take more than an hour to reach our destination.
The waves are still calm, and the sky is still clear. I looked it up and there should be a storm coming in not too long into the afternoon.
“By the way, are you actually associated or are you roped into this like I am?” I asked the old man.
“Can’t say I am. I’m just an old guy who has been involved in way too many shenanigans for most people’s liking. These weird folks pay well, so I can’t really complain.” From the sounds of it it seems like no one else really dares to make these trips aside from him so he becomes one of their dedicated ferrymen. I can’t really be super certain but he seems like an ordinary guy who is through quite a lot. I’d imagine that kind of accolade is hard to obtain in a much more violent world where a lot of nasty things could happen on the fly, at least back before last year things were more contained. If it wasn’t then the whole masquerade wouldn’t have held up for so long until it was forcibly removed by… something we don’t truly know.
“<Hey at least I have a family to look after, don’t you live alone?>” Jackman said as I unmuted the conversation. What took place for such a comment? Should I even address that?
“...We are nearly there.” The old man suddenly said before I could continue the conversation.
Saying that while the clouds above are getting darker certainly gives off bad omen, but we already know it’s gonna rain today.
“Sorry guys, looks like it’s time for me to do my job, so talk amongst yourselves for a while.” I said to the chat before muting the call again. Now let’s take a look at this.
A giant figure in the distance and a few mana signatures that I felt as we moved closer to the intended location. Looks like they’re starting without us already.
“Maybe we were a bit late.” The old man jokingly said as he continued to sail into a clearly dangerous territory. He really just couldn’t care at this point, it seems.
“Nah. It’s fine. It’s to be expected that we’ll be late.” I said before putting my phone in the bag and observing the battlefield as we got closer and the giant figure came into full view.
A giant blocky golem. That’s the simplest way to call it even if it’s a rather undignified description. Extremely wide torso that pokes out of the deep ocean, two long arms to its side that doesn’t even look like it’s attached to the body with how fluid they move, and the square head that emits light from its singular eye. Its body looks like it was made solely of bricks and nothing else, with the only other notable traits that can be seen right now are two green orbs on its shoulder, and only one of which is lit up.
It looks very archaic as one would expect of what was described as an ancient weapon.
There are many small boats moving around it and the people onboard attacking it with spells while the giant artificial construct tries to get rid of them through hitting them directly or disorienting them by making powerful ocean waves.
I can’t make out who the fighters are or who even manned the giant brick robot, but I’m not here to simply observe. I’m just here as a simple backup in case anything goes wrong.
*Shine*
Suddenly the bright green orb lit up and a barrier formed around it and the multiple boats surrounding it quickly retreated.
Quite a powerful barrier, and the orb that has lit up has lost its light. That can only mean one thing, that seemed to be its last defensive measure as detailed in the mission briefing. Said to be able to tank up to something that could destroy an entire kingdom…
Admirable for the assault team to already break through one of those, but I can’t imagine them being able to break this one so soon.
“Alright old man, make sure the boat is still intact for me to come back to.” I said before pulling the sword from the bag and walked towards the deck.
*Shine* *Crackle*
The blade crackles with energy. It shines brightly amidst the chaotic ocean waves and the dark clouds looming above. This sword alone is enough. As long as I put all of my power into this next attack, the victory is guaranteed.
*LEAP*
I jumped up high, bouncing off the ship’s deck and towards the ancient weapon that has been hidden inside the ocean for who knows how long.
Overhead. Just above the barrier itself. I can feel the blade in my hands feeling heavier as the force of gravity and the mana I infused into it causes it to feel like it has more mass and weight to it than its appearance implies.
Holding the sword above my head as I descended down. Gripping on the sword tightly as the gravity pushes my body down on the massive dome of energy that seems like an impenetrable fortress.
*SLASH* *CRACK* *SHATTER*
It feels like my body went numb for a brief period of time the moment my sword hit the barrier and it clashed hard against it, only for it to give way and break under the pressure. The force behind the slash pierced through the barrier and destroyed its last main defense.
*Zip*
I use the remaining strength I have left to quickly get back to the boat. My body feels fatigued from using so much power in one setting. The most I have done so far.
“Haaa…” I let out a long sigh. I think that’s enough from me, personally speaking.