Warlock Apprentice

A dashing man stood tall on top of a giant stingray while looking at the direction of Silver Palm Isle, which was a few hundreds of miles away from his position.

By using the spell applied on his eyes, the distance did not prevent him from seeing every single detail ahead.

“Bleh. The Basket Witch sent a fool to try the Leviathan’s limit right now?” He grinned. “That thing’s gotta still be there, since the door has not opened yet, hmm.”

Beside the island, the Leviathan suddenly looked at the sky and began releasing an invisible high-frequency energy wave into the area.

A woman with a pair of bat wings, who was approaching, began to bleed from her ears before she lost concentration and fell into the sea.

Seeing this, the Leviathan turned its gigantic form and moved toward where the woman was.

Before the monster could reach its prey, a series of strange and ear-piercing laughs echoed through the sky.

The “bat woman” opened her eyes and saw the looming maw of Leviathan. Panicked, she quickly flew out of the water and away from the monster’s hunting range.

The Leviathan’s pupils turned into thin slits. At the same time, it exerted its pressure, which was almost as strong as that of a truth-finder, at the bat woman.

The woman felt her form frozen and showed a look of despair. After trying her best to give a certain direction a pleading look, she melted into a cloud of bloody particles, which were devoured by Leviathan.

The monster howled in satisfaction and returned to the island.

Somewhere farther away, a small girl sitting on top of a basket held her chin and giggled with a mad expression.

A luxuriously-dressed lady beside her, who had several scars on her cheeks, covered her mouth using a lace fan. “Master, I don’t think Leviathan would move away. While after its mark, its tail was still wrapped around the island.”

The girl who was addressed as the “master” still held her chin carefully as if her head would fall off if she stopped doing so.

“But it’s getting impatient! Heehee. Maybe that thing’s wondering why it must remain here as well.”

While speaking, the girl’s eyeballs turned rapidly in her eye sockets, which looked rather terrifying.

“Am I right, Papy?”

Papy, the lady with the wounded face, was the manager of Summerdew Ridge—Lady Payne.

“You’re right, Master. Leviathan used to protect the island well. But now…” Payne looked at the broken trees on the island and snickered.

“It’s stupid, but we better not fight it upfront,” said the girl. “It won’t be long before the mysterious dimension opens its entrance, so the Leviathan is getting all worked up.”

“We will be collecting our fruit in due time.” Lady Payne folded her fan and moved away by stepping on the water. “Since there are still a few days, let’s head back for now, Master.”

The little girl freed a hand to pat the basket she was sitting on. “Time to get home, Snuffle!”

The insignificant object floating on the sea suddenly trembled. It then grew a mouth at the center of it and revealed a crimson tongue. “Snuffle understood! Hang on tight, Master, the bus is a-running!”

While the girl laughed at their conversation, Lady Payne turned back and looked at where the “bat woman” was eaten by the Leviathan. She then revealed a sad look.

“Oh right, Papy. What have you learned about Lucas so far?” asked the little girl.

Lady Payne tapped her shoulder with her fan. “According to Swan, Lucas was a commoner who was known as a liar who lied to his king and deceived the entire Anrum. Which… we already knew.”

“Commoner? That can’t be, can it? Keep looking. There MUST be some relations between Lucas and the dimension we’re looking for.”

“Acknowledged. And… Swan sent a second message to us. It seems the new student of Mister Phantom is currently visiting Ferran Land on a recruit mission.”

“Oh. You mean that ‘genius alchemist’?”

…

The man on a stingray chuckled as he watched the two women gone.

“It’s okay to cancel your stealth now, Brigitte. Let’s go back as well.”

Upon receiving the order, the creature under him flopped into the sea and disappeared.

…

Inside the “Ship’s Grave”, Angor was going to check the one-use space capsule he just found. But something stopped him before he could reach his spirit feelers inside.

At first, the floor beneath his feet began to shake. Before he could see what was going on, he heard great noises that sounded like all the ships around were bumping into each other, including the one he was in.

The furniture in the room was falling down, and the skeleton in front of him was about to scatter.

Confused, he left the room and flew into the sky, only to see the entire area rocking like mad. Giant tides had appeared on the dead seawater, which was pushing against the ships, while some of the vessels in poorer conditions broke into planks.

Angor wondered if a sea monster was coming up, but instead of seeing a monster, he sensed the space around him being disrupted greatly.

“Another ship fell into here?” He frowned. “No… if this happens every once in a while, the other ships will all get broken.”

He looked around and didn’t see any space rupture he was expecting. Instead, the disturbance came from below him. The entire island was shaking.

“An earthquake?” He watched in surprise as the ground split open and dry trees tumbled down.

It didn’t last very long, but it was enough to damage the ships badly. Over 80% of them either sank further or gained giant cracks.

Angor was wondering something else too. During the earthquake, he heard another giant noise like a monster was screaming. He also sensed a certain emotion inside the noise, which was confusion.

More importantly… he believed he heard a similar thing before. Yet he couldn’t remember when or where he gained that impression.

“A monster caused the earthquake… But where is it? Outside there at the sea or is it underground?”

But then, the noise sounded pretty far and distant as if the monster howled from another dimension.

He returned to the ship he was in. Thankfully, the ship of the White Clam Association was sturdier, so it didn’t suffer too much damage.

He picked up several books scattered on the floor and was disappointed to see that they were all basic books related to Devil’s Water. Roman also had these books on The Limpet.

Next, he used his spirit feelers to check the one-use space capsule. It contained some daily necessities and some random magical items.

Also, the identification of the owner was inside.

He didn’t open the capsule since the contents might be too much for this small room, so he put it away and kept searching the room. After taking the only thing of interest, which were several pieces of parchment left by the owner, he left the ship behind and found an open ground on the island to fully examine the space capsule.

After popping the capsule open, he used several Hands of Spell to quickly check through the items while picking out any supernatural-related stuff that he might use.

The first thing he picked up was an identification card that seemed similar to the bone cards used in Brute Cavern. He couldn’t read the confidential information hidden in the card since its owner was dead, but there were still other forms of information directly written on the card, which did not require security measures to reveal, such as the owner’s name.

“He’s… Huskar?”

This name also appeared at the end of the notes he found, which further proved that this man named Huskar was the guardian of the association’s ship.

Huskar’s logs described how their ship ended up here for no reason in a similar way as the other logbooks. However, the clean writing suggested that Huskar was in a better condition when leaving the message.

[This place isn’t exactly beautiful, but I see no danger around. Might be a good chance for a long seclusion session.]

This was the last entry. Instead of going into seclusion, Huskar was probably dead afterward.

Again, the cause of death was unknown.

Angor felt his mental pressure escalating upon realizing that this place wasn’t safe at all.

Next, he looked at the items left behind by Huskar.

“Glowing Velvet Potion, Potion of Decryption, Hormone Masker, Wincy’s Witch Stew… They’re all cheap, but they could come in handy later.”

He arranged the potions according to categories and stored them into his bracelet.