Part 1

It feels like a few days have passed ever since I ended waking up stuck in my current predicament. I actually don't have much of a sense of time after waking up because the room I was in didn't have any windows. I couldn't tell if it was night or day.

Light came from a strange contraption that turned a sort of glowing object on or off with a touch. The illumination was very bright. Almost like daytime actually. But once the contraption was turned off, it turned quite dark, save for the ambient light coming from some of the other strange devices in the room.

The folks who saved(?) me treated me quite well. I even had a trio of beautiful girls taking care of me. No, really. I'm not boasting. There really were three of them - ranging from cute to beautiful to sultry.

The one who was with the man when I first woke up is Miss Nemu Morikaze. She's quite lively and liked to joke around. She's quite the looker as well. Her ponytail suited her. She brought two other women with her and introduced them to me. The one with an exceedingly voluptuous figure was Aiko Takayama and the petite girl who seemed to perpetually sport a bored, spaced out expression was Miya Iwamori. The doctor also introduced himself as Mr. Satoru Saionji earlier before. They all had pretty exotic sounding names. They're probably not from the Grandale continent. The oriental islands to the far east perhaps?

The beautiful trio told me they were the ones assigned to take care of me while I recuperate. Again, I'm not deliberately trying to rub it in.

And while I would normally be relishing the fact that three beautiful women were nursing me back to health, I was still really worried about my situation.

I barely scraped up new information as I conversed with the girls. First, I was probably no longer on Grandale continent anymore. They told me I was currently aboard a civilian transport freighter. In other words, a ship.

The Vandel kingdom was situated near the heart of the continent. It was nowhere near the sea. Therefore, things like saltwater fish were rare commodities. The bodies of water that were located within Vandel kingdoms territory like the Kraust river and Ayers lake were to small and narrow for large vessels. From what the girls told me, the ship we're on is fairly large.

If so, then I must be out at sea right now. This certainly put me in quite a bind. I have no idea how distant we are from the continent. I tried asking the girls, but Miss Nemu and Miss Aiko both just gave me slightly troubled looks. Miss Miya had that spaced out look as usual. But she also didn't answer my queries. Did I really ask something strange? I wonder if the people in the eastern lands called Grandale continent by a different name?

If I try to leave via lifeboat, I might just find myself stranded and lost out on the open sea. I don't have the slightest inkling about how to navigate out at sea. I'm a dry land person, born and raised near forests and mountains after all.

And, though they're my benefactors, I can't simply waltz in on the captain and request for them to turn back just for my sake. Traveling the seas via ship can be really daunting after all. That's what I heard from uncle Milton and some of the traveling merchants who had experience riding ships in order to sell their wares on foreign lands.

Do I really have to give up on coming back to the central continent immediately? All factors point to this conclusion. And, though I'm a bit unwilling, I virtually have no choice in the matter.

I'll try to hitch a ride on another ship bound for Grandale once we come to port. I have no money right now (my things got buried in the landslide along with the coaches) so I might not be able to do so straight away. But I'll work something out. I have to.

After get back, I'm probably gonna have to bow down repeatedly to those two for not making it to their big day. I hope this doesn't cause more friction between us; though them hating me is just my one sided conclusion. I actually have no idea about what they think of me. I'll talk it out with them eventually. I hope we'll all have smiles on our faces afterwards.

Part 2

The time I spent lazing around in the white room felt like an eternity. I was bored out of my mind. I tried going out only to find that the door was looked from the outside.

How the heck do you open this thing anyway? There's no handle or hinges. It looks really tightly shut. I can't just bust the door up either. That'll be rude.

And it feels really solid. I don't think I'll be able to make even as much as a dent even if I rammed it with all my strength.

The girls won't allow me to leave the room even if I ask either. I seriously feel more like a prisoner than a patient.

I really wanted to explore this so called ship. My room has so many strange contraptions. I have no idea how most of them work. I was told not to mess with anything so I tried not to. I can't have them getting annoyed at me, especially because I was only tagging along aboard their ship.

But my curiosity was still quite piqued. Most of the things inside the room were made out of metals, glass and a strange, light but hard material I've never seen before. Some of the things made with it were transparent like un-tinted glass. But things like the cup I drink water from had color and was even peppered with some strange symbols. Is this the face of a cat? It's hard to tell since it didn't have a mouth. It also wore a pink ribbon on one of its ears.

Strange...

There's nothing made of wood. Procuring and processing metals was quite expensive. A room made out mostly from the stuff feels really extravagant. But the people here don't think much of it at all. Were things like this normal where they're from? I may have stumbled into a really outrageous place.

Part 3

Since I couldn't get out even if I wanted to, I decided to give up for now and went back to bed. Since I didn't have anything better to do, I decided to practice circulating mana.

Weird.

My mana circulation feels smoother than normal. Maybe all that rest did some good after all.

I activated body enhancement magic. Hmm? It kinda feels like it's gotten a bit more potent than before. Maybe my near death experience caused me to awaken my hidden potential?

Pfft... Yeah right. Like that could ever happen. The improvement feels marginal anyway. Nothing to get excited about really. I still wouldn't be able to hold a candle to seasoned adventurers.

I continued to practice and began focusing the mana to reinforce specific areas. My mana capacity is average at best, but I was a bit proficient with circulation and control. But that's limited to things like body enhancement magic techniques which simply circulate and pool mana into specific areas within the body in order to strengthen them.

I lacked the sense to accurately control mana acting outside the body. I coul manage haphazard explosions, but they carried an acute risk of friendly fire in a party environment so they're nigh useless.

I improve slightly when I use auxiliary equipment like wands, enabling me to cast simple fireballs. But honestly, those types of equipment are better off being used by people actually decent in magecraft.

So why practice magic at all? I kinda developed a combat style that relied on body enhancement magic to improve the strength, speed and quality of my swordsmanship. Grampa Galvan told me it's actually pretty rare for a person to have both magical talent and the spark of a warrior.

But in my case, both my talent for magecraft and swordsmanship ended up being half baked. So I ended up as an average magic swordsman who could barely measure up to people with more specialized skill sets.

Kind of underwhelming really. But that's been my life story so far. Only choice now is to grin and bear it.

I have to keep myself sharp to prepare for the possibility of a long journey once I start heading back to the Grandale continent. Dangerous monsters and beasts roamed the world after all. They have been ever since the dawning of time.

The fallen demon king had several subordinate monsters and had shaped them into an organized fighting force. But originally, monsters and beasts were wild and, at times, dangerous. Best not to provoke one if you end up in an encounter. But you need to have the resolve to fight or run away from them in order to live if things escalate to a confrontation. This practice served to prepare myself for such circumstances.

I continued to meditate in silence.

***

"Sir, I think you'd want to take a look at this." a young female officer exclaimed.

Dr. Satoru Saionji approached the terminal the female officer was stationed at and observed the screen. His brows furrowed after observing the phenomenon that was occurring in front of the monitor.

"Fascinating!..." he whispered.

"Hi-Phonon particle readings are steadily increasing within the room with the subject as the epicenter sir. Quite the spectacle." the female officer said in an amazed tone.

"Achieving this degree of particle control without formal training... Astounding! Could you pull up the subjects pre-selection test results please." Dr. Saionji requested somewhat excitedly.

"Test results indicate he barely made it past the benchmark for Hi-Phonon concentrations within his body. Physical ability is, likewise, only average." the officer remarked rather bluntly.

Dr. Saionji shook his head slightly.

"I see. That's unfortunate. But still, with that kind of manipulation ability, he'll do quite well as a test pilot. Continue monitoring the subject and notify me of any changes." he instructed, recovering his spirits a bit.

"It looks like the project isn't such a lost cause after all." he said in an almost inaudible whisper.

***

A figure lurked behind Dr. Saionji and the female officer, listening in on their exchange. Blending well with the other officers and crew members of this so called "civilian" transport freighter, the figure had been conducting deep undercover infiltration within enemy lines for quite some time now.

Having determined that the subject for extermination could pose a significant threat to the Alliance if allowed to develop further, the figure had resolved to proceed with the assassination posthaste even with the risk of being compromised.

Steady footsteps left the room. But a pair of bespectacled eyes followed after the sound with a cold gaze.

-Chapter 5 End-