秘密入口

\'Tsk,\' I tutted inside my head at the scene that was like a bitter medicine for me. Meanwhile, one of the veteran-esque explorers who joined us at Jello raised his finger at Al.

"I\'m the B-rank explorer Shagora. You’re quite talented to hit D-rank at such a young age, but... what the heck are you doing? So pathetic. Don\'t tell me the explorers of the Royal Capital are so weak willed?"

And here it comes. The template-ish greeting from a senior explorer. By pointing out his shortcomings, he would establish his position as the one on top. Indeed, this was how the explorer world worked… and it definitely wasn\'t because he was envious of that flirty situation, yeah.

"Urgghh— I-I apologize. I, too, think that I’m in a pathetic situation.”

Seeing Al\'s humble attitude along with his pale face, a grin crept on Shagora\'s face. He must have assumed Al to be some roguish, strong headed person when he heard the latter was a D-rank explorer despite his age.

"Hmph! If ya consider yerself to be an explorer, then at least get the grit to retort for darn sake. And what\'s with that subservient attitude? Pathetic! Ya have the talent, but... you\'d simply drown among the F-rank and E-rank explorers from Reberdin like this, fer real. Magic talent alone doesn\'t make you a capable explorer. What’s the Royal Capital? Just a simple ground for lazy bums to easily rake in achievements. So don\'t think ya be the best yet."

Oh-ho, so it\'s the typical \'my hometown’s the best\' type of pride, huh? Well, this was also a catalyst to spur on growth through rivalry, so this much was within permissible range.

\'Hmm-mm,\' I nodded to myself as Shagora built his momentum against the groggy, seasick Al to settle who was the \'boss\' of their group. In between, the magician Ruruce chimed in, covering Al.

"It appears you\'re not aware, so I want to remind you that Al-kyun is a student of that Royal Academy. Moreover, he’s a prodigy of Class A. It would be best if you don\'t lump him together with the D-rank explorers of your hometown."

Haaaa!? Did she just say A-Al-kyun!?!

As Ruruce-san recounted the details with a smug expression, like it was her own achievement, Shagora harrumphed.

"Hmph! So what? I was thinking somewhere along that line too. Otherwise, him reaching D-rank despite his age is quite impossible even if he doesn\'t have to dive into troubled waters as much in the Royal Capital. Either way, what\'s the use of armchair experts when they piss themselves at the battlefield?"

Wonderful. Maybe it was because Raberdin was just too far away from the Royal Capital where the influence of the Royal Academy was the most prominent, Shagora-san remained unperturbed even at the mention of ‘the Royal Academy’.

Looking at it from his perspective, hearing that the students of the Royal Academy were D-rank by default and C-rank at the time of graduation while he worked himself to the bone for his rank probably wasn\'t pleasant.

Frankly, even I thought that this privilege was too much. Shagora was right, what was the point of all that knowledge when you’d get cold feet in the actual quest. Experience wasn\'t something one could gain within the confines of the Academy\'s walls.

"I\'m Dongo, a C-rank explorer from the Royal Capital. I intended to be quiet, but you really have a huge mouth to come up with that last phrase. Haa, you think we from the Royal Capital would falter against some country bumpkins like you?"

Woah, what’s this, a new contender stepping in?

Heh, Dongo-san wasn\'t bad either, huh? He could have blissfully stayed out of this mess, but here he was talking back against his superior— a B-rank explorer.

Now, if only Al, who represented the Royal Capital, could be just as gallant, it would have been perfect.

"What did\'ja say?! And who\'re you even, his bodyguard? Hmph, so since he couldn\'t defend the Royal Capital\'s honor, his bodyguard stepped in, huh?... If you also call yourself one of us, an explorer, then let him stand up fer himself on his own!"

"I’m no bodyguard, nor am I related to that brat in any way! All I’m saying is that you have a big mouth to underestimate our northern branch, huh?!"

Well, well, now it has transformed into a childish squabble, huh? They were now just hurling whatever they came up with at each other, with not a shred of logic present in their argument.

Shagora-san and Dongo-san were stuck in a staredown.

"Gorrgh! Clink-Clink-Clink"

At the sideline, Al had just stood up with a determined look, but couldn\'t maintain it for even a moment before falling to his knees, and vomiting again.

......You sure have grown up, huh, Al?

For dinner, he only had easy-to-digest soup, so his vomiting was quite smooth this time. While the low viscosity must have made it harder to freeze, not a bit of it had spilled out of his hands.

It was during one of our casual discussions that I had jokingly advised him about how he could try to build up water inside his mouth and then shoot it out while freezing it. It was just a passing idea I remembered from my previous world, but seeing him now... maybe it wasn\'t as impossible as I had thought.

There was no need to say this out loud, but—

"Shit, now you’ve really made a mess! Just vomit it out into the sea if you can\'t hold it in, you mor—"

Someone from the Raberdin group shouted, and had thought of approaching Al with the intention of straightening him out, but Shagora-san stopped him via hand signal.

A confusion dyed his face, his gaze fixated on Al\'s hand.

"...............What the— no, how in the world did you do that...?"

"Fufu. So you\'re not just all bark as I had thought. Very perceptive of you to have caught on to Al-kyun\'s «Ice Beam»."

Shagora-san remained quiet with a complex expression.

"You\'re telling me that... even if your hands and legs were tied up with magic locks, you can still use emission magic......? I must say... I underestimated the Royal Academy if they\'re so eagerly training mere kids while theorizing such unsavory situations already."

"Indeed. In fact, I was just like you, uninterested in the stuff of the Royal Academy, but...... I had to change my mind after I learned all sorts of things from Al-kyun when I visited his room last night. Truly, what a passionate night it was, no, Al-kyun?"

Ruruce-san giggled and wrapped her arms around Al while saying that. Al\'s pale face turned even more paper white as he glanced at my direction.

"Wait, hold on, really. We only discussed my plans for my Ice Magic and my training regime. It\'s not at all what you think, Alle— heyyyy..."

I immediately made a hand sign to signal for full speed— but I stopped since Dan was already way ahead of me while giving me a thumbs up.

◆◆◆

Thus, following the route, the urgent transportation mission to the Yabure Barony had been successfully executed.

«Those two had subverted whatever we had thought to be absolute.»

Such was the consensus of all the witnesses on the ship as they recalled the visage of Allen and Dan with a shiver.

After leaving Jello, the two sailed straight to the port of their destination while not once taking a rest in the middle or passing the baton to the assistant sailors.

Carrying the fate of the Yuglia Kingdom on their tiny backs, \'We now leave the rest in your capable hands\' were their words when they finally made it to their destination and after giving it their all. Immediately after uttering that, the two fell on the spot, falling into deep slumber.

But, the strangest part was that while they had spent every fiber of their beings in the last spurt, their faces wore vacant expressions— it wasn’t the face of an achiever who had broken through the impossible. It was as if what happened from here on out was no longer their duty, nor did they care about it.

Their recorded navigation time had been an astonishing 143 hours and 20 minutes, roughly six days.

It was an unbelievable time no matter who you asked. Like a wildfire, the words spread across the whole continent.

The top brass of each nation had their specialists from all sorts of fields dissect the news, but their verdict remained \'It\'s absolutely impossible’.

They chalked it up to some kind of magic trickery, and investigated this matter thoroughly, but even after going through everything, they couldn\'t shake the claim that the ship from Yuglia Kingdom\'s Royal Capital had indeed made it to the Yabure Barony in a mere six days.

The existence of the \'Great Wind Spirit Sylph, one of the four great spirits’ — the incomprehensible existence that Allen Rovenne had spoken of during the Rising Star Cup — that they had dismissed as nothing but rubbish now weighed greatly on their minds.

They had more than one reason to believe it now. It was the appearance of a supernova that had clinched the right to join the Knight Order while still in his first year, something that even Leo Zatsinger couldn\'t achieve.

It was the same boy who had been thoroughly ridiculed behind his back until around a week ago, but had completely ignored it no matter what was thrown at him, remaining steadfast to his beliefs.

The name that had been carved into the history of the continent also often brought up the evaluation that Allen Rovenne once put forth in front of the king— «There would surely come a time when he, Daniel Serdos, the first generation president of the Royal Academy\'s Sail Club, would sail through the uncharted seas. A horizon that no one has ever seen before.»

It was still a short while later before the world could thoroughly swallow the full implication behind Allen Rovenne\'s prediction.

E/N - Lol. The two do realize that the more seasick they make Al, the more dog food they have to eat, right?