Chapter 172 : 

Episode 34 : ‘Atlantic’ World (2) 

In the middle of nowhere with nothing but the wide expanse of the ocean, a ship which is hard to believe from a glance, was traveling across the ocean.

Ice for the interior and exterior and silk for the sails were made and constructed by the hands of master craftswomen.

Whoosh~!

Aboard a peerless ship like this, the person who would steer the ship, needs to be at least unmatched just like the ship.

And no doubt, Raiden with a lifetime of experience on this field was steering this ice ship with great proficiency.

"Captain, which direction should we take?"

Upon being asked that question, JoonChul already had a compass out to check the direction before responding to Raiden.

"North to our 9 o'clock." 

With that information, Raiden prepared to slowly steer the ship toward the left while Mirai helped adjust the sails to catch more wind current.

When those two were collaborating in sync, Frostina continued where she had left off and started to give the ice ship its finishing touches.

Among those three who were doing absolutely fine with sailing through the ocean, there was a certain creature who couldn't bear the ship ride.

"...The great and mighty Behemoth is.. not doing so good.. Uarrgh.." Sickened to the core, Behemoth gurgled while on top of Raiden's head.

"Yowai na!" Mirai commented on Behemoth's behavior, belittling him.

* ( ‘Yowai na.’ Japanese → English ‘You're weak.’ )

Raiden, caring for Behemoth's health, spoke on Behemoth's behalf. "Mimi Kun, take it easy on him."

Shortly after, Mirai pouted because she didn't like how Raiden had helped Behemoth. "It's not that I'm trying to be mean, but you do know what I meant, don't you, Rai?"

"Yeah, Behemoth has a skill to prevent motion sickness, but he remained the same even after maxing out his skill."

"Heheh." Mirai giggled.

Annoyed, Behemoth thought. ‘Mrow.. Why does it sound like Raiden is belittling me when he isn't?’ 

During their conversation, Behemoth didn't like the way the conversation was going, and so he exclaimed. 

"..Don't sprout nonsense! I'm the almighty Behemoth! Seasickness won't take me dow–" 

A horrible situation had arrived the moment Behemoth opened his mouth, and it was the fault of his stomach that wanted to gush out. 

"Oh no.. Meow..!"

To add to that, Behemoth was resting above Raiden's head. So if Behemoth were to let out everything he ate in the morning on Raiden's head..

Then..

Immediately, Raiden turned pale. "Uso desho?!!"

* ( ‘Uso desho.’ Japanese → English ‘Are you lying/You must be kidding.’ )

As Raiden's hands were quite preoccupied with steering, Raiden had no choice but to turn to Mirai for help, and Mirai quickly caught on by his signal.

By then, Mirai gleefully giggled because it was ridiculous to watch Raiden begging for help as well as Behemoth looking like an idiot trying to keep his gut in.

RUMBLE!!!

However, the moment didn't last that long when a sudden interruption was caused by the ship's unexpected quake, shaking as though something had crashed into it.

"Frostina." 

Even while in this situation, cool as a cucumber, JoonChul called out to Frostina for the ship's status before she answered back in an instant.

"No damage was done to the ship. The causer is a killer whale underneath us, my liege."

"A moment of peace would have been nice."

"Indeed, it would be. My liege, are you going to handle the whale?"

SPLASH!!!

"Yes, and it looks like I don't have to take a dive into the water."

A snicker etched on JoonChul's face when the killer whale had flung itself off the water, getting extremely close into colliding with the ice ship. 

"Urghh—Meow?! Master?!"

WHOOSH!

Considering the dilemma, Behemoth was on the verge of vomiting from seasickness, so when an abrupting force such as JoonChul grabbed Behemoth and threw him toward the killer whale..

Behemoth screamed. "This is animal abuse, maste—Blargh!" 

..It prompted Behemoth to spew out a bucketful of magma onto the killer whale, spraying it inside the whale's wide open mouth when it thought Behemoth was free food.

"Fire." JoonChul signaled.

BOOOM!!

Loaded up with cannonballs, the ice ship assailed those toward the killer whale one by one, going back to back as quickly as possible until the whale fell back into the ocean.

Once it dropped into the water in a far too injured state, the killer whale was nowhere near life when it had fallen deep down.

But just before the whale hit water, Mirai expelled her strings to wrap it completely around the killer whale. 

"Fufufu.." Mirai giggled and exclaimed with a satisfied grin. "As expected of captain to toss Behemoth!" 

Right after that, she went ahead and tightened her wrap on the orca which forced the strings to slice through the whale's body like a piece of cake.

In a blink of an eye, the meat which was about to touch the water, was caught by JoonChul who had run on a thin ice platform thanks to Frostina, storing all the meat into his inventory for further uses.

The only thing that had touched the water was the blood of the killer whale instead of its body.

"Mimi, keep it down or else Behemoth might call the animal god on us. That would be bad." JoonChul chuckled and joked about it right in front of Behemoth who was on JoonChul's head.

"Fufufu~" Mirai chuckled at his joke.

"Mrow.. I hate master!" Behemoth smacked JoonChul's head in anguish.

As fun as it was to see them enjoying themselves, Frostina stepped up to stop the conversation. "This isn't the time for jokes. You're completely covered with whale's blood, my liege."

Mirai, feeling disappointed in herself for not paying attention, spoke. "Ah! How can I be so stupid?! Come on, captain. I'll help you out with the clothes!"

"Mimi, I'm fine by myself."

"No! I dare to laugh while you were covered in blood. So let me have this." 

Seeing as Mirai used her cute pout on JoonChul, he couldn't win against her and eventually followed through with her words.

"And there they go." Raiden said while staring at Mirai and JoonChul leaving. 

"Meeoww…"

Behemoth, after being handed to Raiden, was trying to grumble, yet couldn't because he had lost his energy to attempt to speak.

"Sensei! Is everything all clear now?" 

"Oh!" Raiden's expression quickly turned energetic when he heard his one and only pupil's voice. "Alaine kun!"

As Alaine was walking up the steps to get to Raiden's side, her eyes took a peek at the spot where the killer whale died.

Slightly mortified, Alaine commented. "Eh.. That's too much blood. Is the ocean going to be okay like this?" 

"Don't worry, the ocean is very hectic. But sooner, it'll get more chaotic." Raiden spoke casually.

"Ehhh?! Not again! I just stumbled earlier. I don't need another… H-Hold on a minute, did you say ‘more chaotic’?"

"Yes, the killer whale's blood will attract more sharks toward our ship. I'm not sure how many, but from the usual standpoint, it would be about 10 to 40."

Swish~

"That would be dangerous." Suddenly, someone spoke from the deck.

Soon after, Alaine looked and waved her hand at Louis, telling him to come up here with everybody. "Get up here, Louis! You can get a great view from here!"

"I can't do that. I have to look after these three." Louis said as he gazed over to the trio.

A trio that consists of Mya Rose, Noelle Absolute and Noel Absolute, are hanging out pretty well together with Crystal, the bunny.

"I'm not surprised they got along with each other." Alaine commented while staring at those trio.

Louis smiled as if to say he agreed with Alaine, watching the trio laughing and playing with Crystal was quite unique and refreshing to see after all the gruesome bloodshed.

…But alas, it didn't last that long… 

CRASH!!!!!

"Holy s—" Alaine was close to swearing until she saw Louis' glare which meant 'don't swear in front of the kids'. 

Anyways, Alaine asked. "Sensei, what was that?!"

"It should be the sharks attacking us."

As rapid as a lightning, Raiden drove the ship forward while undergoing a massive amount of bumps, guiding the ship despite the shaky motion.

"Mrow.."

"We'll handle them!" 

Aside from Behemoth experiencing motion sickness worse than ever, HwanGi and Louis took immediate actions to tackle the predators by diving into the ocean themselves.

There was no need for worries about them drowning or the ship drifting far from them, since there was something wrapped around their waists to assist them underwater.

"Baka.. Do they not think about themselves?" Mirai commented after sending her strings to enwrap onto those men's waists.

Raiden grinned when he saw Mirai coming back after helping JoonChul. "Right on time!"

RUMBLING!!

At the moment, Frostina was minding her time lending the ship her attention, yet the result of that was the constant rumbling and bumping of enemies.

"This is inconvenient." Although she was furious, she looked indifferent and cold while talking.

CLASH!

"It should be fine since we have HwanGi kun and Louis Kun handling those creatures." Raiden reassured.

Which reminded Raiden of something, and naturally, he asked Mirai. "Where is captain, Mimi chan?"

"Oh, he's showering right now~" Mirai blushed when she responded, instantly covering her reddened face with her fan.

FWOOSH!!

All of the sudden, Alaine pointed out. "Not good! There are sharks leaping above us!"

Alaine went on. "Crazy! How in the world can it do that?!"

"The creatures that live in this world, are adapted in an environment where one must be the fittest and.." Raiden explained, glancing at the sharks.

"There's an 'And'?!"

"They are well-versed in eating humans like us because we're a delicacy to them!"

"Then somebody gotta do something or else we'll be shark baits!" Alaine exclaimed, drawing out her daggers to prepare.

Seeing the situation closely, Frostina gave Alaine reassurance. "There's no need to do so."

"..Eh? Why??" 

Swoosh! Swish!!

Sounds of projectiles fired toward the sharks, then produced a load of snowflakes bursting out to freeze the sharks in mid air, raining down the frozen bodies of these sea creatures in a moment.

More importantly, the ones behind those shots were the trio.

With Mya's arrow mixed with Noelle's and Noel's ice power, one shot was enough to fully capture plenty of the targets.

"Wow!!"

In due course, Noelle and Noel gasped to admire Mya's archery while Mya was feeling shy from their compliments.

"That was awesome! I know I have seen you fight before, Mya. But shooting a large sized creature that was falling and flinging around must be tough, right?" Noel admired.

Speaking on Noelle's behalf, Crystal hopped in awe. "At such a young age, you were able to reach a near mastery with your archery! Incredible! You're great at this, Mya!"

"I-I don't know if I deserve those praises when you both are too excellent with your ice element." Feeling shy and flustered, Mya fidgeted with her fingers.

Swoosh..

Upon viewing this sight, Alaine stood with a conflicted look, blankly dazing at those trio as if she sought to be like them. ‘How strong can they get? Even kids seem stronger than me.. I'm so jealous..’

"Alaine kun? Alaine kun!" Raiden called out to his dazed pupil. "Huh?"

Without expecting it, Raiden watched as Alaine speedily dashed toward the trio and pulled out her daggers to slash. 

"Hyup!" 

..Slice!!

Soon enough, Alaine was quick to notice a few frozen bodies that were dropping down onto the trio, slicing them in one full swing to save the trio.

"Lil boy and girls! Take a look at your surroundings, okie~?" Alaine smiled toward the startled Mya, Noel, Noelle and Crystal.

RuMbLEEE!!

"Huh?!"

Caught off guard, Alaine stumbled a bit before hanging onto the kids to help each other out. 

"Hang on tight!" Alaine uttered, holding and hugging everyone closely and tightly.

Sooner or later, once the rumbling ended, everyone took a deep breath and balanced themselves back to their footing.

"Phew!! Jeez, so much shaking! Did the boys do this?! What are Louis and HwanGi doing down there?" Alaine spoke as she glanced at the ocean.

And as if she was speaking of the devil, HwanGi and Louis were dragged out of the water by Mirai which scared the living hell out of Alaine who was looking in that direction.

Words couldn't correctly leave her mouth when she shockingly gasped. "Oh my sfjdsh!! That scared me! My heart just popped! I mean, skipped!" 

Not knowing the situation, Louis, who was on the ship, looked at Alaine strangely and said. "Is something the matter, Alaine?"

"Don't say that to me when you're wet all over, Louis!" Still shell-shocked, Alaine pointed out as she unknowingly blushed, blocking the eyes of Noelle and Mya from seeing this scene.

"Uh.. I jumped into the water without thinking much. Guess this is the result of that." 

"Ahh! Just go and change your clothes already! You too, HwanGi!" 

..Alaine wasn't enjoying this, or was she? 

Removing the fact that Alaine's face was as red as a rose, HwanGi and Louis were a bit hesitant on leaving since there would be less men on deck to protect the ship.

"Who will stay here and defend if we're both gone?"

"Have no fear! Since we three will protect everyone, including Alaine, too!" Crystal gave reassurance to HwanGi and Louis.

..However, that didn't work at all.

Argued, Alaine. "Hey! Do I look like I need protection?"

In any case, Louis, concerned over the children's well-being and HwanGi wanting to defend everyone to the best of his ability, were the driving force to their hesitation.

..Creak.

Without expecting it, the sound of footsteps resounded which led to everyone glancing over to that side, prompting them to see JoonChul in a swimsuit.

From a glance, everyone except JoonChul's comrades thought of JoonChul taking a carefree swim in the water which didn't look right at all in an ocean filled to the brim with sharks and other beings lurking deep within.

"What is it?" JoonChul asked, unbeknownst to the atmosphere. 

Baffled and confused, HwanGi expressed his opinion. "JoonChul-ssi.. I don't think you should be taking a swim in the ocean right now." 

"..What? Sooner or later, we'll need to take a deep dive, and just in case, only HwanGi and Louis go into the water, so you ladies don't have to worry at all." 

"I'm not worried!!" Alaine argued before she pondered. ‘Jeez.. JoonChul is nuts! And is it his way of saying that no boys will be seeing a lady's body?!’

Whoosh..

Eventually, Alaine woefully averted her gaze elsewhere while musing with her hands holding her arms tight. ‘Thank you, JoonChul..’

Whether JoonChul did that for Alaine or not, Alaine was thankful toward JoonChul because she wouldn't have to reveal a secret of her body to everybody.

..If anyone has seen her body, they would just pity Alaine for the hardships she endured alone. 

..And she doesn't want that..

"Thank you.." Alaine mumbled.