The small, but sophisticated Ouroboros ship successfully slipped into the infamous Void River.
It seemed they finally managed to break free from their pursuers, as it had been around an hour since they had entered this mysterious place and they had still not heard nor seen any trace of the latter.
In fact, there was nothing visible in the space beyond the ship's window: it was eerily silent. So quiet it bordered on unsettling and terrifying. Everything outside was suffused in af pitch-black color. There was nothing else aside from a seemingly endless sea of darkness, stretching as far as the eye could see.
If it wasn't for the rhythmic turbulence of the ship that shook their footing every so often, there would be no way of even knowing if they were still moving or stopped altogether.
Beep… Beep… Beep…
Accompanying the occasional turbulence in its harmony were the small, similarly rhythmic beep noises coming from the ship's control panel. Its key engine automatically employed its sensors to perceive and map the surrounding area, as the ship continued to move through the Void River in auto-pilot mode.
It was Magus Jasper, who set up the trajectory of the ship's autopilot.
After checking on the system, Silva thought it was just set up to keep going forward. She believed the idea was that if the ship continued to advance forward, they would eventually traverse through the Void River and find the exit.
In other words, they had no concrete destination in mind.
"You thought?" Emery asked again as if he thought he heard wrong.
'Did this girl really do what she just said?', was the thought in Emery's mind as it replayed the words she said earlier.
"Yes, because I thought! What?!" shouted Silva back in annoyance, when she noticed the look on Emery's face. "I have never been interested in anything like this, okay? If you want to give it a go, be my guest!"
In response to that challenge clearly fueled by irritation, Emery could only display a wry smile on his face. Even though he found everything on this ship very fascinating, he really didn't dare to touch it with the knowledge and skill he had.
After all, the greatest machinery he had ever operated throughout his life was a simple tool he created back at the Ambrose estate with function to make the task of drawing water from a well easier.
Deciding it would be pointless for them to continue this small argument, Silva turned her gaze to the unconscious figure on the floor and asked, "What about him?"
Yet again, Emery shook his head in helplessness. In the past hour, while Silva was trying her best to understand the inner workings of the ship, Emery had also kept himself busy taking care of the currently unconscious Magus Heorgar.
He had given and tried everything he had, but to no avail.
He had even expended all the spirit energy his body could muster to cast [Nature's Blessing] spell on the unconscious man, hoping it would be enough to at least wake the other party.
Alas, the differences between a peak Full-Moon magus like Heorgar and a mere rank 8 acolyte such as him was simply too vast.
All Emery could feel during his attempts to help the other party was a mental block that stood firmly in his way.
His nature-element infused roots weren't even able to penetrate Heorgar's nerves, let alone his spirit core.
Hearing the lack of results coming out of Emery's mouth, the girl raised one of her eyebrows.
"I see... and here you are judging my failure to operate this ship," said Silva, clicking her tongue.
"No, Silva. I didn't mean it like that…" Emery rubbed the back of his head, regretting his careless choice of words. Now that he thought about it, it had indeed been wrong for him to say such things.
"Hah! Never mind that, we have other important things to think about," Silva said, waving her hand. Sighing, she turned to Emery, "I guess our only hope is for our other guest to know something that helps our predicament."
When he heard that, Emery had a look of understanding on his face. At almost the same time, the two of them glanced at the red-haired girl, who had been tied and placed at the end of the ship even before the ship had to take off from the hideout.
Without waiting for Emery's reply, Silva turned around and glared at the girl.
"I assume you understand the situation we are in right now, right? Do you think you are ready to cooperate now?!" she snapped at the girl.
To Silva's complete surprise, Annara was unperturbed by her attitude and harsh words. She calmly nodded her head as an answer. Thus, Silva walked to her and took the piece of cloth gagging her mouth.
While the red-haired girl moved her somewhat stiff mouth around, Silva squatted down and asked, "So, do you know anything about operating a flying ship?"
Annara stopped what she was doing when she heard Silva's words. She raised her head to look at Silva's face and calmly replied with a faint smile etched on her face.
"I have experience driving one. Not this particular one, but I am confident I ca-"
Before Annara even finished what she was saying, Silva suddenly put the piece of cloth back in her mouth, gagging the red-haired girl once again and thereby causing her to be angry.
"Why did you do that?" Emery asked while looking strangely at Silva, who was walking towards him.
"Why? What do you mean by why?" Silva rebutted with her hands folded in front of her chest. "She has been sneaking around the place where the matter of the Wolf and the Snake Bloodline occurred. Don't you think it's very suspicious?"
"It's enough to know that she can help us. That doesn't mean that we're going to let her go right away. Unless we are left with no other options, I prefer her to stay tight in that corner."
Silva once again looked at the red-haired girl, who was currently glaring at her, before turning his head and asking Emery, "Do you concur?"
"Yeah, sure. We'll just follow your arrangement." Emery answered with a little smile. The girl had been like this since the first day they met. He found her attitude to be amusing actually.
However, just two hours after drifting in the Void River, the ship suddenly crashed into rocks and the control panel started making weird noises.
[Warning! the Autopilot is disengaged]
As a result, Annara was quickly released from her bindings, as Silva knew they were now in a desperate situation.
Of course, the red-haired girl was still offended by what Silva had done to her, but with the current situation where their lives literally placed on the line, she wisely decided to put her ill feelings aside for now and focused on tackling this great peril.
"The autopilot is broken, but that is the least of our problems. We lost the ship's thrusters. Now we're completely drifting along the Void River with the current." Annara said after tinkering with the control panel for a while.
"Can you fix it?" Silva asked, when she heard the thrusters were broken.
Annara shook her head at the question. "I can't do it because I have to see where the damage is, which means I have to go out to check in person. You two definitely wouldn't force a harmless girl like me to go out and die, right?"
In the next few hours, Annara continued to fiddle with the control panel, trying to find something that might help their situation, but to no avail.
They also hoped the unconscious Magus Heorgar would wake up soon and be able to help them, but nothing had changed significantly with his overall condition. The man was still unconscious, despite Emery's unceasing efforts to wake him.
It wasn't until the next day that something finally happened to the group.
Beep!
The strange beeping sound coming from the control panel managed to attract the attention of the three. Annara quickly looked at the control panel to see what was happening.
"We are finally out of the Void River!"
The look of relief on Emery's face upon hearing this made the two girls shake their heads.
"You do know that there's a 50:50 chance of us getting thrown into elf territory or worse, right? So stop smiling!" Silva smirked. "We're not out of danger yet!"
Seeing this, Annara opened her mouth. "Are you seriously trying to teach a lower realm peasant? Just stop it, it's like teaching math to a chicken."
Emery was about to refute Annara's words when something caught his attention. There, the group of three once again saw the most awaited dark space.
"Let's see where we are currently at right now!?
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Written by Avans, Published exclusively by W.e.b.n.o.v..e.l,