Chapter XIII (13)

  The underwater speakers showed themselves. Several red carapaces the size of people circled the lifeboat. From some, long insectile antennae poked out of the water. Others were craggy shells. All were threatening.

  Hideo splashed about in the water, panicking as the creatures circled like sharks, slowly getting closer and closer.

  “The toll!” the voice demanded again. This time, Mitsuko spotted the speaker. It came from the largest red carapace.

  “What toll?” she yelled back at it.

  That was not the correct thing to say, as the creatures circled the lifeboat faster and faster.

  They should be safe from these creatures. In her vision she’d seen these survivors all in the pyramid so that must have meant they’d all reached the shore safely. Or…at least most of them did. Now that she thought back, had she seen Hideo among all the survivors? Regardless, they should be mostly safe, at the least.

  Still, she gripped the cold ice of her sword’s hilt and prepared for a fight. And she wasn’t disappointed.

  A spear of condensed water slammed into another passenger. He cried out, but didn’t fall overboard. Then a wave rocked their little boat, threatening once again to capsize them. Someone on board screamed. This was going poorly. She tried counting how many of the monsters were swarming around them. Maybe four? It could be up to seven though. It was difficult to tell with them dipping under the surface, submerged like dolphins.

  Mitsuko flipped her sword around in her hand, holding it in reverse grip, and raised it over her head.

  She blocked out the unnecessary noise, waiting for the biggest one to emerge. She hurled the blade of ice like a javelin. It wasn’t designed to be thrown, and it wobbled as it flew but still struck true. Not deep, but the sword pierced the creature’s carapace and jutted out like a pin in a pin cushion made of nightmares.

  The crab monster bellowed in outrage. It altered its trajectory from circling to a straight line towards the lifeboat. Two massive crab claws cut into the gunwales and everyone shifted back, weighing the opposite side of the down as the monster pulled itself up.

  For the first time, it showed its full body as it rose out of the water. Its head looked almost human, though it was colored an orangish-red. In place of hair, spiked ridges ran across its scalp. The body matched its face, a carapace chest with only a single band of cloth crossing it from its shoulder. Two more claws gripped the edge of the boat, boosting the creature higher. It had four arms. No…six. She hadn’t noticed, but two more small clawed hands hung across its chest like a bib.

  “You dare!” it howled at Mitsuko. The mouth opened, it had no lips, but instead hardened mandibles. But it did have human-like teeth in place of the chompers of a crab. It was some sort of hybrid creature.

  “Yes,” Mitsuko said calmly. She held another frozen blade in hand. “I dare. You attacked us unprovoked. I will defend myself.”

  Again, Mitsuko clearly did not answer the way it wanted her to. It lunged forward, one of its claws aiming to clamp down on her throat. But Mitsuko saw the attack coming. She side-stepped the monster. Then countered with an upwards slash. The blade embedded itself in its arm, but did not pass entirely through the hard carapace.

  “That’s-that’s a crust!” the sailor shouted behind her. “Why are crusts attacking?”

  Mitsuko let the monster, the crust, yank its arm back and disarm her. Angered, this time it fully committed to the attack. It flung its body towards Mitsuko. Or, where it thought Mitsuko was. It instead slammed into the other side of the lifeboat, snapping one of the oars resting there, but otherwise empty handed.

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  This wasn’t Mitsuko and Holly’s first fight together. The gnome primarily devoted her studies to divination, but she hadn’t entirely ignored her heritage as a gnome. Her race’s affinity with illusions was second to no other civilized creature. To the crust, Mitsuko was always a few meters to the side of her true location.

  Its beady eyes, further apart on its face than on a normal human, darted about, trying to locate her. And it did find her. Just as she inserted her blade into its side, piercing through the opening in its carapace by its hip, upwards to its more important organs.

  She left the blade inside it, instead going for a full kick into its chest, toppling it over the boat’s edge. It splashed into the water and flailed, trying to remove the icy blade while the ocean water near it clouded with its blood.

  “Next?” she asked the other three crusts. She beckoned them forward with a newly created blade.

  They were still, no longer circling the boat but drifting beside it as the current swept them all forward.

  Eventually, one of them popped a head out of the water. Unlike its crab-like leader, this crust looked more lobster as it hunched its head forward and its antennae twitched. It met Mitsuko’s eye, then looked away.

  “Sorry.” Then it grabbed its leader and all the crusts submerged all around them.

  For a moment, there was silence. Everyone held their breath and waited to see if the sea creatures would return. But nothing happened. Then Hideo started shouting for help in the water. Someone threw him a rope and he pulled himself abroad and flopped over, clothes drenched and shivering madly.

  For a minute, nobody spoke. Then they all started speaking at once.

  “Look at the boat’s condition! There are holes!”

  “Nevermind that! They broke one of the oars!”

  “I’m wet!”

  “Nobody cares about that. You heard the young lady, get over yourself.”

  “I hate crabs.”

  “Lady with the sword, do that fixing spell!”

  The last suggestion was actually not a bad idea. Mitsuko grabbed a hold of both shafts of the split oar and put them together. Then she focused, channeling her spell. It was…so easy. The two ends merged together and pulsed slightly. A few seconds later, it was finished. The oar looked perfect.

  Usually, when Mitsuko cast her compass spell she could feel the drain on her blood. But she didn’t even feel the slightest bit tired from this Mend spell. She decided since it took so little out of her, she would try to Mend the rowboat as well. She placed both hands on the gunwales and channeled.

  Nothing.

  It was as if there was a boulder damming the stream of water that was her magic. It was dry. Not even the tiniest trickle.

  “Not working?” Holly asked.

  Mitsuko frowned and shook her head.

  “Well, it is only level one. Maybe there’s a specific surface area or amount of damage you can fix until you level it up further.”

  “But I should be able to do something, right?” Mitsuko said. “It feels as if I don’t even know the spell when I try it on the lifeboat.”

  “Hm. Yes. That's weird,” Holly agreed. “Even when I strain and fail a spell, I still cast it. Just to unsuccessful results.” Then she shrugged nonchalantly and laughed. “Who knows? We’re in uncharted territory. You got the spell from a dream. And it’s not like there’s a bunch of temporal mages to ask about the nuances of their spellcraft.”

  “Ah,” the sailor broke into their conversation. She nervously looked between the two of them. Her face was pale from the earlier confrontation with the crusts. “If it’s information you’re looking for. Information on spells, I mean. Then, ah, perhaps you should try to go to Amber Island. It’s run by wizards. They’re famous for stockpiling knowledge like a dragon’s hoard.”

  “Is it nearby?” Mitsuko asked. “Do you think once we get to Ashen Island I could charter a ship?”

  “I-I don’t know. I went there once…but it always moves. It’s never in the same place twice. It’s known as the mirage island. You need a special guide to get there.”

  Mitsuko sighed. That meant traveling to Mauve Island first. But it was at least a decent lead. And if it contained a good amount of information, perhaps it had clues as to what activated the barrier. Wan would doubtlessly be interested in interrogating them. She could count on him to pay for the voyage. And he’d probably even join this time.

  But that was all plans for the future. In the meantime, Mitsuko sat in the lifeboat’s damaged hull, her butt wet from the seawater, and rested her head on the stern gunwale. She’d survived yet another ship wreck, another sea monster attack, and was drifting towards her destination on a swift current. A destination where she’d died what felt like merely hours earlier. There was nothing else to be done but wait. The sun was high overhead, but she still nodded off to sleep without issue.

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