Saika is a water-attribute... um... little yokai.
She is, after all, a jellyfish.
And so, her magic and abilities are, naturally, all related to "water."
The bubbles drifting between the mountain forest were crystal-clear and translucent, and they began to reflect the grey, hazy morning light scattering down from the sky; coupled with the lanterns the carriages themselves carried, before long, everything in the surroundings was sunk into a kind of warm, glowing inner light.
The water bubbles were as if they had become countless floating mirrors, and while reflecting that light, they also turned the entire mountain forest into an invisible labyrinth.
But that, by itself, was still not enough.
Altering the terrain of the mountain forest had, at this final-sprint stage, only limited effect on Freya and Loki.
What Isagi meant to do was to use it as cover.
And then to rely on the magic-power residue of the Elven race's sacred relics that had been mixed into the magic power Saika had swallowed up just moments earlier.
This was the magic the little jellyfish had acquired after leveling up to Lv. 3.
[Devour the Heavens].
The name was magnificent, but the effect was a certain "extra ability" added on top of her base skill of constantly growing herself through "eat-eat-eat."
In other words.
Whatever she swallowed up that contained "the spiritual essence of heaven and earth" would also grant Saika, for a short period of time, that thing's own "effect."
To put it simply — fire-attribute magic-power residue would let Saika spit fire;
ice-attribute magic-power residue would let Saika spew ice;
more or less, that was the idea of it.
And so, magic-power residue capable of halting all things would, naturally, also grant Saika the ability of "time-stop."
But this "eat first, use later" approach of the little jellyfish was bound to come with a considerable drop in effectiveness.
At this moment, however, Saika could not actually freeze time — she could only slow it down——
But that "slowing" itself was something that the one who got caught in it could not perceive — just like, way back when, himself and the girls had been unable to feel anything at all once time had been halted on them.
And so.
At this final, sprint-defining moment, Goddess Freya's side's carriage was about to be slapped with a rather brief "slowdown BUFF" — or, you could also say, sent into a kind of "slowdown force field."
In a certain sense, Isagi was cheating.
Because this already counted as [an adventurer using magic or a skill to influence the carriage's travel].
But no one could tell.
Also.
Did Saika even count as an adventurer?
At any rate, within that great mass of light, everyone — even the two goddesses Freya and Loki included — assumed it was simply a means to obstruct vision.
From here on, the contest came down to which side, with their "sight" gone, could still be first to break out of the mountain forest and reach the finish line.
But in actual fact, the result was naturally only going to be Astrea Familia's victory.
When the Goddess of Justice was driving the carriage, bathed in a wash of orange light as if refracted by countless water bubbles, beneath the dim sky — when she appeared, carrying with her the glow of magic stone lanterns, out into the boundless open plains——
Victory was, in that very moment, complete——
——
For Isagi, the War Game was nothing more than a beginning.
Having actually felt for himself the combat strength of the present [City's Strongest] Familia, he had to admit that the gap between him and them was still very real.
So he had to keep on leveling up.
Preparations for an expedition into the lower floors were under way. This one counted, in a certain sense, as a "major project" — not only himself, but Freya Familia and Loki Familia's executives would also be going — though of course not together; what both goddesses had said, in any case, was: pay no mind to their Familia members.
Just like the way, before, Bete, Alicia, and the others had latched on to his own special Dungeon.
Isagi himself didn't mind it. What's more, the deeper you went into the Dungeon, the larger the "map" got — so, given that they had agreed in advance to share intelligence, it was, on the contrary, rather a good thing.
And before heading into the Dungeon.
Naturally, the goddesses once again suggested resting well — especially since the War Game had only just finished.
And so...
A winter night.
Outside the harbor of the port town of Melen, with fine snow drifting down flake by flake, a luxury cruise ship slowly sailed off toward the distant sea.
This time, Astrea Familia's vacation was a wintertime sea voyage.
Mama Demeter really was something else.
She had outright chartered this luxury cruise ship, big enough to hold a hundred-some people, and the plan was to do a circuit through several special little islands just outside Melen, and return after roughly a week.
The cruise ship itself could be regarded as a large-scale hotel — onboard restaurants, bars, every kind of entertainment facility imaginable, all there to be found.
And the islands all around had also been developed, designed specifically to serve as tourist attractions.
"Have you ever heard the story of the Ghost Ship?!"
Inside the room.
The bright magic stone lamps had been quietly switched off; the girls had only candles lit, and in the somewhat wavering light of the candleflame, they were softly telling horror stories.
"The Ghost Ship?!"
"Mhm!!"
Tiona, that dummy, was still busy eating ramen — chewing away in great big mouthfuls while spouting some "Ghost Ship" legend — frankly, you didn't even know how to react to her.
Isagi was also eating ramen.
Honestly speaking, in the dead of winter, fatty char siu plus piping-hot noodle broth slick with grease, although a bit heavy, really did feel awfully satisfying to slurp down in great big mouthfuls.
There were very few people present.
Just himself, Cecil, Tiona, and Lefiya.
The cruise ship had been away from the harbor for some time already. Ryuu-senpai and the others were up on deck taking in the air, the goddesses were at the bar drinking, and as for Ais and the others — who knew.
Isagi had originally been planning on sleeping.
But then Tiona and the others had come over carrying ramen, asking him whether he'd like a midnight snack, and somehow or other things had ended up like this.
Eating, while spinning some kind of horror story.
"Legend has it that when you're sailing the open sea, if you happen to fall asleep, every now and then you can hear an extraordinarily beautiful singing voice."
"I know, I know — it's the singing of mermaids!"
Mermaids weren't just monsters.
Out on the sea, there were a great many circulating legends about mermaid songs luring sailors into leaping overboard — Lefiya was of course quite familiar with these. But the result was that Tiona only shook her head with great seriousness.
"Not so!"
"?"
"After you hear the singing, if you fall asleep, then when you next wake up, you'll find yourself inside the [Ghost Ship]."
Rotting planks; slimy, weird hunks of flesh you couldn't tell were fish-skin or tentacle; ship cabins full of damp sea-mist; crewmen who had long since died and been reduced to skeletons——
Tiona painted the picture vividly.
"The [Ghost Ship] isn't anything else. It's the dead future of the very ship you're sailing on right now."
The girl spoke this with utter, exaggerated seriousness.
Surprisingly, Lefiya — although she had never heard this story before — suddenly seemed to come up with something and chimed in,
"I see!"
"The sea is a mirror. Above the surface is the normal, world of the living, and below it is the pitch-dark, fathomless world that does not belong to humanity — the [Ghost Ship] is the mirror image of an ordinary vessel; it's the underwater vessel..."
"That's right! You really get it!!"
"I heard it before in the [Academic District]..."
Concerning the sea, there were always all kinds of terrifying legends. The [Academic District], when you got down to it, was also a ship. And so, in the course of its journeying around the world, Lefiya had of course heard quite a few stories of this sort.
The so-called "Ocean Mirror Theory" was a fairly widespread legend.
To which...
"Here, have this."
Isagi took a piece of char siu out of his own bowl — one he'd already taken a bite of — and passed it over to Cecil beside him. He watched as the girl, her cheeks puffed up into a little round face, stuffed it into her mouth and chomped it down with little "munch, munch" sounds.
This girl could eat more than even he could.
Made sense, really — blacksmithing was quite the energy-draining job.
Isagi and Cecil had absolutely no interest in Tiona and Lefiya's story, and didn't find it the least bit scary either — they just let those two yap back and forth at each other for ages, all the way into the late hours of the night.
Cecil still hadn't eaten her fill.
And so.
Isagi accompanied the girl off toward the kitchen, leaving Tiona and Lefiya behind in the room, still discussing that "the surface of the water is a mirror" legend.
The night was hushed and still.
The cruise ship's corridor was somewhat narrow — for the two of them to walk side by side felt a little cramped — but there was nothing to be done about it.
As Cecil walked, she muttered that there was no smithy workshop on the ship, which made her really uncomfortable.
This girl — she was simply a workaholic, the kind who couldn't sit still for a day without smithing.
"The main thing is, that thing still hasn't been dealt with!"
At the edge of the girl's slightly pouted lips, residue from the ramen broth still clung, and under the lamplight it was really quite conspicuous.
Isagi reached out and, out of habit, wiped it off for her.
At the same time.
He also knew exactly what Cecil was talking about.
She was referring to that fragment of [Leviathan]'s "Magic Stone" they had obtained earlier.
As something left behind by the [Overlord of the Seas], it was, of course, extremely precious — and as material for forging a weapon and the like, it was also an excellent one.
But last time, when forging the new [Moonlight Greatsword] for himself, they hadn't actually used it.
The reason was simple, too.
Namely — what exactly its function was, and specifically what kind of effect it could grant to a weapon, was still, for the moment, an unknown.
Because it was precious, naturally they had to be that much more careful.
After all, it wasn't something where, if used up, they could just casually go and get another piece.
So——
"Just what kind of existence is the [Overlord of the Seas], really?"
Cecil tilted her head slightly.
The previous [Overlord of the Land] was Behemoth, and its ability was "poison" — so, as an existence on the same tier, what was Leviathan's ability?
On this point, Isagi and the girls had no way of knowing, of course.
Alfia would surely know.
She was, after all, the adventurer who had defeated Leviathan, and so she had of course taken part in the whole campaign against the thing.
Besides her——
"Miss Asfi might know too."
"?"
Isagi had absolutely not expected that, just like that, in the most sudden of ways, he would get a piece of utterly "explosive" news from Cecil.
"Because Miss Asfi used to be a princess."
"Hah?"
"She was the princess of an archipelago kingdom on the open sea, and that country happened to be built right on the back of Leviathan."
Leviathan's body was incomparably massive — even surpassing Isagi's imagination.
It wasn't an island; it was a "miniature continent."
And it was said that on its back there was a complete "ecosystem"; on that continent — that is, the country Asfi's parents had once ruled — they had relied on Leviathan to live a quite well-off life.
Until.
It was struck down by Hera Familia, and with Leviathan's death, the country, naturally, fell along with it.
____
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