Like an arrow being released from a bow, the spear of light flew in a straight line towards its target.
The stone King Ape statue that was set as the target was hit, and brilliantly shattered into pieces.
And just like that, probably due to connecting the magic formations with magic power, [Shining Javelin] was released successively without chanting and the King Ape statues kept being destroyed.
It didn't take that much time for all ten of the prepared statues to be destroyed.
"How's that-ja. Pretty good-jaro?"
"Yep, pretty good. You did well, Suu."
I patted Suu, who's throwing her chest out with an *ehem*, on the head. To do this much at 11 years-old is quite the achievement.
Suu holds the aptitude for light magic. Light-attribute magics, as befitting its second name of holy magic, excel in the areas of healing and purification, as well as defensive magics.
Still, it's not as if there's no offensive magics in the attribute. Like the [Shining Javelin] earlier, and others such as [Light Arrow] and [Star Bright], there are light-attribute magics designed to defeat enemies. (Note: don't ask me what [Star Bright] is, the katakana literally says that.
"sutaaburaito".)
Suu had been learning light magic from Linze and Rin, and before I knew it, had progressed this far already.
Furthermore, she had also been learning close-combat techniques from Yae and our head maid Lapis-san, and things like knife-throwing techniques from the other maid Cecil-san, and had been absorbing all of that like a sponge and making them her own.
Isn't she already way stronger compared to your average adventurer…?
It might be due to becoming my dependant, but I think she had the talent to begin with.
"Still, this is not enough-ja. I must not bring shame to Touya as one of his wives. I will get even stronger and protect this country-no ja!"
She sure does say nice things. I matched my eyes to Suu's and took her small hands within my own.
"Thank you. But it's not good to force yourself, ok? It doesn't matter whether you're strong or weak; Suu is important to me precisely because you're the way you are."
"I'm not forcing myself. Touya is important to me as well-ja. That's why I can work hard. Touya too, feel free to spoil me more."
Suu wrapped her arms around my neck and hugged me while saying that. Even if you say to spoil you… I can't do anything too hard, ok?
While smiling with a hint of bitterness, I hugged my little fiancée back.
"By the way, Touya."
"N?"
"Is it true that you've increased the number of women around you?"
"Bfu—!?"
Wai—, what exactly are you talking about, Suu-san!?
"Isn't there a new woman in Babylon-no jaro? I heard from Cesca. A woman wearing glasses who also has a dog with her."
"You're wrong! She's not like that! She's just a technical staff addition, okay!?"
That ero-idiot-maid, what kind of things are she telling Suu!?
Suu released her hug, and made a small sigh while folding her arms. What is it, that tired- looking pose… Where did you even learn that?
"Father said that Touya had the face of someone who will have lots of trouble with women. He also told me to be careful in case he gets pulled in by some weird woman somewhere."
"Like I said, that's not the case here!!"
Damn Duke, stop teaching your daughter weird things! What does he mean by someone who will have… Lots of trouble with women… That's, that's not the case, r-right?
If I think back on it, it's not entirely… Nonono, that's not the case. That can't be. I'd like to think that's not the case. Let's think of it as not being the case. (Note: give it up. It's already written in your destiny.)
For a while, Suu kept on lecturing me while I kept on offering explanations, but in the end I think I managed to convince her.
"As expected Touya is no-good without us-ja na."
"Aye aye…"
I held the hands of Suu who had become happy again, and returned to the castle. The sky is clear all around, as if the storm blowing in the past few days had been a lie.
I can ask the spirits to keep things like tornados or storms away from this country, but it's better to leave things to nature itself unless something serious happens.
"That reminds me, is Elen-san doing well?"
"Umu. Her stomach has gotten quite big. I really do think a little brother would be best."
Suu's mother, Elen-san, is currently pregnant. That may be part of the reason why Suu's working so hard at her magic training.
The Ortlinde ducal house's butler, Leim-san, had been telling me proudly that Suu had been visiting the clinic in the Belfast castle-town and healing people there from time to time. She's a kind kid.
She's still ignorant of the world and pretty selfish sometimes, though.
"… Touya, I can see something weird there."
"Eh?"
Suu stopped and pointed towards the sky in the direction of the castle.
Something is flying this way from the skies. It's still too far away, so I can't see clearly but…
"A bird?"
"[Long Sense]." (Note: really feels to me like there's a lot of old magics coming back in the recent chapters, eh?)
I sent my sight towards that direction using the non-attribute magic [Long Sense].
It's indeed a bird that is flying towards here. But, it's not a normal bird. Surprisingly, there are people riding on it.
That's a big bird though. Giant. Or more like, isn't that already a behemoth? And what's more, there's three of them.
I thought maybe they're coming to attack the town, but the birds diverted their courses, and landed at the plains to the north.
"That was quite a big bird."
"Let's go take a look."
I used [Teleport] and transferred to the plains north of the castle. On top of a hill on the plains, the three birds from before as well as three people are standing in wait.
There are two men and one woman. They're wearing something like indigenous clothing. They look similar to the people living in the Great Sea of Trees, but there's also something different.
They had feathers decorating their shoulders and heads, and looks very similar to Aztec clothing from Earth. Is there a bit of Native American mixed in too?
Their skins show a reddish-brown hue… I wonder which country did they come from? Don't tell me it's another slip-in from the Reverse World?
"Your Majesty!"
While I was keeping my distance and seeing how the other side will move, our knight order's vice captain Nicola-san and several other knights rushed over here from the direction of the castle. They probably came after seeing the giant birds, I suppose.
I waited for Nicola-san and the rest to arrive behind me before talking to the three people.
"Now then. Who are you guys, and what is your purpose in coming to this country?"
"We are messengers dispatched by the Egret Kingdom to the south! We have come to deliver a letter from our king to yours!"
Of the three, the tallest man who had a white feather decorating his head spoke up in a loud voice.
The Egret Kingdom is a country to the southwest of Brunhild, on an island floating in the seas beyond Belfast and Mismede.
The people of Egret were said to have originated from a tribe of the Great Sea of Trees who migrated to the island a long time ago. They do share some similarities…
I've been there once before, as well. It was the time when we found the Babylon [Laboratory]. Well, I only touched land at the place where the sea dragon that had guided us was living.
The easy-to-live-in southern paradise, Egret. I wonder what made them come all the way here to see me…
I stepped towards the three people who had walked out from under the three giant birds.
"I understand the story. You can leave the letter with me. I'm the sovereign of this Brunhild Dukedom, Mochizuki Touya."
When I named myself like that, the three of them looked at each other with shocked faces before immediately kneeling down and holding up a scroll holder for me.
Hmm, I guess I still don't have a kingly feel to me? Is it something like "This kid can't possibly be the king", maybe? Paluf Kingdom has a 10 year-old king, you know. Even I should be better compared to him… Should I grow a beard? Nah, probably won't fit me.
I opened the metallic scroll holder that looks like the type you put a graduation certificate in with a pop, and took out the rolled-up letter which had been sealed with a wax seal.
Well, let's see… Fumu fumu… Mu. This is…
"What's written on it-ja?"
"Well, to put it simply, a rescue request."
Seems that due to the storm the last few days, Egret Kingdom had suffered serious damage. Their crops were washed away by floods, their large ships were all destroyed, and apparently their back-up food storage also went poof; so far there hasn't been a lot of deaths yet, but there are a huge number of injured people.
The food shortage problem is especially severe. They can't send help requests to the countries they had contact with like Belfast and Mismede, as well as Refreese due to their lack of ships, and in the first place the transport of foodstuffs would take time.
As such, they had used the giant birds to come to me for help.
To be honest, we Brunhild can't give out a lot of supplies to support them. Our country is a small one to begin with, and although it may sound selfish, we treat our own food supply very importantly.
However, I can do things like asking the members of the World Alliance to each offer a small amount of supplies, gather them together, and send them in one go via transfer magic.
Well, other countries have various things they're busy with as well, so it probably won't happen immediately.
"For now, can one of you come to the castle? I will contact the other countries. The matter regarding the supplies might take a while… Ah, please leave the birds here."
"Understood."
The young man with the white feather decoration, together with the woman with a red feather decoration, came forward. Seems like the last young man with the tea-colored decoration would be staying here with the birds.
Those birds are called Louf birds, and as expected, they are magic beasts that had undergone selective breeding to become behemoths. They, the Louf Tribe, had been raising and taming these birds since a long time ago, apparently.
Having said that, it seems that the tribe only has a total of five of them right now.
Of the three, the leader—the young man with the white feather decoration—is called Totora Louf. The woman with the red feather decoration is Lilicana Louf, and the two of them are siblings. The last one, the young man with the brown feather decoration, is called Rocha Louf. Although they share the same surname, it seems that Rocha is actually not a sibling, but a cousin of the other two.
Suu wanted to try riding the Louf birds, but since this isn't the right time, I stopped her. Not to mention it could be dangerous.
When I introduced her as my fiancée, the siblings Totora and Lilicana were again surprised with their eyes opening wide.
I made contact with the leaders of the other countries, and secured a decent amount of food supplies for Egret, but just this is not enough.
Egret needs to become capable of getting enough food to survive by themselves or the help wouldn't matter much. Their primary industry seems to be fishing, which is going to be tough given they had just lost all of their large vessels.
Well, I guess I can mass-produce ships using Babylon's [Workshop]. Of course, I'll be properly charging for them.
However, it seems that that particular problem has a continuation to it.
"Even if we have ships, we can't go out to sea right now. There is a Tentakra waiting in the ocean."
"Tentakra? Oh, that giant squid-like oceanic magic beast, huh."
The Atlantic giant squid was said to be the largest invertebrate on Earth, and claims of individual specimens with a body length of up to 18m have been recorded, but the Tentakra are squid-shaped magic beasts with a size far above that. I've read about it before in the magic beast encyclopedia in the Adventurer's Guild.
(Note: could be an author mistake? The name he used is definitely the Atlantic giant squid, but that's not the largest known invertebrate on Earth. That title belongs to a separate species of squid, the colossal squid. Google it if you wanna find out more.)
It can apparently drag large vessels straight into the depth of the sea with its legs, after all. And apparently there's even speculations that it could be a behemoth… I can't even imagine it.
The Kraken that I had summoned before are similar to the Tentakra, but also different in various ways.
"But didn't Egret have the sea dragon's protection?"
The Sea Serpent that could be called the guardian deity of Egret. It's a kind dragon that lives in the seas near Egret and had been protecting its people. It's also part of Ruli's dependants, and I've met it once before as well.
If it's that dragon, I don't think it would ignore the tyranny of the Tentakra…
"The sea dragon fought with the Tentakra, but was beaten and disappeared somewhere. We don't think it has died, but…"
Ara… The sea dragon lost, huh. To win against that guy, the Tentakra must be pretty big, I suppose.
…Can we eat it? If it's that big, then it should be a substantial food source if we can. We could even make it into long-lasting food supplies like dried squid pieces or something.
When I muttered something like that, for some reason I'm met with very displeased faces. Eh? You guys don't eat squid or something? Even though your main industry is fishing?
Maybe it's just the difference in cultures. Well, I won't force them; I don't even know if it'll taste nice anyway.
To be honest, I myself don't really like squid. That *gunyuri* texture is really not something I can handle well. The texture is roughly consistent whether you boil it or roast it, so the most I could eat is something like dried squid where the texture is hard.
Well, for the moment let's head towards Egret Kingdom and take a look at the situation.
I'd like to avoid having to fight a gigantic squid within the water if possible…
Using [Recall], I extracted the memories of the Egret Kingdom's capital, Letrabanba, and was about to transfer there via [Gate] when suddenly Suu spoke up.
"It's boring when I'm the only one who stays at home every single time-no ja. You may bring me together with you this time. It's the job of a husband to listen to his wife's selfishness once in a while, no?"
We're not going there to play though… When they heard that, everyone else also raised their hands and expressed their intentions to follow along.
As expected it'll be pretty embarrassing for me to bring along a whole group of my fiancées to the meeting with the other side's king… I somehow managed to convince the group to send only two others besides Suu together with me this time. If you ask me, even three's a lot, honestly…
And like such, a janken match between the other eight of my fiancées began.
Looking at the sight of my fiancées playing janken with fire in their eyes, the Louf siblings opened their mouths and stood in place blankly. Un, I understand. But please don't retort on this.
"I did it!"
"Victory. V."
The two who won in the end are Linze and Sakura.
The others who lost requested for us to bring back souvenirs. No, like I said, we're not going there to play…
It's a tropical paradise, so if this was actually a vacation it would be perfect, really.
Let's bring Sango and Kokuyou along just in case. I really don't want to fight an underwater battle, but there's always the possibility.
"By the way, just how big is that Tentakra?"
"We do not know. We've only ever seen its head and tentacles above the water before. However, there were witness reports that state it's about as large as the sea dragon."
Which means, it's guaranteed to be at least above 50 meters long?
How do we beat that… If I try to use [Gate] to teleport it onto land, I might get seawater mixed in together with the actual target, and in the worst case it may turn into another flood.
Using a Frame Gear to do squid fishing… Guess it's impossible as expected? I don't even have a fitting rod and lines. Wait, can't I use [Modeling] on something like a piece of orichalcum and turn it into wires…
Ah, right, how do you fish for squids again?
Thinking I might get some hints, I opened my smartphone and started searching for squid fishing-related articles.