Water Magician

Editor: Tseirp

“Abel… it’s raining…”

“Yes, it is.”

“The wind is also blowing quite strongly…”

“Yes, it is.”

“There shouldn’t be typhoons near the equator, so it’s just heavy rain…”

“Yes, it is.”

“I knew it! You don’t know anything about typhoons, do you? You were just answering randomly!”

“How did you figure that out…?”

There, Ryo launched a counterattack.

“I’m planning to write and publish a novel called ‘The Hungry Swordsman Abel’!”

“…Huh?”

A critical hit!

Ryo’s powerful attack finally made Abel turn towards him.

After a good ten seconds, Abel spoke.

“If it’s interesting, I’ll publish it across the entire kingdom. Ryo’s writing skills will be put to the test.”

“Ugh…”

Ryo had only meant it as a joke, after all.

The two were in the dining hall of the ‘Sogyokutei’.

They were each reading a book.

They had borrowed them from the shelves labeled ‘Feel free to read’.

Just like those in high-end Japanese inns.

Initially, Ryo was doing something else.

Yes, he was finally able to tackle the disassembly…or rather, the study of the ‘translator’.

Like with ‘Soul Resonance’, he attached an ice plate to the ‘translator’ to examine the magic formulas inside, but…

“I can’t read the letters…”

The language used was not from the Central Countries.

It was written in a language he didn’t know…

So he couldn’t understand the magic formulas.

Like a top-tier programmer not understanding a program developed in an Arabic script environment because they don’t speak the language.

Same thing.

However, the ‘translator’, which he had bought for a large gold coin, should translate the letters in his field of vision into the central country’s language in an AR-like manner.

Yet… for some reason, the magic formulas displayed on the ice plate weren’t translated.

Thus, Ryo gave up and left the room, heading downstairs to the dining hall.

He hoped a change of place might spark some good ideas.

Changing locations to gain inspiration has been an effective method since the days of Ouyang Xiu* a thousand years ago. (TLN: A Chinese historian of the Song dynasty)

There, Abel, who had come down earlier, was reading a book… a sight often seen at the Golden Waves Pavilion in Rune before he became king.

Ryo, following Abel’s example, took a book from the ‘library’ and sat down in front of Abel to read.

At first, he was genuinely reading.

But then…

“Heh heh heh…”

Abel suppressed his laughter.

While reading the book.

It was like the laughter of an Akuma…

Just like Leonor’s laughter…

Seeing Abel like this made Ryo uneasy.

He wondered if Abel had been possessed by an evil spirit.

So he spoke to him.

Not to interrupt Abel’s reading!

That needed to be emphasized clearly.

Disturbing someone’s reading is a bad thing.

Ryo had no intention of doing that…

“Abel, quit laughing so creepily…”

“Hm? Did I laugh?”

“Yeah. If you didn’t realize it, then you may have been possessed by an evil spirit! Like the young duke who was taken over by the Djinn’s minion, Abel might be done for…”

“No. Cases like Erwin’s are extremely rare.”

The great noble of the eastern kingdom, Erwin Ortiz, Duke of Shrewsbury, had been deprived of his body’s freedom by Djinn Garwin’s minion.

It’s no exaggeration to say that this triggered the Great Djinn War.

“Really… are you really Abel?”

“I don’t get what you mean.”

“Have you ever suddenly lost your memory, found yourself in a different place, or found you’d killed someone?”

“Nope.”

“Have you ever asked for food when you’re hungry, only for people to say you just ate?”

“Nope.”

“Have you ever ridden a horse and found yourself going in the opposite direction?”

“The hell is that…?”

Ryo asked worriedly.

And Abel, not understanding but answering nonetheless.

He’s a good guy after all.

After all that, Ryo finally felt relieved.

Without a doubt, Abel was the same as always.

So then…

“It still bothers me, that creepy laugh from earlier…”

“Oh… well, this book is quite amusing. Maybe I laughed without realizing it.”

Abel showed Ryo the cover of his book.

“‘The World is Mine’…eh? What kind of title is that?”

“Well, the title is a bit much, but it’s actually pretty interesting.”

“In other words, ‘World is Mine’… no, that’s a bit different, but I once created a spell with a similar name. It caused quite a stir with the Bait Ball… those were the days.”

“…I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Expecting a swordsman to understand the subtleties of a magician might be asking too much.

Ryo sighed softly.

“Hey, Ryo, did you just sigh in a way that made me seem like an idiot?”

“Wh-what are you saying? I always respect you, Abel. Really, I do.”

Ryo replied, feigning an overly bright and sparkly-eyed expression.

“Besides, Ryo, pestering me won’t do any good, you know?”

“I know. We’re waiting for a ship to the capital of this feudal kingdom… and we have to wait for this heavy rain to stop, right? But, it’s always in times like these that something happens.”

“Happens? What does?”

“It’s obvious. A pirate attack! A large pirate fleet will attack this town! That’s the classic turn of events.”

“Oh, uh… that turn of events you always talk about… why do you always expect such unlikely and impossible scenarios? Like bandits attacking on the nation’s highways… or pirates attacking a town like now… If such things happened often, the country wouldn’t function properly.”

Abel was dismissive of Ryo’s clichéd light novel scenarios.

Even shaking his head slightly.

“That’s the pathos of things.”

“Yeah, yeah, pathos of things. You said that before.”

Ryo pouted, and Abel nodded, recalling what had been said through the ‘Soul Resonance’ previously.

It seems the king has a good memory.

“Do pirates… not attack towns?”

Ryo asked the experienced ruler, the king.

“I’ve never heard of it in the kingdom. I’ve heard of them attacking merchant ships in the shadows of islands off the coast of Whitnash or along well-used sea routes. Of course, the Royal Navy regularly conducts pirate exterminations… but complete eradication seems difficult.”

“The pathos of things is hard to achieve…”

Sighing, Ryo realized he was unlikely to see the scenes he imagined.

“In the first place, pirates are a nuisance to honest citizens, aren’t they? It’s better if they don’t exist at all.”

“Well, yes, but… maybe there are pirates sanctioned by the state to attack foreign ships.”

Ryo was thinking of privateers.

During the times when Spain and England were at odds.

Queen Elizabeth of England issued letters of marque, encouraging English pirates to attack Spanish ships…

Many famous privateer captains emerged… for instance, Francis Drake might be the most famous.

He not only attacked Spanish ships but also completed the second circumnavigation of the globe after Magellan.

His ship was the famous Golden Hind.

There should be a ship with the same name in the Kingdom of Knightley.

Drake returned to Plymouth, bringing great wealth to his investors from his privateering. Including Queen Elizabeth herself…

This led to the naval battle between the Spanish Armada and the English Navy.

Where Francis Drake served as a commander.

The fact that a privateer, essentially a type of pirate, commanded a nation’s navy in a decisive battle is quite fascinating.

Drake, and many other privateers, attacked Spanish ships with the sanction of the English crown.

This mobilization of even rogues to fight for the country… is reminiscent of a certain former A-rank adventurer king.

Ryo pondered such things.

While looking at the cover of ‘The World is Mine’.

The rain ceased.

Simultaneously, the sound of a bell echoed.

Clang, clang, clang. Clang, clang, clang.

“What’s that?”

“I’m not sure, but usually bells ring to signal an emergency.”

Abel and Ryo looked around.

Fortunately, the rain had stopped.

They stepped outside.

The ‘Sogyokutei’, where they were staying, faced the central square of the town.

Many people emerged into the square, drawn by the bell’s sound.

“The airship has fallen!”

These words were heard, spreading far and wide.

The ‘translators’ the two were wearing did their job properly and conveyed the information to them.

“An airship?”

“It wasn’t pirates, but sky pirates…”

Abel grimaced as he spoke, and Ryo said regretfully.

“How close.”

The airship had fallen at the harbor.

Many people who had been in the square headed towards the harbor, and Ryo and Abel followed the flow of the crowd.

At the harbor, guards were already in place, seemingly to keep the onlookers away.

The guards might have been stationed at the harbor from the beginning.

The two managed to secure a spot at the front of the crowd and saw the scene.

“It’s huge…”

“More than fifty meters, maybe? Comparable to the Golden Hind?”

Abel muttered, and Ryo also commented on the size.

In history, the Golden Hind wasn’t that big, but the airborne battleship Golden Hind owned by the Rune Count was a massive ship exceeding fifty meters.

The fallen airship was also quite large.

On Earth, there would be a large upper section filled with hydrogen or helium gas bags… compared to the shape of an Earth airship, it seemed quite small.

Of course, Ryo had never seen an airship on Earth clearly…

But compared to the shape in his memory, it looked quite sleek.

But more importantly…

“An airship, huh?”

Yes, it was the first time Ryo had seen one since coming to ‘Phi’.

In the first place, ‘flying in the sky’ was not an easy feat.

That’s why he had been so impressed with the Golden Hind.

“There are none in the Central Countries.”

Abel stated firmly. But his expression was stiff.

He might have realized some inconvenient truth.

Abel continued.

“There are none in the Central Countries, nor in the Western Countries.”

“Come to think of it… I haven’t seen any in the Western Countries either.”

Ryo, who had been dispatched as part of a delegation to the Western Countries, had never heard of airships there either.

“But I have heard that in some places, flying technology is quite advanced, and in some countries, they use airships to travel through the sky.”

“Some places?”

“Yeah. The so-called Eastern Countries.”

“So this place is…”

“Yeah, it must be… the Eastern Countries…”

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