Relief, and a hint of tension. There’s probably more than the infamous military nerd.
He realized that Asam was hiding information about a pursuer besides the GFRS mentioned by Shu—most likely another Superior.
The Seven Great Embryos of Granvaloa... The seven Granvaloan Superiors. There’s Antimicrobic Soy Sauce, the Human Bomb; the Edwards spouses, the Avowed Wings; and Satomi Yamamoto, the Outer War Chronicle. That’s four. Zeta, the Fatal Seal of the Four Seas, became wanted and left, letting her place be taken by Miroslava Swampman, the Above Land and Sea. That leaves two more...
Granvaloa had two more Superiors who were barely known.
I guess it’s like the opposite of how Caldina had to flaunt the power of their Masters through Sefirot. Granvaloa has revealed that these two exist, but they are like hidden cards—something they would only play if something dire happened between them and some other country. You can’t find them on the internet or DIN. That proves they’re being kept hidden, and that Asam would never tell an outsider like me about them... Back to our situation, though...
Running through all of these thoughts in a mere moment, Shu spoke up again.
“So, what you wanna tell me is that these pursuers are hot on our tails, and things are gonna get beary dangerous once we turn around, right?”
“Yes, exactly. They haven’t caught up yet because we left Granvaloa earlier than they did, but it’s likely we will bump into them once we turn to head the other direction.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Umm, is anything the matter?” Asam asked, noticing that Shu appeared to be pondering something.
“I’m just thinking... Is it possible they’ll catch up befur we even make the turn?”
“I certainly don’t believe so... And if they’ve already located us, I’m sure they would alert us to their presence first...”
“And if they decide they wanna ambush us?”
“Huh?” Shu’s words left Asam dumbfounded. The others in the cafeteria who were listening in on their conversation were shocked as well.
Those reactions told Shu that they were operating on a different set of preconceptions than he was.
“I get that you’re all Granvaloan, but don’t you think it’s pawssible that they’d want to launch a preliminary strike to disable your ship just enough to slow you down?”
In fact, it wasn’t impossible that there was someone who wanted to sink the Adventure II completely.
The crew of the Adventure II might have thought that the adventure fleet was entirely their allies, even if their objectives weren’t aligned—and in all likelihood, anyone sent by the other fleets was as well.
However, it was possible that there were individuals in the other fleet who saw the adventure fleet as rivals and would take any opportunity to make them disappear.
Granvaloa is a country built upon six hundred years of history, with the four families always working as one. This is exactly why they’ve always trusted each other so much. But there could still be someone who wants this system gone.
Any country with a long history had people like that—those who didn’t want to cooperate as equals but to stand above the rest.
The navarch of Granvaloa was decided by having a representative from each fleet participate in a race across the seas. Whoever won that race would be declared head of the entire country.
If someone was aiming for that throne, they would benefit greatly from eliminating the already half-dead adventure fleet.
Even if there’s nobody that ambitious among the commanding families... We can’t be sure about Masters.
Masters were hardly bound by anything. They could do whatever they felt like—whether it was good or bad. Even if they landed on the wanted lists, that wouldn’t actually kill them—in the worst-case scenario, they would only end up in the gaol.
It was possible there were Masters in Granvaloa who would try to sink this ship purely for the fun of it—if not for some reason that made even less sense.
“Mr. Starling, why do you think they may have already caught up with us? This vessel is equipped with technology that obstructs Granvaloa’s ship finding...”
Asam noticed that Shu seemed confident that their pursuers were already right behind them, poised to attack, so he asked him to explain outright.
Shu’s answer was very brief.
“Those two battles.”
“Huh...? Oh!” After a moment of thinking, Asam understood exactly what he meant.
“The depth charges and that speed boost made some loud sounds during the whale fight. And this one’s my fault, but fighting that chimera made some serious noise too. Granvaloa’s got excellent audio detection tech, right? It doesn’t matter if they’ve tracked the actual ship if they can just follow the sound of combat from far over the horizon, does it?”
Asam fell silent. “And if they’ve found our ship but aren’t making contact, then...”
A moment after Shu had spoken, the Adventure II was suddenly rocked by a strange tremor.
“This is...!”
“Well, would you look at that timing... Wait. Right—if they can pick up the sounds of combat from beyond the fur-izon, then I bet they can even hear us talking if they’ve gotten close enough.”
Shu casually suggested that the shaking was essentially caused by their conversation.
And so, as though confirming Shu’s guess, a masculine voice rang out through the cafeteria... No, the entire ship.
“Indeed. Though, the ones who are truly excellent here aren’t the forces of Granvaloa, but us.”
Asam and the rest of the crew in the cafeteria were stunned into silence, while Shu went on high alert.
“Oh, don’t get me wrong. I didn’t actually sneak aboard your vessel—I’m simply making the air around your ship vibrate to create sound. It’s basic wind magic. My Mu’s facilities allow me to mimic and amplify it, you see. It’s the same procedure that allowed me to find you in the first place, used in reverse.”
The voice sounded rather proud of this.
“And speaking of reverse,” the mysterious voice continued, “here’s another thing you have backward. I didn’t sneak aboard your vessel—it’s you who are now within my Mu.”
“Huh?!”
“Go to the deck if you doubt me. This is no trap, mind you. I have no reason to do anything underhanded. You are simply like Pinocchio, caught in the whale’s mouth.”
Loud laughter resounded throughout the ship.
He sure likes talking, Shu thought. The whale and Pinocchio mention guarantees he’s a Master. The “Mu” he mentioned twice is obviously the name of his Embryo, and he doesn’t even hide that it’s focused on production and development... He’s confident. Though, the fact that he only started talking once he was sure he had us dead to rights shows that he does have some amount of caution, at least.
Straining his ears, Shu continued listening to pick up more information.
However, the voice had fallen silent. He had no intention of continuing the conversation here, and Shu wouldn’t learn anything more until he did as told.
“I guess I should go to the deck...” Shu wondered if that was a good idea, though.
But before he could decide, he heard someone running through the hallway—someone whose footsteps were light.
“Riella.” Indeed—the captain of the vessel dashed around the corner, as she’d heard the same speech as everyone else.
Shu saw her face as she sped past the entrance to the cafeteria. Her expression was the same as the one she’d worn in her cabin last night—a blend of fear, rage, and panic.