Chapter 242: Day - 2: What do you mean ‘jump’?! [2]
Leon had already undone the transformation below the neck and hidden it under the long thick furry coat that fell past his knees. If he removed it he would look completely ridiculous.
And he did not particularly want Ethan and Cyan to see Lumina looking ridiculous.
Rumi’s voice drifted through his thoughts quietly.
’You sure do care about her.’
Leon did not reply to her.
Instead he grabbed the side of the boat as the boat lurched harder than before over a wave.
"W-Wow. Did we just hit a rock or something?"
Cyan’s eyes twitched.
"Stop sitting there like actual royalty and help us," he said through gritted teeth, pulling the rope he was holding a bit tight. "The waves are getting hard to handle."
Leon sneered in a perfectly lady-like voice.
"Whaa~ you want me to help with this? Can you not see that I am exhausted? A lady such as I need a rest."
"Are you for real right now?"
Cyan could not believe that tone had just come out of Leon’s face.
Leon dropped the act and said seriously.
"Yeah. My mana is almost gone. Just push a little more until we get out of their sight. After that I will help."
Cyan stared at him for a moment.
"...Oh. Alright then."
After fifteen minutes Leon turned his head and confirmed the cargo ship was completely out of sight.
He stood up.
The first thing he did was drop the appearance back to Leon Valentine entirely.
"Ghaa..."
His knees hit the floor of the boat as he took a long breath. He reached into his dimension with one hand and pulled out a glass bottle, gulping the blue liquid down in one go. He felt some of the mana return.
It was not enough though, so he reached in again, pulled out a second bottle, and tipped a single drop of red liquid onto his tongue.
It was a High grade mana recovery potion.
With both combined he climbed back to roughly forty percent. Rumi helped with the rest in her own quiet way.
"You alright?" Ethan asked, glancing sideways at him while keeping the wind mana flowing steadily at the back of the boat.
"Yeah. Fine now." Leon said, getting to his feet.
He walked over to where Cyan was struggling with the rope and took hold of it beside him.
"Alright. You handle that one. Leave the upper line to me."
Cyan nodded, then the boat jerked hard beneath them.
"Kuk...! Y-yeah, sure, but don’t you think the weather has suddenly gotten a lot worse?"
It was true. Until now the sky had been mostly clear. But as they pushed further toward the marked spot the weather had flipped completely. The waves were no longer just choppy. They were deliberate feelings, like the sea itself had an opinion about where they were going.
"It is a sign we are getting closer," Ethan said, his eyes on the holographic map.
The prism in his hand was pulsing faster than before.
"Three more minutes! We can do this! Hiyaaaa!!"
He pushed the boat harder with a burst of wind mana. Leon and Cyan held on.
Cyan looked ahead. Then he saw it.
Something was wrong with the water directly in front of them. It was not a wave, but a hole. An actual hole in the ocean, the water spiraling down into it in slow heavy rotations, pulling everything around it toward the center like the sea had simply decided to stop existing in that one spot.
"H-Hey hey hey!! Wait, look ahead! We are going to fall straight into that thing!"
Ethan saw it too.
He hesitated for just a fraction of a second. But the map was pointing directly at it. The prism was not just pulsing now, it was vibrating hard enough that he could feel it rattling against his palm, as if it had been waiting for this exact moment and was now barely containing itself.
He almost pulled back.
Then Leon shouted.
"Keep heading straight!!"
Ethan gritted his teeth and drove the boat forward.
"Hey, what?!" Cyan spun around staring at them both like they had lost their minds simultaneously.
They were ten metres away.
The hole was pulling the water down in long spiraling sheets. The prism was vibrating so hard now it looked like it might crack.
Five metres.
"What are you both doing?!" Cyan roared over the noise.
Leon let go of the rope.
He grabbed Cyan by the shoulder with one hand and caught Ethan’s wrist with the other, pulling them both close. He made sure Ethan was holding onto the prism close to him.
He looked ahead at the hole.
Then looked back at them.
"We are going to jump," he said. "Be prepared."
"What do you mean JUMP?!!"
Cyan wanted to run. He wanted to turn the boat around, paddle back to the cargo ship, and never speak of any of this again.
He had no choice.
It all happened in the span of a single breath. One moment he was standing in the boat. The next he was airborne.
The next after that, cold water hit him everywhere at once, forcing its way into his eyes and up his nostrils as the world went dark and loud and completely out of his control.
Then silence.
For Ethan and Leon, the silence lasted exactly one second.
Because the moment they crossed the threshold, a red window snapped open in front of both their eyes simultaneously.
They have the same text, at the same time.
[—WARNING—]
[You are entering a sealed territory of the Dream Calamity.]
[Proceed with extreme caution.]
Before either of them could process it a second alert appeared directly beneath the first.
[—WARNING—]
[You are entering a sealed territory under the protection of the Frost Calamity.]
[Trespassers bearing ’Time Device’ will be processed accordingly.]
Then a third appeared.
[WARNING]
[You are entering a region under the jurisdiction of Blood Calamity.]
[Trespassers bearing ’Time Device’ will be processed accordingly.]
Leon read all three in the two seconds it took them to sink.