Chapter 116: Chapter 116

Even though they dealt with it quickly, it was impossible to keep the subjugation of the Sea Serpent completely secret.

Just one hour. The lord, who came to find the party surprisingly quickly for someone of high status, showed a behavior that could be described as dignified at best, or meddlesome at worst.

“Are you the travelers who subjugated the Sea Serpent? You’ve done a very dangerous thing. It’s been a long time since I issued an edict not to provoke the Sea Serpent carelessly. It’s fortunate that you somehow succeeded in subjugating it, but if you had failed, wouldn’t the excited creature have brought greater danger to this city?”

Up to this point, the party nodded obediently.

It was true that they had ignored various procedures due to their urgent schedule, and the danger the lord mentioned wasn’t entirely unreasonable.

However, they couldn’t help but make strange expressions at what followed.

“The guard naturally said they should arrest you for disobeying orders, but I thought we couldn’t simply punish those who subjugated an evil magic beast, even if their method was wrong, so I came out here personally. We’ll offset the punishment for disobeying orders with a reward, and the city will recover the Sea Serpent’s body to use in repairing the damage it caused.”

While the justification sounded plausible, the conclusion was that he would simply gobble up the Sea Serpent’s body for himself.

After all, how to repair the damage caused by the Sea Serpent was entirely at the lord’s discretion.

At this point, it didn’t matter much that the party’s combat power was stronger than what the lord could mobilize.

This was because what the lord was asserting was social authority.

It was similar to how a skilled fighter experienced in dealing with people couldn’t freely beat up a politician or a CEO just because they were physically stronger.

Moreover, in a society where the class system still openly existed, it was even more severe.

It was a tactic that might work on ordinary, or “normal” people who harbored vague fear and obedience towards those of high status, leaving them flustered and taken advantage of, but of course, the party was far from normal.

Dorothea expressed her feelings with a simple statement, “I don’t like that.”

The lord’s face contorted amusingly, and the faces of the soldiers gathered behind the lord also turned bewildered.

Just as the lord was about to shout something in excitement, Franka, who had been briefly absent on personal business, returned.

She glanced at the confrontation between the party and the lord, then narrowed her eyes, “Baron Monty, do you have some business?”

The lord turned his head towards Franka with a “what’s this now” expression, but soon his eyes began to tremble, “Ahem, Lady Aglaia, when did you arrive in our domain? If you had contacted us in advance, we would have gone out to welcome you immediately.”

“I’m just stopping by briefly on personal business. I’ll be leaving soon, so there’s no need to worry. More importantly, I don’t think I heard an answer to my question? Do you have some business with my companions?”

“Ah, um, well, I, I came to express gratitude! Aren’t they heroes who solved a big problem for our domain, hahaha!”

It was truly a lightning-fast change of face.

From the way he occasionally shot glares that could kill at his subordinates, the party felt like they could read his inner thoughts.

You bastards told me they were just travelers without any particular backing!

The subordinates avoided his gaze while sweating profusely. This was how dangerous rough eyeball estimates could be.

In fact, if they had just carefully observed Adelaide blinking her violet eyes in the back, things wouldn’t have come to this, unfortunately it seemed the timeless adage to be careful of the elderly, children, and women hadn’t been passed down here.

Watching the lord being thoroughly crushed by Franka, Dorothea shook her head.

“That Maximilian or whatever, and now this. I don’t know why there are so many trashy nobles.”

“Hmm, well, an inherited privileged class is bound to be steeped in a sense of entitlement…”

[The ‘Tin Knight’ says a guillotine revolution is needed!]

“Um, everyone? You’re joking, right? Right?”

While there was an incident of the witch, scarecrow, and tin knight badmouthing the high and mighty, and the little lion—the only one close to being high and mighty among the party—breaking out in a cold sweat, this commotion wasn’t entirely a waste of time.

Rosalia—this was the name of the port city.

Its etymology was based on a certain legend passed down in the city.

「Long ago, in a past so distant, the exact time is unknown.

There lived a kind-hearted young lady named Rosalia with her fisherman father.

Rosalia served her father with filial piety, and the father loved his daughter dearly in return.

Then one day, her father’s ship was caught in a storm and didn’t return.

Rosalia wandered around crying loudly and then disappeared into a certain cave.

Endlessly sorrowful singing could be heard from the cave, and when that singing reached the sky, the weather cleared up.

After that, whenever the weather was bad, people would go to the cave and pray to Rosalia, and each time, Rosalia would sing to clear the weather.」

It was unclear how much of the “Rosalia’s Cave” story was true, but it was certain that the cave had the power to calm the surrounding weather.

Being able to create clear weather at will was an enormous advantage for a coastal area, and the small fishing village grew into a huge port city thanks to the cave’s ability.

Naturally, Rosalia’s Cave was under the strict management of the lord’s family.

It would be a big problem if random people came in and out and caused issues with the cave, and also because the “power to clear the weather” was a kind of rechargeable thing, so if used too often, its effectiveness couldn’t be seen when it was really important.

If Dorothea’s party had tried to enter the cave following official procedures, they would have had to go through a very long and complicated process, but with the lord who would give permission bowing here, there was no need to worry about such things.

“We’re going to enter the cave, is that okay? I’ll take that as a yes.”

The lord didn’t dare resist Franka’s leading question.

Instead, he tried to dissuade Franka with words of concern, “But, Lady Aglaia, there’s a very troublesome creature called a kraken clinging to the cave right now. It’s a creature that comes every few years, and I know its habits. If left alone, it will just suck up the mana gathered in the cave and leave, but if we carelessly disturb it, a great disaster might occur.”

“How many times has this happened before without any rumors… No, never mind.”

After saying that much, Franka waved her hand as if she understood.

A magic beast that was strong but only appeared once every few years and left on its own if it went undisturbed.

Building and maintaining forces to defeat it, versus giving up mana that would refill over time even if lost.

There was no need to say which was more cost-effective. As for losing face and dignity, one just had to keep their mouth shut.

Even now, if the other person wasn’t Franka, he wouldn’t have opened his mouth at all.

Anyway, permission was granted, and now it was time for force rather than authority—Franka now passed the baton over to Dorothea.

She drew up mana in front of the Sea Serpent’s corpse, whose ownership had been legally recognized.

The head that had been separated from the body found its place again with a snap.

The meat fragments that had been tattered by the Tin Knight’s sword were pieced back together, and black mana flowed through the blood vessels instead of the missing blood.

Perhaps because it was fresh, having died not long ago, a roar that wasn’t much different from when it was alive rang out.

It was truly a majestic sight, but Dorothea frowned deeply.

Even if it had just eaten people around, if it made such an obvious roar, there was a possibility someone might hear.

“Can’t you be quiet?”

The undead Sea Serpent made a keening sound and looked dejected.

It would have been an unbelievable sight for the guard who had been thoroughly defeated by this creature.

However, its combat power was not much inferior to when it was alive.

And the first to experience that combat power was none other than the kraken, which was enjoying a leisurely parasitic life stuck to the cave.

Dorothea, who only looked like a female executive of an evil organization but didn’t possess the aesthetics unique to an evil organization, instructed a finishing move from the start instead of clumsily deploying forces gradually.

Without much delay, an opening breath spewed from the mouth of the undead Sea Serpent.

The kraken, which had been resting and was suddenly hit by the breath, emerged from the cave in anger.

There was a large hole in its body, and the area around the wound was turning black and rotting in real-time.

If the Sea Serpent’s breath had remained its original water-type, the kraken might not have taken such severe damage, but the breath of the Sea Serpent resurrected by necromancy was imbued with curses and poison.

The kraken, which had resistance to fresh and seawater, had no way to deal with necromancer-polluted water.

Moreover, coming out of the cave turned out to be a bad move in the end.

For the kraken, it was just revealing itself to face whoever had attacked it, but from Dorothea’s perspective, it was like the target had conveniently come out on its own when she had been hesitating to fire multiple shots for fear of damaging the cave.

Dorothea commanded from atop the Sea Serpent’s head.

More precisely, it was the Tin Knight with a sword stuck in the Sea Serpent’s head, holding Dorothea’s waist with his other arm.

It wasn’t an action for style, but simply for mana supply.

While controlling moderately sized creatures like those in the Garden was one thing, to control a huge creature like the Sea Serpent, it was necessary to cling to it directly and continuously inject mana. Even more so if it needed to fire breaths.

Thanks to this, the one having the most fun was the Tin Knight.

At first, he had been sulky when told they would use the Sea Serpent instead of him to catch the kraken, but watching the kaiju battle from atop the Sea Serpent’s head was enough to blow away that dissatisfaction.

[The ‘Tin Knight’ rejoices that this is thrilling in its own way!]

[The ‘Tin Knight’ says he wants to fight while riding something like a flying dragon someday!]

“I got it, so hurry up and keep your balance! Don’t take your hand off the sword and cheer! Hey, you tin can! Hey!”

There was the minor issue of Dorothea yelling, but the subjugation of the kraken went smoothly.

If they had tried to capture it by physically slicing and beating it, the kraken would have cornered the party with its unique regenerative ability and flexible body, but even a kraken had no recourse against the Sea Serpent firing water, poison, and ghost-type composite breaths while maintaining a suitable distance.

Originally, the Sea Serpent wasn’t a creature that could fire breaths so recklessly, but with Dorothea’s tremendous mana supply behind it, the Sea Serpent’s firepower was much stronger than when it was alive.

In the end, the kraken had to meet its death with its entire body pierced and rotting black.

After eliminating the interference, it was time to perform the ceremony.

As soon as Dorothea and Franka set foot in the cave, they immediately realized something.

“This is a magic circle, isn’t it? Was this Rosalia person perhaps a mage?”

“The cave itself is like one big magic tool. Though its function is limited.”

A magic tool that naturally absorbed and accumulated mana from the natural environment, and responded to certain triggers—such as prayer words recited during rituals—to clear the surrounding weather. That was the truth held by Rosalia’s Cave.

The cave’s mana had been considerably depleted due to the kraken’s recent stay, but the party didn’t mind.

If mana was lacking, Dorothea could just fill it up.

At first, when Dorothea emitted her dark and murky mana, the cave struggled as if forced to eat indigestible food, but once she had expelled enough mana for the remnants of necromancy to disappear and her inherent obsidian-like mana began to flow out, the cave soon began to greedily absorb that mana.

A little while later, when the mana was full, the group recited the prayer they had received from the lord.

“—Kind Rosalia, pitiful Rosalia. Please help countless fishermen return to their daughters’ sides.”

The cave trembled as if waking from a deep slumber.

Then, a soft wind began to blow inside the cave.

The sound of the wind brushing through the crevices of the rocks sounded like someone’s singing.

The Tin Knight, unusually, didn’t make a noisy fuss, but quietly appreciated the song.

Although he had no sense of touch, smell, or taste, at least sight and hearing remained for him.

Dorothea stared blankly at this sight.

After the singing ended, the group exited the cave.

The sky that had been full of wind and rain was now clear.

Hostages captured by pirates (1/1)

Rampaging Sea Serpent (1/1)

Ceremony to calm the weather (1/1)

Third mission. Resolved.

https://ko-fi.com/genesisforsaken