In the strait between the central continent and the western archipelago, Eluria stood on the deck of her ship with a communicator in hand. As she listened in on the main fleet’s situation on the southern island, she stuck out her bottom lip in a sulky pout.
“Raid sounds like he’s having fun...”
Calamities and Offspring were especially responsive to human mana, or just mana contained within living beings in general. It stood to reason that these monsters were more attracted to the main fleet with more people and more mana, charging southward without paying Eluria’s ship any mind.
The tenth ship was manned by only the bare minimum of personnel. Among the crew of helmsmen, workers, and defensive magicians, only two people—Eluria included—counted as combatants. The arrangement was extremely bare-bones, but this was their best option. While the main fleet’s goal was to face the Calamities in the western archipelago, the tenth ship’s goal was to stop the Calamities of the central continent from crossing over. For that, they hardly needed as many forces as the main fleet.
All in all, this meant that they had next to no likelihood of engaging in combat.
“Uncle Sandy, I’m bored. Do you want to fight?”
“Eluria, please... That’s not very funny,” Jamil replied, pale-faced as he gazed out at the central continent to their right.
The distant land was shrouded—completely covered, in fact—in a dense purple fog of polluted mana. This came as no surprise, however, as there were currently thousands of monsters prowling the shoreline—all Calamities that took on grotesque and abominable forms. A humongous snake with a dog’s head. A massive bull with bark-like skin and a head of petals. A bizarre purple egg with four limbs. A bipedal beast with countless bird heads eerily crying out. A creepy ball with large vine-like tentacles.
Countless indescribable monsters were making their way to the western archipelago, followed by a horde of Offspring so massive and dense that they blanketed the entire stretch of land along the shore.
“Good grief... I’m known as the most experienced special-class magician, so the folks back home would be disheartened to see me shakin’ in my boots here.” Jamil laughed dryly as he scratched his head, but his lighthearted remark could not stop the trembling of his hands.
Alas, who could blame him for despairing before such a catastrophic sight? Calamities dwarfed even ultra-sized manabeasts, both in size and in mana, and the Offspring blanketing the land were nigh uncountable. Nobody in their right mind would ever think of facing such an overwhelming horde of these monsters.
However, the girl beside him was as composed as ever. “No need to be so scared. It’s not like we’re going to fight them. Besides, I’ll take care of any flying Calamities. Uncle Sandy, you can just enjoy our little tea party.”
“Well, what a reliable li’l missy... I guess my job is pretty much over. But are you sure we’ve stopped those monsters?”
“Mm-hmm. If I’m not mistaken, then those Calamities will never be able to cross the strait.”
Jamil squinted. “And if you are mistaken?”
“That’s not possible. But if, hypothetically speaking, they do cross over...then I’ll just have to get to work.”
“If the youngster’s ready to fight, then I can’t just run with my tail between my legs, can I...?”
“Mm. Have some milk tea.” Eluria offered him a cup.
Jamil immediately shook his head and waved his hands. “No thanks... I feel like I’ll just puke it back out.”
Eluria sulkily set the cup down. She couldn’t understand how he could pass up on experiencing a tea party with this peculiar backdrop.
“More importantly, are you sure you can be so at ease right now?”
“Mm-hmm. I have nothing to do until a flying Calamity appears. After all...” Eluria turned her impassive gaze to the distant coastline, where Offspring were starting to leap into the sea in an attempt to cross over. “None of them can make it here alive.”
The Offspring that leaped into the sea...never surfaced again. Sensing something amiss, the horde of Calamities finally halted their advance.
“See? They stopped.”
“O-Ohh... It actually worked?!”
“It did. They can jump in all they want, but they’ll never come back up.” With a teacup in hand, Eluria took a few steps on the deck as she observed the vast expanse of water...and the rapidly swirling currents far below. Whirlpools ravaged the water column, dragging all the unsuspecting Offspring into the dark abyss. “All that’s left is for them to spin round and round until their mana disperses and they disappear. Very efficient, isn’t it?”
“Ugh... It’s like looking at a stupidly huge washing device.”
“Of course. I came up with this while watching one of our maids do our laundry.”
“But is it really that effective? Don’t the currents themselves still contain mana?”
“No, they don’t. You see, I embedded a boulder with a magic formula, then tossed it into the sea, where—by feeding off the mana produced by the water currents—it moves rapidly to artificially produce new currents. Simply put, those whirlpools are being produced physically, not magically.”
“Basically, there’s a boulder in the sea that’s stirring up the water currents,” Jamil summarized.
Eluria nodded. “As long as it doesn’t break, none of those monsters can cross the sea.”
The calm surface was a deceptive trap. With just a single step into the water, the monsters were bound for a one-way trip to the deepest depths of the ocean. Given their smaller size, Offspring would much sooner be torn to shreds or crushed by the currents on their way down than die from mana dissipation at the bottom.
“And since you converted the ocean walls to glass for us, we don’t even have to worry about the currents ravaging the terrain or the Offspring crawling their way back up,” Eluria continued. “Not to mention the smooth surface helps speed up the currents. Three birds with one stone.”
“Well, I’m just glad I could help.” Jamil sighed. “Looks like I can still hold pride in my title as a special-classer.”
Eluria smiled. “Mm-hmm. You’re not just Uncle Sandy. You’re a very special Uncle Sandy.”
Proving greatly useful in this operation was Jamil’s specialty, his alchemical magic. With it, he had the ability to crush stones and boulders into grains of sand, condense them back into rocks, and even use the heat created in the process to produce glass. Alchemical magic was typically used to manipulate a wide variety of substances, but Jamil’s was a little different, and it certainly wasn’t as simple as it sounded. By incorporating the equibinding formula of Legnarian sorcery into Vegaltan magic formulae, he was able to amplify the range and effect of his magic in exchange for limiting his material of choice to sand.
But sand was everywhere. As long as he wasn’t locked into an unfavorable setting, Jamil could compress sand into a defensive wall or transform countless grains into sharp blades through high-speed vibrations. In other words, he was indeed a very versatile and sandy uncle.