Chapter 579: Strange Occurrence in the Lake

「Young miss, thanks for saving us…」

「I can’t believe that Modoki would even go to this area…」

「Aah, our cargo is…」

The five crew members who had been rescued by Fran were grimacing on the shore. Some of them had drunk a lot of water, but their lives shouldn’t be in danger.

The old man, who seemed to be the captain, lamented as he stared at the sinking ship.

「Is your cargo is something that shouldn’t get wet?」

「We have no choice but to let go of the grains we brought. But we have to recover the Scarlet Waterweed medicine back somehow. There’s a shortage of it after all. It’s stored in a sturdy crate, and I’m sure some bottles are safe」

「Scarlet Waterweed medicine?」

「Yeah. It’s the recently developed medicine made from Scarlet Waterweed. It works the same as the conventional pills against the endemic diseases, but I’ve heard that its efficacy is enhanced by being made into a potion」

And he told us that that ship was loaded with that new medicine.

「I guess we’ll have to ask the adventurers to pull up the medicine later… I hope this is a place with few magic beasts though」

I wonder about that. Right now, thanks to the Modoki, the other magic beast seemed to have escaped, and there was no sign of them. But I’m sure they would come back after a little while.

(Master)

『You want to help them?』

(Nn)

Well, we can go get it now though.

「Where did you store that medicine?」

「Eh? It’s in a storage room on the port side. Right around where that damned Modoki pierced our ship」

The captain pointed to a large hole on the port side of the ship, which was sinking with the starboard side facing down.

(Note: port, nautical terms for ship’s left side, starboard > right side)

It wouldn’t be a problem for us if it was there. Rather, that big hole would make it easy for us to get into. Well, that hole was half of the reason the ship was sinking though. The other half was the cracks that had formed all over the hull. It was because of the Modoki’s tentacles.

「I’ll be right back」

「Y-young miss!?」

Waving lightly at the surprised captain, Fran jumped out again.

「Let’s retrieve the medicine」

『Wait, let’s see if I can store the hull itself first』

「Aah, I see」

That would be the fastest way to do this. However, I failed to store the whole hull. Maybe there were living beings inside the ship. It didn’t have to be human beings, just a fish or a rat, and it wouldn’t be able to be stored in the dimensional storage.

「It won’t be stored…」

『We don’t have any choice. I’ll take care of the air for you to breath, Fran, use your water magic to move』

(Okay)

If we were going to explore the small ship, it would be safer for Fran to move around on her own.

Fran then jumped into the ship through the hole made by the Modoki. The inside was already filled with water and half of it was submerged.

Fran landed on a half-flooded crate and looked around the storage room.

「Where it is?」

『Hmm…』

The captain had told us before that it was a magic potion, so I tried to use my magic detection to find it, but I got no response here.

But I could feel a small hint of magic power in the entire water in this room. Perhaps the bottle of the scarlet potion had been broken and the contents had dissolved into the water.

It’s just that there’s something weird about it…

『We had no other choice, we’ll have to check the label on each crate 』

「Nn」

I checked the crates that had not yet been submerged in water, but there was no Scarlet Waterweed medicine. No, at this point it would be better to stow all the crates away and check them later.

『Let’s just store it all away for now』

「Okay」

Then I started to store the crates in my dimensional storage, Fran, who had gone underwater, quickly swam out of the water.

It was not that she looked like she was in a hurry, but she seemed to be a little surprised.

『What’s wrong?』

「…I felt strange when I used some magic」

『Strange?』

「Somehow… It feels like my magic worked a little too well」

『What do you mean?』

When I listened to the details, it seemed that the output of the magic she used was higher than she had imagined. It was just a small difference, when she manipulated the water to move about 10 centimeters, she went a few millimeters further than she had estimated.

Normally, this wouldn’t bother her, but Fran, who had gained a high level of magic control through her training, seemed to feel a slight discomfort.

『There might be something other than the Scarlet Waterweed potion leaking here then』

It’s probably not poisonous, as my crisis perception wasn’t triggered, but it was a little creepy. Let’s get it over with and get out of here.

I went into the water, leaving Fran behind, and quickly stowed the cargo.

I also tried to use water magic, but it definitely felt strange. It seemed that there was a problem with the water itself, rather than something being wrong with the water magic that I had activated. There was a high possibility that some kind of magic potion was dissolving in the water.

Or was it the effect of the Modoki that had dissolved in the water? That sounds possible too.

『Anyway, let’s get out of here quickly』

「Nn」

By using Teleport, we returned to the shore at once. And at the same time when the captain saw us, he rushed over to us with an expression of relief.

「Are you safe!? We can get the medicine pulled up later, you know! Don’t be so reckless!」

「I’m fine. More importantly, I brought it with me」

「What? No, since she used teleport before… Could it be that you can use space-time magic?」

「Nn. Should I bring it out here?」

「A-Aah, yes please」

They had already selected the most well-rested crew members and sent them back to Sheftent. He said that help would be coming soon.

But as Fran stacked the crates, the captain’s face was changing rapidly. First joy, then confusion, then a look of impatience, and finally, astonishment.

Space-time magic was very weak at a lower level. It wouldn’t be strange if its capacity was only the size of a small crate.

The captain must have thought that she only managed to retrieve a crate of Scarlet Waterweed potion. But we’ve retrieved the entire cargo instead.

With nearly 30 crates piled in front of him, he was beyond happy.

「Is this fine?」

「A-ah, yes… T-thanks」

He seemed to be troubled. But still, he didn’t forget to say thanks, so he must be quite a nice person.

However, we can’t help them any further. We’re in the middle of escorting the students. Since it was an emergency, we had to leave to save them, but we need to get back to the students as soon as possible.

We could help them carry the cargo back to the Sheftent, but that would have disqualified us as an escort.

Oh, before we went back, we asked him about something that had been bothering me. It was about our discomfort when using the water magic before. However, the captain didn’t seem to understand it either. He said that they didn’t have any magic potions other than the Scarlet Waterweed potion on board.

Then, was my theory about the Modoki’s dissolved body was right? Well, it was also possible that the Scarlet Waterweed potion itself was the cause though.

But since they were in shortage of this medicine, I can’t ask them to share it with me for experiments.

We’ll have to ask someone who seemed to know more about this later――like Grandma Jill.