Chapter 148

Amethus was rather confident in his running.

When he jumped far, he could lightly clear several buildings, and when he jumped high, he could scale castle walls.

He never tired easily even after running for hours, and no swift horse could keep up with his pace.

Because he was so fast, he wasn't particularly worried even on water.

Just as he did when he once chased Shion, if he skipped across the water's surface like a skipping stone, even the other side of the sea would be reached in no time.

But it seemed he wouldn't be able to do that today.

The rocky island the village chief had pointed to was quite far, the waves were exceptionally rough and the night and fog obscured his vision.

Besides, he was planning to take an old man named Kobet with him.

Amethus was only human.

He could not walk on water.

Instead, he decided to part the sea.

“Ack……!?”

Kobet let out a death-like scream.

To tell him not to scream when the sea split right before his eyes was too much to ask.

Had it been magic, perhaps he could have understood, but how could one not scream when the sea was parted with a single sword?

Struck on the back of the head by bewilderment, Kobet lost his balance and staggered.

If Amethus hadn't grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, he would have planted his face in the sand.

With Amethus holding his neck, he flailed his feet.

He even accidentally stomped hard on the village chief.

The fainted chief groaned from Kobet's stomping and regained consciousness, but lost it again upon seeing the parted sea.

He probably thought he was having a nightmare.

“Hmm.”

Amethus let out a low hum.

It was because the parted sea had begun to close again.

It was, in fact, a matter of course.

Because the sea is not meant to be parted.

Watching the gathering seawater, Amethus swung his sword again.

After swinging it about ten times in a row, the sea parted again.

Wider than before, it exposed the seabed with a crack.

A sea path opened all the way to the distant rocky island.

No, Amethus had opened the path.

“Let's go.”

***

Amethus ran along the sea path, holding Kobet by the scruff of his neck.

With a solid place to step, it wasn't difficult at all.

With each step he took, the surrounding scenery rushed backward.

It wasn't because his steps formed some mystical pattern or because he was imbued with a mysterious power.

He was simply fast.

Kobet kept his mouth shut tight so as not to bite his tongue.

Within the parted seawater, he could see schools of fish, and even something that looked like a shark (he couldn't be sure since it was night).

After about eight steps, the sea path tried to close. Whenever that happened, Amethus would swing his sword again to open the path.

‘You'd think it would get scared and give way after being split this much, but the sea is always so stubborn.’

Kobet, not even knowing what he was thinking, blamed the innocent sea.

Shouldn't it have opened the path before Amethus's sword touched it?

Especially since it was going to give way so easily like this.

It was certainly a distant island.

Amethus reached the island only after taking a full thirty-seven steps.

He had to swing his sword four times in between, and it took over a minute.

Even his clothes got wet.

He climbed onto the rocky island, set Kobet down, and shook the water from his body.

The parted sea began to close, and the fishmen on the rocky island, dumbfounded, looked back and forth between the sea and Amethus.

“……?”

“……?”

The fishmen were not highly intelligent.

Therefore, they could not comprehend the situation of the sea suddenly parting and a swordsman rushing in with an old man.

In truth, it wasn't a matter they could have understood even if they were intelligent.

Because the swordsman named Amethus was a man who often stepped outside the bounds of common sense.

“……?”

One fishman slowly raised a finger.

They were always the ones inflicting fear and shock, not the ones experiencing it.

The fishman gestured back and forth between the parted sea and Amethus's sword.

It was as if to ask, ‘could this human have parted the sea?’ and Kobet, without realizing it, nodded.

It was because he could understand the sentiment, despite the fishman being an object of his hatred.

Thanks to Kobet, the fishman was able to resolve his question.

It was truly fortunate that he could resolve a question at the end of his life.

There were two fishmen, and two heads rolled on the ground and fell into the sea.

Amethus sheathed his sword.

The moment he spotted the fishmen, he had already cut their necks.

A murmuring sound arose.

“The sea, it parted, I definitely saw it…….”

“Quiet. I smell blood. This way.”

The owners of the voices were the fishmen.

They soon discovered the headless corpses of their comrades, Kobet and Amethus holding a sword.

A shout erupted from between their flapping gills.

“…Human!”

“It’s a human……!”

Amethus strode forward.

He considered entrusting his sword to Kobet but decided against it.

Against opponents of this level, he could kill them even if the blade didn't touch their bodies.

Of course, he would have to put a little more effort into his sword swings than usual, but it wasn't difficult at all.

“I see why you kept your mouths shut on the sand.”

Kobet couldn't understand the fishmen's words at all.

This was because the vocabulary they used was the language of the Cordis Empire.

However, Amethus, being originally from Cordis, could even discern the mixture of the Hobel Bay accent in the fishmen's speech.

“Fish monsters that speak the Imperial language.”

Technically, they were from the same region, but he felt no warmth at all.

Amethus was a person from Aretion.

The last descendant of a family toyed with by the Empire.

The mere mention of the name Cordis made him grind his teeth.

If that hadn't been the case, he would never have sworn loyalty to Shion.

Seven fishmen, seven sword swings.

Thirteen fishmen, thirteen sword swings.

Twenty-nine fishmen, twenty-five sword swings.

With the last swing, he caught five of them.

Amethus sheathed his sword again.

Not a single drop of blood stained his blade.

Whether there were seven, thirteen, or twenty-nine fishmen, he could have dismembered them all with a single swing.

However, out of concern that the precious sword might be damaged by the toxic blood, he demonstrated his more cumbersome swordsmanship.

Over fifty fishmen lost their lives in the blink of an eye.

The few who survived were terrified by the corpses of their comrades and Amethus's swordsmanship and fled.

It wasn't that there was a gap in Amethus's sword swings; he had intentionally let them go.

He watched the fleeing fishmen.

It was because he thought that if he let a few go, they would flee to their main base.

As always, his thinking was never wrong, and the fishmen all tried to flee to their nest to hide.

The only unexpected part was that they all tried to jump into the sea.

“This has become slightly troublesome.”

Amethus dismembered the fishmen trying to jump into the sea with a few swings.

Since they all jumped into the sea, it meant he dismembered every last one of them.

“It seems the entrance is underwater.”

The blood of the fishmen, which already gave off a horrid stench, now stained the nearby sea dark red and reeked.

At least the human skulls rolling around on the rocky island (clearly the fishmen's food) lessened his guilt.

Still, blood was blood, and the dismembered bodies had limbs like humans, so Kobet was on the verge of losing his mind.

“Uh, ugh…….”

“Get a grip, Kobet.”

Amethus took out a strongly scented pill from his clothes and put it in Kobet's mouth.

It was a drug that had a stimulating effect on the mind.

It wasn't cheap, but it wasn't an item that was burdensome to use freely.

Both Amethus and Shion had accumulated too much capital to feel any financial burden.

“…Oh, my apologies, Sir Knight. I’m sorry… this old man is just being a burden…….”

“It's alright.”

He said kindly.

After shedding so much of the fishmen's blood, he didn't look very kind, but he tried his best.

And yet, it was a small comfort to Kobet, which was a funny thing.

“I can't see an entrance anywhere.”

“…Then, are you really going to go into the sea?”

“I can't do that.”

Amethus shook his head.

He wasn't very confident in his swimming.

He was much more comfortable bouncing off the water's surface like a cannonball or parting the sea.

“I have no choice but to make an entrance.”

“I suppose there’s no choice. We’ll make an entrance… wait, you're going to make one?”

“Step back.”

Kobet suppressed the urge to ask a question and hurriedly moved.

It was because Amethus had already raised his sword.

Kobet's mind might not have been all there, but he could still take a hint.

The rocky island they stood on resembled a mountain peak.

If one had to make an analogy, it looked like a conical structure on which barnacles and coral had attached themselves over a very long time.

From the edge, Amethus stared at the center of the island, at the black rock mass resembling a peak.

His jade eyes blazed.

From behind him came the sound of Kobet swallowing.

He raised the double-edged sword.

And then, he swung down.

The night sky is dark.

The fog is still thick, clinging to the skin.

The island made of black rock is blocking the waves with its body, with nothing happening.

At least, that's how it looked.

A heavy sound began to be heard.

A sound as if to shake the entire island, a grrr, grrrrind, the sound of something incredibly heavy slowly being dragged.

Grrr, grrrrind-.

Grr-grrgrr-grrrriiiind---.

“Oh…….”

The island was sliding.

The black rocky peak, cut diagonally, the upper part of the island, was slowly sliding off like a lid.

So it was natural for a grrgrr-grrgrrgrr-grrrriiind--- sound to be made.

A mass of rock whose weight was impossible to even guess, the upper part of an island that could have been a hill, slid down and fell into the sea.

“The rocky island, cut like a fruit…….”

“Now there's an entrance.”

The sound of the upper half of the rocky island falling into the sea was hard to even describe.

The sound of rocks crashing, the sound of an enormous splash—the screams of the fishmen caught in it couldn't even be heard.

Both Kobet and Amethus couldn't help but be drenched by the seawater.

As the fishmen's blood had flowed into it, the smell was horrid.

Even in the midst of it all, Amethus protected the scabbard by holding it to his chest.

“You should wipe your face, Kobet.”

“…Thank you, sir.”

He politely took out a handkerchief and offered it to Kobet.

It was out of concern that the toxic blood might harm the old man's health.

Kobet simply couldn't figure out the man named Amethus.

He killed a monster called the Sea Elder with a single kick and a single punch, and with his sword, he casually parted the sea or an island and yet, he was a rare young man with a deeply ingrained attitude of respecting his elders.

In the place where the upper part of the island had been blown away, holes were gaping here and there.

The rock that made up the island was itself a porous type of stone, and Amethus had also correctly located the fishmen's main base.

“It's a cave. It leads downward.”

Looking at the cross-section, the material inside the island was different from the outside.

The outside was black and porous, while the inside was white and smooth.

It resembled high-quality stone for sculpting.

However, Amethus didn't pay it much mind.

The important thing was that he had found the fishmen's main base.

“Let's go in.”

***

Amethus threw himself in without hesitation.

He also held onto Kobet so he wouldn't fall.

The inside of the cave, discovered by cutting the island, was filled with a fishy smell.

It was filled with water in many places and covered in moss, making it very inconvenient to pass through.

It was, in fact, a matter of course. It wasn't a passage made for passing through, but a cave they had entered by blowing away the top of the island.

But even if it was inconvenient, it was fine.

Amethus had a talent for making inconvenient paths convenient.

When he swung his sword, any inconvenient path couldn't withstand it and became perfectly square.

It was to the point where even Kobet, with his bad knees, could walk very comfortably.

They encountered hordes of fishmen in between, but they too soon became comfortable.

It meant they had entered into rest and it also meant they had become comfortable from Amethus's and Kobet's perspective.

Both sides held the same meaning that Amethus had dismembered the fishmen in an instant.

“Shh. I'm stopping.”

Kobet, who was already silent, held his breath even more.

He was already at a point where he could believe Amethus even if he said the sun rose in the west.

If he could part the sea and cut an island with a sword, what was to stop him from making the sun rise in the west?

Amethus's eyes sharpened. He peered beyond through a crack in the rock.

“There are those monsters you called Sea Elders.”

It seemed they had come in quite deep.

There was a cavern larger than the island, and in it were gathered monsters of an immense size. He slowly counted their numbers. One, two…….

“…There must be at least thirty of them.”