Three minutes. Well, three minutes and forty seven seconds by the ends of the word seconds. Perhaps. Timing TPMs — thought per minute was beyond his measly level one [Internal Clock]. But he made due, partitioning his thought in parallel of ‘thinks’. Conscious and subconscious. The latter which the [Internal Clock] was the newest member of. Unlike his any other skill, the passive seemed to blend with his background thought-feeling. Namely, everything from knowing he was breathing every so second, his starstruck wonder when seeing something like the spirit’s dream mound, the everpresent low-dread of expecting himself to die alone in another world at any moment now, and equilibrioception: the sense of balance, like when he was running and instinctively knowing where exactly his center of mass was. Although that kind of raised a question. Which was, even with that kind of precise chronometric timing why the hell he bothered counting his TPMs? Wasn’t it literally, pardon the pun, ‘a waste of time’? 

Well to that not-so-hypothetical question, he answered this: when you were trapped on the wall by sheer inertia alone, when your face drenched by sharp water splash, square by square centimeters, you probably would do the same; clinging to any existing or in his case, a made-up distraction. Preserving the remaining crumbs of his rapidly depleting sanity. It was not like this ‘waterboarding-adjacent experience’ pleasant. The damn thing needed to be done in foreign, seldom-heard countries and bribed local population just to survive the scrutiny of the Geneva Convention.

Yet despite the frog-getting-high-on-its-own-skin speed this ship was going; despite his soaked woolen shirt and likely loss of a good dye on his trouser; the island didn’t zoom. At least not in the way that was appreciable. The far dune shore, the glittering mica-crested sands, even now were still so distant. The far-flung deepwater swayed undisturbed with only froth and fro of this abomination of a vessel and what seemed to be this world version of cormorants’ squawk breaking its silence.

“We have arrived, human.”

“Hwhhat?!” Euca shouted, well, more like vomited. Shouted-vomited. His mouth corner was dripping down the water — the lake water. The excessive lot which he had inadvertently swallowed in the course of the ship insane speeding. The horrendous mix trickled — dripped to the ship’s floor retaining at least an eighth of his saliva viscosity. 

Glancing upward toward the sprite in front of him, his eyes glazed. Both from the water overexposure, draining any remains of salt-maintaining isotonicity and the fact that the sprite was saying the most unbelievable thing. Well, not ever, but maybe 6.8/10 unbelievable in his personal spectrum of unbelievableness. His standard changed a lot since the damned outlier called ‘being transported to another world’. So, yeah. Wiping another sheen layer of water from his face for the nth-times, he looked and looked at the smiling thing in front of him. Just to make sure he wasn’t hearing things. 

Was—was the spirit ...confused? The young man wondered. If his vision, his blurry, kept splashed by water’s vision wasn’t wrong, they just passed a quarter-way mark eleven seconds ago. Which by approximating the distance-feel: the size of the island relative to the travel time, he guesstimated that their arrival should be at least twenty minutes awa—what the freaking ever-loving hell? 

How? Like how? Weren’t they just—how they could... How? 

Split-second. A heartbeat. That all it took for his feet to rushed him to the window opening. Blinking and blinking again, he rubbed his eyes twice. Thrice. Because what he was seeing right now, what he was truly seeing, didn’t make sense at all. It was as if magicians —those cheap earth illusionists, not real [Mages]— had pulled a fast one on him. From that split second of lack of awareness, they had descended a black curtain. Flipping a flower bouquet made of plastic roses, cheap asters, and off-white daisies from nothing —wowing him with the most standard party trick. And like a hick he was, he could only nod vigorously.

And by god, he might as well be. In front of him right now was not the dark blue deep water they were at seventeen seconds ago. Instead, it was a clear coast. Green, rippling, blue, shallow. Around their ship were few fishes of various colors and stripes and dots and spirals and all the patterns word failed to capture. They bent, swam, thrust, and schooled in tens; dancing, nibbling, frolicking above the see-through ocean’s floor. Also the corals. The corals! It was a carpet of species upon species. From the one he was familiar with —the polyps-like— to the ones that were more unusual like the brown-red that on the far right side, the thing looked like lingzhi mushroom stacked four times.

Yet those views, majestic as they were, were not the reason why he was, well, dumbstruck. It was what lay behind the said views. A long wharf. A wooden, white, and gleaming wharf extending from the shore. The long walk sheltered two similar-sized ships like the one they were riding right now. But instead of green and white, those were colored in blue-white and yellow-white. Both were tied snuggly to each of their wooden poles — their pilings. Besides each one, two-three dinghy tethered, wooden and with oars neatly tucked inside each. And if his—his distance-feel was right, their ship was only a meager half football field away from them. Five maybe ten times closer than they were before twenty four seconds ago.

Which of course blared the question: How?

How??

Then it came to him. No, not by some divine inspiration. Even though that would be great. Like totally great. Instead, it was something mundane, so mundane, it laughable; he turned his head. He turned his head toward the ship’s stern. And oh, boy, god, and everything unholy, that was at least third on the unbelievableness scale. 

Behind him, was half of the ship. Yes, half of the ship. The other half was still incoming. Passing. From the bow to the upper deck, from all the front hull, and its green-white paint was the ship bisected. Yes, bisected. Split. Halved. The first part, the front one was where he and the spirit were. The latter part, the back part was well, the one who wasn’t yet in the direct sight of the island’s dock. The thing was still coming, manifesting each of its meters each second from the ripple. Yes, the ripple. The ripple that not on the water like when one threw a rock to it but a ripple on the air itself. On the space itself. It was a white-blueish pulsating thing, a two-dimensional circle that at odds with its surrounding. It as if the space itself bent, made a hole of, and connected again. 

“I see.”

He nodded, deciding to abandon all pretense of manner. His halfway stuck head, his still wet-dripping hair, his kept getting splashed eyes was in no way sufficient to observe this — this great magic. And by god, he wouldn’t miss this for — well, for anything that was not irreplaceable. Climbing the table, he leaped from the window opening, feet first, ignoring his poor derriere and the resulting shooting pain. He scrambled toward the border between the lower deck and stern, flickering his mana to the eyes, falling into a deep sense.

Then he saw it. Grand geometric. Runewords and lines that spun not only in x and y-axis, but rotating, swiveling in z. Some even not only had their lines or runewords moved, instead their spell circles themselves rotated, ebbing periodic glimmers. Motes of mana; blue, purple, and black were awash. Spewing, streaming down, left, right, and up like a gravity-independent waterfall. In the sense, the whole area basically glowed. Blue, purple, black, and everything bright. He felt air rushed into his lung when the last of the ship’s stern finally crossed the ripple’s border, bringing the geometric to an instant grinding halt.

No wonder, no wonder!

It all made sense now. It. All. Made. Sense. That was why the island looked so far away. It was because this — this entire lake was a combination of illusion and teleportation magic, designed so that people who didn’t have the sprites’ guidance would be forever lost never finding the island location even though it looked like the real island was right there — dab smack in the middle.

THUD

“Brother!”

“Sorry, sister!”

“Be careful next time.” her voice stern. Euca saw the sister sprite floated off from the window, waving her hand to him.

“Is everything okay?” he said, approaching her. Committing the runewords’ shape and the geometric he could remember to memory. He’d jotted them down later. For now, the shore was getting nearer, just a minute ride from here.

“It is fine. A little docking accident.” she shook her head. “Brother is just too excited that he forgets that we grow seablooms here.”

“Seablooms?” He looked down to the seafloor, their ship had somehow come across a series of unknown corals. Greys, branch-like, and sprawling. The structures looked a little too spongy to possessed a danger to them however, holes and microholes littering their bodies. Huh, she must be worried his brother would destroy the seabloom. And since he was the one who commissioned them. Did it mean that he was partially responsible??

And they looked expensive...

“Do not worry, they are very hardy.” she smiled as if knowing what worried him. “The wood would sooner break before any of their buds harmed.”

“Okay...” he replied, his worried not abated at all. After all, even though he’d be glad to not pay for incidental destruction of the town’s property, he preferred that instead of being mid-shore in a magical, only certain people allowed island. 

“Oh!” she said suddenly, breaking him from his thought. Mirth was apparent in her voice. “It seemed there is quite a party waiting for you, human.”

“Master!!!” 

“...I’m fine Clar.” he smiled, patting her head, trying to calm her down. On his lap was his sniveling ought-to-be guardian. The girl was an absolute mess. Her eyes and cheek puffed red, her clothes dirted with smudges of muds and soil. Even her hair, the good coif Jeanne spent the better part of the morning combed, now full of stray pebbles and leaves. 

It had been a minute and the girl was still hugging him quite fiercely. Looking at her ...unkemptness, he almost blurted whether she got caught in that mess, then again... “I’m glad you’re fine.” …maybe later. When everything settled down. If he was to ask her right now it’d be no more than satisfying his anxiety. She was safe and whole. That was all that matter.

“Euca! You’re safe! Thanks her grace!” 

“Apprentice!” he smiled. Relieved looking at the green-haired boy emerging from the crowd of onlookers. At least if the other sprites asked for cross-examination, he’d have a solid testimony that he in fact was, well, a friend with him. Still… what happened? Like Clar, the boy was also scuffed. His unsleeved forearms were filled with numerous scratches.

“Apie bad! Go away!!!” Ughk. He felt his collarbone almost crushed, the girl hugged him even tighter. Glaring the elf boy with evil eyes.

“C—Clar I’m just trying—”

“—Bad! Clar told Apie that Clar must save master! But Apie didn’t listen!” she snarled at the now backtracking boy who he didn’t know could look so downcast. 

Ah… Clar must have tried to cross the lake when the whole debacle happened. Yeah, that sounds about right. And Apie here, well he managed to stop her. At cost apparently. “Clar,”

“Y—yes, master?”

“I’m okay now, aren’t I?” he smiled, patting her head again, this time carefully removing a few stones and leaves that still stuck out. “So forgive Apie, okay?”

“Hmph!”

“Clar, I’m sorry…” the elf boy said, his eyes glistened.

“La la la la!! Clar doesn’t want to listen!”

“Clar…” he hugged her back. “For me, please?”

“...no. Even it’s master, no…” she shook her head still stubborn. 

“Hello.” 

“Ah, yes?” he looked upward toward the voice. The owner was a man with long dark blue hair, he was wearing a white robe, gilded with similar blue coloring. “Euca?”

“...yes?” He nodded.

“Please go inside.”

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