Er Mu - Release that Witch

After dropping down back on the deck, Tilly quickly summarized the situation.

“We must force it out of the sea, otherwise sooner or later this damn monster will manage to sink the ship.” Ashes declared with a frown.

“I’ll try it,” Shavi said. “Since it’s coming from beneath when it hits the bottom of the ship, as long as it gets in close enough, I could use my barrier to stop it.”

“Oh Emperor of the Sea above,” Old Jack cried out as he wiped the sweat from his forehead, “If it’s really as huge as Lady Tilly said, I’m afraid that ordinary attacks would be unlikely to work against it. So how would you kill it, even if you are able to force it out of the sea-“

“Just let me do it,” Andrea combed her loose hair back behind her ears as she showed them a confident smile. “There is no enemy able to resist my full power within a distance of ten steps.”

It wasn’t long before the shadow appeared again, but this time it had changed direction and was coming at them from the stern of the Charming Beauty.

Monitoring the situation from high up in the air, Tilly immediately called out a warning. When Shavi heard her she quickly ran into position and jumped off the ship. Previously she had firmly tied a hemp rope around her waist, while the other end was in Ashes’ hand, who could use it to control Shavi’s falling height.

As the shadow approached, Shavi quickly opened her barrier, splitting the dusky sea water, as if it was separated by something invisible.

As the monster rushed into the barrier, its huge bulk stopped and Shavi let out a pressured groan, her hands were hanging down beside her body, as if she was using an enormous amount of strength. Looking down, the shadow beneath her feet was rapidly expanding, and the water was rising violently.

“Quickly pull her up!” Tilly shouted as she rushed downwards.

Using all her power, Ashes single-handed pulled on her end of the rope. The moment Shavi fell on the deck, a huge sea monster came roaring out of the water, causing waves which made the Charming Beauty sway heavily. The monster looked like a mixture between a shark and an octopus, with a triangular head which was covered with several tentacles, all of which shot straight toward the deck.

Even without hearing its cry it became clear that the unfathomable impact has made it incomparably angry, as it let its adult thigh sized tentacles rain down onto the ship, trying to break everything apart, but even from the beginning up until the end it had no way to penetrate Shavi’s defense.

“Andrea!” Ashes bent down, entwined her fingers and formed a step with her hands.

“Coming,” the latter set a foot onto Ashes’ palms and shouted, “Give me everything you’ve got!”

Thrown by extraordinary power into the air, Andrea turned into an arc and within the blink of an eye, she had already appeared above the monster’s head.

She summoned her magical longbow, pulling the string to its fullest, unexpectedly there were flashes of light breaking out between the bow and its string. Rather than flashes of light, it seemed as if the sun had actually come out from behind the clouds, reflecting across the sea’s surface in a golden luster.

“Go!”

The light flashed, and with an ear-piercing cry an arrow, made purely out of magic, it drilled right into the monster body like a strike of thunder. The monster’s gray-brown skin suddenly swelled, and golden cracks appeared all over its body, before finally, with a loud explosion, it shattered.

The huge explosion created ripples across the surface of the sea. Its blood, which was as black as ink, dyed the sea a pitch-black, while viscera came falling from the sky like rain. The previously attacking tentacles all curled up and sunk back into the sea together with pieces of the monster’s blown up head.

Andrea crashed into the sea.

“Ah… Help, help I can’t swim! Guru, who… who’s going to pull me out?!”

Ashes glanced toward the seemingly tired Shiva before she helplessly sighed. “She is indeed only a handsome fool,” she said then unhooked the sword on her back and jumped into the sea to swim to Andrea’s side.

As the threat of a sunken ship was lifted, Tilly finally felt some relief. At least she no longer had to worry how they were going to travel on their own to Border Town.

But just at that moment, she suddenly felt something cold on her nose, raising her head, she could not help but freeze on the spot.

She could see snowflakes falling from the gray sky, flying around like white fairies, filling her entire field of view.

“This… is snow?” Tilly asked in disbelief as she looked at the melted water on top of her hand, “Graycastle has snow during autumn?”

“Well, it’s like I said. The further West we go, the colder it becomes,” One Eyed Jack said as he pulled out his pipe, “It seems you are really returning toward an abyss of suffering.”

Tilly was unable to answer, only showing a dignified look. Breeze had originally come from the Kingdom of Dawn, which had a favorable climate throughout the year, while Jack was born within the Fjords, where even during the strongest winter it was difficult for them to see heavy snowfall. But for Graycastle’s Western Region, snow had a special meaning.

Her court tutor had once said, that once the snow began to fall it wouldn’t stop for a long time. Just like the Devil’s fanfare it symbolized the beginning of the Months of Demons and would only settle after the Months of Demon had come to its end.

Although the beginning of the Months of Demons isn’t at a fixed date, generally it won’t start before the beginning of winter, can it be that Border Town is already under the attack of demonic beasts? Moreover, those Sea Ghost would usually only appear East of the Burning Fire Island, but right now there are even traces of them at the most southern corner of the Vortex Sea. I wonder if those merchant ships sailing between the Fjords and the Four Kingdoms are also under attack from these monsters.

Tilly was starting to feel more and more worried.

Navigating through the whirling snow for two more days, they finally saw the hazy coastline on top of the horizon.

“Is this the place where you landed last time?” Tilly asked, looking at the tall rocky cliff standing in front of them.

From the moment they had first seen the coastline, the Charming Beauty had followed it all the way westwards, until Ashes finally shouted for them to stop when they’ve reached the known beach.

“Yeah, take a look at them,” Ashes said as she pointed at the top of a cliff.

Tilly followed the direction of Ashes’ finger with her gaze and saw an orange flag on both sides of the peak flapping in the wind.

“Although it was a sandy beach when came here last, those two flags prove that we haven’t taken the wrong road.”

“I also had the same impression,” Old Jack said, the pipe as always still in his mouth, “But the last time they came, it was with a huge balloon which they had used to carry all the woman over the mountain. So, how are you planning to get over that?”

“Huge balloon?” Tilly asked curiously.

“That’s right, it can fly when it is filled with hot air,” Ashes nodded in confirmation, “It is said that it’s one of His Highness’ inventions. The principle behind it is to use the power from hot air to carry the balloon and the people inside up into the sky.”

The 5th Princess looked somewhat worried as she stated, “The court mentors have never taught us anything like that.” She then spat out a mouthful of white air before continuing, “No matter, I will see him soon, and when I do I will naturally come to know the truth. Let’s go ashore.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to wait aboard until he comes to pick you up?” The captain asked, clearing his pipe from ashes, “How are you planning to cross the cliff?”

“Shiva will handle it,” Tilly said smilingly.

Since it was a naturally formed coastline and no one really knew the depth of the seabed, the Charming Beauty couldn’t approach the shore. So the only way to send the people towards the sandbar was by using the landing boat.

When the group of witches stepped onto the thick snow, Tilly turned toward One Eyed Jack and said, “Mr. Captain, please wait here for three or four more days, Lotus and the others will also need your help returning to Sleeping Island.”

“Of course,” the captain agreed immediately, “Without you witches on board, I wouldn’t dare to sail back, ah. Who knows whether those Sea Ghosts will attack again on our way back home.”

When everything was said, Tilly went to the edge of the cliff and used the flying magic stone with her ability to head straight to the top of the hilltop. Looking around, the terrain behind the mountain was much higher than the beach, it was almost at the same level as the hilltop. In other words, they would only have to go up and there would be no need for them to go down again to land. The height of the cliff was about fifty paces, and the magic consumption of the barrier would be increased when used against objects, but such a distance should still be no problem for Shiva. Having slowly come to land beside the four woman Tilly said, “Shiva, I will have to trouble you with those three.”

“Yes, Lady Tilly,” the latter said, showing a big smile while patting her chest. Then she summoned her invisible barrier. By now all of them were fully recovered after having rested for two days since last deflecting all the violent attacks from the sea monster. Waiting until all the people had stepped on top of her transparent barrier, she guided her magic, so that the barrier slowly rose up and soon they were above the hilltop.