"You didn't want any distractions, but you still let Hukarere - do you?" Roxanne questions me with narrowed eyes.

"Uh…" I close my mouth and look around. The girls' eyes are all narrowed in severe gazes at me. I lift my hands in defeat. "Alright, alright, that was a bit reckless of me. Now, the information about Hihiriwa?"

"Yes, what information about Hihiriwa did you collect from Hukarere?" Roxanne continues, striking me with her smug smile and inquisitive eyes.

"It's rather difficult to have a casual conversation while I'm concentrating on piloting, even more so when - something is blocking her throat," I respond with composure and glare at Roxanne.

The teasing stops, and Ciel is the first to pull us back on topic, "Anyway, the doctor said that Hihiriwa is the most competent commander they have, but she's preparing for a wave of injured as we fly deeper into monster territory. She and the men all expect Hihiriwa to aggressively chase after the albino Fay Leviathan."

The golems pilot the ship to take off and enter the Looping Winds behind the Carrier. Hana and Aoi distract Paraaone while we have our quick, private meeting.

"Any mentions about past expeditions?" Yunia asks.

"The men are all rookies while the doctor probably isn't, but our conversation didn't drift that way enough for me to ask her. I'll try to probe for her stories the next time we meet," Ciel responds.

"What about you two?" I ask the Fox and the Princess.

Alissa answers first, "Kaatohe is wary of Hihiriwa because he hasn't been very favorable to the nobles, but he values skill, so the few nobles that do work under him are all strong warriors like her."

Yunia continues, "He's extremely strict with his orders, so the nobles that didn't obey were quickly replaced. She didn't say it explicitly, but she seemingly believes that Hihiriwa is hogging as much power as he can. Also, the High Council isn't composed entirely of nobles, so as long as he gives results, they'll allow him to retain his power."

"Wahinui might be 'exaggerating' things a bit because he's basically her direct opposition," Roxanne comments.

Alissa adds, "Perhaps there are lots of rookies in this expedition because their veterans aren't eager to follow Hihiriwa into battle again."

I nod and continue, "The soldiers choose their own path, so they probably don't have that much loyalty to either Hihiriwa or Wahinui directly, which makes it very difficult for them to just straight up launch a war against each other."

Yunia's long ears twitch, and she frowns, as if she just realized something. "Oritiki has also shown herself to be completely neutral in this struggle, so whoever succeeds her could tip the balance of power. It'd be a typical ploy of the nobility to intrude themselves into the succession of Oritiki's power, so that might be how she discovered that topics like 'children,' 'Chosen Descendant,' and 'pregnancy' are forbidden."

I coo in wonder and say, "Oo~h… Hihiriwa is unlikely to think about those things since he probably views hereditary succession unfavorably."

Yunia scoffs and flicks her hand dismissively. "Pfft, and what's he going to replace it with? Democracy? Nepotism? Anyway, he'd still have to groom a successor, which would then lead him to stumble upon these forbidden topics, too."

"Should we assume that he knows that we're 'different'?" I ask.

"It's a possibility, but he didn't mention any of that to his wife," Yunia replies.

"It seems that Wahinui probably hasn't mentioned it to anyone else, either, including Kaatohe," Alissa adds.

"Hm… more time and information is needed," Yunia says, and we nod in agreement. "How long can your Hollys last?"

"A few days," I reply.

"That should be long enough."

We wrap up our meeting and don on our aviator glasses, then I take control of the ship. The Carrier's cruising speed is noticeably faster after we lift off, so Kaiia really wasn't lying when he said that landing our ship on the Carrier would slow them down.

We pass by an anchor, signifying that we've passed the midpoint of "the calm." For this next area, we couldn't really figure out what it was through the Scanner back at the station, but we believe that it's going to be rather chaotic.

When it's just about time for lunch, the Floater spots a few monsters ahead, and code yellow is given.

Soon after, a Holly spots a blue Kite Dragon coming up from below us, so I decide to send Hana, Aoi, and Roxanne to deal with it. Aoi can carry Roxanne on her back since she's rather light, though that will reduce her agility by a little.

"Who's lighter: me or Alissa?" Roxanne asks me with a smirk.

Roxanne is taller, but Alissa is physically stronger. I suppress any further thoughts on this matter.

"What about me?" Yunia asks with sharp eyes.

"Do not distract the pilot," I stoically reply.

"Ciel is definitely the heaviest," Roxanne says and hugs Ciel from behind, who puckers her lips in annoyance and glares at the succubus. If Ciel wasn't wearing her armor, Roxanne would be molesting her delicious cow tits right now.

"But that's a good thing," Lina says with a quiet voice and a frown, making Ciel mellow out a bit. My little angel is detaching Aoi's saddle from her armor with Jarn's help.

"Enough playing around," Yunia says and drags Roxanne towards Aoi. They secure the saddle, then Roxanne mounts her, and they fasten her to it. Unlike a horse rider, a dragon rider should always be very securely fastened to their dragon so that they can carry out complex maneuvers in the air.

After blowing me a kiss, the three of them take off and fly down towards the Kite Dragon.

Alissa's eyes bore a hole through the side of my skull, demanding an answer from me. I've already made up my mind, so I stand firm and resist her attacks.

The girls spot the monster, and I focus on them. It looks like a scaled flatworm that snakes through the air; multiple small wings are aligned along its flanks, helping it fly like the cilia of single celled organisms; its head is flat and triangular like a crocodile's, but its eyes are positioned at the sides of the mouth and move independently like a chameleon's. Its scales are famous for being very strong and of an appropriate size to turn into armor.

Hana dives towards it like a missile, her kite shield in front and elven spear at the ready.

"FACE ME LIKE A REAL DRAGON, YOU WORM!" She taunts.

"UROOO!" It responds in anger, then it opens its mouth and launches a frost orb towards her. She easily diverts it with [Wind Shield] and reaches the monster before it can fire off a second.

At the speed that she's diving at, hardly any armor could protect against her spear, and the Kite Dragon's scales are no exception. She slams her shield against its nose, and her spear breaks through a scale on the right flank and sinks into its flesh, right behind its skull.

The monster tries to shake her off, but it's much smaller than the Cloud Snake from before, so Hana is easily able to completely counter its struggle with her own wings.

The Dragon slows down enough for Aoi to latch onto its back, restraining it even further. It's still longer than her, but it's not considerably larger, so Aoi has the physical advantage at the moment.

Roxanne casts a large [Ice Lance] and holds it back, feeding it loads of mana and waiting for the right moment.

Hana mounts it and holds onto the spear like it's a handle. It tries to buck like a horse, but Aoi and Hana have a firm death grip on it.

Once it slows down a little from fatigue, Roxanne launches her [Ice Lance] point-blank through the back of its skull, turning its brain into mush.

"It's dead," Alissa confirms, and they bring it back for me to store in my "Items."

"Your husband's [Item Box] is huge," Paraaone comments to Yunia.

"He is very huge," Yunia responds in broken Reo with a nod. I'm not sure what her intentions were, exactly, but it makes Paraaone smile, and she doesn't correct herself.

Lunchtime finally comes, and yellow code remains, but Hukarere and Ririmu both manage to get a break at the same time so that they can have lunch with us. Since Paraaone is already here, he's invited, too.

The Kite Dragon is twice as big as a cow, and we're not strapped for money, so we decide to dismantle it and roast some of the meat. It tastes a lot closer to bovine than Dragolite, which is close to chicken, so we're happy to eat something different. It's not the best quality though, a little too tough for our jaws, except for Lina, who's trained her jaw muscles like no other.

I notice that it doesn't have any of the "gamey" texture of old wild animals or monsters, so it must be a young Kite Dragon. Paraaone notices it too, and it makes us a little worried.

Certain types of monsters are completely immune to anti-monster crystals, but Kite Dragons aren't. That either means that it was an Aberrant that managed to resist our anti-monster crystals, or it was specifically ordered by a leader-type to attack us.

"Oh, I don't usually eat monster meat, so I missed that," Yunia says.

"I honestly don't understand how anti-monster crystals work, so I always assume that it's an Aberrant, or whatever, that attacks us," Hana says with a shrug.

Alissa assumes a teaching tone and replies, "All monsters have an internal sense that leads them towards humanoids. An anti-monster crystal 'scrambles' that sense, driving them away from us, but some monsters are, instead, attracted to this scrambling, negating its purpose. The attraction that monsters have towards humanoids increases with age, eventually reaching the point that they end up frenzied and suicidal while also gaining resistance to the 'scrambling.'"

This dungeon is also filled with ancient monsters, which makes these crystals basically useless to us.

"I'll report this to the Honored One and the Marshall," Paraaone says.

"Don't worry. I'll report it to our handler on the Carrier," I say and get Ted to bring the bird down to us.

After such serious business, we steer the conversation towards something more fun.

"So, have any of you met with Nohopu? He's quite the eccentric character," Yunia says with a wry smile.

"Oh yes, I served him for quite a while," Hukarere says with a grin. "He's… uh… 'fun' to have a conversation with, but he's so energetic that serving him quickly gets tiring."

Paraaone starts chuckling and says, "He's a genius captain, that's for sure, but he's somewhat addicted to fighting, even more than the Honored One."

"That's pretty impressive," Hana comments with raised eyebrows.

He gives her an amused look. "Ain't that right? If there was a Divine for us to serve, I'm sure that he'd be recommended to join a Celestial battalion."

"What about Hihiriwa? He seems to be an old veteran of many battles," Yunia asks.

Hukarere frowns slightly and sends a wary glance to Paraaone. "He's a very competent commander, but he's one of the commoners who forced their way into the High Council," she says with a little awkwardness.

"Yeah, he's ambitious, but he's also our oldest vet, so I think they give him a pass because of that," Paraaone says with a neutral tone.

"Oh, he's certainly a warrior. When he's commanding an expedition, you can be sure that there will be many battles," Ririmu says with a stiff smile, then lets out a tired sigh.

Paraaone smiles wryly and replies, "Well, it is his job to clear the skies of monsters. And it's not like the men will starve if we run out of supplies, there are enough Conjuration mages for everybody."

"Hmm~…" Ririmu groans, and his eyebrows knit in concern. "[Conjure Bland Meal] tastes like dirt, though."

Hukarere nods in agreement.

Paraaone shrugs. "Hunt some monsters and mix it all together in a soup. We always eat that when the Celestial Horns go out alone."

"Well, if it gets to that point, then you'll always be welcome to join us for meals," Alissa gently says, mostly to Hukarere, but she's quite receptive of Ririmu too since he keeps his thing in his sheath most of the time, unlike most of the other male Chimera.

The conversation starts to die down, so Yunia takes the opportunity to steer it towards what she wants to talk about. "We've never fought a Fay Leviathan before, so we're concerned about how we'll be able to help Nohopu," she says.

Paraaone calmly replies, "You won't really have to do much. The Leviathan likes to eat [Fly] crystals, and your ship's big enough to look like both a threat and a meal to the Leviathan. If the Celestial Horns try to fight it head-on, it'll try to escape, so I believe they want you to lure it into the middle of a triangle formed by your ship, the Floater, and the Carrier."

Yunia frowns subtly. "We're not very eager to be used as bait."

Paraaone's expression stiffens, and he stares at Yunia, trapped by her sharp gaze and unable to look away. After a few seconds, he puts both of his hands on the table and lowers his head. "I ask for forgiveness, Ryders, if this has offended you, but that wasn't our intention. The Fay Leviathan is too intelligent to actually fight us head-on, so we need to lure it into a trap."

Yunia gracefully waves her hand, calling his attention and making him raise his head, then she smiles gently at him. "This isn't something that you need to ask forgiveness for. We're just concerned about being placed in an unfavorable position."

She just probed his reaction to a perceived insult while also establishing that we're wary of being used. A very subtle maneuver, the trademark of the "elven way."

Paraaone energetically nods and says, "I understand. The Honored One herself will be protecting this ship, so there will be nothing to fear."

Yunia nods gently, and we change the topic.

"Now that I think about, why's there a landing strip on the Carrier if the Wasps don't need it?" I ask.

Ririmu eagerly answers, "The Eagle and Dragon class planes are the ones that use the landing strip, but we're saving them for emergency situations because the Wasps are much, much cheaper to build in comparison. The Wasps are just simple point-defense planes, designed to be able to take-off under any circumstance, so it doesn't cost much to make one."

"Oo~h… what are those other planes for?" I ask excitedly.

"Eagles are armed with a long-range [Beam] weapon and a defensive [Discharge] while Dragons are armed with a large explosive [Fireball] and multiple [Fire Arrow]s that can also be used for point-defense."

"Is the Floater an Eagle-class plane, then?"

He shakes his head emphatically, then continues speaking excitedly, "No, it's much larger. Its purpose is to be an autonomous explorer, so it needs the armaments to keep things like the Fay Leviathans at bay, but like you've heard already, that's not enough to easily kill them. The Eagles may be weaker, but they're very agile, so they can dodge the Leviathans while still firing off their spells. Once the Leviathan is disabled, the Dragons will come in for the kill."

Ririmu and I geek out about Chimera planes until their break time ends, then we take them back to the Carrier.

We continue our journey for a few hours without another encounter because the Floater is completely clearing out the way ahead for us. Then Hihiriwa starts up a discussion with Oritiki and Kaiia about the intention behind the monster attacks, and he says something that makes me apprehensive, "Initiate a deep-scan on the ship."

The coms officers all nod and start to organize a "pulse." I ask the girls through [Bind] about it, and Yunia hurriedly responds with something worrying, "They have enough mana in those crystals to make a sweep of the ship for signs of non-humanoids."

"Uhh…" I hesitate, and in the next moment, a thick wave of Spirit mana washes over all of us.

"Oh, they used a deep-scan," Paraaone casually comments, then a siren starts to resound through the Carrier. "A~nd they found something…" He frowns.

Both Hollys on the Carrier groan as their spirits are attacked, and the Shad quivers silently, then they all immediately try to escape the ship because their standing order is to flee when attacked or detected.

Oritiki's attention snaps upwards, and she looks directly at the Holly on the bridge. In the blink of an eye, she's pointing her glaive towards it, then she casts [Beam]. The Holly is instantly toasted, so I immediately unsummon it before she can properly see what she killed.

The other Holly and the Shad quickly move towards the door out of Hihiriwa's room, and they hear a commotion outside that's quickly approaching. I decide to just unsummon them before anyone can sense them. Apparently, Holly's [Ignorance]-like spell was disrupted by the "pulse," and Shad's "essence" is so disturbed that any mage would notice it now, so there's very little chance that they'd be able to escape, anyway.

Through his summoned bird, I ask Ririmu, who's currently babysitting us, about what's going on.

"They used a mana pulse to detect hidden monsters and found four of them inside the Carrier. The Floater also reported one monster hidden inside their ship," he replies after inquiring about the situation.

Four? So… my Hollys weren't the only spies inside their ship.

"Uh… could there be one inside my ship, too? Should we be worried?" I ask.

"Take a look at your hold, that's the only place where they could be hiding."

I order Alissa, Hana, and Paraaone to sweep through the hold, but they don't find anything in there except for two cheeky Ploms draining some mana from our crystal. These little rodents are fluffy like dandelions and nearly impossible to kill without magic. Alissa kills one by stunning it with [Blinding Lights] first, but the other escapes through a hole for the wings in the side of our hull.

"So… why would there be monsters inside the Carrier?" I ask Ririmu, doing my best to keep calm.

He answers in a serious tone, "To spy, of course. Very rarely will leader-types send monsters to do that, so you'd better believe that this one is going to be a bit difficult to deal with." He smiles wryly.

Nobody seems to be suspicious of us, so I eventually manage to relax.

"Your nickname fits you so well," Yunia comments through Aoi, and the girls start teasing me through [Bind] to dispel their own anxieties.

"Really a 'Hero's Luck,'" Alissa says through [Bind].

"You'd better not abuse it, or the God of Luck will make your nickname ironic," Hana adds and snorts.

"I'll keep that in mind," I reply and kick them out of my mind.

A Cloud Snake tries to sneak attack the Winch, but this time, the Carrier notices it before us, and they take care of it. Aside from that, no other attacks occur, and even the Floater finds fewer hidden enemies on our path. It seems that the Chimeras discovering the spies made the monsters become more cautious than they were before.

We ask about the monster spies that were found. Ririmu says that there was one Frost Wraith inside the Floater, two Crystalline Moths inside the Carrier, and the last two on the Carrier were unknown. They perform three more pulses to try to find out where the unknowns went, but they don't find anything.

The Wraith is a rare spirit monster that can be found anywhere. Its Threat Level is four, which means that it's capable of killing a squad of soldiers, but only if there isn't a mage present since it's extremely vulnerable to magic.

The Moth is a monster that likes to suck out mana from crystals just like Ploms. It changes its color to blend in with the background just like a chameleon. Its Threat Level is one because it's possible for it to kill a child by latching onto them and sucking out their MP until that damages their HP. More than a bit horrifying.

These mana pulses cost a shit ton of mana, but since they have a Floater to recharge, they'll be able to use a few of them every day. This spells the end of our espionage. We won't be able to risk it except for occasionally sending a Holly into the bridge, but that might be a bit of a waste of my mana.

We have a quick afternoon tea time since things seem calm enough now, and our minds start to wander. Thankfully, summons don't need rest, so I can rely on them to warn me about incoming threats.

The girls and I practice some magic. Alissa and Hana suggest using Paraaone as a guinea pig for [Illusion Magic], and he gladly accepts. He's just muscle to help us in case we get into a battle, so it's not like he's going to be helping us with scouting.

The blue sky soon turns orange, then dark, revealing the stars and nebulas hidden beyond, and we leave the Looping Winds to rest for the night. Code yellow is still active, so a larger percentage of the crew will participate in the watch this time, but that's none of our concern since we have summons.

Paraaone says goodbye, and we set up our bath. It's time to wreck Roxanne -.