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Chapter 317

「You’re safe!」

After avoiding the sudden continuous water spear attacks, Rei and Set arrived back where the magic ships had gathered to resume rescuing people.

Hearing the call from the leader of the adventurers he had conversed with previously, Rei nodded in reply.

「Can I assume that the monster that attacked me just now was the one with the bounty?」

「Probably.」

「……Probably?」

Since they were here, the adventurers must also have though of collecting the bounty. However, as he rode on Set, Rei just looked confused at the man’s vague response.

However, the adventurer simply just looked around with a troubled sigh.

The impatience in his expression had already gone. It had been quite problematic when the monster with the bounty had shown up, but fortunately, it had caused the rest of the sea monsters that had been targeting the civilians and sailors in the sea to disappear.

Of course, they would appear again before long, but by then, most of the rescue ships would have arrived here.

While they remained vigilant of the surroundings, the other adventurers in the neighbouring magic ships also showed relief on their faces.

Some had started to pull women, children and the elderly into their ships while others thrown into the sea started to grab onto the boats even if they couldn’t get on board.

As he watched his fellow adventurers pull several children out of the sea and into a boat, the man continued talking with Rei.

「Yes. So far, many ships have been sunk, but no one has ever seen the monster. Or maybe someone has, but they’re holding onto that information for themselves.」

「……I heard that a mage managed to fight it off when it was about to sink a ship……was that a lie?」

「No, that did happen. That said, they didn’t directly attack the monster. They did the same as you, destroying the water spear and shooting magic into the sea. After that, the monster stopped attacking.」

「That’s a problematic monster.」

The man nodded silently at Rei’s words.

A monster that didn’t show itself but just attacked ships from a distance. Rei was able to avoid most of its attacks thanks to Set, but the attacks still had enough power to punch a hole through a ships hull, making it difficult for ordinary adventurers to deal with it.

(……It’s like a sniper.)

A deadly blow from an invisible location. That was what Rei thought of in his mind.

Rather, considering it could attack in quick succession, like the water spears that had been aimed at him just earlier, it was much more troublesome than a sniper.

「However, that problematic monster also helped us in this case. Because it showed up, the other monsters disappeared.」

「The situation feels a bit like a self created performance because it was the one who cause this situation in the first place. ……You’re Rei, right? And the Griffon is Set.」

「Yes, that’s right.」

The man nodded at Rei’s acknowledgement.

「I heard from some people who participated in the last war. I……」

Just as the man was about to continue speaking.

「Heey! We’re ready! Start the rescue!」

The large ship that Rei and Set had been shuttling between several times previously had finally arrived at the scene and requested that rescue operations commence as soon as possible.

「Well, they’re here. We’ll introduce ourselves later. Right now, let’s rescue the people in the sea first. We’ll start to help as well, so we’d like you to assist if you don’t mind. It’s reassuring to have someone who can fly in this situation.」

Saying that, the adventurer quickly pulled up a man from the sea before moving his magic ship towards the larger ships which had rope ladders leading to the deck.

The adventurers using the other magic ships also quickly moved to rescue people out of the sea and send them over ot the larger ships.

Seeing that and confirming from the sky that there were no monsters around, Rei and Set focused on rescuing the people floating further out as they carried them back to the ship deck.

That said, even though it was a short distance, it was still a struggle for Set to carry well built adult men.

Still, as expected of sailors, the ones in the sea told Rei to prioritise rescuing the women, children and elderly over themselves. Nodding in response, Rei pulled more people out of the sea and brought them over to the ship decks.

The whole rescue operation ended up taking about an hour. As expected, it took a while to rescue nearly 100 people, but in the end they finally succeeded in rescuing everyone.

Still, it hadn’t been possible to rescue everyone who had been thrown into the sea and quite a few civilians and sailors had fallen victim to monsters. Yet, there were still smiles on the faces of the rescued people.

Of course, the extent of the damage was obvious and the person or organisation that owned the ship would have suffered a great loss. But in the end, many of the civilians and sailors had still survived and that was why they smiled.

「Oh, young man! Thanks for taking care of all the trouble this time!」

The captain of the ship, who had become quite acquainted with Rei with the number of times he had carried people over, gave a loud shout towards Rei.

「No, if I could, I would have wanted to help everyone……」

「Don’t say something that unreasonable. It’s good that you managed to help the people you were able to help. And, the damage didn’t increase because you attracted its attention. Good work, good work.」

It’s attention. It was quite clear to Rei who the captain was referring to.

「Was the one creating the water spears the monster with the bounty?」

「Yes. It manipulates the sea water like you saw before and stays inside the sea even when sinking ships. It’s not clear what kind of monster it looks like. It’s an intelligent monster.」

As the captain spat out an annoyed sigh and directed a sharp glance towards the sea, a sailor came over to report that they were ready to return to port.

Hearing that, the captain gave the order to return to port.

Seeing that and judging that there shouldn’t be any further problems, Rei was about to get back onto Set when the captain called out to him again.

「Young man, young man, if you bring that Griffon into the port, you’ll alarm the people there. They probably saw that the monster flying in the sky was helping with the rescue operations, but……」

「If you say that, I can understand why.」

Rei nodded at the captain’s words.

In fact, given that he had participated in the rescue operation, he shouldn’t be considered too much of a threat. However, Rei still understood that there was a high chance of causing a disturbance if he just flew over on Set.

However, he immediately recalled the letter he had received from Marina.

「I have a letter of introduction from a guild master, so I don’t think there should be that much trouble.」

「……No, young man. You don’t want to get into trouble walking around with a Griffon. Anyhow, it would be better for you to head back on my ship. I’m sure Emoshion will be happy to welcome you. There are a lot of people who want to thank you and you didn’t do anything wrong……what will you do?」

「Even if you ask me what I’ll do. ……Well, if you say that much, I’ll be in your care.」

「Gururu~」

Hearing Rei’s words, Set gave a happy cry to say that was fine.

It would have been awkward if Set had scared ordinary people who only knew Griffons as a high ranking monster. If it were a bandit or someone hostile to Rei though, that wouldn’t be a problem.

「I see, it’s good that you understand. Well, it will take less than an hour to get to the port, so enjoy the short trip.」

Nodding at the captains words, Set lay down on the large deck.

With a smile on his face as he watched Set, Rei leaned against him as he watched the captain return to his job. While all this was happening, Rei noticed several children looking over at him……or more accurately, looking at Set.

At first, Rei thought that they were scared of the Griffon, but there was no fear in the eyes of the five children that were looking at Set. Instead they shone with curiosity.

「Guru~?」

Set also noticed their eyes looking at him. Opening his eyes, which had been closed as he lay down, he turned his head towards the children.

「Uwa-! It looked over here!」

「You don’t have to be scared. They helped us.」

「That’s right. Wasn’t Tet the one who said he would go say thank you?」

「Uuu, but I’m a little scared……」

「Really? From what I can see, it looks cute. Look, what is it doing? Is it tilting it’s head?」

To the children, they might have been whispering among themselves, but unfortunately for them, Rei’s ears were able to hear it all clearly.

(As expected of kids……no, weren’t the kids in Gilm also the first ones to not be scared of Set?)

As Rei thought of that and enjoyed the smooth feeling from stroking Set’s back, the five children eventually approach him and Set before calling out.

「Um……excuse me.」

「Yes? What’s wrong?」

As Rei continued stroking Set and looked at them, the five children bowed in unison as if they had practised the timing.

『Thank you for helping us!』

「……Ah, right, don’t worry about it. I didn’t do it just to help you.」

Rei hadn’t thought that their thanks would be so straight forward, so he replied in a slightly embarrassed manner.

「But, it’s true that you saved us, right?」

「Hey, hey, nii-chan. That aside, can I touch the Griffon?」

「Hey, you. You’re already touching it. Don’t do anything that will make it angry!」

The children all acted on their own, some speaking to Rei while others reached for Set. Some tried to stop the others, but everyone was basically doing what they wanted.

「Gurururu~」

As Set, who quite liked children, gave a playful cry, the other adults nearby also started to pay attention to Set.

Most of them had been rescued after losing all the luggage, so they had to worry about things like food and accommodation after returning to port. In that sense, it might have been a way for them to escape from reality.

After about an hour like that, when the ship finally arrived back at the port, Rei could see the concern shown by the residents of Emoshion as they gathered in the area around the port.

Of course, the people there were able to see Set as the ship approached and the noise soon spread.

Likely noticing the events in the port as he directed his subordinates, the captain approached Rei again as he called out.

「Ahh, young man. I’m sorry, but do you mind staying on the ship a bit longer after we get to port? I’ll talk to a few people I know to see if I can get you into the city.」

Even the captain knew about Griffons, so he proposed that in order to prevent the possibility of one running rampant in the streets.

「……Well, I definitely don’t want to get dragged into anything troublesome, so I’ll leave it to you.」

Because of that, Rei nodded at the captain before taking Marina’s letter of introduction out from the Misty Ring and passing it to him.

Rei had thought for a moment that revealing the Misty Ring to the public might cause some trouble, but in the first place, he had been seen using the Death Scythe and several spears during the rescue operation. Since it had been seen then, it was probably meaningless to hide it here.

However, the only thing Rei hadn’t considered at this time was that there were a lot more rescued people on the deck of the ship than he had rescued himself during the rescue operation.

As for the crew, they were busy preparing to dock the ship. The rescued people didn’t help the crew but silently looked towards the city of Emoshion instead……or to be more precise, they looked towards the port.

But, for the few people that had seen Rei take out the letter from nowhere, they probably didn’t think it was an item box but a magic item like a pouch that used spatial magic to expand its internal capacity, which was well known for being very expensive. Many of those that had been rescued had also lost most of their property when the ship they were on had been sunk. What if those two factors were combined?

The answer was that gazes muddied with greed started to be directed towards Rei.

Despite feeling quite a few of those gazes, Rei didn’t care as he looked at the captain who received his referral letter.

In the first place, considering the existance of Set, it wasn’t rare for people to look at him with greed.

「This is?」

「This is the letter of introduction I received from the guild master in Gilm. I think this should reduce the hassle somewhat.」

「I see, thank you. Then I’ll give this letter to the person in charge right away, so please just wait on the deck a bit longer.」

Nodding at the captain’s words, Rei waiting for the ship to dock at the port.