"Roar..."
The sea monster outside the door went into a frenzy upon seeing the group, slamming violently against the wooden door. The immense force made it hard for the group to believe. Through the cracks in the wood, Green and the others could clearly see more sea monsters, slowly converging from afar. A sense of hopelessness began to settle in.
In terms of combat power, the apprentices in this room could barely manage to kill one sea monster, and only if Rafie used her vine magic.
The group desperately held the door, stalling for time. At that moment, the relatively calm unfamiliar male wizard apprentice shouted, "There is still hope!"
With those words, he dashed towards the recently damaged hole in the ship's cabin. The others almost simultaneously had the same thought, and a flicker of hope ignited in their hearts.
They remembered the lifeboats hanging on ropes along the sides of the ship, fastened to the deck railings. Yorkris's room was on the fifth level of the ship, only about five or six meters from the deck, making it possible for the group to climb the ropes using their strength.
The male wizard apprentice was the first to charge out, grabbing a rope and climbing upward. The others quickly followed suit, rushing towards the ropes.
Due to her frailty and the injury to one of her eyes, Yorkliana was carried by Yorkris and began to climb. Though Green had an injured leg, it didn't affect his climbing ability. Having worked hard from a young age, he had no problem scaling the seven to eight meters. However, Rafie struggled. Her injury, her background of luxury, and being physically weaker as a girl left her barely clinging to the rope. She refused to try climbing further, her expression filled with anxiety.
The unfamiliar female wizard apprentice, who had been stabbed with a wooden stick in the abdomen, was already on the verge of death. Excessive blood loss had clouded her mind, and the tables and beds blocking the door had been pushed aside by the sea monsters outside...
However, the group was stunned by something else.
On the side of the ship, three enormous "sea serpents" were emerging from the depths, crawling toward the deck. Good heavens, could these sea serpents be a group?
Moreover, the ship was more than thirty meters high, suggesting the immense length of these serpents.
Boom!
Suddenly, a deafening explosion rang out above the deck. The temperature dropped sharply, and the group was horrified to see that one of the "sea serpents," which had been climbing upward, was rapidly covered by a thick layer of ice, spreading visibly.
"Woo..."
As the ice spread, the ship began to shake violently, as if a massive creature was rising from the sea. The surging waves revealed the head of a giant "octopus," letting out a painful scream as it stirred the ocean around it.
"An... octopus?" Everyone exclaimed in disbelief, their faces paling as they made a dreadful realization. Could those "sea serpents" actually be tentacles of this colossal octopus? If so, how enormous must this terrifying creature be? For the wizard apprentices, who had never seen such a thing, it felt like something from a nightmare, a legendary beast they had only heard of in stories...
Suddenly, the tentacle that had been covered by ice seemed to lose its strength and crashed into the sea with a thunderous roar, sending huge waves into the air. Green felt a gust of wind, and the rope swayed violently. He had to use all his strength to hold on.
"No, help!"
A desperate voice fell into the sea. Green looked down and saw the male wizard apprentice, who had climbed the highest, falling into the ocean. In this vast sea, falling in was almost certain death.
Green then realized that it wasn't just one person who had fallen. Rafie was also swept away by the gust, but in a stroke of luck, she used magic to create a vine, grabbing the rope and managing to suspend herself in mid-air.
However, maintaining the spell required magic, and given Rafie's limited magical energy, she could only hold on for a few minutes at best. Her life was hanging by a thread, and the next moment might very well be her final one.
Rafie's delicate face had drained of color, her teeth clenched in a silent struggle not to cry. Tears welled up in her eyes as she looked helplessly at the churning sea below, her gaze flickering between fear and pride, trembling uncontrollably.
At this moment, only two people could help her: Yorkris and Green. But Yorkris, already carrying his sister, had reached his limit, leaving only Green.
Looking at Rafie's pitiful, pleading eyes, but seeing her refuse to speak the soft words of begging, Green's heart softened. Despite her usual haughty attitude toward him as a commoner, she had helped him understand the wizarding world. She never used her magic to belittle him.
And they had all come together to study in the wizarding world, so mutual care might be inevitable in the future.
With a determined breath, Green slid down the rope, reaching the lifeboat at the bottom. After securing himself, he urgently pulled up the vine Rafie had conjured.
Green had endured hardship and labor since childhood, so he had no trouble pulling the vine with all his might. After some struggle, he managed to pull Rafie back from the brink of death.
"Phew..." Green gasped, exhausted. He leaned against the lifeboat, resting. Rafie, still in shock, stared blankly at him, tears welling in her eyes.
Not used to being stared at by such a beautiful girl, Green awkwardly wiped his nose, trying to hide his discomfort.
Rafie was indeed a rare beauty, the kind of woman who could turn heads. It was no surprise that Green and the others had subconsciously admired her when they first saw her.
"Uh..." Green was about to say something to ease the tension when a fragrance suddenly hit him. Rafie threw her arms around him, sobbing, "Wuwuwu, I thought I was going to die! I thought you were going to leave me behind! I told my father not to send me to that place, where they eat people without spitting out bones, wuwuwu..."
Feeling the warmth of her body pressed against him, Green suddenly felt incredibly tense. His body stiffened, unsure where to put his hands. The words he had prepared to lighten the mood were stuck in his throat, and he didn't know what to do.
Rafie's tears soaked into his neck, but Green didn't dare move. After a long while, Rafie finally calmed down, realizing her outburst. She let go of him and nervously looked at Green's tense face, her red eyes softening into a smile. "What are you staring for? Do you want to hang on the lifeboat with me forever?"
"Uh? Oh... no, no." Green stuttered, embarrassed. He couldn't believe that, just a moment ago, he had actually felt something for this proud girl.
After all, Green had never liked her attitude towards commoners. Though he didn't hate her, there was certainly no affection. Yet, at that moment, his heart had betrayed him.
He cursed himself inwardly. Was he really so easily swayed by a little kindness?
Taking a deep breath, he regained his composure, nodding. "Let's hurry up and climb." Then he noticed Rafie's wound, her shoulder torn and mangled. He hesitated. "Should I carry you?"
"Mm!"
Without hesitation, Rafie agreed and threw her arms around him, her curvaceous form pressing tightly against him. Green could even feel her breath on his neck. He suppressed his feelings and took a deep breath before hoisting her up and starting to climb.
On the other side, Yorkris, seeing that Green and Rafie had resolved their crisis, continued to climb, carrying his sister on his back. He quickly reached the deck, then grabbed the rope Green had been climbing to help him.
Soon, Green and Yorkris were both panting, exhausted. But as they saw the hellish scene on the deck, they couldn't help but gasp, momentarily forgetting their fatigue.
The deck, over a hundred meters long, was littered with monstrous sea creature corpses, with some sailors and wizard apprentices' bodies scattered amidst them. Among the horrific sights, there was a severed octopus tentacle twitching in the middle of the deck, leaking green blood with a foul stench.
With the sea creature corpses were scattered bodies of sailors and apprentices, some in unrecognizable states, their deaths beyond belief.
Boom!
A loud crash came from the room where Wizard Dira had stayed, now utterly destroyed. The once shattered room was completely wiped out by another strike from the octopus tentacle. A grotesque mechanical gear was visible where Dira's black eyepatch had once been, spinning continuously in a horrifying manner.
Dira's feet stood over a sea creature's corpse, frozen solid. Despite the approaching tentacle attack, Dira remained unfazed, casting a massive ice shield to defend against the attack.
With a loud crash, the ice shattered, but Dira's defense held firm, protecting the frozen corpse beneath him.
Elsewhere, the remaining sailors were desperately blocking the door to the cabin, preventing the sea monsters from entering.
Among the sailors, Green's group noticed two wizard apprentices they had seen leaving Dira's room earlier. These apprentices, too, were using strange and powerful magic that seemed almost unbelievable.