There are a lot of things I hate so much about storms. But the thing I hate the most are the thunder after the lightning. They scare the hell out of me. But ever since I've been using lightning magic, I think I'm not too scared anymore. Probably…

***

It's been six days since we have departed from Berigious. It has been a smooth journey up to this point. We have clear skies and strong winds pushing us with great speeds up to 230 km/h.

However, some of the engineers, especially the captain, think that we have been sailing too normally to the point that it's suspicious. He said that, normally, we would encounter clouds and changes in wind direction. But for the past three days, we haven’t experience such disturbance in our flight path.

Currently, I'm in the bridge with the captain and some few engineers. I'm just watching over them even though I don't understand what they're doing. As long as the ship’s flying, it doesn't really matter.

And about the things I copied from the engine room, I was really engrossed in reading and analyzing them that I didn't sleep for a whole night 2 days ago. I was able to know what kind of logic is making this huge ship fly in the sky despite its weight.

Dozens of High Ranked magic spells are deployed all at once at the same time. Since I still haven't seen the interior of the engine itself, I still haven't figured out how it really works. But if they're using high ranked spells for just lifting the ship up into the air, there's a probability that their engine has the same logic as how I did with the >. If I’m wrong, then there's a lot more for me to learn.

Also, I was able to read some [Forbidden Magic] spells such as [Gravity Magic] which are >, >, and >.

I was really curious on how it works, but since I'm inside the ship, I can't. It'll be dangerous if I accidentally rip the ship apart with >.

And lastly, the thing that makes me really curious is what materials they used to contain such enormous length of scripts and arrays for the engine. But then I immediately remembered the thing Teldarg gave me as a sign of authority over the Drukade. Despite it's small size, it's actually has a lot of arrays and scripts compressed inside it. Even with the absence of Dungeon Core Shards or the sort, Orichalcum can function as a catalyst for itself. And the reason why it's called a master key is because it can let me access every part in the ship by unlocking the door automatically.

I have it in my room, but if I meet the other officials, I need to pin it on my chest beside the [Beyond Border Trader] emblem. It feels like having an award as a general actually.

Suddenly, Akkin, the Pilot/Captain comes to me while holding a globe-like thing. This globe thing is actually a device that works similarly to radar. It's called Cloud Overseer. It's kind of cute.

“Sir, I have some terrible news. It seems my suspicion about our course to be directed to a storm was true. Just now, the Cloud Overseer detected a very big storm just 5 miles ahead. What do we do?”

Terrible luck! Just when we're close to Valeshtyre Kingdom’s Royal Capital, we meet a huge storm?! I'm blaming the Gods for this.

“What do you think is best for this situation captain?”

I asked him since he's obviously experienced with this kind of stuff. I'm not a pilot so I obviously don't know.

“Well, we could lower our ship and anchor it to the ground and wait for the storm to pass. But that would delay us from our scheduled arrival.”

“We're not in a hurry, but we can't let the other officials wait for us after getting called for a meeting. Can't we fly under this storm?”

Before he answers my question, he looks at the Cloud Overseer for a moment.

“It's not like we can't, I'm just worried about the sails. The storm has strong winds and might rip them apart. The Sails we installed for the journey is made of light materials to allow the ship to fly faster. We didn’t foresee the storm ahead so we weren’t able to use the stronger ones instead for durability despite slowing us down.”

So there are different kinds of sails for the ship huh.

“Can we change sails mid-flight?”

“Yes, but it'll take us a whole day to swap it. We don't have the time.”

“I see…”

I wasn’t really hoping, it was a stupid question to begin with. Still, I can't afford to be delayed. The other parties are of higher peerage than I am. Being delayed would be rude. I don't know if they accept the storm as my reason.

While I'm thinking of other ways of getting out of this dilemma, suddenly, I remembered something about the ship.

“If I remember correctly, this ship has a barrier against ballistic attacks. Can we use it against the storm?”

It seems Akkin didn't expect me to suggest such thing. He's looking at me with an expression saying ‘is this kid stupid?’. Well, I can't blame him.

“I'm sorry sir, but the barrier considers the storm as natural phenomenon and can't guard against it.”

“I know, but I can fix that problem. And by ‘fix', I meant Modify.”

***

I, Akkin, and some dwarven engineers are here in the engine room. We're just 10 minutes away from the clouds of the storm and the wind has started to get rough. I also told Jane to round everyone up including the elves in my room which I put a special barrier to protect them.

Since I'm in a hurry, I asked help from the dwarven engineers to help me find the part of the engine which manages the barrier's structure.

When they opened up one of the parts of the engine, I could see a rock-like deformed metal in the center of it. It's about the same size as American football ball.

“Normally, we shouldn't let anymore touch the [Xecza] without permission from the king. But since you're already our envoy and granted rights over the ship, we will make an exemption.”

The word [Xecza] means ‘Heart' in dwarven language. I'm still not that knowledgeable with their language yet, but I've already got to the point were I could understand some of it. The only reason why I know this is because of Marie getting taught by the female dwarves that she runs to. I'm really thankful that the lot beside the mansion is a farm and the people there are nice.

“So this thing protects the ship huh. Judging by its color, I'm guessing it's Orichalcum.”

“Sorry, but it's not. It's actually Orichalcum Alloy mixed with True Silver ingots. Though both sources of metal are strong and rare, the combination actually makes it fragile. Still, it can contain lots of magic and magic algorithms almost as much as pure Orichalcum.”

High grade in magic quality but fails as a metal, no wonder Geral objected so much when I suggested it to him about it during our work over the Sentinels.

“Okay, its good and all, but I'm really curious on how much magic power this thing can take. I don't want to break something very important after all.”

“We don't know. There's no records about the [Xecza] becoming overloaded. Running out of mana is more of a common problem.”

Okay, that made me a bit hesitant.

“It would take me some time to modify the scripts and arrays this thick. Akkin, how long can you stall the ship from hitting the storm?”

Before answering, Akkin looks at the Cloud Overseer and calculated.

“Around 10 to 15 minutes. The wind has started to get rough so it would be a shaky ride. I've already told the rest of the crew to strap everything down to the floor so there won't be a problem.”

“Good. This will be a rough ride since I'm switching off the barrier and redeploy it after I finish. Everyone, go back to your posts and hold on tight!”

After I gave my command, everyone started running out the room leaving me alone.

Even though I'm not supposed to mess with anything here, now's an exception.

I pull down the lever that disables the magic transfer to the [Xecza] and after that, it stops glowing. I tried to touch it immediately, but I didn't expect it to be hot so I burned my hand slightly.

“>”

After I invoked a magic, a mitten-like red gloves appear on my hands. Their use is, well, like mittens, they absorb heat. I made this magic specifically for when I'm baking. I didn't expect I can use it for this.

I grab the [Xecza] once again. This time, it didn't burn my hand.

Since the mittens are made of magic, of course, I can conduct magic through it.

“Activate [Rune Grabber]. >.”

> is a new function I discovered during my time in Berigious. This function allows me to expose a magic item's array or script without it getting converted into runes. Although Runes are easier for me to understand, others can't. Not only that, the thing I'm going to modify is something considered as national treasure.

I scrolled and scrolled through the almost never ending list of arrays. Since it's a barrier that protects the ship from different kinds of magic attack, the array is very long since everything that it's supposed to negate is inputted here. From a simple wind bullet negation to nova explosion negation, I expected no less.

“Found it!”

After I scrolled for almost a minute, I saw the part which I'm looking for. The part that I'm looking at is the >. I have this magic so I'm not really amazed, but this is the reason why I'm looking for this.

I don't know how much magic the [Xecza] can take, but I'm betting my status for this. There's no turning back either way.

“>, > to >”

*Author's point of View*

After they got their command, the dwarven crew rushed to the top deck. They strap down the sails tightly to the rigs hoping it wouldn't break when it gets hit by the strong wind of the incoming storm.

“Diving into the storm? Is the Envoy out of his mind?!”

While strapping down a rope on a rig, a dwarf let out his thoughts without holding back. Not only that, he's a panic state after the ship started shaking violently for several minutes.

“Why are we listening to that kid?! He's not only insane! He's trying to kill everyone on the ship!”

“Shut it, Taz! You heard the captain, the envoy's doing something that could help this problem.”

From out of nowhere, another dwarf appears and smacked the panicked dwarf from the back to calm him down.

“What are you talking about? What can that kid do against a storm? For me, he's just another person who managed to pull out the sword.”

“That's the point. He is another person that pulled out the sword. It means he's also someone capable of great feats. Can't you trust him just for today?”

While they're talking, all of a sudden they saw a thin film appearing around the airship in a spherical form. Judging from the mint green color, they know well that this film is the ship's barrier.

“Wha-why did the barrier appear?! Are we getting attacked?!”

Every dwarf that's on the top deck rushed to the railings and searched for the said attacker, however, no one was there. The fact that they're thousands of meters from the ground makes it even doubtful if there’s an attacker.

While they thought of such things, all of a sudden, the barrier starts to break and wither away. It didn't take too long before the barrier gets blown away by the strong winds and disappears completely.

“What th--!”

Before someone could react, something from the nose of the ship appears caught their attention. Since it was glowing in orange, it didn't take everyone a second to get drawn to it. When they saw the source of the light, their eyes were filled with surprise.

There, a hexagonal cube that is 4 inch in thickness, 20 inches in diameter, and in orange color. But since it looked like a crystal with a dark orange color, one can mistake it with as amber.

“What is that?”

While asking, they look at the amber block that’s floating in front if the ship's nose.

Suddenly, the amber started to move, and for some reason, when it left its previous position, another one appeared.

It didn't stop there. The block's number multiplies every second and before they knew it, it already covered the whole ship.

Though they thought they had seen it all, another surprise has been prepared for them.

“Everyone! Look at the sails!”

When someone said that, they all looked at the giant sails of the ship. To their surprise, the sails were glowing in green and for some reason, its generating strong but gentle wind.

But it didn't stop there. When they looked at the railings, they noticed that it was glowing in yellow in random intervals like waves while spreading throughout the ship. They know fully what the color means. It means the ship’s hull has been fortified and since the yellow has thick contrast, they know it was fortified to the highest degree to the point of becoming nearly indestructible.

Because of the series of surprises, they were at loss of words and their shoulders dropped along with their jaws.

They don't know what to think anymore like their minds have already functioning. They couldn’t believe what their seeing now since this is way beyond their logic. If not for the sound of a hammer falling on the floor, everyone would’ve stayed like this the whole day.

Then out of the blue, a familiar voice echoed around the ship.

“I have finished modifying a part of the ship's barrier to protect us against the storm. Because of that, there will be no air pushing us from the outside of the barrier which is also a bad thing. So what I did to create a source of propulsion is enchanting the Sails while strengthening it. We'll probably flying at speeds faster than before so I want everyone to tie the sails down to the rigs. That is all.”

*Key's Point of View*

After I was done messing with the engine room, I headed back to my room to have my hands treated. Since the problem about the ship is done, the elves went back to their rooms by their own accord.

This is because of the [Xecza] I modified from another part of the engine room. This [Xecza] was the part which manages the propulsion system and control's the ship's overall weight and gravity resistance. And since it pretty much does the most work, it's 5 times hotter or even more than the first one so it destroyed my mittens.

It wouldn't have broken if it was compatible with > or >. There's an issue with the repeating runes in between them so I can't link the magic. I'm still working some other ways to make them work.

Currently, Jane is wrapping some bandages around my hand. It's already been washed with healing potion so it wouldn’t last long. But even knowing all that, Jane still looks at my hand full of worry.

But still….

“Uh… Jane, I think that's enough bandages.”

“It's not enough! What if it gets infected?!”

I can barely move my fingers now after she wrapped it around my hands a lot of times. It looks really comical. Even so, I can still use my magic in place of my hands.

After Jane finally got satisfied on wrapping my hand with bandages, she lets out a light sigh.

Marie looks at me with worried eyes while calling me ‘papa'.

On the other hand, Lapis is caressing my hand—bandages like she’s wishing it would immediately go away. Well, that's only my speculation though.

“I told you guys already, I'm fine. There's no need to be worried. This will heal up in several minutes. Especially you Jane, you should stop walking around the room and sit down.”

I thought that she has already calmed down, but she's walking in front of me while muttering something. She's obviously worried.

“B-but, you're hurt! I can't just stay and do nothing about it.”

“That's the point. You don't have to do anything about it. My hands are already healed.”

To immediately take my hand out of the mitten bandages, I invoked > which I haven't used it a long time. If I remember correctly, the last time I used this was when I had a fight with Allenshyre.

Speaking of which, that guy… I forgot the name… the one that got possessed by the god of the wind. I never heard of him after that incident. I wonder what happened. I tried to talk about him with Matt but she just averts the topic to another direction. Now that I think about it, I remember that her expression slightly changes bitterly every time I talk about him.

God related things aside, I wanted to buy his work on jewelry and such. I just got too busy and forgot.

“Sir? Hello?”

Before I knew it, my mind suddenly went astray and spaced out.

“Sorry, I was rather in a middle of reminiscing over something unimportant. It's been a while since I've used this magic so it felt somewhat nostalgic.”

I showed my palm to Jane which doesn't have a single burn mark. I expected her to calm down after this, but instead, she grabs my arm while looking at my face with an angry expression.

“You're using Illusion Magic!”

What the?! How did she know? As far I know, she isn't well versed in magic. Let alone being awakened as a magician. But even magicians can't tell the difference between my illusion and a real one, that is unless they're gifted like Cherry.

“You can't fool me! I’m looking at you for a long time! Even with that smile of yours, I can see that you're in pain underneath those smiles you show me. Not only that, there's a flaw in this illusion of yours.”

She opens my palm and shows it to me before continuing her words.

The reason why I made an illusion over my hand is because it's not healed yet. Yes, it's recovering, but it's slow for some reason even with the healing potion.

“You're right hand was supposed to have a small and almost unnoticeable mole near the thumb, but now it doesn't.”

Wow, I didn't even know that myself. No, I think Louisa mentioned that one before. But for Jane to notice it herself, that's pretty amazing.

Since I already got busted, I lift off the magic illusion and exposed a slowly healing burnt hand. Because Jane had pointed it out, I look at my right hand. It really is there.

“I didn't know this was here. You're pretty amazing Jane!”

“Of course, I have kept my eyes on you everyday after all.”

“What?”

“What?”

I look at Jane and tried to ask her again about what she said. However, she turns away and faces the door.

“R-right! I forgot that I was supposed to go to get everyone some refreshments!”

Jane immediately left the room while saying some excuses. Before she disappeared, I saw her ear becoming red.

Maybe, just maybe, she likes me? No, no, no. I can't get ahead of myself. Besides, I have fiancées already. Two is a company, three is crazy.

I look at Lapis whose hands are shaking while holding my arm. It seems she didn't expect me to hide it from them and got surprised. But,

“Lapis, are you okay? You look pale.”

For the first time ever since I have her, she showed me an expression which shook my heart. But even if she finally showed me an expression, it's not a good one. Her face is face full of grim.

Immediately, I covered up my hand with illusion magic and hugged her head. My hands probably reminded her of something she doesn’t want to remember.

“There, there, it's alright. There's nothing to worry about.”

I caress her hair gently while I hug her. Since my illusion is special, I can't feel pain from it, nor the sensation of her hair.

She hugs be back while burying her face on my chest. This is the first time she's done this. She's really shaken.

Marie seems to understand the situation. She also hugs Lapis on her leg.

But why is she calling her ‘kitty'?

While we're in the middle of calming Lapis down, all of a sudden, a Dwarf came on my doorway while looking completely exhausted.

“Sir! We have a problem!”

***

I got called back to the bridge by Captain Akkin. Because the dwarf was too panicked to speak, I leave him in Lapis' care and instantly teleport myself to the bridge.

Even though I appeared out of nowhere, no one seems to notice me and keeps running around looking panicked.

“Captain, what seems to be the problem?”

“Sir!”

I walk towards Akkin who's holding the helm like it's a limb that's about to get detached. He's sweating buckets for some reason.

“Why is everyone panicking? And why are we turning around?”

“I don't have a choice! If we won't, we'll die!”

“Why would we? I have confidence that the barrier would withstand even cyclone level strength.”

“That's not the problem!”

While we we're talking, all of a sudden, the whole ship shook accompanied with the sound of thunder. I know that the ship didn't take any damage or the sort, but since the barrier is anchored to the ship, and shocks or vibration that happens on the barrier will be transmitted to the ship.

“So we hit a storm's worst part?”

Geez, if it's just that, I hope they could just told me sooner. They're too panicked.

“I wish that was the case, but what we're in now is even worse.”

Just after he just finished his words, the ship shook again. However, this time, it's even stronger. Not only that, I also saw something outside my barrier move.

“What was that?!”

I asked Akkin immediately I noticed it. But somehow, he's very afraid to say what it is.

Nevertheless, he answered my question even though his jaw is vibrating very badly.

“A-a-a-a D-d-d-dra-, A DRAGON! A dragon is chasing our ship!”