U-Un. Sorry. I will be careful."
"..."
The spider Hajime caught didn't have magic stone, a normal poisonous spider. The fact that she was almost killed by creature other than a demonic beast, and how Hajime helped her, made Kaori even more depressed.
When she was still in Kouki's party, she was an all-rounder, however, in Hajime's party, she isn't at all useful. It made Kaori panic more and more inwardly.
As such, Kaori put even more attention towards the surroundings which caused the conversation between the two to lessen, and they got out of the jungle with a subtle atmosphere between them.
Ahead of them was...
"This... isn't this the so-called ship's graveyard?"
"Amazing... those are sailing ships, but the size..."
In the rocky area ahead of the jungle were several partly rotted sailing ships lodged. The sailing ships were around a hundred meters in length at the lowest, and in the far distant was an even bigger one with at least three hundred meters in length.
The bizarre spectacle made Hajime and Kaori unconsciously halted their advance. However, it didn't take a long time for Hajime and Kaori to regain their senses and entered the ship's graveyard.
They advanced by passing through the gaps between rocks, sometimes passing over them, while at other times, they walked on the ships.
"Even so... there are only battleships here."
"Un. But only the biggest one there seems to be a passenger boat. It has luxurious decorations on it..."
The ships in this graveyard didn't have cannons located at the starboard side like those battleship (sail-type) on earth. Even so, Hajime was able to conclude they were battleships because there were marks of fierce battle on all of the ships. From the appearance of the ships, they seemed to have received magic attacks. Some have their masts cleanly cut, burnt, carbonized decks, and petrified ropes and nets.
They didn't have any cannon, so they used long-ranged magic to defeat the enemies which was a battle method imaginable from the marks remained.
Then, Hajime's guess was proven to be a fact when he and Kaori were halfway through the ship's graveyard.
— UoOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
— WAaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!
"-!? What the!?"
"Hajime-kun! The surroundings are—!"
When they felt they heard shout of many men all of a sudden, the surroundings scenery began to distort. Hajime and Kaori stopped walking from the surprise and they observed the surroundings to observe what was happening. The surrounding distortion became even more intense and before they were aware of it, Hajime and Kaori were already on a ship's deck, above the vast ocean.
Following that, they looked at their surroundings, it was not the ship's graveyard, but hundreds of sailing ships divided into two groups, confronting each other. Above the ships were people raising their weapons while shouting.
"Th-The heck is this..."
"Ha-Ha-Hajime-kun? Am I currently inside a dream? Hajime-kun, you are here, right? Right?"
Both Hajime and Kaori were taken aback, but they somehow managed to get out of their confusion, however, they weren't able to look at their surroundings.
While they did so, a big spark rose into the sky, generating firework-like loud voices followed by the hundreds of ships moving out simultaneously. The fleet on the side of the ship Hajime and Kaori rode on also moved out after the firework rose.
And when the ships approached a certain distance, they used the momentum to ram the other ships used its bodies, while magic were also fired.
GOoOOOOOOOO!!
DOoGAaAAAN!!
DOBAaAAAA!!!
"Owh!?"
"Kyaa!"
Flame bullets fired accompanied by roaring sounds and created holes in the ships' bodies. Huge tornadoes advanced aiming at the masts. The sea's surface froze, stopping the ships. And bullets of gray-colored sphere instantly petrified everything.
Even the deck Hajime and Kaori were on was hit by the flame bullets and began to blaze up grandly. The ship's crews immediately activated magic to draw up the sea water and extinguished the fire.
It was literally a battlefield where innumerable people and ships fought on. The fired magic clad in killing intent grazed their skins.
Hajime and Kaori absentmindedly watching these spectacle, and once again fire bullets fired from behind them. The bullets' courses were aimed straight towards Hajime and Kaori.
Hajime buried his question of why did they suddenly were involved in this war in his head, and he pulled out Donner because it was OK to kill everyone because they attacked first. Thus, he intercepted the fire bullets using the railgun.
The bullet fired was accompanied by explosive sound and a flash, but unexpectedly it didn't even hit the flame bullets much more intercepting them. The bullet flew into the sky, and it disappeared.
"What!?"
Raising surprised voice for the nth times, Hajime embraced Kaori by his side and began to evade.
"Wait, I will obstruct them! "Light Severance"!"
With Kaori's chant, the beginner-level defense magic of light attribute appeared.
Hajime tried to evade because the unknown magic kept going even after their cores were hit, but Kaori had activated her magic and couldn't move away from there. Reluctantly, he activated "Vajra" and waited for the flame bullets.
However, Hajime's worry proved to be groundless because Kaori's barrier completely blocked the flame bullets. With dubious expression, Hajime thought whether he just misfired while tilting his head, and he once again fired at the incoming flame bullets. Even this time, Hajime's Magic Eye indeed saw the cores being hit, but the bullet just passed through the flame bullets and flew towards the day after tomorrow..
"... Is that it?"
Seeing that, Hajime was guessing why his attack wasn't effective and decided to try another method of attacking. Kaori tried to put up another barrier to block the incoming flame bullets, but Hajime stopped her and activated "Wind Claw" in Donner. Following that, he evaded, and at the same time, he slashed the flame bullets using "Wind Claw." This time, the flame bullets didn't pass through and slashed in two.
"Umm, Hajime-kun?"
"It doesn't seem to be an illusion nor was it a real thing. The physical attack didn't effective, but attacks that contained magic power are effective. Good grief, what's with this situation."
Hajime spat a sigh from this troublesome situation and "Gwaa," an agonized voice rang right from behind him. While wondering what it was, he turned around and there was a young man crouching while suppressing his abdomen, while his other hand was holding a cutlass. Looking carefully, there was a pool of blood below him and blood covered icicle rolling nearby. He must have been shot with the icicle.
"Are you okay!?," Kaori immediately raised her voice while approaching him, and then she used her healing magic. A pure-white light released from her and wrapped the man. He should be healed in a blink of an eye because Kaori was a "Healer"... or so she thought, but the result was unexpected. The moment the young man received Kaori's healing magic, he turned into light particles and disappeared.
"Eh? Eh? W-Why..." After a little pondering, Hajime told the confused Kaori what he thought had happened.
"Wasn't it because the effect and attribute of the magic didn't matter as long as it carried magic power?"
"... Then, I-I just... killed that person..."
"Kaori, this is not reality. Just think of it as "an illusion where we can move freely." Besides, you can't call something that disappeared by being healed a human."
"Hajime-kun... un, you are right. I am sorry that I was confused a little there. But I am okay now."
Though slight, Hajime said words of concern to Kaori. However, Kaori didn't feel happy like the usual her, only drooping her shoulders apologizing. Then, she smiled to smooth things over. Seeing her reaction made Hajime inadvertently muttered the thing he had thought since earlier.
"... You keep apologizing, eh."
"Eh? Did you say something?"
"No, nothing." Hajime moved his gaze from Kaori.
It was not because of the subtle atmosphere drifting around Kaori, but because he felt ominous presences. When he looked around, the soldiers were shouting and attacking the nearby ships, and before they were aware of it, several men with dark gazes were looking at Hajime and Kaori.
Kaori noticed Hajime's gaze and looked at the direction he was watching, and the men immediately came to attack Hajime and Kaori.
"For the God!"
"Long live! Eht-samaa!"
"Pagans! Die for our God!"
They were in frenzy. With bloodshot eyes, they declared while scattering saliva around. Completely abnormal.
He was able to guess it was a war between countries from how the fleets looked like, and he finally understood the reason for it. It was a religious war. If he strained his ears, he could hear the other soldiers in the other fleets were shouting similar things. However, they were shouting different God's name.
Kaori could only stand in blank surprise inside the frenzied atmosphere.
Embracing Kaori from behind, Hajime thrust out and fired Donner over his shoulder. Only, the fired thing was not a bullet but mass of pure magic power. Using "Magic Power Compression" and "Magic Power Emission" derived from "Magic Power Manipulation," he was able to blow off magic power without affecting the target physically. In a sense, it was a flawless technique to disarm the target because human and even demonic beast wouldn't be able to move if their magic power was exhausted. This move had always been kept inside of him because he would not use such a lukewarm method on his enemy.