Chapter 33
A Night of Counting Stars (7)
“Drop your weapons and surrender!!”
Behind them was the carriage, whose occupant seemed to have no intention of coming out until the situation was resolved.
Before them stood countless elves, snarling with ominous weapons drawn.
Their only escape route was the vast open sky, where a fall would smash them to pieces.
“Man, what a perfect day to die.”
Eugene cracked the joke with a gloomy expression. He raised his shield and sword, settled into a stance, and abruptly shoved Yuri forward.
“Huh…?”
“Go, Yuri Frank! Top student of the Knight Faculty at Yansk University!”
“H-Huh…?”
Yuri stumbled one step forward with a bewildered look.
“Um, yes. I know I’m the vanguard, but… me alone? Seriously?”
“I came from the twenty-first century! I’ve never fought before!”
“I was an illustrator!!”
“You’re in the Knight Faculty!”
“You’re holding a weapon too!”
“This is for self-defense!”
As the two began bickering loudly, the elves surrounding them stared in confusion.
From what they could hear, these people seemed to be students. How had they gotten up here? And why?
They had launched a surprise attack while armed, yet now they were pushing each other forward and demanding that the other one fight…?
“What should we do with them?”
“Looks like some human nobles came out to fool around. Go easy on them. Don’t kill them.”
University students were nobles by default. After all, only nobles could afford the murderous tuition fees.
Capturing them alive would therefore give the elves leverage to negotiate more favorable terms with the Krasilov monarchy.
When the boatswain spoke with a sigh, the crew raised their weapons with reluctant expressions.
Fortunately, their opponents were young humans who appeared to possess neither the will nor the experience to fight.
Behind the two armed intruders, a tall man with his hood pulled over his head let out a deep sigh and raised one hand.
“Idiots. How is a party supposed to function with one frontliner and two backliners? Have neither of you ever played a game?”
Oswald waved his hand, weaving together a spell. Purple mana writhed around his fingers, forming strange geometric patterns according to his gestures.
[Bestow Valor].
It was only a low-grade spell, but experience had taught him something.
That fellow Eugene possessed no immunity to mental magic.
Perhaps that was only natural. There was no way transmigrators who had only just crossed over from the twenty-first century could resist mental magic that had to be overcome through sheer willpower.
Kiiiiing—!
“Ugh!”
The moment the spell took effect, Eugene’s head dropped.
“W-What did you do?”
“I gave him a little courage. I’ll support you, so buy us some time at the front. Until Mr. Ivan arrives.”
“O-Okay. Um, Mr. Eugene?”
Eugene remained with his head bowed, muttering something beneath his breath.
“Hello? Are you all right?”
“It is Yevgeny.”
“…What?”
“My name is Yevgeny Novikov Karamzin.”
Still gripping his sword, Eugene made a small sign of the cross, pressed his lips to the blade, and whispered.
“May the Lord watch over our battle today.”
“Um, Mr. Oswald? I think you cast the wrong spell.”
“That can’t be. It was definitely [Bestow Valor]… wasn’t it?”
Ignoring the flustered transmigrators’ conversation, Eugene calmly opened his eyes.
A resolute will burned within his blue gaze as he raised his sword high.
“Praise the glory of the Lord. He who restores virtue through justice and brings peace to this land.”
“Uh… well…”
“Did some kind of conflict occur because courage was injected into a build mixing the priest and swordsman classes?”
“That’s… very impressive. Extremely impressive. Please don’t cast that on me. I’ll manage on my own.”
Had the spell burned away his self-awareness?
Yuri trembled in terror.
Suppose someone lost themselves after transmigrating into a game setting and became completely immersed in role-playing.
If so, what form would her personality take if she became immersed in role-playing inside an academy erotic game centered on humiliation?
She would rather pick up a sword and fight.
Fortunately, Yuri possessed exceptional talent in swordsmanship. She was, after all, the top student of the Knight Faculty.
“Heretics!! Hear the holy word of our Lord God! Worship Him! Praise Him!!”
Eugene roared and charged forward, immediately swinging his sword.
KWAANG!
With a thunderous explosion, pure white light ignited along his blade and erupted outward.
“[Holy Smite]…!”
“That idiot. He should’ve learned a healing skill instead.”
Yuri and Oswald grumbled as they followed the charging Eugene.
The three transmigrators successfully created a disturbance on the deck.
Everything was proceeding according to Ivan’s plan.
Walking through the dark interior passageway beneath flashing warning lights, Ivan listened in silence.
Wee-oo, wee-oo.
Through the blaring sirens, he mapped out every tiny sound he could hear.
Repeated noises reverberating through a confined interior space could serve as indicators for echolocation, provided one could distinguish their points of origin.
His hearing was not as sharp as an elf’s, but the ears of a sufficiently trained operative could identify objects by measuring the delay between sound waves striking surfaces and returning as echoes.
Using that method, Ivan sensed two people standing beyond the corner before he even turned into the corridor.
BANG!
He fired almost simultaneously with stepping into view.
Though startled, his opponent hurriedly twisted aside and slipped out of the line of fire.
So he can sense trajectories.
Ivan nodded and drew his axe.
“Who are you?!”
That was the wrong question.
It revealed the state of their training.
Once attacked, the first principle was to neutralize the enemy before asking questions.
Moreover, asking the identity of someone who had already displayed clear hostility was simply foolish.
So instead of answering, Ivan launched himself forward.
The inexperienced elven crewman would have to pay the price for asking the wrong question.
WHOOSH—
KWAANG!
The axe spun through the air and smashed into the elf’s neck.
The blow followed a clean, precise arc.
The elf let out a strangled gasp and crashed into the wall.
At the same time, Ivan raised his pistol and aimed at the second elf, who was rushing toward him.
He fired without even taking proper aim.
BANG!!
“You bastard!!”
Naturally, the elf dodged.
He possessed trajectory detection.
But Ivan had only needed the brief instant in which the elf twisted his body out of the firing line.
By the time the elf turned back, Ivan’s axe was already swinging up beneath his jaw.
KWAANG!!
The elf collapsed with his jaw wrenched sideways, unable even to groan.
Ivan had struck him with the back of the axe rather than its blade, making it more like a blow from a short club.
In any case, it did not matter so long as the man survived.
Ivan nudged the elf with the shattered jaw aside with his foot and continued walking.
WEEEEEE-OOO!
WEEEEEE-OOO!!
The sirens thundered through the corridor.
Amid the deafening passageway, where red warning lights spun and flashed, Ivan walked forward with his eyes closed.
Wee-oo, wee-oo.
He calculated the time delays of the sound waves scattering and reflecting through every corner of the corridor.
***
On the Calion Archipelago’s Wolfstahl-class aerial battleship, the Glory of Boyle, Captain Onest sat in his cabin with a deep frown.
The final report he had received had clearly stated:
“Unidentified students have launched a surprise assault. We are attempting to subdue them.”
The attack had occurred just as he was preparing a secret agreement with Crown Prince Aleksandr’s envoy, so his nerves had naturally become somewhat strained.
But only somewhat.
It had been their own mistake to anchor the ship above a university in the first place.
Hot-blooded youths of that age might have a few drinks, use some levitation magic, and attempt an infiltration on a dare.
At that age, wanting to prove one’s courage and nerve was perfectly normal.
But still.
“Why haven’t there been any further reports?”
He had heard there were only three young students.
Every student at Yansk University was either a noble or at least the child of an influential middle-class family, so he had ordered them captured alive.
No matter how arrogant elves might be, they could not simply kill foreign students within another nation’s territory.
Even so, there were only three of them.
No matter how deeply they had studied, there were limits to what students could achieve.
However daring they might be for their age, they were still only at the “student level.”
Therefore, whether the crew had captured them or whether they had somehow escaped below deck, there should have been an additional report by now.
Ten minutes had passed since the attack.
“Is nobody out there? Guard! Go check the situation on deck!”
He shouted irritably.
He could not head to the deck himself.
Crown Prince Aleksandr’s envoy should already have arrived there.
It would damage his dignity for the captain to personally go out and greet them, and if he appeared weak before negotiations over a secret agreement between nations, it would all be over.
“Is no one there? What the hell is everyone doing?! And turn off that damned siren! How am I supposed to think with all that noise?!”
At last, Onest rose from his seat.
With an impatient stride, he crossed the captain’s cabin and flung open the bulkhead door.
WEEEE-OOO!
WEEEEEE-OOO!
The sirens screamed through the corridor.
Yet not a single light could be seen.
For an instant, he wondered whether they had malfunctioned.
Then he shook his head.
There was no possibility of a malfunction.
This was an attack.
“Tch!”
His face contorted as he quickly hid behind the door.
Drawing the ceremonial sword displayed on the wall, he took several deep breaths.
“Did Elizaveta send you?!”
“……”
“Damn it, I know you’re there, so answer me! A student assault? Don’t make me laugh. You even used students for a diversionary tactic?!”
He had no idea what was happening in the standoff on the deck, but at the very least, it could not have ended yet.
No matter how powerful the attackers were, three people could not slaughter an entire crew in ten minutes.
Therefore, he only had to hold out.
Once Crown Prince Aleksandr understood the situation, he might consider deploying military forces.
At this point, neither Onest nor Aleksandr wanted Elizaveta to uncover their secret.
Then a voice sounded.
“The Minister of the Royal Household should have made it perfectly clear.”
“What…?”
Onest turned toward the low voice coming from the end of the corridor.
The speaker was likely standing at the far end of the compartment passage outside the captain’s cabin.
At that distance, even a company-scale destruction spell could be cast without the damage reaching the cabin itself.
Onest nodded and interlocked his fingers.
Bright blue mana flared and gathered around his fingertips.
Then—
BWOOOOOOONG—!!
Something tore through the air with a deafening roar.
KWAAAAAANG!!
An object shot through the ruined doorway and smashed down onto the round table inside the captain’s cabin.
A spell?
Destruction magic?
Onest spun around, preparing to cast a defensive spell in case it was an explosive attack.
“…An axe…?”
An axe with a rope attached to it was embedded in the table, having shattered nearly half of it.
Onest muttered blankly.
“So when they called him a lumberjack… they meant it literally?”
It had apparently been a perfectly straightforward description, without even the slightest hint of malicious metaphor.
Onest laughed hollowly.
Twang.
The rope attached to the axe suddenly went taut.
CRACK!
The axe tore free along the rope’s path, then spun from the recoil and slammed into Onest’s leg.
“Ghk!”
Fortunately, he was struck by the blunt back rather than the blade.
His ankle twisted as he rolled across the floor, escaping the axe’s range.
The weapon vanished into the darkness at the far end of the corridor as though swallowed whole.
Using his sword as a cane, Onest shakily pushed himself upright.
Then came the sound of footsteps from within the darkness.
Step.
Step.
A cold blue gleam flickered between the shadows.
Then a thick, unkempt beard came into view.
An arm with veins bulging like snakes.
An axe blade gripped tightly in that hand.
And a pistol aimed directly at him.
“Let us negotiate.”
“That wasn’t the order I received.”
BANG!
A muzzle flash burst from the pistol in the darkened corridor.