South Sea, Adventure II
The morning after the fight against the Mock chimera, Shu headed to the ship’s cafeteria for breakfast.
He refrained from getting involved with the cooking this time, so breakfast was proceeding without any trouble to speak of. However, the cooking he’d done last night had filled the cooks with a competitive spirit, so their meal was unusually fancy and plentiful.
That didn’t stop Shu from eating all of it, though.
You could say that his appetite matched his ursine appearance.
Once he was done eating, he sipped on a coffee-like drink while looking over a book he’d taken from his cabin. The volume was full of information about the ocean they were currently sailing across.
We’re on the open sea, but it’s pretty shallow here, relatively speaking, Shu thought. It’s only between three and six hundred metels deep. Ships can go through here no problem, but large sea monsters wouldn’t like it. Though, I suppose that means we’re in a pretty safe area right now.
Considering the Adventure II’s objective, they were eventually going to pass through places that could house larger creatures like the Abyss Shellder itself.
However, they had just left such an area, and to get to the next patch of deep water and the location of a sunken smuggler ship, they had to cross an expanse of shallow sea.
Having gained a good understanding of the nearby geography, Shu closed the book and finished the coffee. But then...
“May I sit here a moment?”
...someone took a seat across from him.
It was the vice captain, Asam.
“Sure. The seat’s fur-ee.”
Shu was actually completely surrounded by open seats. Perhaps because of his bearlike appearance, or maybe just because he was an outsider, no one seemed to want to sit and eat close to him.
Asam didn’t have a meal tray with him either, though.
“Mr. Starling... Thank you for what you did last night,” he said, bowing his head.
The fact that he’d said “last night” rather than “yesterday” suggested to Shu that this wasn’t about Whalunder.
“So you’ve realized it too?”
“What do you mean by ‘too’?”
“I’m paw-retty sure Riella’s on to me. She gave me a hell of a glare last night,” Shu said with a chuckle. Of course, he was fully aware of the irritation she’d directed at him near the bath.
“I see... My apologies,” Asam said before giving another deep bow—surely a gesture meant to make up for his captain’s rudeness toward their savior.
“It’s nothing to a-paw-logize fur, and I don’t need Riella to say she’s sorry either. I got involved on my own, and I get why Riella found that a bit unbearable... Though, if something like that happens again, I would do the exact same thing,” Shu said as he gestured for Asam to look up.
“Mr. Starling...”
“You didn’t just come here for that, though, did you? What is it?” Shu asked. Asam responded with a nod before reaching into his Inventory and taking out a magic item that looked much like a tablet device.
With a few touches, he made it display the same map they had used during the meeting. It showed a point of light that displayed the location of the Adventure II.
“There is something we forgot to tell you because it is simply second nature to us.”
“Hm?”
Asam then made the map display an extra arrow, starting at the edge of Granvaloa and stretched all the way into the West Sea, ending somewhere in the middle of the South Sea—a good distance behind the Adventure II.
“What is this?”
“This is the predicted location of the ships chasing after us, sent by the other fleets.”
“Right, you did say something about people looking around fur this ship.” Shu remembered what he’d been told in the meeting, right before the talk about the chimeras had begun.
“There are forces among our pursuers who are not just looking to catch us but are also hunting Abyss Shellder themselves. They seem to be fighting the Mocks as they approach us.”
That meant they were being chased by ships powerful enough to defeat creatures on the same level as yesterday’s Abyss Mail Kraken. Otherwise, those crafts could never navigate the South Sea—Abyss Shellder’s territory.
The Adventure II could also successfully take down these Mocks. Shu could tell that if they hadn’t been caught unawares by the creature’s freezing breath and hadn’t lost their momentum, the ship could’ve defeated the Abyss Mail Kraken without using the JotA.
In fact, Shu had decided to intervene precisely because they were on the verge of using something so precious and limited. He wanted to prevent them from wasting it.
“And your fur-suers haven’t caught up even once?”
“Adventure II is the cutting edge of Granvaloan shipbuilding. No ship has caught up to us because almost no other ship can go this fast. However...”
Asam touched the tablet to add another line.
This represented the Adventure II’s current course, showing how it would make a U-turn right after reaching the South Sea’s eastern edge.
“I see. When the ship turns tail, we’ll bump right into them.”
“Yes. It’s highly likely we’ll encounter our pursuers.”
And when that happened, the crew of this hunting ship wouldn’t know how to handle that. While the Adventure II had left because their plans were at odds with Granvaloa’s, both they and their pursuers were acting with the country’s best interests in mind.
Fighting a ship that ultimately had come to protect them was an obvious mistake.
“Perhaps it would be different if the country’s directive changed and we were allowed to join the hunt, but that is highly unlikely,” Asam continued. Because of this, if they—the remnants of the adventure fleet—wanted to complete their mission and defeat the Abyss Shellder themselves, they had no choice but to stay away from the officially sanctioned hunters.
And if fighting them was out of the question, they simply had to keep running.
“So if you see any of these fur-suers of yours, you’ll just have to... Hold on a sec,” Shu said, realizing something. “You said there were almost no ships that could catch you, right?”
“Yes.”
“I think I get it now.” Essentially, that meant there was something that could keep up.
“Adventure II is amazingly fast even by Granvaloan standards,” said Asam. “But there are ships that can match us.”
“And the people chasing you have got their paws on some of those, huh?”
“Yes. I believe that’s likely. Though, um...”
Asam fell silent mid-sentence. It was as though he didn’t want to say any more.
“Oh, I get it. I’m a foreign Superior, so you don’t wanna tell me any Granvaloan military secrets... Or rather, Superior details...right?” Shu said in understanding.
“...So you understand our point of view.”
“Well, Granvaloa’s military nerd and the great warships he builds with his clan are beary well-known among us Masters.” Such information could be found in reality, posted on the internet. The proud shipwrights of GFRS sometimes even uploaded videos of their creations to their channels on various video-sharing platforms.
That wasn’t something that a Granvaloan tian could know, however, and if they found out they might even consider it to be treason.
Thus, Shu assured Asam he understood why they might be reluctant to speak in more detail.
As they both fell silent, he considered Asam’s reaction to his words.