Chapter 29: The Drowning Man

Everything was shrouded in mist.

As if by sudden onset, the rumbles of waves crashing against the rocks, the thunderous roars of lightning, the howling of sea tornadoes, and the pattering of raindrops on the rocks, all entered their ears simultaneously—occurring the moment they landed on the edge of the island. The low-hanging swirling black clouds now hung even lower, almost obscuring the horizon. If one were to look out from the island, only thick fog, like a cloak, enveloped the sea, covering the gloomy sky, and black waves surged violently, pounding against the coastal rocks, with nothing else visible.

"Honestly, I've never left the continent of Genabackis, let alone seeing such an inexplicable island," said Salser slowly as he landed on the ground, releasing his tail that had been wrapped around Jeanne's waist.

The rain continued to drizzle.

Before them was a fan-shaped shallow beach submerged in seawater and rain, surrounded by clusters of reefs. They had landed on the highest of these rocks—which looked like a platform emerging from the sea, with the highest tides unable to submerge it. On the seaward side of the rock were several similarly sized massive boulders, resembling collapsed and broken walls.

The dark seawater appeared like glass, with black clouds covering the sky, low and heavy, like a sinister dome.

Jeanne pulled a few wet strands of hair from her face and wrapped her long hair, which had come loose in the sea breeze, around her neck. She tore off a sleeve of her garment, using her bare arm to make a graceful gesture—she bit on the black cloth serving as a tie, stretched her arms behind to gather her waist-length golden hair, and gently tied it into a single ponytail.

"Actually, I think it would be better to just cut it," Salser remarked, observing her with a subtle admiration in his eyes, "although it looks much prettier than when it's short."

"I also think it would be more convenient to cut it, but since this is a dream," Jeanne said indifferently, running her fingertips through the water droplets at the ends of her hair, "it's fine to indulge my preferences."

"You really have thick skin," Salser told her again.

Jeanne paused for a moment, drew a long sword from her waist, and casually stabbed it into the ground. The sword was silver-gray, with a lily-shaped emblem engraved on the hilt.

Her current appearance matched the sword well, but her words did not quite match the style of the sword.

"What do you think I should say? Should I act shyly and tell you not to compliment me because it makes me blush? Do you think I've got water in my head?"

"Your head is indeed full of water, in a physical sense."

"If you die, I'll feed your corpse to wild dogs."

"If I die, your soul will follow me into the deepest layers of the Warren."

"...I want to ask how long this nightmare will last before I wake up." Jeanne said, glaring at him with a gloomy expression.

"Oh, that's unfortunate. I advise you not to think about this endless nightmare of yours."

Salser shrugged, ignoring her hostile expression. He jumped off the rock, stepping into the indefinitely undulating waves, and his bat-like wings retracted into his body in a most improbable manner.

He glanced at Jeanne on the rock and said, "The primary issue at hand is the fresher nightmare beneath your feet." After gesturing towards the lighthouse, he added, "We'd better go check out the lighthouse first."

She pulled her sword from beside her feet and followed the Dark wizard, jumping off the rock and splashing a few drops of water.

"I feel like I'm suffocating."

Jeanne followed Salser with a sullen face, her long slender legs encased in knee-high boots, her sword dragging on the ground, her feet trampling on a few wet patches of moss.

In front of them—or at the end of the higher cliff by the coast—stood the murky lighthouse, like a pitch-black pillar under the night sky, with ghostly white light emanating from the top. The lighthouse stood alone at the edge of the cliff, the only visible man-made structure nearby. If one looked further into the island, only wraithlike gray-white mists filled the view, making everything hazy, as if veiled by a layer of gauze.

The path from the reef-filled shallow beach to the top of the cliff was a barely discernible winding trail, with accumulated sand and mud making it slippery to walk on.

To their right, the dripping wet moss grew abundantly, like a spider's web. To their left was the steep cliff edge, with the cliff wall towering over the sea, and a glance down revealed the endless sea below, constantly spewing waves, and the jagged rocks that stirred up the ocean spray.

Although Jeanne had traversed many perilous terrains, while standing in such a place and climbing the slope, she couldn't help but feel dizzy. Therefore, she tightly gripped the end of Salser's nearly two-meter-long tail, even winding it around her wrist. With the distant storm howling, she pretended that all the Dark wizard's complaints were blown away into the darkness, not listening at all, determined to hold on until they entered the lighthouse.

The lighthouse appeared to be made of gray bricks, standing at the end of an enormous triangular-shaped cliff, somewhat dilapidated. Inside was a gray spiral staircase, with gray walls on both sides—making the lighthouse seem like two concentric cylindrical rings—with even a few damp spiderwebs on the walls.

Upon reaching the top, Salser's attention was drawn to what he had initially thought was an oil lamp, the white light source.

The object serving as the lighthouse's light had a black metal base, topped with a large, ellipsoidal transparent glass, almost as tall as half a person. Inside the glass were some flickering metal filaments, the source of the light.

"What is this?"

"An arc lamp," Jeanne said, releasing his tail and shaking her right hand that had been tugging until it hurt at the base of her thumb, explaining casually, "They appeared on the Lether continent more than a decade ago."

"Like firearms—worldly technology?" Salser extended his finger. He tapped the arc lamp, hearing a crisp echo, "Such things haven't appeared on the Genabackis continent yet. Thinking about it—maybe the owner of this dream comes from your homeland?"

"No," Jeanne refuted, "There are some arc lamps that have made their way here, just very few, and they haven't received much attention."

"Oh, that may be because I had too little information when I was escaping." Salser nodded, fiddling with the telescope on the lighthouse, "We usually use magic for lighting, just need to open a small aperture from the Warren to provide energy for a long time."

"Don't you care about the pollution caused by the leakage of Warren energy?"

"Please, don't exaggerate like that, okay?" Salser observed the sea through the telescope, responding to her nonchalantly, "Compared to the large-scale Warren collisions during wartime that alter even terrain, the pollution caused by those small spells is nothing..."

At that moment, the Dark sorcerer paused. He fell silent for a while, as if confirming something.

"I think I see someone swimming in the sea," he turned to Jeanne and said.

...

After casually pushing open a door, Astolfo fell into this endless ocean.

Unfortunately, there was no Steel Inquisitor in the dream to pull him out of the trap; even more unfortunate was that none of the magical artifacts he had collected from around the world during his travels across three continents—except for his personal sword—had been brought into the dream; most unfortunate of all, Astolfo did not have a pair of wings on his back, nor did he have a half-demon as a free mount.

The only stroke of luck was—he had sailed across many seas, so his swimming skills were good enough to avoid drowning immediately.

However, Astolfo felt he couldn't hold on for much longer.

The sky was filled with swirling dark clouds signaling an impending thunderstorm, waves were racing across the sea, yet it was eerily silent—as if a horde of mute terrifying giants were rushing to the battlefield. The pale light of lightning flickered incessantly, occasionally even striking the sea surface directly, making him shudder. In each flash, the outlines of countless sea tornadoes, from the bottom that made the sea concave to the top that pierced the clouds, were all clearly visible, also mirrored in the dark water—which were exactly the same as the sea tornadoes above—just inverted.

The light of the lightning extinguished in an instant, plunging everything into darkness. Astolfo struggled with all his might to keep from being slammed into the sea by a wave, feeling he had never been so unlucky.

Who knows if dying here would affect reality!

Suddenly, in this deathly silence, the sound of flapping wings came from the distance. Astolfo couldn't see clearly in the dark, but when he caught sight of the thing with the help of the brief lightning, Astolfo thought his previous opinion was about to be overturned—this moment was when he was the unluckiest.

Why would there be a demon here?—Is my life's final dilemma about to be made? To drown or be eaten by a demon!?

⏴ Previous chapter 丨Main丨 Next chapter ⏵

🔮Discord