91. A Whole New World… of Fishing
The weather was great.The sea was a beautiful shade of blue. The skies were clear, and the few clouds that remained were as white as marshmallows. Despite being a sword, I could almost feel the sun’s powerful ultraviolet rays assaulting my skin as the salty sea breeze gently passed by. This, this was what it truly meant to be at sea.
Fran, Urushi and I were currently aboard an incredibly luxurious ship, and I didn’t mean luxurious in the sense that it was a massive cruise liner or anything. In fact, it wasn’t all that big at all. However, its insides were decorated in as gaudy a manner as could be. All in all, it was probably at about the same level of luxury as the inn from which we just departed. Honestly though, I should’ve seen this coming. I don’t know what else I should’ve expected of a ship reserved for royalty.
Fran was enjoying this opportunity to its fullest. She was sitting on a wooden chair atop the ship’s deck and basking in the sun to he heart’s content. Her mind and body were both clearly in vacation mode, as evidenced by the glass of juice sitting next to her.
That said, she was still making sure the ship was getting all the protection it needed… by ordering Urushi to do it in her place. Speaking of which, Urushi was currently on his way back to the ship. He had just defeated a fish-like magic beast, and was in the midst of retrieving it.
Urushi could leap through the air as he pleased and fire off dark magic instead of relying on melee combat, so he didn’t really end up getting soaked or anything. The only part of him that actually got wet was his face because he had to stick it into the water to pick up the magic beasts he defeated.
Well, the way I just said it made it sound kind of like Fran was doing nothing at all, but she was in fact still exerting a slight bit of effort from time to time. She would start casting spells if more than one magic beast attacked the ship simultaneously.
「Woof woof!」
「Welcome back Urushi.」
『I’ll cut it up and stuff so we can eat it later.』
「Woof!」
『Y’know, I’m pretty content. I’ve managed to get quite a few magic stone points out of this.』
We’d only been on the boat for about half a day, but we’d already managed to kill 11 different magic beasts. Four kills belonged to Fran, and the other seven to Urushi.
The ship’s crew had all been glaring at her in annoyance just earlier this morning as a result of her seemingly laid back attitude. They did warm up to her eventually though, as evidenced by the fact that they even went out of their way to thank her. Apparently, this was the first time they’d ever come across this many magic beasts without their ship being subjected to damage.
Serid was a bit more vocal about his complaints, but seeing Fran in action had left him with nothing to say with regards to her performance.
He didn’t stop trying to call her out though. I mean seriously, he was annoying as could be and pissed me the hell off on more than one occasion. During meal times, he wouldn’t shut up about how Fran didn’t have manners. She quickly got annoyed as well, so she activated Court Etiquette and put on a display as perfect as could be. Though Serid was still frustrated, he ultimately ran out of valid complaints and so, he ended up just sitting there and glaring at us in vexation. Observing him led me to believe that he and Salrut weren’t on good terms. We were quite friendly with Salrut, so he had likely identified us as a sort of natural enemy.
（Master. Afternoon snack.）
『Alright. Are you craving anything in particular?』
（Nnnn… Cookies.）
I hadn’t really made many sweets myself yet, so I decided to hand Fran the cookies we bought in Alessa. They came from a shop that sold most of its merchandise to nobles, so they were pretty tasty. That said, I personally still preferred the sweets we had back on earth. I should really sit down some time in the near future so I can mass produce stuff like cakes and pudding.
「Tasty.」
「Whine whine.」
『Don’t you worry Urushi, I’ve got something for you too.』
「Woof!」
All the magic beasts we ran into were pretty weak, so both Fran and Urushi ended up being fairly relaxed. We sure did land ourselves one hell of a job. It felt like there were far more benefits than there was actual work.
There weren’t any other magic beasts for a while, so we spent a bit of time just dilly dallying around. That, however, changed once the princess came looking for us. As she approached, I couldn’t help but notice her long, blonde hair as it blew in the wind reflected the sun’s golden rays. Her blue eyes and westerner-like facial features were quite appealing to the eye. As of right now, she had a sort of cute charm, but as she matured, she would likely end up more on the beautiful side of the scale. [1]
Her features were a stark contrast to Fran’s, not to say that Fran wasn’t cute. She definitely was, it was just that she had short black hair and deep black eyes. It was like she was the princess’ opposite, and seeing them next to each other was kind of like seeing the sun next to the moon.
「Good afternoon Fran. We about to go fishing, would you like to join us?」
「Nn. Will join.」
After receiving the princess’s invitation, Fran followed her to the ship’s rear deck. There, we found Prince Flut, accompanied by three of the children we rescued. The girl and two boys by his side were the kids that didn’t have anywhere to go. The prince had proclaimed their encounter a sort fate, and decided that he would hire them all as servants.
The children had seemed to want to get to work right away, but the prince told them to treat him as just another one of their peers for the time being, seeing as they had yet to officially begin their training. The four of them seemed to be having a pretty good time, they were happily chatting away whilst holding their fishing rods in hand.
Children were unlike adults in the sense that they had yet to learn to discriminate between social classes, so it didn’t take for them to befriend both the prince and princess. The Serid faggot was already starting to get all bitchy again, but everyone more or less ended up ignoring him.
「Are you going to fish too, Fran?」
「Nn. Good at it.」
「Oh? Really?」
「Alright, then let’s have a fishing contest!」
「And we can all eat the fish we catch together!」
Fran was given a really fancy fishing rod. It was such an incredibly high quality product that it even had an automatic, magical reel.
The kids we saved didn’t seem to realize the item’s value, and happily just lobbed their lines into the sea without so much as a second glance. It didn’t take long for them to start landing fish. The fish that were reeled in were pretty much limited to sardine and marakel lookalikes, but regardless, the children soon began joyously comparing the size and relative rarities of their catches. Even the princess was all smiles despite the fact that she herself had opted to sit off to the side and observe as opposed to joining in.
The only one that had yet to catch anything was Fran, and as a result, the other children, the prince included, soon began to tease her.
「Whatever happened to being good at fishing?」
「You’re the only one that hasn’t caught anything yet.」
「Even I managed to land three!」
「Don’t worry! We’ll make sure we share some of ours with you.」
「Just wait. Ignoring small fry. Will net big catch.」
「Hahahaha! Good luck!」
I didn’t really see any problems with just going about this whole fishing thing like a normal person would, but Fran had insisted on trying to land something big.
The bait she was using was a Rockworm, a weak magic beast that we happened to have lying around. They didn’t really have use normally. Their shells would get all fragile when dried, and their meat stank and tasted like crap. The only part of them that we even bothered taking note of was their magic stones. It was kind of sad, but they normally only really saw use as compost. As a result, I happened to have a bunch sitting around in my storage just taking up space for no real reason.
Fran had taken one of the aforementioned Rockworms and chopped about a meter off its body. She then placed that severed section on a massive fishing hook and threw it out to sea. Using bait like that really limited what she could catch. The only things she could lure in were sharks, whales, and magic beasts. Thinking about it really made me wonder what she’d been trying to catch in the first place — not that it was of any real consequence. The only thing that really mattered was that she was having fun, which she was.
The status quo didn’t really change even after an hour. Each of the children had managed to fish up ten or so different fish, but Fran had yet to catch anything.
At first, they’d teased her about being unable to catch anything, but their expressions had gradually changed over the course of the activity. They’d even started hoping that she would soon land a bite.They seemed to have the wrong idea. They thought that her silence and lack of an expression was due to something along the lines of idea, when really, that was just how she was.
Fran actually didn’t mind her lack of a catch at all. In fact, she was rather happy as a result of the peaceful atmosphere.
But then it finally happened. The atmosphere crumbled in an instant as the moment Fran had been awaiting finally arrived.
「Nn!」
「Nice! You got a bite!」
「Woah, it’s pulling super hard!」
「It must be really big!」
The children started cheering. They seemed as happy as they were when they themselves got bites.
The fishing rod started to bend out of shape. Despite being what was likely one of the highest quality fishing rods in the world, it was forced to bend as far as it could go. Chances were that Fran had probably caught something on the scale of a marlin.
「Mgrrhhhh!」
「You can do it! Go go!」
「Reel it in! Reel it in!!」
「Nn!」
Fran was using every last bit of her strength to pull the fish in, but her prey was pulling back with just as much force. Despite her efforts, the reel continued to spin and the line continued to lengthen. Seeing her like that reminded me of a show I saw on TV once. If I recall correctly, it was called Fishing the Seven Seas… or something like that.
「Nnnnnn!!!!」
「Keep it up!」
「Don’t let it get away!」
To be honest, I probably could’ve given Fran a hand. I could’ve weakened it a bit without catching anyone’s attention. It would’ve been pretty easy to tire it out with magic and make it feel all drowsy or something.
But I refrained.
This was Fran’s battle, something she should take care of on her own.
Fran struggled with the fish for more than thirty minutes. Obvious signs of exhaustion had started to show on her face.
The process had ultimately ended up as something more akin to trawling than fishing. She merely pulled her catch along as the ship continued to sail.
Her arms had already started to go numb, so she gave up on winning with nothing but brute force and instead relied on her skills.
She began by activating Thunder Blade. The expensive fishing rod was instantly cloaked in a coat of electricity. She then quickly used water magic alongside current control, and started to pull her prey towards the ship whilst activating Herculean Strength and a whole bunch of different support spells. She was going for one last spurt.
It took her ten minutes to finally drag the fish from the ocean’s depths. It’s form wasn’t fully visible, but we could see a giant, ten meter long shadow lurking beneath the water’s surface. The fish she’d caught was literally twice Urushi’s size.
「Wow! What is that!?」
「W-Wow Fran! Are you okay?」
「Holy moly!」
The children immediately kicked up a fuss, but Fran paid them no heed as she continued to singlemindedly reel her prey in. The air around her would periodically crackle with electricity because she had kept Thunder Blade active the whole time.
That said, the fish had really put up one hell of a struggle. There was no way it was just a normal fish. Knowing that, I decided to give it a quick appraisal.
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General Information
Race: Dreadnought Destroyer (Tuna)
Magic Beast (Fish)
Level 29
HP: 556
MP: 139
STR: 207
VIT: 139
AGI: 109
INT: 56
MGC: 77
DEX: 69
Skills
Hardened Skin: Lv 6
Current Control: Lv 6
Water Magic: Lv 5
Swimming: Lv 5
Enhanced Sense of Smell
Strengthened Shell
Description
Its head is covered with a substance as hard as mithril. Its name is derived from the fact that it can destroy battleships by ramming them with its skull. It is classified as a D level threat if within the ocean, and an E level threat under all other conditions. Its flesh is said to be an extremely luxurious delicacy. Its magic stone is in its head.
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『Watch out Fran. It’s a magic beast, and a pretty strong one at that.』
「Nn!」
Fran immediately hit the Dreadnought Destroyer with a mix of wind magic and sheer brute force; its body was sent flying up into the air.
「Woah!!」
「Kyah!」
「Holy!」
The giant magic beast immediately fell towards the ship and caused both the children and sailors to scream in panic.
『The ship will probably take a lot of damage if you let the Tuna fall on top of it.』
「Nn.」
Fran immediately used magic detection to find the giant fish’s magic stone and threw me at it with all her might.
「Haa!」
She accelerated me even further through the use of wind magic, so I pierced through the fish’s hard skull with ease.
She then cast more wind magic and caught its corpse before it crashed into the ship. She then gently laid it on the deck. The fish was at least twelve meters long from head to tail. In fact, it was so long that its tailfin actually hung off the side of the ship; its length was greater than our luxury liner’s width.
「Fishing contest. My win.」
「Er… Um….」
「That uh….」
「Nn?」
Fran began dismantling the fish despite the fact that the children and crew were still in the midst of a confused uproar. Well, I say dismantle, but all she really did was cut off its head and fillet it.
『Fran, what are you doing?』
（Promised to share.）
『Oh, yeah. Right.』
And so, Fran continued to quickly and efficiently dismantle the giant fish. The sailors hadn’t been aware at how proficient she was at dismantling, so they couldn’t help but end up staring in awe.
I’ve emphasized this multiple times already, but the fish really was massive. In fact, it was so big that we could probably feed over a hundred people with just the delicious fatty stomach part itself. That thought was probably precisely why the ship’s crew had yet to calm down. They were probably all excited because of the fact that there was a massive amount of a super high class delicacy right before their eyes.
They continued to make a fuss throughout the dismantling process. Silence didn’t come until quite a bit after Fran put the head and bones away inside her dimensional storage.
「I knew that Fran was strong, but I never would have fathomed that she would be this strong…」
「Hahaha! You’ve beat me by a mile. The fishing content belongs to you.」
「How incredible! She really is much stronger than Salrut!」
「Delicious!」
「S-So this is how a Dreadnought Destroyer tastes…」
「I’m going to eat a whole lifetime’s worth!」
The ship soon started to get noisy again as we started handing out cuts of tuna. We gave the sailors a share as well, so the whole ship was soon filled with a sort of party like atmosphere. Everyone was happy, which made sense. It wasn’t everyday that you’d get your hands on a delicacy this delicious, after all.
「Hey, thanks for the meal.」
Even the captain came up to offer us his thanks.
「My name is Rengil. Would you mind me asking yours?」
「Fran.」
「And I assume you’re an adventurer?」
「Nn. Rank D adventurer.」
Fran flashing her guild card caused the ship to stir with noise yet again. Very few had ever achieved D rank at an age as young as hers.
「I expected nothing less. In fact, I was expecting you to be of a higher rank given your abilities. I was quite surprised that you managed to defeat Dreadnought Destroyer with such ease. In any case, I would like to offer you a token of appreciation.」
Captain Rengil took something out of his chest pocket and handed it to Fran.
「What’s this?」
「That coin right there has the Luciel Conglomerate’s coat of arms engraved on it. The company’s head office is in Barbra, and showing them that coin should earn you quite a few conveniences going forward.」
「The Luciel Conglomerate is one of Kranzel’s leading corporations, and evidently, one of its executives has just taken a liking to you. How truly impressive!」
The prince explained that the coin we’d received was actually something really worthwhile, as it meant that a massive company had our backs. I really had to give it to the captain. He had a pretty good eye for adventurers.
「You sure?」
「Of course. In fact, I’d say it’s worth very little compared to what we would obtain out of networking with an adventurer with as much potential as you.」
The sailors began string up yet another storm the moment their captain finished speaking. This time around, all of them were praising Fran without the slightest bit of reserve.
「Man, she even managed to catch the captain’s eye.」
「Well yeah. Look at how young she is! She’s already rank D at that age!」
「She defeated the Dreadnought Destroyer with ease too.」
「And she’s cute.」
「Dude, what the hell!? You were a pedo!?」
「N-No way man! That’s not what I meant!」
「I would like to encourage you to visit our headquarters in Barbra at least once. It will be well worth your time.」
「Nn.」
The captain gave one last bow before turning around and heading back to his position. Likewise, the crew members passed by one by one and thanked Fran in turn. As a result, the three children ended up looking at her with gazes tainted with an ever so slight bit of envy.
「You’re amazing Fran!」
「Nn. Of course.」
「I’m going to become just as strong as you are!」
「Good luck.」
「Lemme see the coin!」
Fran’s finally made real friends! And she’s hanging out with them too!
Just seeing her like that made me wish that the moment would last in perpetuity.
But my hopes were crushed, as the sailor keeping watch immediately began to shout.
「P-Pirate ship spotted!!」
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[1] The Japanese have divided womanly appeals into several distinct categories. Some examples include cute girls and cool beauties.