Ch.98[Chapter 98] Bancense

As Sir Dominic’s spider tank raced toward the finish line at a terrifying speed, the delinquent riding a pteranodon was shouting at the wizard mounted on a dragon.

“Stop fighting right now! Enemy! This is no time to fight amongst ourselves!”

The mohawked delinquent continued to announce the current situation while demonstrating amazing aerobatic flight between the dragon and the battleship.

Startled by the aerobatics, one of the battleships carelessly fired its main cannon, but the delinquent deflected the enormous energy mass by tilting the blade of his axe.

It was an extremely unrealistic scene, but this was Gachaland.

A place where nothing would be strange no matter what happened.

The mohawked delinquent spotted a spaceship with a pink ribbon.

It was larger than the other battleships and had a more modern feel to it, so it was likely the flagship.

The mohawk-wearing man raised his axe, now glowing red-hot from deflecting the main cannon, and shouted toward the pink-ribboned spaceship, the Apocalyptic Apocrypha MK.III.

“We need to stop fighting and join forces right now! Cease this meaningless fire!”

Those riding dragons had already heard the delinquent’s words and stopped their attacks.

And the dragon riders lined up in perfect formation behind the pteranodon ridden by the mohawked man.

Not only was he a familiar face often seen at license exams, but wasn’t a pterosaur also a dragon?

Although the differences between dragons and drakes, eastern dragons and pterosaurs were stark, these were merely strong reflections of the makers’ characteristics—to those who didn’t care about the details, they were all the same kind.

Following the words of the most experienced person, the dragon squadron was formed.

Seeing this, the space battleship fleet quickly concluded that while victory was possible, casualties would be high.

[“…I’ll follow your suggestion.”]

Dick Stacy essentially declared a ceasefire to the mohawked man.

…

“Woo-hoo-ah!”

Alice’s cheers could be heard from atop the spider tank as it began moving twice as fast with three times the smoke billowing out when the engine was overloaded.

Alice, who had been fluttering like a flag on a pole while holding onto the railing, only got to set foot on solid ground again after the overload ended.

“That was—”

Alice didn’t hide her exhilaration as she touched her flushed cheeks.

“That was amazing!”

“Indeed it was.”

Sir Dominic took a deep breath.

The sense of speed had been quite a good experience, but Sir Dominic realized that from the middle of the ride, the steering wheel had become strangely difficult to turn.

When the speed slowed down again, the steering wheel returned to normal, but until then, Sir Dominic had to use all his strength to move it just to avoid collisions.

“By the way…”

Sir Dominic looked around.

The height of the vehicle was a great advantage as it allowed him to see the surrounding situation at a glance.

Since Sir Dominic literally had only one eye, this was an extremely significant advantage.

After grasping the general situation, Sir Dominic began to think about the next route.

Going over the hill would be fastest, but somehow he had a bad feeling about it.

Following the track would be good too, but again, he had a bad feeling.

No, the overall atmosphere he felt in this place wasn’t good at all.

Realizing this, Sir Dominic temporarily lowered the engine’s RPM.

Although this was advanced knowledge Sir Dominic hadn’t learned, he instinctively performed this action.

“Master?”

“Shh.”

Sir Dominic covered Alice’s mouth as she tried to speak to him.

At that moment, something flew over Sir Dominic’s head at tremendous speed.

As a fighter jet shaped like a harpoon or arrowhead passed by Sir Dominic, an enormous gust of wind followed with a whooshing sound.

Sir Dominic’s spider tank was easily noticeable, but fortunately, perhaps because it was below the hill, the fighter jet didn’t seem to have spotted him.

After the first fighter jet, several vehicles piloted by speed-obsessed pilots with strong personalities passed over Sir Dominic’s head.

Sir Dominic was confused as he watched them going in the opposite direction.

“Why are they going backward?”

Alice also seemed puzzled by this fact, but since this was Sir Dominic’s first license exam, he simply accepted it and moved on.

There was no one nearby to resolve this question anyway.

“Let’s find out later.”

Sir Dominic said this to Alice and added another question to his mind.

Sir Dominic thought that finishing this exam was the priority.

The sound of the engine running quickly could be heard again.

This was because Sir Dominic had increased the engine’s RPM.

He judged that going at full speed would be the best way to reach the finish line as safely and quickly as possible.

As Sir Dominic moved the steering wheel, the spider tank began to move forward.

Whenever Sir Dominic’s instincts—honed on the battlefield—warned him, there were mines or traps in those places, and because he moved along the path his instincts guided him, he was able to avoid those mines and traps.

“I can see the finish line over there!”

Alice shouted loudly.

The engine noise was so loud that she had to speak up to be heard.

Sir Dominic was also looking at the distant finish line.

Although his depth perception was a bit off due to having only one eye, he figured this distance could be covered in about an hour.

As Sir Dominic was thinking this, he suddenly felt an ominous sensation creeping up his spine.

“Hold tight!”

Sir Dominic shouted to Alice.

Alice didn’t understand Sir Dominic’s words, but she immediately grabbed the railing firmly.

There was no harm in following her master’s instructions.

And that choice proved to be a wise one.

“Yo-ho! Is this the place?”

A ghost ship jumped up from beneath the rocky hill beside them.

The ghost ship, creating waves of ectoplasm that made the surroundings spiritually sticky, hit Sir Dominic’s spider tank from the side, soared into the sky, and then fell back down.

The spider tank took a direct hit from the enormous ghost ship.

And due to the collision, the spider tank was pushed toward the place where Sir Dominic had sensed danger, triggering the mine planted there.

With a bang, an explosion engulfed the spider tank.

Sand erupted into the sky along with the explosion, obscuring the spider tank.

The ghost ship, the cause of all this, was merely floating above the ground, dripping ectoplasm like a wet cloth.

A moment later, a ghost pirate who appeared to be the captain emerged from the ghost ship’s cabin.

“Arrrgrrrr! Check where we are, you idiots!”

“Aye aye, sir!”

A translucent fluorescent ghost skeleton crew member climbed up to the crow’s nest with an old, dusty telescope.

After looking around and checking the terrain, he shouted toward the captain.

“We’ve moved 3cm!”

“What!”

The ghost captain frowned as much as possible and raged.

“That’s 0.3cm more than before! See, I told you we could do it!”

No, it wasn’t rage but an expression of joy, it seemed.

The pirate captain laughed with a fierce face.

Now they could reach the finish line in about nineteen days.

If the wind blew a little, they might achieve a record-breaking speed of fifteen days.

In fact, a passing turtle would be faster, but for those bound to the pirate ship, it was an unprecedented speed.

The captain was congratulating himself, thinking that a proper test site was indeed different, when he suddenly heard a strange sound.

“Hey! Does anyone else hear that creaking sound?”

“Creaking sound? Perhaps my jaw is dislocated?”

One of the crew members closest to the captain felt his skeleton in response to the captain’s question.

His jawbone really was dislocated, and after rattling it back into place, the skeleton crew member asked the captain:

“Is it making less noise now?”

“No, not that sound. Something more chilling… like metal scraping against metal…”

The captain took one step at a time, listening to this unpleasant creaking sound that continued.

With each step, the friction sound became clearer.

The captain realized that the sound was coming from beyond the railing, right beneath the ghost ship.

“Is it around here?”

The captain’s translucent hand trembled.

Unlike what one might expect from a ghost, the captain was deeply into the occult and feared supernatural phenomena and monsters, especially those under the bed.

Though slightly different, suspicious sounds beneath the ship were similarly frightening.

However, the captain was the master of this ghost ship.

He had a duty to know what was happening on the ghost ship.

With this in mind, the captain overcame his fear and peeked his head over the railing.

“Uh… uh… uwaaaaah!”

And with a tremendous scream, the captain moved away from the railing and inadvertently fell on his backside.

“Captain! What’s wrong?”

The skeleton and ghost crew members rushed to the captain.

The captain was trembling like a leaf, as if he had seen a ghost… no, as if he had encountered a deep-sea monster.

The captain shouted like a madman, pointing beyond the railing.

“Over there! Beyond that railing!”

“Beyond the railing?”

One of the crew members glanced beyond the railing at the captain’s words.

And that crew member also fell on his backside like the captain and desperately tried to move away from the railing.

“Uh… uwaaa…”

“It, it’s coming! It’s coming!”

“What is it, Mr. Gerald?”

Another crew member delivered what he thought was a witty joke upon seeing the panicked crew member.

“No, this is no joke!”

There was a cracking sound.

The crew members didn’t hear this sound at first.

The cracking sound was heard again.

Some of the crew members heard this sound again.

A crunching sound was heard nearby.

The crew members now turned their heads toward the source of the sound.

With a creaking sound, a brass tank with eight legs crawled up the wall of the ghost ship.

“Spi…”

Finally, all the crew members of the ghost ship could understand why the captain was so afraid and why the other crew members were terrified.

These rough sea men weren’t afraid of the Kraken or the Master of the Abyss, but they all feared one creature in common.

“Spider-! A spider has appeared!”

Yes. It was a spider.