Booooooh—
With the long blare of the ship’s horn, land gradually grew clearer beyond the horizon.
Golden sand sparkling in the sunlight, and beneath it, a dock stretched out small.
So that’s Cron Island.
“We made it after all.”
“Yeah. Though some weird stuff happened along the way.”
When one of the sailors pulling a rope nearby met my gaze, he flinched and quickly averted his head.
The speed at which he averted his eyes made it clear he was no stranger to guilt.
*How should I deal with them...*
Honestly, I wanted to throw them all into the sea.
That would be the cleanest solution, and the surest way to prevent it from happening again.
But if I went and did that, it would leave a bad taste in my mouth, and I’d obviously get tangled in more annoying problems here too.
It would be better to just hand them over to the guards as-is.
The moment we arrive, if I just list their crimes, they’ll never smell the sea again for the rest of their lives.
“You do have entry permits for Cron Island, right?”
“Y-yes! We definitely do.”
The burly sailor replied quickly.
There was a strange desperation in his voice, but that also meant he wasn’t in a situation to lie.
They might be a fake trading company, but it seemed they had the minimum qualifications to enter Cron Island after all.
Well, if they didn’t, they couldn’t have pulled something like this and gotten through the strict inspections.
*So having entry requirements makes it safer to commit crimes, huh.*
That thought made them even more despicable.
Before long, our ship slowly reached the dock.
Before the ship even came to a complete stop, customs officers from Cron Island’s harbor and several guards armed with spears boarded via a plank.
They went down to the deck and opened the cargo boxes one by one to check them.
They opened the lids of everything from dried fish in sacks to oil in jars and liquor in bottles, and smelled them.
A clerk on the dock was constantly scratching away with a quill pen in a ledger, cross-referencing the transport records and goods.
One of the inspectors glanced our way.
He seemed to eye the crew of the fake trading company suspiciously for a moment, but when no illegal goods turned up in the cargo, he soon shook his head and disembarked.
“We’re done. You may disembark!”
A horn sounded, and the other passengers disembarked one by one, stepping onto the dock.
One man among them bowed to me.
“I run an inn down below. If you stay on the island long, please stop by.”
“Ah, yes. I’ll keep that in mind.”
*So there are villages here too, it seems.*
I answered briefly and looked away.
“Hey.”
“Yes? Yes!”
At my call, the large captain who had been watching my reaction from the side of the ship flinched and hurried over.
He was the most responsible one on this ship, after all, so I needed to give him a final warning.
“Turn yourself in.”
“What!? Right now... what did you say?”
“Don’t act surprised. It’s what you should have done from the start.”
Keeping my gaze level, I added one more thing.
“And spin it nicely. Leave our part out completely. Understand?”
“....”
The moment I finished speaking, his expression twisted subtly.
Clenching his teeth, he forced a nod as if swallowing bitter medicine.
That was enough.
If he didn’t handle it properly, I planned to tip off the guard myself on the way back.
Because ending things cleanly while getting involved as little as possible was the best course of action for now.
After confirming the captain’s sour expression as he reluctantly moved toward the guards, we quietly disembarked.
The smell of seawater and the sound of ropes and wood clashing mixed together reached our ears on the dock.
“So now we just cross the border and board another ship to get across?”
“Ugh, another ship... Damn it.”
Baldric grimaced, gnashing his teeth. It seemed his seasickness was still fresh.
“It can’t be helped. Turning back now would be the same.”
I shrugged.
At my nonchalant words, Sairun and Baldric’s expressions stiffened simultaneously.
They must have suffered quite a bit.
Walking a short distance from the dock, a small fortress serving as Cron Island’s gate came into view.
Soldiers carrying spears lolled about on the low walls, patrolling, while a long inspection line stretched out before the entrance.
The area in front of the checkpoint was packed with merchants’ wagons and travelers with bundles, but the air was strangely taut.
“Out with it!”
“Open all your luggage!”
The soldiers shouted back and forth, organizing the lines, while customs officers untied sacks and stuck their hands in up to the grain to inspect.
They checked carefully between the floorboards of wagons, wheel gaps, and even the small pockets inside the porters’ waistbands.
Amidst this, soldiers in full plate armor holding long spears stood expressionless.
Whenever their gazes passed over, it was enough to send a chill down your spine.
*Even though it’s an island, it’s a border region after all.*
Equipment on a level rarely seen even in large cities.
They looked like troops in wartime, and from a distance one might mistake them for part of a knightly order.
“We shouldn’t have any problems.”
Sairun muttered under his breath.
At those words, Baldric let out a hollow laugh.
“If we get bounced back after coming all this way, we’ll just have to swim across.”
As our turn approached, I instinctively checked the equipment and pack straps at my waist again.
The soldiers’ eyes roved over us, scanning us up and down.
Whenever their gazes lingered even slightly, cold sweat ran down my back for no reason.
“Next!”
We were next.
If we passed this inspection, it would be another kingdom, and we’d have to head out to sea again.
“...If the seasickness is bad again this time, just abandon me.”
Baldric said quietly.
I didn’t answer and moved forward.
“Next!”
Just as we were about to step forward.
“Halt!”
A sudden shout rang out from the gate.
A soldier on patrol ran over with his spear raised high and whispered urgently to a middle-aged officer who appeared to be in charge of the inspection point.
The officer’s expression hardened in an instant.
“Suspend all inspections! All personnel, combat readiness!”
The air in front of the gate froze at the shout.
Merchants and travelers waiting in line stirred and stepped back.
Suddenly soldiers gripped their spears and shields and ran toward the gate.
The metallic clash of armor and the sound of wind blowing beneath the banners mixed oddly, striking our ears.
“What is it?”
Sairun frowned at me.
Baldric instinctively grasped his sword hilt.
“Could it be... because of us?”
I shook my head.
“No, it doesn’t feel related to us...”
The sound of a drum signaling alarm rang out from atop the distant wall.
Soon after, the officer shouted again.
“No one move! Inspections are completely suspended!”
Several soldiers roughly pushed through the waiting crowd, including us.
Their gazes were uniformly fixed beyond the dock, somewhere toward the sea.
Rumble-rumble-rumble—*BOOM.*
The ground shook.
The sandy beach shook subtly, then the vibration beneath our feet gradually grew stronger.
“E-earthquake!”
“Get to the wall! It might collapse!”
Someone shouted, but people scattered in all directions.
Along with the clattering of stone pavement, a bloop-bloop-bloop sound of air bubbles bursting beneath the seawater brushed past our ears.
It was as if some massive beast was inhaling beneath the sea.
And then.
*FWOOOOSH!*
The shallow water before the beach erupted upward like an explosion, creating a massive pillar of water.
Between that spray, scales covered in sticky seaweed and shells gleamed in the sunlight.
The form of the first monster crawled up onto the sandy beach.
The ends of its four flipper-like limbs curved like hooks, and its mouth gaped open with rows of sharp fangs.
Its eyes were black and murky, and seawater dripped from gills torn open along its sides.
“Wh-what is that?”
Sairun’s voice trembled.
But it was only the beginning.
Foam bubbled up from spots across the sea’s surface, and several similar forms poked their heads out.
Some stretched long tentacles like crustacean legs from the water, trying to snatch people on the sand.
Screams erupted from all directions.
“Damn it, Deep-Sea Ghouls! All units, battle formation!”
The officer above the gate thundered like lightning.
In an instant, soldiers gripped their spears and dashed toward the beach.
The monsters crawling onto the sand were covered in slick, slimy scales, and scratching sounds rang out every time their hook-shaped flippers churned the sand.
The tentacles extending from the sand were as fast as the wind, twisting unpredictably to target people’s ankles and waists.
“Kyaaaa!”
“My cargo! No, please, my cargo—urk!”
Sailors maintaining ships on the beach collapsed, and guards were swept away by the monsters, falling to the ground.
Merchants’ sacks and wooden crates rolled away with the waves, and the sand was gradually stained red with blood and seawater.
The checkpoint fell into chaos as well.
The line of travelers broke apart, and soldiers trying to block passage grappled with the surging crowd.
“Let us in! Please let us in!”
“Damn it, we need to run toward the village—”
“G-go together!”
People shoved each other and fled, and the area before the gate soon became a scene of pandemonium.
“What the hell are those?”
“They’re called Deep-Sea Ghouls. Ever heard of them?”
“No. Damn it, if they’re deep-sea bastards, they should’ve been quietly rotting at the bottom of the ocean. Why the hell did they crawl all the way up here?”
As Baldric said, why had things that normally holed up in the deep sea crawled up to these shallow shores?
It seemed the earthquake from earlier was the cause, but I couldn’t be sure.
Moreover, though they were called “Deep-Sea Ghouls,” they looked completely different from what I knew.
Their dorsal fins were torn into long strips that fluttered in the wind, and their glassy, murky eyes rolled around as if losing direction.
Their mouths were torn all the way to the tip of their snouts, with hook-shaped bones jutting out densely instead of teeth, and their skin gleamed like black silt from the ocean floor.
Come to think of it, these looked far more worthy of the name “Deep-Sea Ghoul.”
“What should we do?”
“We run.”
“I saw people running that way earlier. Should we go with them?”
Just as we were forming an escape plan, a panting officer ran toward us.
He wore a blue cloak, and the curved blade at his waist was conspicuous.
“Hey, you! You’re mercenaries, right?”
“We are, but why...”
“Good. The beach defense line has been breached. We have to stop them before they crawl into the village. Hurry—”
Before he could finish, Baldric straightened his back and held up a palm.
“Hold on, hold on. We’re mercenaries. We don’t move without pay and a contract.”
“Now’s not the time for that nonsense—!”
“Nonsense? That’s the price we put our lives on the line for. Asking us to bleed for free is madness.”
Baldric cut him off firmly.
Sairun chimed in from behind with a slight smile.
“Besides, those are Deep-Sea Ghouls rising from the sea. Do you know how dangerous it is to kill even one of them? The price has to match.”
Whether Sairun’s words sounded reasonable, the officer’s expression hardened.
But perhaps because he was truly short on troops, his eyes rolled briefly before he finished calculating.
“...If you stop them before they reach the village, ten silver coins. I’ll add eight silvers upfront, separately.”
“Per person?”
“....”
*Was that too shameless?*
Baldric turned to me with a subtle expression.
“What do you think, boss? That’s not a bad price for our lives.”
At Sairun’s words, I looked toward the beach.
Monsters crawling across the sand, soldiers entangled in tentacles with broken spears and crushed armor, the stench of blood and seawater mixed together.
Eight silver coins. Not a small sum.
“...All right. Contract accepted.”
“Good, this way!”
The officer gestured, and we moved to an open area beside the checkpoint.
There, soldiers were aligning their spears to reorganize the beach defense line, and from the distant sea, the roars of beasts carried on the wind.
“Join the formation in front of the checkpoint. If the beach line is pushed back any further, the village will be breached.”
I pocketed the purse and looked back at my companions.
“You heard him? That’s tonight’s dinner money.”
“Hah... Well, eight silvers is pretty decent.”
Baldric tapped his daggers, and Sairun smiled as he checked his bowstring.
“Cut down one or two, and we’re in the black.”
When we arrived at the beach, the sand was already a quagmire of blood and seawater.
The Deep-Sea Ghouls’ bodies were grotesquely bloated, their surfaces tangled with shells and coral like armor.
The tentacles at the front of their heads stretched this way and that, snapping spear shafts on contact.
“Those things... are ridiculously tough.”
Lanson muttered under his breath, catching his breath.
Instead of answering, I raised my staff high.
At its tip, seawater churned and drew in, and along with the cold scent of salt, the aura of a spell began to build.
“That’s why they pay us silver.”
In that moment, a sharp scream erupted from one side of the beach.
A soldier was wrapped around the waist by a tentacle and lifted high into the air, then thrust straight into a Deep-Sea Ghoul’s mouth.
The instantaneous sound of crushed armor and shattering bones mixed together, and crimson blood scattered across the sand.
The smell of salt and blood rushed in all at once, burrowing into nose and throat.
“Hold position! Drive them into the water!”
The officer’s shout echoed from above the gate, and the soldiers readied their spears, adjusting their lines.
Without hesitation, my companions and I pushed ourselves into the gaps, rushing toward the beachfront line.