“There’s a sailing ship over thataway, sir.”

The first to spot the vessel was Pochi, who was on duty in the lookout post.

Tama, who’d been stretched out lazily below the mast, sat up with her ears twitching.

Swiftly climbing the rope ladder, she borrowed the longscope from Pochi and looked at the ship.

“No one’s theeere?”

Just as she said, the ship drifting toward us was unmanned.

Checking my map, I saw that four fleets of twenty-eight ships total on the route ahead of us were drifting without a crew.

A few of them had run aground, but still, it was strange.

Why would they all be unmanned?

Looking at the map, I didn’t see any monsters lurking nearby.

“What’s up with that?”

Like Tama, Arisa had been lying around due to the heat, but now she sat up and shaded her eyes to look.

“Mrrr?”

“Master, the larva’s hair decoration is glowing, I report.”

Mia and Nana drew my attention to Rei’s hair barrette, which was indeed letting off a faint light.

“Satou…?”

“It’s okay—it’s just purifying miasma.”

Reassuring the nervous-looking Rei, I activated my “Miasma Vision.”

…Yikes.

The unmanned ship coming toward us up ahead was completely covered in miasma-like blobs of thick black ink.

The dark aura reached out from the drifting ship like tentacles, one of which had already reached our ship.

It wasn’t behaving like ordinary miasma, so this was definitely the work of some nonhuman culprit.

Judging by the tales of the Skeleton King and drifting ships that I’d heard in the tavern in Sutoandell, it was very possible that the Skeleton King was rebuilding his ghost fleet.

Either way, we should probably investigate the ship before jumping to conclusions.

And so…

“Hang on a minute. I’m going to get rid of the miasma.”

I unleashed my spirit light, which I normally kept suppressed, at full throttle, driving away the miasma around us. Any miasma that touched my multicolored spirit light promptly evaporated.

I had learned in the elf village that spirit light could dispel miasma, but it was still amazing to see it with my own eyes.

“I’m going to go check out that ship for a minute.”

“B-be careful!” Arisa called nervously.

Giving her a wave, I purified the drifting ship as I explored the interior.

The Magic Furnace was still running, and there was food on the table and in the pots, so the situation must have happened very abruptly.

Judging by the state of the food, it had probably been only a day or two since the people disappeared from the ship.

Like the famous case of the Mary Celeste, all the cargo was still intact, with only the crew missing.

Documents on the ship indicated that this was the flagship of a Shiga Kingdom trade fleet belonging to a man called Duke Vistall.

I wasn’t familiar with the name, so I checked my notes from Tolma, which were full of information about nobles.

It read that he was one of the three dukes of the Shiga Kingdom and the political opponent of Duke Ougoch. His territory was in the northwest of the Shiga Kingdom, separated from the Saga Empire by several smaller nations.

Once I’d satisfied my curiosity about Duke Vistall, I continued my investigation.

The coins, magic items, and other goods in the captain’s cabin were still safely stored away, so this clearly wasn’t the work of ordinary pirates.

“How many ships are left? Three?”

Arisa was looking at yet another unmanned ship that had appeared up ahead.

“No, this twenty-fifth one is the last.”

After about an hour of traveling around in flying-ship mode recovering the drifting ships, we finally reached the last one.

The last three had been sunk by monsters before I could retrieve them.

Of course, I recovered as much of the bodies, cargo, and so on as I could.

The fact that I was able to collect twenty-five of the ships in the kind of seas where three ships could get sunk in such a short time must have meant that the Skeleton King was closer than I realized.

Up until now, I’d been checking his marker only once in the morning and once at night, but now it seemed like I might have to start checking every hour.

“Do you think this is the work of the Skeleton King?”

“Most likely.”

The sailors at the tavern in Sutoandell had said things like a drifting ship without a crew is a sure sign of a Skeleton King attack and the sailors he kills are forced to work in his ghost fleet for all eternity.

The Skeleton King had probably taken the lives of all of these ships’ crews and turned them into undead sailors in his ghost fleet.

I used my Magic Hand to put the last unmanned ship in Storage.

Once that was done, I could open each ship like a folder and move the miasma around like an item.

“It’s…gone.”

“Vaniiished?”

“Poof, sir.”

At first, Rei had been surprised to see the drifting ships disappear, but now she seemed to be used to it: She was standing with Tama and Pochi, watching the small whirlpool created by the ship’s disappearance.

“Larva, do not lean over too far or you may fall, I advise.”

“Mm. Danger.”

“Okay… I’m sorry.”

Rei meekly pulled back from the railing.

“What about uuus?”

“Aren’t we in danger, too, sirs?”

“Of course you are. Come back to the deck at once before you fall.”

Tama and Pochi seemed to be feeling left out, so Liza scolded them gently.

“Aye-aaaye?”

“Yes, sir.”

Tama and Pochi looked strangely cheerful about being rebuked, and they hopped down to the deck with big smiles.

“Master! There’s someone out there!”

Lulu, who was peering through the scope of a rifle-style sniping Magic Gun, called out in an uncharacteristically loud voice.

This Magic Gun was something I’d made by repurposing one of the Small Magic Cannons from the sunken ships.

It was only about a tenth as powerful as the original, but I thought it was still pretty impressive for something that could be carried by a single person.

It also featured a battery made from bluecoins, so even Lulu could fire it.

“Ah! They’re sinking!”

Oops, this is no time to be monologizing to myself.

I took off from the deck and used See Through and Magic Hand to retrieve the person from the sea.

The miasma seemed to have knocked him unconscious, so I healed him and let him rest in one of the guest cabins.

I wanted to ask what had happened when his ship was attacked, but he appeared to be in a weaker state than I thought, so we might not be able to get any information from him until we reached Lalagi.

“Huh, so he’s a Shiga Kingdom noble?”

“The second son of Marquis Ashinen, it seems.”

According to my Tolma notes, the house of Marquis Ashinen was one of the most influential families in the royal capital.

And his father, the current head of the family, was the viceroy of Labyrinth City Celivera, which we were planning to visit soon.

That was a convenient coincidence.

“Let’s make our way to Lalagi. We’re passing a few pirate hideouts along the way, so better get armed and ready.”

“Understood.”

Liza nodded and took the rest of the group downstairs.

“Satou…?”

“What is it?”

Rei, who’d stayed behind on deck, looked at me with a grave expression.

“My heart…feels sort of…noisy.”

Thinking that she might be sensing the presence of the Skeleton King or Yuuneia, I searched the map, but there were no signs of either of them.

The nearest threat was a level-50 octopus sea monster lurking not far from Lalagi.

There’d been at least one or two such monsters in most of the sea territories we passed through, so it didn’t seem worth mentioning.

I decided to stay on guard to be on the safe side, but even after we dealt with the pirates and arrived at the Kingdom of Sorcery Lalagi, nothing ever came of Rei’s fears.

It was probably just her imagination.

The capital of Lalagi was deep inside a bay around the size of Tokyo Bay.

Unlike the Shiga Kingdom, instead of having a physical water gate at the entrance to the bay, there was a magical invisible barrier.

It was similar to the Bolenan Forest barrier that protected the home of the elves. No wonder they called this place the Kingdom of Sorcery.

“Tiltyyy?”

“It’s slanted, isn’t it, sir?”

Tama and Pochi leaned to the side to match the slanted surface of the capital of Lalagi.

Were they trying to find an angle where it would look perpendicular to the sea?

“<Lalakie’s northern branch castle, Lalagi. A battle-ready floating castle that oversaw discipline of the landfolk.>”

Rei went into a trance and spoke as she looked up at the city.

There were countless white buildings, surrounding an enormous cone-shaped structure that was probably the castle. At the top was a mysterious object similar to the Heavenslight Protection on the Ishrallie royal castle.

Most of the buildings around the castle were quite tall, but the outer edge of the city consisted of mostly one- or two-story houses.

The fact that the entire city was on a slant was likely an indication that it had made an emergency landing on the ground long ago.

When Rei returned from her trance, her eyes narrowed as she sniffed the air.

“It smells…sort of…sweet.”

“That is the scent of pastries, I inform.”

“Mm. Sugar.”

The Kingdom of Sorcery Lalagi was probably the biggest producer of sugar on the sugar route. There even seemed to be a sugar refinery in the royal capital.

As Rei listened to Nana and Mia discussing what kinds of sweets might be waiting in the city, the anxiety she’d mentioned before we dealt with the pirates was gone without a trace.