The One Remark That Sank the Strongest Master-Disciple Pair (5)

Monica returned from the world of mathematics to reality, lifted her still somewhat dizzy head, and looked around.

The sailors looked tense at the approaching water dragon, but no one was panicking. Each had taken up their post and was doing their job.

The dark-skinned man who had been checking ahead with a telescope—the one the others called the vice-captain—peered through it and shouted.

"Hey, what is that?! I've never seen anything that huge!"

The vice-captain had gone pale at the sight of the water dragon's shadow beneath the surface. Monica, who was being held in Isaac's arms, couldn't see it, but it was probably on an entirely different scale.

"Aike."

Before Monica could even say more than his name, Isaac had already begun chanting.

Isaac had his right eye closed. The detection spell formula projected information into his closed field of vision.

Monica struggled to look at the scenery with her unaided eyes while simultaneously taking in the information from a detection spell, but Isaac managed it with ease.

Having grasped the enemy's movements through the detection spell, Isaac murmured, "I see."

"Aike, did you notice something?"

"It'll be faster if you see for yourself. Pardon me, my master."

Still holding Monica in his right arm, Isaac took her hand with his left.

He was connecting them with a shared spell. A magic circle appeared where their fingertips met. The shared spell was relaying the results of Isaac's detection spell to Monica.

Monica closed both eyes. In the darkness of her vision, she saw points of light.

One excellent feature of the underwater detection spell Isaac had developed was that it showed underwater enemies in a different color from everything else. The underwater enemies shone with a bluish light.

A regular detection spell would have made them look like one enormous mass of light. But this highly precise detection spell showed that it was more than just a large glow.

It was a herd.

There was one slightly larger light at the center, surrounded by a group of just under thirty smaller lights.

The moment Monica saw it, she understood why the reports of the water dragon sightings had been so inconsistent.

(A large species at the center, surrounded by a group of smaller ones.)

That had made the group look like one unusually huge water dragon.

The descriptions varied because the group changed shape, making its neck look long at times and its fins look large at others.

"Aike, increase the detection spell's precision."

"Understood, my master."

That was the second outstanding feature of the underwater detection spell Isaac had developed.

As its precision increased, the points of light representing the water dragon herd shifted into the shape of dragons glowing blue.

By interacting with the currents, the spell made the dragons' silhouettes clearer. Even a rough idea of their shape could help identify their species and make it easier to pinpoint the weak spot between their eyes.

The usual way to fight a water dragon was to drive it off with cannons or drag it to the surface with a harpoon. No one would think to aim between a dragon's eyes underwater. So there had never been any need for such precise information.

But for Monica, whose strength lay in precision rather than magical power, Isaac's underwater detection spell—which revealed such detailed information about the enemy—was an excellent match.

(That silhouette... The one in the middle is an armored type. It has hard scales and horns on its back, but the scales on its underside are relatively thin. The smaller types surrounding it are small, but tough, so I'll have to pierce the spot between their eyes to take them down.)

Once they defeated the large species leading the herd, the smaller dragons would scatter. But the smaller ones were in the way of targeting the large one alone.

"First, I'll scatter them."

When Monica murmured this, Isaac immediately understood what she meant and called out to the sailors.

"It's going to rock! Everyone, hold on!"

As he shouted, Isaac braced himself against the mast and prepared for the ship to pitch.

Monica closed her eyes, checked the detection results, and took aim at the herd of dragons.

She wove fire magic without chanting.

If you fired fire magic directly underwater, it would be almost completely neutralized unless it was exceptionally powerful.

So Monica wrapped the flames in a very thin barrier and fired them at the herd of water dragons.

It was, in effect, a mass of flames enclosed in a bubble. The bubble containing the fire burst as soon as it hit the head of the herd, scattering both the flames and the shock wave.

A loud boom rang out as if a cannon had gone off. Waves surged, and the ship rocked.

The smaller dragons scattered and fled in every direction. Some of them charged straight at the ship, so Monica covered the hull with a defensive barrier. A small dragon's charge could sometimes punch a hole in a ship's hull.

Maintaining the defensive barrier, Monica cast ice magic underwater. She pierced the spots between the eyes of the smaller dragons that approached the ship with ice spears.

She couldn't hit every shot, since underwater was a different matter, but she still pierced the spots between the eyes of about five of them, and they sank beneath the surface.

(Correction, recalculation... complete.)

Monica recalculated the deviation caused by her first attack and launched another volley of ice spears. Several more small dragons were pierced and sank.

Compared to the flashy opening attack with fire magic, her subsequent attacks were quiet. Monica defended the ship while calmly shooting down the smaller water dragons.

In that moment, Isaac was probably the only one who understood what Monica was doing, since he was the only one sharing the detection spell with her.

As he watched the points of light in the detection range dwindle, Isaac let out an admiring sigh.

"...Amazing."

Monica was so focused that she didn't hear her disciple's murmur. She continued firing at the dragons in silence.

As the number of smaller dragons dwindled, the large armored dragon changed its movements—it turned its tail toward the ship. It was trying to flee.

Monica opened her eyes and looked at her disciple.

"I'm glad... you're here, Aike."

"...Hm?"

"I can do more than usual, thanks to you."

Monica closed her eyes again to check the detection spell. At the same time, she released the defensive barrier protecting the ship.

Now Monica could use two spells at once.

The decorations on Monica's staff jingled lightly. She wove a flame spear strengthened by a multi-layered enhancement spell, wrapped it in a thin barrier, and created it directly beneath the large water dragon.

The armored dragon's back was protected by hard plates, but its underside was vulnerable. And the smaller dragons that had protected its belly until just moments ago were gone.

The flame spear shot upward, pierced the large dragon's belly, and continued rising until it reached the surface.

The enormous body that rose to the surface amid scattering flames was covered in jagged, rocklike scales and spines.

The sailors stirred at the sight of its massive body, but Monica remained calm.

In chess, it was checkmate—the water dragon was done for the moment it surfaced.

"Open, gate."

Monica murmured softly. At the same moment, a gate opened in the sky.

The gate was made of white particles of light. From within it, a glittering wind swirled into the shape of a spear.

"Come forth from the edge of silence, Sheffield, King of Wind Spirits."

The wind spear, the manifestation of a fraction of the Spirit King's power, held a might beyond comparison with ordinary magic.

Scattering particles of light, the shining white spear pierced the large water dragon between the eyes.

"We got it! The 〈Silent Witch〉 took down the water dragon!"

The sailors cheered.

Isaac gazed at Monica, unable to hide the joy spreading across his face.

"Just as I thought, my master is the most amazing."

"...Not yet."

"Hm?"

"Please expand the detection range. I think another one is approaching."

Those few words were all it took for Isaac to immediately understand what Monica meant. He really was quick-witted.

"I see," he murmured, then expanded the detection spell's range.

At the very edge of the detection range, he saw a large point of light. It was approaching at tremendous speed.

Isaac warned the sailors.

"It's not over yet! Another one is coming!"

The armored dragon they'd just defeated had led the herd to make itself look larger and intimidate its enemies—in other words, there was a water dragon nearby that was bigger than this large one.

As Monica had predicted, the dragon was approaching at tremendous speed. They could tell what kind of water dragon the second one was without even increasing the detection spell's precision. It lifted its head above the surface and threatened the ship.

A sailor looking through a telescope let out an almost scream-like cry.

"It's a long-necked species! And an extra-large one!"

Long-necked species were extremely aggressive. It was said that they sometimes relentlessly attacked anything larger than themselves.

To sailors, the aggressive long-necked species were an obvious, visible threat.

Isaac called out to Monica.

"...So they say, my master."

In lieu of a reply, Monica looked up at the sky. The gate for summoning the Spirit King was still there above them.

A water dragon with its face above the surface was nothing but a target to Monica.

"This will finish it."

Monica raised her staff.

A clear chime rang out, and the shining spear pierced the second large water dragon between the eyes.

＊　＊　＊

The water dragon hunt, which began early in the morning, ended in no time, but all the various tasks afterward took a while.

They were expected to bring back as much of the slain water dragons as they could, but towing two large dragons back to shore by ship was simply too difficult.

So they decided to bring back the body of the larger long-necked species, along with some of the armored species' scales and horns.

The work of tying the long-necked species' body with ropes and removing the armored dragon's scales and horns took far longer than the battle itself.

While that was going on, seasick Monica lay in the cabin as if dead, and Isaac was busy negotiating with the captain. The main point of the negotiations was to keep quiet about the 〈Silent Witch〉 having taken part in this water dragon hunt.

If word got around that the 〈Silent Witch〉 had taken down water dragons off Southdoll, some chess-obsessed man named Roberto Winkel or that magic-combat fanatic Hubert Dee might come barging in.

By the time they returned to Southdoll Harbor, finished reporting to the Mages' Guild, and taken care of the other paperwork, it was already late afternoon.

Monica had slept as if dead aboard the ship, and even after they got back on land, she was staggering and saying, "The ground's still moving..." So Isaac carried her on his back without giving her a choice.

"I can walk on my own..."

"Your color still isn't good. Won't you let me take care of you for once?"

"Ugh... I wasn't very cool today..."

Monica, who aspired to be a cool master, looked dissatisfied, but Isaac shook his head and said, "Not at all."

The beautiful magic she had woven to silently shoot down dragons, built on an astonishingly intricate spell formula.

Isaac was overwhelmed to have seen such a miracle—the use of magic without chanting—from so close.

Wrapping fire magic in a barrier, striking the spots between water dragons' eyes underwater, summoning the Wind Spirit King... Every one of those feats was something only a handful of advanced mages could do.

And to perform all of them without chanting—what else could you call that but a miracle?

"That combined spell you used first to scatter the smaller water dragons—the one that combined fire and a barrier. Even maintaining a combined spell is difficult, but you fired it remotely with such precision... As I thought, my master is incredible..."

"Aike, Aike."

Monica gently patted the shoulder of Isaac, who had begun praising his beloved master.

Isaac turned his head to look at Monica on his back. With the most dignified expression she could manage, Monica said gravely:

"Today, I'm going to praise you, Aike, so please listen."

"...Huh?"

"First, your detection spell was perfect. And your shared spell connected us without putting any strain on the person you were sharing it with. A perfect score."

Isaac was at a loss for words, but Monica continued.

"It also helped that you kept checking in with the sailors whenever the ship rocked. I'm not good at noticing things like that at all."

"Yeah."

"And thanks to how thoroughly you'd researched water dragons, we were able to identify their species right away."

"Yeah."

"Oh, and that's right. It was really great that you kept the detection spell going after we took down the first large water dragon instead of deactivating it right away. Thanks to that, we found the second one immediately..."

Isaac, who could keep a prince-like smile on his face no matter what, felt the corners of his mouth naturally tug upward.

To keep Monica from seeing his grin, Isaac faced forward and answered, at least managing to keep his voice composed.

"If I was able to be of service to you, it's an honor, my master."

The sun sank lower, and the colors of night spread through the pale-pink evening sky.

Far away, in the deep-blue sky, white stars had already begun to twinkle.

The days had been getting longer lately. The breeze brushing their cheeks had grown thoroughly springlike.

As Isaac looked up at the spring sunset and savored their happy stroll, he turned the final corner and saw someone standing in front of Monica's house. His eyes widened in surprise.

Monica, on his back, let out a quiet, "Ah."

The visitor standing in front of Monica's house let her black hair sway in the sunset as she tilted her pale face toward them.

A beautiful face once counted among the three great beauties of Serendia Academy, with lapis-blue eyes.

"Claudia-sama."

Monica murmured from Isaac's back.

Claudia Maywood, carrying a travel bag, looked back and forth between Isaac and Monica, who was being carried on his back.

Then she wore a smile on her beautiful face that could only be described as a sly, unsettling grin, one that needlessly made people anxious.

"...You're less like master and disciple... and more like parent and child."

It was a single remark that struck right at the hearts of Monica, who worried about looking childish, and Isaac, who wanted Monica to notice him.

＊　＊　＊

The carriage heading for Southdoll carried only one passenger besides the coachman.

And yet, for some reason, four people's voices could be heard from inside.

The only human passenger, Cyril Ashley, muttered the Old Library Act with a desperately intense expression. He was paler than usual, with dark circles clearly visible beneath his eyes.

Two weasels kept hopping on and off Cyril's lap and shoulders as they chatted with him, while he looked visibly exhausted.

"Cyril, are you okay? You look awful."

"Ture, humans call a face like this 'the look of death.'"

"Is Cyril going to die?"

"Humans die if they don't sleep."

"Oh no, oh no. Cyril, let's sleep!"

The white weasel, Ture, hopped onto his shoulder and stroked his cheek with its soft, fluffy tail.

Cyril, who had been muttering the Old Library Act with a menacing look in his eyes, relaxed his expression slightly at the soft sensation against his cheek and rubbed the inner corner of his eye with his left hand.

"No, I'm fine. I've been taking naps. It's not a problem."

"Those weren't naps. You passed out."

At the golden weasel Pike's pointed remark, Cyril faltered and cleared his throat awkwardly.

"They were naps. It's not a problem... Sorry, but I need to review, so could you be quiet for a little while...?"

At Cyril's words, Ture and Pike both looked at his right hand with exactly the same gesture.

"Be quiet?"

"When there's someone this noisy?"

As Ture and Pike said, a voice continued to ring out from beneath Cyril's right hand, which was covered by a black leather glove.

The rich voice, reminiscent of a middle-aged gentleman, had been making a racket beneath Cyril's hand for days. It was the reason Cyril was so sleep-deprived.

'Where is Claudia?! Bring me Claudia!'

Cyril glared resentfully at his right hand, took a thick piece of cloth from his bag, and wrapped it around the hand several times. The voice became somewhat muffled and quieter.

Cyril held his right hand as far away from himself as he could, pressed his left hand to his temple, and began muttering the Old Library Act again.

'Come now! Come now! Hurry and take me to Claudia! Oh, wait for me, my lovely Claudia! Claudia!'

The two weasels nodded at each other, saying, "So noisy," and, "Really noisy," as they patted Cyril's right hand.