Chapter. 20. Off-Road (6)
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“Orunite?”
“okay. Even so, he is quite famous in the lower Teldrat region? Pathfinder Wandering Knight Restless… Well, this is done. Anyway, have you never heard of it?”
“This is my first time hearing this. “Then show it to the Aurors.”
“So, it’s something like the famous ‘Aurunite who can’t use Aurors’…”
“Then at least pull out your sword! “I heard the driver uses a knife!”
“Ah, this sword’s durability goes down when you pull it out, so that’s a bit…”
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“Hmm.”
“Kuhmm!”
Shit. Even though I said it, it’s strange.
After the funeral I unexpectedly attended, everyone gathered together, so it was a natural opportunity to introduce myself…
“….Can you call it an Auror Knight if there are no Aurors?”
“Geuuu. A salvage ship that does not salvage. A fishing boat that doesn’t catch fish.”
“Captain, that guy looks suspicious?”
No matter how much I showed Oranite-like quickness, strength, and visual acuity, no one seemed to believe me.
“It’s not like he’s a fit priest or something? “What did he say?”
“Gwok. It’s a monk. There are many priests who beat up the people of Gwangmyeong Church. tradition.”
“Yes, that! They say that as your divine power increases, your body expands! “That’s it!”
“If you’re a monk, I understand. It is said that most ascetic priests who wander the world doing asceticism hide their identities to avoid receiving benefits as religious people. Even in this abyss-like sea, if it is a salvage ship that only gathers at the bottom, the crazy prayers who enjoy their suffering will volunteer to break the law. “Oh my God, mother tree, withered!”
Rather, he was so overwhelmed by the proper rituals and formal funeral events held at the salvage ship office at the bottom of the bottom that he decided that I was from there.
oh my god. It was a sight where an elf and a beastman with sideburns who looked like a troll human were putting their heads together and questioning my identity. Feel dizzy.
“No, I didn’t learn anything in particular, I just know a little bit because I came from a temple orphanage! “If you live in a temple for a few years, you learn what the priest does by looking over his shoulder, and you even get to play with ritual tools instead of toys!”
“Oh, I’m from an orphanage too. Southern Bountiful Church Orphanage. I was in an orphanage until I was ten, but I don’t remember any of those complicated rituals. “I clearly remember all the farming methods taught in the church.”
“So, since I was young, I was smart and had a good memory, so the priest taught me various things to raise me to be a temple priest… Ugh! Why do I have to make excuses for this! No! I am neither a priest nor a monk! Roharam bastard! Roharam you idiot! ruler! how is it!”
A secret weapon. As someone who came from a temple orphanage, I was slightly afraid of heavenly punishment and even boldly committed blasphemy, but-
“Wow….”
“The higher the position in the Gwangmyeong Church, the more informally they treat Roharam, right?”
“I heard that 200 years ago, the legendary saint always called Roharam this bastard and that bastard? “It is an affair that is recorded in the battle.”
hey.
“He must be a very high-ranking person.”
“Just looking at the fact that they pay a hefty price for the ferry service, it’s not normal.”
“Eh um Rahura…. Loharam? Is this right?”
“Gwok. Traditionally, it is Latura. Among the three Gwangmyeong churches, the Sun Church, the Lighthouse Church, the Ratura Church, and the Saint Church use the prayers of Natura. If you are confused about this, you can give it to a priest and get beaten. “Priest, what tribe of Gwangmyeong Church are you from?”
“No, first of all, she is from the Lighthouse Church orphanage…”
“Then Latura is right. It’s so nice to meet you. This is Eggwill, a salvageer. The race is as you see it. troll.”
“So… I don’t know. Hyde, who thinks whatever he wants. “It’s been a while since I’ve been a troll.”
It seems that the people here have already firmly recognized me as a ‘Gwangmyeong Church monk who hid his identity for asceticism.’ Even if I made excuses, they wouldn’t listen, so I decided to just leave them to think on their own. It’s not that there’s a particularly negative perception attached to it, and once you spend some time with it, you’ll realize that you’re not a priest.
“Then the rest…”
“I don’t know.”
“What are you trying to get to know each other? “Just get on the boat and do your own thing.”
Starting with the troll Eggwill, everyone started to disperse as if something had gone wrong.
“…What did I do wrong?”
“Oh, that can’t be true. Roughly speaking, if something shit happens on a salvage ship, you can mostly blame it on someone else, right? These guys have lived such crazy lives that their social skills are amazing. “I am Grimlock, the captain of this ship and the caretaker of those bastards.”
“Uh um. “Nice to meet you.”
“Call me Rock. When you scream on the boat, you can hear it better there. Oh, you’re not secretly putting a curse on me at night just because I said something, right? “If you wanted to be treated like that by a pretty girl, let me introduce you to a better place across the street.”
“That’s not a priest, that’s a warlock. “I’m not even a priest to begin with.”
“Whahaha! Well, let’s say that. There is no one, even a guy on a salvage ship, who is easy enough to tell his story. Anyway, don’t look too hard on those guys. Sailors tend to have different habits than people on land, right? When praying, you pray not to the five great good gods, but to creatures of the sea that you have never heard of, or that when praying for someone who drowned, you have to write a book soaked in sea water so that he can read it, or that you won’t tell a newcomer his name even if you beat him to death. “There are some stupid things.”
no wonder. The fighting was very wet.
“Is that some sort of superstition?”
“It might be a bit unpleasant for the priest, but what can all sailors do?”
Rock chuckled and tapped his head with his fingers.
“If you tell me your name, don’t you think your brain will remember it? Most new recruits get lost on their first voyage, and then the head with their name on it sinks in the water. Isn’t it very inconvenient for sailors to say that my name is sinking in the sea? “If it accumulates, the sunken names will always drag the body to the bottom of the sea, so you shouldn’t teach names or things like that to a bastard. It’s because of that superstition that a foolish custom arose.”
“Ah, is that why you were so confused when talking about names?”
“If you’re a priest, aren’t you closer to all sorts of mystical things than people like us? So you go further. “If the corpse in the water sparkles with divine power, it will be more visible to the sea beings, so the name in its head will get closer to the sea, or something like that.”
The captain, who introduced himself as Rock, grinned while revealing his yellow teeth.
He’s a big guy, but he’s somewhat thin. Dirty bandana on sideburns. Even the rough skin that anyone can see at a glance that it has been done at sea.
The captain, who looked as if he had taken the expression ‘he had thick bones’, led me to what appeared to be his room inside the office.
Rattle, rattle!
“Holy crap!”
bang!
Whoosh!
Just like when opening a front door, the door opens only after kicking it out with your foot. The captain, who had cleared the way by pushing the overturned boxes and their contents with his foot, pushed one of the overturned boxes towards me with a embarrassed expression.
“sit down. “It’s a little dirty, though.”
“Is that salvage?”
“If the crumbled rusty decorative metal pieces didn’t have a name like that, wouldn’t there be a need to collect them like this? Oh, that doesn’t mean you should just treat it like a precious item. The investigation has already been completed. “I collect junk that doesn’t sell as a hobby.”
“It’s junk.”
Well done.
I picked up one of the items that spilled out when the door was kicked down.
Judging by its size and remaining form, it is a lump of metal that is presumed to have been a pot. It certainly looks like scrap metal with no particular value in this state… but there is one peculiar thing.
“…Something that isn’t even a magic stone has mana, right?”
“Hehehe. Isn’t it amazing? Most of Big Blue’s salvaged items contain minor magical powers. It’s a sea where mana flows like crazy. Of course, as a result of the research done by the ink-diggers, it turned out to be useless. “The mana required to extract the mana contained there is greater than the mana that will be obtained by extracting it or something.”
“It’s just a sea with so much mana that mana can be imbued in things.”
Even if it is a large magic cannon that can consume several high-grade magic stones per day, there is no way that magic will be stored in the gun barrel itself just because it is exposed to magic. What on earth happened to that sea?
“Wizards aren’t coming? A wizard with high magical power or a water-type wizard who is fascinated by water.”
“I came. “I used to come here quite often, and I even took a ride on a salvage ship with a salty wizard just to save money.”
“result?”
“It was the worst. The old man, who had been blushing like a boy with his face buried in his first love’s underwear until before he left, blushed as soon as he got out onto the sea and said, ‘This is not the sea I knew!’ You cried like a little girl while doing it? Regardless of whether that person was a dick or not, I gave him a boat ride for as much money as I got. The magician, who was foaming at the mouth and going crazy, burst into tears as soon as he got off the boat, saying that he could no longer use magic. The territory he belongs to is saying that he should get compensation from us. It was truly a nightmare. Ugh, wizards.”
“Water that even a water magician can’t withstand. I think it was because the wizard was a beast. Doesn’t it make sense in common sense? “A water wizard can’t stand water.”
“Because it was second-tier, you can’t just call it a wild beast. Anyway, at that time, I got caught up in a trial because of that wizard, and I picked up a lot of things. Is it because unrefined archmage level mana flows like an ocean current? “They say that just because we can use a campfire, it’s the same as saying we can’t be comfortable in the middle of a burning house.”
“Oh my.”
Since then, Captain Rock has continued to tell stories about the waters of the Deep Blue Line. Even though he has lived in the sea so rough that the engine drivers who pride themselves on being rough cannot even show their business cards, and have seen many water magicians become ruined over the past decades, the magic wizard who often visits the water magician entered the port to extract the magic of the sea. A story about an engineering facility being destroyed by a single wave, or a story about how vicious fish caught in a typhoon rained down from the sky and almost devastated the entire city…
“Oh my. Isn’t my story a bit vague? You can sit down and doze off. You know it’s a boring story. “It’s hard for a sailor to live if he doesn’t have the fun of telling sagas.”
“No, it’s so interesting that I woke up from my sleep.”
“You’re a priest who’s easy to talk about. Uh… what were you trying to say?”
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“Oh, that. Anyway, we will go sailing together and dive together at least once, so I have to tell you this.”
….clunk!
Rumble!
“Oh my. Let’s see… did you leave it here?”
Rumble!
Sigh!
“It’s not even here… Oh, I left it here!”
After rummaging through a pile of rusty junk for a while, I pulled out something that looked like a dirty trinket box! And the captain pulls it out.
Quarrrrrrr!
“Wow, it’s going to take another year to clean this up.”
After finally destroying the precariously piled pile of salvaged goods, he opened a small box and showed me what was inside. At first glance, it looks like a piece of dried paper.
“…It seems like a fairly old item, doesn’t it? “The ink… seems like something that had been soaked in water was restored and re-written.”
“oh! “You seem quite knowledgeable, huh?”
“It’s a pass finder. “Having been involved in the exploration of ruins of old empires and past continents a few times, I know something about it.”
“You were a more useful priest than I thought. Then, will you find out about this too?”
“Not a priest…?!”
The moment I was about to tell Rock about my identity once again, the lower part of the paper that was hidden by his fingers was revealed and I was cut off.
“The Demon Empire emblem?”
“It’s an official record. Can you recognize what it says?”
“The vocabulary is a little different now… “It looks like an order?”
That format, where the sentences are broken like blocks, although they have been erased here and there by getting wet, is a format often seen in orders from the Magic Empire, especially military documents. If it were an official order from the Magic Empire, the torn piece alone would have significant historical value, worth around 300,000 shillings.
And the content is-
“….Airship No. 1. Entering the operational area without a separate departure order… No shooting down… Must be recovered?”
“It’s a meaningful record. Now, take a look at this next time!”
The captain seemed to be in a hurry and handed me a new record as soon as I finished reading it.
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“….So I have to stop that disturbing invention. “Magic engineering was not an invention for that purpose, but it is called free magic engineering… Why did Kyle take that path?”
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“…Did Master foresee that something like this would happen? Is that why he entrusted me with the ignition key to his eponymous invention?”
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“I can not know. “Now we have all crossed the river of no return.”
“I hope I can arrive before the cursed A-Tomb reaches the dragon vein.”
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“This….”
“It’s more precious than what I showed you before. This is the diary of Berhan, who chose Practical Magic Engineering among the two students of the great magic engineer Roman Gachia Menson, Kyle and Berhan. “It’s a copy, though.”
Even if it is a copy, it must be an incredibly valuable item, as there is no way noble collectors would just give away such a historical record.
“This content can’t be right….”
“Hehehehe. Do you understand? “What does this mean?”
In response to the captain’s question, I carefully looked at the two records.
The information contained within is so valuable that the historical value of the record itself is not noticeable.
‘Aircraft is the essence of magic engineering. Most airships were produced and managed by the Magic Empire Teldrat, and were responsible for Teldrat’s most important offensive during the two great imperial wars.’
‘In the record, [Aircraft No. 1] took flight without any orders, but an order was given not to shoot down a strategic weapon that was highly likely to have been captured by the enemy, but to make sure to recover it. This means that [Airship No. 1] itself is precious or that the person who drove it is a precious person who should never die.’
‘Roman Gachia Menson’s disciple Kyle is the head of Free Magic Engineering, who created magic engineering weapons and ultimately brought about the terrible disaster of Dragon Vein Twisting. Another disciple, Berhan, seems to have used something left behind by his teacher Menson to prevent it.’
Grand magic engineer. An invention with the same name as Roman Gachia Menson.
The name of the airship ‘No. 1’.
Even in a war where the fate of the empire is at stake, it is a precious item that cannot be treated carelessly, and even the ignition key was entrusted to Menson’s best disciple.
“A-tum. The idiotic act of the century that caused the damn dragon vein explosion. In order to prevent this, the Western Empire poured in a huge number of troops to operate it, and taking advantage of the chaos… Menson’s best disciple, Berhan, drove a huge amount of goods stored in the capital of the Magic Empire to the Blue Line. I headed. And-”
Pow.
“I was swept away by the exploding dragon vein. A monster of the Magic Empire that will never fall until it is completely destroyed, an insane magic engineering device invented and evaluated beyond an era. The first airship ‘No. 1’.”
“….Roman Gachia Menson made it himself and the saint himself cut his body and brought it to life?”
“Yeah, that one. The monster is said to have begun to display even more terrifying abilities after the saint’s death. Records show it was clearly headed to the blue line. And then disappeared without a trace.”
Rock, the captain of the salvage ship, said, spreading his arms wide toward his salvaged objects.
“Airship No. 1! There are countless records of that monster’s absolute defense power! Hit the 6th rank large-scale magic with a player and destroy it! Even the Aura of the Aurunite is not easily defeated! Above all, the immortal airship returned to the Magic Empire even after being struck by the emperor’s sword, which was said to split the sky! Traces of airships and all kinds of magical weapons caught in the Dragonvein explosion can be found throughout Deep Blue, but traces of ‘No. 1’ have never been found in the past 15 years of diving! Not once! Not a broken mast or a single piece of the figurehead was found! “It’s clear that Berhan drove it and arrived here!”
“That means…”
“It’s not broken. At least, this means that unlike other airships that were shattered to pieces and their fragments were found on continents across the sea, it sank while maintaining its original form to some extent.”
“Somewhere deep in the Deep Blue Line, where that airship last headed!”
Sigh-
Rock leaned over the table and faced me.
“I’m looking for that. Roman Gachia Menson’s masterpiece, clearly one of the most precious treasures of the past and present. Airship No. 1!”
The eyes of a madman burning with greed, a dream, and the lingering regret of the years lost to that dream.
“…well, the only thing I’ve picked up over the past 15 years is the trash here and old things that weirdos collect.”
“Even though you say that, I guess you haven’t given up?”
“You can’t give up on cancer. “Never give up until someone finds the remains of the smashed ‘No. 1.’”
“Anyway, that’s the goal of our salvage crew. “You said you came to dig up ‘dragon vein fragments,’ right?”
“uh.”
“Good. “We’ll both have to dive pretty deep, so there’s no need to fight about the depth of the dive.”
Rock returned with his original grumpy voice as if he had been so excited, and made a path by pushing the piled up salvage with his feet, just as he had when he came in.
“This is roughly how it ended up, so let’s do our best from now on. “Priest.”
“…Yes, Captain.”
“We’re leaving tomorrow, so even if it’s a little difficult, be open with the kids. If you don’t do anything, even if I stop you, the others will throw you into the sea.”
“Let’s try.”
After scribbling a few letters of my name on the wooden board in front of his room, the captain went on his way as if he had taken care of everything he needed to take care of.
“It’s a memorandum of liability in case of death or disappearance… There was a reason why they didn’t say that you were welcome on board until the end.”
A ship that can only be boarded if it is notarized that if you die or disappear, it is all your responsibility.
The reason why only the wooden board seemed new in this salvage ship office, where everything was old and broken, was revealed by the row-by-piece list of deaths.
The only new items that need to be made every week here are the death liability memorandum and the list of deaths.
“It means that if you don’t want to get laid, you have until tomorrow to get used to working on a ship…”
Who should we start with?
Hyde roughly classified people based on signs of popularity felt inside and outside the office and around the gunwales, and then thought about which of them would make the most sense.
A guy who seemed willing to talk during our brief meeting.
“Of course he would be the best.”
Hyde, who first revealed his name and remembered the troll who seemed the most rational among the crew, immediately turned in the direction he thought he would be.
Departure is tomorrow.
If you want to learn a job without being treated like a rookie in less than a day, you will have to be quite busy.
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