Ch.108Eastern Harbor: Gibson’s Port (3)

As expected, the creatures that leaped out of the water were Sahagin, aquatic monsters.

They were threatening monsters capable of easily dismembering ordinary people or low-rank adventurer parties.

Moreover, this place was at minimum their outpost, at maximum their stronghold, so we would inevitably be overwhelmed by their numbers even if we died and came back to life.

“Guruk! Guruk! Guruk!”

Just as I was thinking that, the Sahagin, enraged by the invasion of their territory, began to charge at us.

Swoosh!

As the Sahagin rushed forward, I swung my aura-infused sword horizontally, and with a sound like waves parting, the aura contained in the blade was released.

The aura sliced three charging Sahagin cleanly in half, while more Sahagin crawling out from the passage aimed their crude weapons at me, the killer of their comrades.

“Gururururuk!!!”

Amid the continuous eerie suction sounds characteristic of marine monsters, the number of Sahagin pouring through the distant passage seemed to exceed 100 at a rough estimate.

Although their weapons were crude—hard stones or bones tied together with seaweed—and lacked power, their sheer numbers constituted a formidable force. The tough skin and flexible bodies typical of marine monsters gave them enough vitality to survive, albeit barely, even after taking a direct hit from a greatsword.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

Thwack!

“Guruk!”

Fortunately, our party was quite strong in combat.

From behind, arrows rained down from the elf sisters, while beside me, Raisha was stabbing and killing Sahagin heading toward Simon.

Simon wasn’t chanting any particular spells, but he was swinging his staff and unleashing electric shocks into the water-filled passage, transforming the moist Sahagin into crispy ones.

Bzzt! Bzzt!

Swoosh!

“Hnngh!”

I once again infused my greatsword with aura, this time exerting extreme concentration to contain the aura within the blade.

Slash! Slash! Slaaash!

After swinging the sword three times, my concentration reached its limit, but those three slashes had turned over ten Sahagin into corpses, so it wasn’t a bad result.

“Tch… only three times..!”

While I was complaining, Simon’s urgent voice came from behind.

“Party leader!”

I turned around to see Simon holding his staff vertically with both hands, his eyes pointing to the ceiling above the passage.

“I need to collapse the ceiling, so buy me some time!”

Swoosh!

“Guruk?!”

“Damn it! Can’t you just shoot?”

“You stupid knight! This is an underwater cave! If we don’t properly control the power, we’ll all become water ghosts!”

Gritting my teeth, I cut down two Sahagin charging at me, while Raisha kicked and crushed a Sahagin that had been rubbing its shin bone against her chain mail.

“How long will it take?!”

“Five minutes! Just hold them off for five minutes!”

“Five minutes!!!”

I shouted, once again infusing my sword with aura.

It literally felt like my soul was being sucked into the sword, and with each aura infusion, it seemed like chunks of my lifespan were being shaved off.

I was wielding a sword with a much longer blade than an ordinary greatsword, so naturally, the aura consumption was greater, and consequently, the soul power flowing through my body was gradually fading.

Swoosh!

“Guruk!”

This slash was lucky enough to bisect six Sahagin at once, but my body was growing increasingly tired.

Bang! Thud! Crack!

Soon, several Sahagin landed dull blows on me, and I barely managed to shake them off while exhaling violently.

“Huff… huff…”

Breathing was difficult. Partly due to the full plate armor I wore, but more because this was only the second time I’d used aura in actual combat, so I hadn’t properly managed my stamina.

“Master!”

As I staggered, my wife, who was next to Simon, called out urgently.

“I’m fine!”

…I said that, but honestly, I wasn’t sure.

How many Sahagin were down there… even Simon wouldn’t know.

“The party leader is in danger!”

“Boss!! You can’t die!!!”

To support my noticeably slowed movements, numerous arrows flew to my side.

It was amazing that none of the arrows hit my back despite my continuous stepping and sword swinging, but now wasn’t the time to marvel at that.

“Aaaaargh! Die!”

Swoosh!

“Gururu!”

I shouted as I blew off the head of an ugly aquatic fishman making suction sounds, and at that moment, Simon lifted his staff from the ground and called out.

“Exalta!”

As the spell was cast, a bright white light appeared on the ceiling above the water-filled passage and then exploded.

BOOM!

“Everyone down!”

Stone fragments scattered in all directions, and after telling everyone to lie down to avoid the debris, I watched as fragments fell on the heads of the panicking, fleeing Sahagin, turning them into mush.

*

“Guuuu…”

Thud!

After confirming that all remaining Sahagin were dead, we examined the collapsed ceiling.

The ceiling was still firmly preventing a complete collapse, and the passage was completely blocked by the pile of stones that had fallen from above.

Thud… Thud…

“They won’t be able to dig through this again, right?”

“Not without proper tools, and certainly not with the Sahagin’s level of civilization. Besides, it’s underwater.”

“Hmm.”

In simple terms, it couldn’t be reopened.

Being underwater, seaweed would soon attach to it, and once barnacles started to grow, even humans would have difficulty recognizing that this was once a passage.

“Good. Let’s head back now. I thought it would take about two days… but it ended faster than expected.”

“Ugh… let’s quickly go back, wash up, eat, and sleep. I’m dying of fatigue.”

I pulled the ear of the grumbling Lucia and set off, while she whined and was half-carried by her younger sister.

“Are you feeling alright?”

Simon, who had somehow appeared by my side, asked cautiously, and after checking my condition, I nodded.

“I can manage. I feel a bit chilly… but I’ll be fine soon.”

“You need to manage your stamina well when using aura. Even with Maintain, you’re still a Bronze rank who awakened your aura less than a year ago. Your body can’t handle drawing out aura like Steel or Gold ranks.”

Saying that, Simon took out a pill we had received from the Crucis Mountains and handed it to me.

I took it without protest and swallowed it, and soon the bitter aftertaste lingered in my nose.

“Ugh… you still had that?”

“Well, it’s something too valuable to sell or throw away. At least it should help with physical recovery, right?”

“I suppose so.”

As I was acknowledging this, my wife became the issue.

She was deeply lost in thought about something, looking so adorably absentminded that I had an overwhelming desire to pinch her cheeks right then and there.

“What’s troubling our knight’s lady?”

Just as I was stealthily reaching out my hand, Lucia, whose cheeks were being pulled by Casia, asked my wife.

“Huh?”

“No, you’ve been thinking about something for a while now.”

“Ah… that… I was wondering why the corpse we found at the entrance was just lying there alone…”

Huh?

Come to think of it, that’s right.

Why was that corpse just lying there alone at the entrance?

As I was about to ponder this deeply, Simon provided a simple yet correct answer.

“It’s quite simple. He tried to escape alone but ran out of strength and died. It’s actually a fairly common case. Novice adventurers or ordinary people in dangerous situations have endorphins and adrenaline flowing, dulling their pain, and they’re so mentally pressured that they can’t properly assess their condition.”

“And then?”

“They end up fleeing in a hurry… unaware of how severe their injuries are, they just blindly run until they meet their death. If they’re in a state of panic, it’s even more so. Judging by that corpse, he didn’t seem to be an adventurer… just an ordinary person who received a fatal wound during an attack and desperately tried to escape until his life thread was cut.”

“Oooh… how pitiful.”

“A sad death indeed. He wasn’t an adventurer, after all.”

It was a simpler deduction than I expected, but I accepted Simon’s reasoning.

In terms of absolute age, he was exactly in the middle of our party, but no fool would be unaware that elven time and human time flow differently.

Moreover, he was a sage, a person with the ability to combine even the smallest clues to derive the best conclusion.

Although I had developed abilities to read context and atmosphere and observe things from living on the streets, I couldn’t match a sage who had learned, acquired, and finally mastered these skills over decades.

“If only you drank less, you’d be perfect.”

“Hahaha. If I were perfect, I wouldn’t be human. That’s why I enjoy drinking.”

“Oh, so that’s how it works?”

Once again, I found myself persuaded by the sage’s logic.