Ophelia's speed exceeded Klein's expectations.
Wind squeezed in from all directions, her clothes clinging to her skin as they were pulled back, and even breathing became a struggle against the rushing air.
Klein quickly cast a wind-breaking spell on himself. A thin membrane of air expanded, pushing the howling gale outside.
The roar in his ears suddenly receded, as if separated by an invisible wall.
Klein looked down at the sea.
The crests of the waves receded rapidly beneath his feet, disappearing behind them before he could even discern their shapes. The Voyager was long gone. Ophelia held him by the waist with a posture as steady as if she were walking on level ground, yet the two of them were skimming across the sea at a ridiculous speed.
The strength in her arm was neither too heavy nor too light, just enough to keep him fixed in place. It didn't feel like a hug so much as a safety measure—ensuring he wouldn't be shaken off by her sheer velocity.
He couldn't help but steal a glance at her profile.
Her golden hair was pulled into a straight line by the airflow. Her expression was flat as she stared ahead, as if she were doing something perfectly ordinary.
Yet, her eyelashes still shimmered with that soft gold in the sunlight.
Klein silently withdrew his gaze.
In less than fifteen minutes, Ophelia slowed her descent.
The moment the speed dropped, Klein felt a slight sense of weightlessness in his internal organs, which was immediately stabilized by the tightening grip of Ophelia's arm. Her movements in adjusting her posture were extremely natural, as if she had some instinctive radar in her body constantly calculating his center of gravity.
The two landed above an open stretch of sea. The first thing Klein did after stabilizing himself was look down.
The sea was quiet. The waves weren't large, the wind was normal, and there were no abnormal biological reactions.
He frowned, pulled the notebook from his pocket, flipped to the maritime chart, and checked the coordinates. This was the place.
“The thing isn't here,” Klein muttered to himself, tracing a tracking spell in the air with his finger. Faint blue lines glowed for a breath at his fingertips before dispersing. He hadn't locked onto any target.
“Could the coordinates be wrong?”
“It's unlikely Nelisa would make such a mistake.” Klein shook his head, thought for a moment, and added, “Monsters move. The coordinates record the position at the time of sighting, not in real-time. After a few hours, drifting a dozen nautical miles is normal.”
Ophelia didn't respond.
She tilted her head slightly, as if listening for something. The sea breeze blew past her ears, the ends of her golden hair brushing against her shoulders.
Then, her gaze fixed on the northwest.
“Found it.”
Before Klein could ask “Where,” the strength around his waist tightened again.
He instinctively grabbed Ophelia's shoulder as the two soared upward once more. The wind rushed in again, making the air membrane hum under the pressure.
About half a minute later, an anomaly appeared on the sea surface.
The color of the water had darkened. It wasn't the normal deep blue of a trench, but a murky, dark shade with a biological texture—as if something were breathing underwater, staining the surrounding seawater with its own aura. The ocean current had formed an unnatural whirlpool in one area, spinning in a direction completely opposite to the normal current.
A dark shadow lay about twenty meters beneath the water. It was a size smaller than the one encountered by The Voyager, but the structure was identical—a dense carapace, tangled tentacles, and a surface covered in faintly pulsating patterns that were visible even underwater.
Ophelia released Klein.
Klein was held steadily in mid-air—the water elements beneath his feet arrived just in time to support his weight. As Ophelia's hand withdrew from his waist, her fingertips pinched his hem slightly, though he wasn't sure if it was intentional.
Then, Ophelia drew her sword.
The movement was so clean there wasn't a single wasted frame. The moment the blade left its scabbard, golden battle qi spread along the edge, followed by a thin, high-density blade of energy. The air around the blade was squeezed into a visible distortion, like heat waves rising from a road under the scorching sun.
She dove straight down.
The posture was more like a fall—but a fall wouldn't have such speed. The sea surface was torn open by her figure, and white spray exploded into two walls of water on either side of the rift.
From above, Klein saw a flash of golden light, an explosion of spray, and then the dark shadow was split in two from the middle.
Short and sweet.
No struggle, no resistance, it didn't even have time to emit a resonance. The cut was absurdly clean, accomplished in a single strike. The remnants of battle qi rippled across the water for a few turns, flattening the surging waves until the seawater within the golden ripples became as smooth as ironed silk.
Klein watched the golden light dissipate on the water, his mouth twitching involuntarily.
Impressive.
Ophelia leaped up from beneath the surface, the seawater sliding off the blade's edge. She flicked her wrist and sheathed the sword. She was soaked to the bone, her golden hair clinging to her cheeks and her clothes tightly outlining her body. But her expression was relaxed, as if she had just sliced a piece of meat.
She landed beside Klein, seawater dripping continuously from her hair and cuffs.
She raised a hand to tuck the wet hair behind her ear, the movement brisk, revealing a small patch of skin on the side of her neck that shone in the sunlight.
Klein looked away.
He descended, hovering a few meters above the monster's corpse, and looked down for a moment.
The two halves of the corpse were slowly sinking, their internal organs and fluids spreading into a murky ink in the seawater. The tentacles were still curling unconsciously, but they no longer possessed any aggression.
However—
On the cross-section of the monster's carapace, those faintly pulsating patterns had not stopped with the death of the host. They were still moving, slowly and weakly, like a signal fading but not yet reaching zero.
His eyes narrowed. This was the physical basis of the anchoring effect. Even as a corpse, it was still releasing something into the real world.
“Dead through and through,” Ophelia gave a concise confirmation. Her judgment was based on combat—no aggression, no reaction, no signs of life.
But Klein knew that from his perspective, this thing was still “alive.”
He crouched down to get closer to the sea surface. He reached out toward the cross-section of the monster; his fingertips didn't touch the corpse, but his perception delved deep into its material structure. The residual information density was still high, and those patterns felt like a functioning net in his perception, silently broadcasting coordinates in all directions.
“It's easier to handle than a living one,” Klein said, standing up and flexing his fingers.
A living monster would resist his decomposition process and instinctively reinforce its own physical structure. Now, it was just two pieces of quiet, dead meat—no interference, no distractions.
He spread his hands, and the gravity field spell expanded from his palms.
The familiar sphere of absolute darkness condensed between his hands. This time, he kept the power much lower, covering only the range of the monster's corpse without affecting the surrounding seawater. The boundary of the sphere fit the contours of the corpse precisely, like a custom-made suit.
The sphere descended.
The monster's carapace, muscle, organs, and tentacles, along with its fluids and fragments, began to collapse from the microscopic level. The process was much faster than last time—without the resistance of a living being, the disintegration of the physical structure followed the natural flow. Those still-pulsating patterns struggled for a few breaths before abruptly extinguishing, as if their power source had been unplugged.
In an instant, the sphere dissipated.
The monster was gone. The seawater closed back up, clear as day, and the signal of the anchoring effect was severed in his perception—total, complete silence.
Klein exhaled and crossed out the first coordinate in his notebook.
“One,” he said.
Ophelia stood beside him, water still dripping from her clothes, but she was already eyeing the next direction. The sea breeze blew her semi-dry hair into a mess, but she didn't care, only tilting her head slightly, likely using her extraordinary perception to search for the next target.
Klein tucked his notebook away and looked at her.
The sunlight hit her from the side, gilding Ophelia's wet profile. She stood there like a sword not yet fully sheathed—its edge recently retracted, but ready to be drawn at any moment.
Ophelia likely felt his gaze and turned her head to look at him.
She reached out her hand toward him. Her palm was facing up, fingers slightly curled, with a drop of seawater still hanging from a wet fingertip.
“Next.”
Klein placed his hand on hers; her palm was warm.
...
Meanwhile, a rare moment of peace settled over The Voyager.
Diancie sat at a low table in the cabin, opposite Aphros.
The girl born from the information of sirens sat perfectly upright, her hands placed neatly on her knees, her gray-green vertical slit pupils watching Diancie without blinking. Her posture was so stiff, as straight as a ruler, that it conveyed a clumsy sense of earnestness.
It was as if she didn't know how one “should” arrange themselves when sitting in a chair, so she chose the standard answer that was least likely to be wrong.
Diancie asked if she was hungry; she tilted her head and thought for a long time before saying she wasn't sure.
“What have you eaten?”
“Bread, fish soup, and a kind of yellow fruit,” Aphros counted on her fingers. “Klein said it's called a pear.”
“Which did you like?”
“Fish soup.” The answer came without hesitation.
Diancie couldn't help but smile. It made sense.
A creature that once lived in the water would naturally take the fish in the water as food.
They chatted about small, trivial things. Diancie asked how long she had been learning to walk; Aphros gave a rough estimate, saying she had fallen many times. Asked if she could run, Aphros thought seriously and said she could, but it was better to walk because her knees would knock together when she ran.
Diancie couldn't help but smile again. Knees knocking together. That description was truly interesting.
The imperial princess's curiosity about Aphros wasn't purely for novelty. A being born from non-human information possessed innate common sense—she could speak, think, and knew what bread was—yet she was a complete blank in strange areas.
For instance, she didn't know what “fear” meant.
The topic came up unintentionally. Aphros said she once saw the waves were very large while on deck, and all the other sailors were gripping the ropes tightly with strange expressions, so she asked what was wrong with them. Diancie said they were afraid. Aphros's vertical pupils blinked, and she asked what fear was.
Diancie tried to explain—it's when you know something might hurt you, but you're not sure if you can avoid it, so your body tenses up, your palms sweat, and your heart beats faster.
Aphros thought for a long time after hearing that. Her brow furrowed in concentration, as if she were solving a difficult arithmetic problem.
Finally, she gave an assessment:
“That sounds very inconvenient.”
Diancie was choked up by the answer. She opened her mouth, wanting to say that human emotions aren't categorized by convenience, but then felt there was no point in arguing with a blank slate.
Besides, it wasn't entirely without merit. Fear was indeed quite inconvenient.
It wasn't that Diancie didn't want to be tense. The waters outside the ship were currently unsafe, and everyone knew those monsters were still lingering somewhere beneath the surface. But The Voyager's sensing arrays were running at full power, and the runic detectors at the top of the mast scanned every thirty breaths; the sailors were much more sensitive than she was to anything approaching.
She had done what she could. Sitting around worrying was less productive than talking to this girl. At least this way, she wouldn't let her thoughts run wild.
“Diancie,” Aphros suddenly spoke.
Her voice wasn't loud, but it was clear in the quiet cabin.
“Yes?”
“The ‘fear’ you just mentioned—” Aphros's vertical pupils contracted slightly, the light reflecting off the gray-green into a thin line, “Does Klein feel it too?”
Diancie was stunned for a moment.
“Probably. After all... he is human too.”
Maybe he did.
Maybe he just didn't let others see it.
Maybe.
Aphros didn't ask further, lowering her head to look at her fingers. She inspected her ten fingers one by one, as if checking something, or as if thinking about a distant matter through her own fingers.
Her expression didn't change, but something flickered in those gray-green eyes that Diancie couldn't quite discern.
Just then, the communication magic tool on the table lit up.
The runic engravings on the edge of the wooden box glowed with a faint dark red, accompanied by a fine humming sound. Before the lid could even be opened, Nelisa's voice leaked out, kept very low, but her speaking speed was a notch faster than usual.
“Are Klein and Ophelia still on the ship?”
Diancie reached out to flip open the lid and pick up the magic tool. The metal casing was warmed by the runes, feeling slightly prickly against her palm.
“They've already left, nearly two hours ago. What's wrong?”
There was a pause on the other end.
“The monsters at sea have developed an anomaly.”
Diancie's hand tightened around the magic tool.
“What kind of anomaly?”
Nelisa didn't answer immediately.
The background sound in the communication changed. The previous noise of inventorying supplies in the cargo yard was gone, replaced by a dull, rhythmic slapping—the distinct frequency of a ship hull moving through large waves. Nelisa must have walked onto the deck.
The sound of the wind poured into the communication tool, compressed into a raspy white noise.
“My third squad discovered two monsters forty nautical miles to the southeast.”
“Two?” Diancie's brow furrowed. The coordinate list had only marked one in that area.
“Yes, two.” Nelisa's tone was very controlled, each word spoken clearly. “My captain says—they were attacking each other.”
Aphros looked up.
Whether it was Diancie's imagination or not, those gray-green vertical pupils had narrowed even further, like thin slits. Her entire posture hadn't changed, she still sat upright, but something about her had subtly tensed.
“Attacking each other?” Diancie repeated.
“Tentacles tangled together, carapaces torn open, biting—or rather, tearing—anyway, the two monsters were fighting,” Nelisa paused here before adding, “Fighting to the death. Both perished.”
The cabin went quiet.
The sound of the waves outside the porthole was exceptionally clear, slapping the hull one after another in a rhythm so monotonous it was almost hypnotic. But at this moment, the sound only made one's heart sink.
Diancie processed this for a few seconds.
“And then?”
“Then came the more troublesome part.” Nelisa's voice dropped half a pitch. “Their corpses drifted on the sea for less than fifteen minutes. The blood and shredded meat spread—you know what that attracts on the ocean.”
“Schools of fish.”
“Yes. A massive number of fish. All kinds, swarming in to gobble up the remains. My captain didn't think much of it at first—a dead whale at sea can attract fish from half a nautical mile away; it's not unusual.”
Nelisa's tone broke briefly. She could be heard taking a breath over the communication. That breath, muffled by the wind and the static of the device, sounded exceptionally heavy.
“But after those fish finished eating, they scattered.”
“Scattered?”
“Yes, they were like—” Nelisa chose her words carefully, “like they were being driven by something, swimming away in all directions. Their speed was very fast, their directions completely random, and some were even swimming toward the shore. My captain has spent years at sea and has never seen fish charging toward the shallows.”
Diancie's back hit the backrest of her chair.
She remembered what Klein had said—those monsters, whether alive or dead, as long as their physical remains were in these waters, the anchoring effect would not disappear.
So what if the physical remains were eaten by fish?
Eaten into their bellies, digested, absorbed, and integrated into the fish's flesh and blood. Then those fish swam away, one to the east, one to the west, one to the north—scattering to every corner of the entire sea.
One anchor point would become ten. Ten would become a hundred. A hundred would become a thousand.
By then, even if Klein could completely erase every monster from the physical plane—how was he supposed to erase every fish in the entire ocean?
“Princess?” Nelisa called out.
Diancie realized her fingers holding the magic tool were covered in sweat. The metal casing had become slippery in her palm.
“I heard you,” she said, her throat feeling a bit dry. “I will find a way to get word to Klein.”
“The sooner the better,” Nelisa added, and then the communication cut off.
The crisp sound of the disconnection bounced in the cabin, followed by silence.
Aphros sat quietly opposite her, having remained silent the whole time.
Diancie stood up and walked to the cabin door. Lohr happened to be coming down the corridor, his pace half a step faster than usual, likely having heard the commotion from the communication tool.
“What happened?”
Diancie briefly relayed the situation Nelisa had described. She tried to keep her thoughts organized and her speaking speed slow—not to accommodate Lohr's comprehension, but so that by speaking slowly, she could process it herself one more time.
Lohr didn't move after hearing it, but his jawline tightened. He leaned against the wooden wall of the corridor, his shoulder pressing against an unlit hanging lamp, the lamp base tilting slightly under his weight.
“I think,” Lohr said, “Mr. Klein needs to know about this as soon as possible.”
He glanced at Diancie, then placed his hand back on the hilt of his saber.
“The sooner the better.”
Rate on N.U.
