Striving For The Luxury Liner – Vol 11 Chapter 1

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Chapter 1 – Duke’s Castle Confirmed

“We’re sailing to the Duke’s Castle!”

We will take the Lutto out to sea, change to the White Dolphin, and set sail for the Duke’s Castle. Even if we go to the open sea and change the ship to a submarine, I wonder if we can call it a departure, but this is a trivial question in front of the search for the castle and the treasure under the sea.

The arrangement on board was Ines and I in the main cockpit. Marina-san and Felicia in the sub cockpit. The rest of the group will wait in the living room, and if we are attacked by monsters, Rimu, Claretta-san, and Ilma-san will fight them off.

“Master! Hey, this is awesome!”

Ines, who was aboard the White Dolphin for the first time, makes a lot of noise with excitement as she looks out the window at the underwater world next to the pilot’s seat. It’s refreshing to have a reaction for the first time, and I nod proudly to Ines, feeling happy too.

Felicia and the other members of Girasole had gotten used to the submarine over the past two days of training, so their reactions were a bit thin, and I was feeling a bit lonely, so I was especially happy for Ines’ reaction.

“But Master. This way, we’re going to the royal capital, right?”

“The duke’s castle is further towards the royal capital, so this is the right direction.”

We will discreetly go out to the open sea and then transfer to the White Dolphin, which will take us back past the Duke’s castle.

“Ara, it’s getting darker. Why is that?”

“The deeper we go, the less light reaches us.”

I was surprised when I actually experienced it. It started getting darker at a shallower depth than I expected, and when I dived 100 meters, I was enveloped in darkness and could not see anything around me.

“Huh. So the Duke’s castle is pitch black?”

“No, according to the information Alessia-san and the others gathered, there is barely enough light to see. It seems to be just a step away from the night.”

I honestly don’t know what ‘just before night’ means, but I think it’s light enough to barely see the castle.

“Master. I’m bored.”

Despite her excitement earlier, Ines became calm when it got completely dark.

“If we turn on the light, we can see a little more of the surroundings, but the light attracts the monsters. This time we’ll be doing most of our work in secret, so you’ll just have to be patient.

I don’t mind monsters getting close to us as long as we can take them down casually, but we can’t be too flashy with a submersible because it will limit our movements.

Since the general location of the Duke’s castle was determined during training, the strategy is to turn off all lights, blacken the hull with a ship disguise, and sneak up on the Duke’s castle. Well, there will be some extravagant activities along the way that are not in the name of stealth, but I’ll let that slide.

“Come to think of it, that’s what you said.”

Ines nodded as if she understood. I explained it to her last night in great detail, but it seems that she finally realized what it was all about by actually experiencing it. It’s hard to understand the atmosphere of a place without experiencing it, so there’s nothing to be done.

In the pitch-dark sea, all the lights were turned off, including the interior lights, and the pitch-dark hull of the submarine pushed forward through the water. The White Dolphin is a private submarine, but right now, I feel like a ninja in the sea.

“Master. We are arriving at our destination.”

Felicia, who was in the sub cockpit, came to report to me as we pushed forward through the invisible underwater, using the map as a guide.

“I understand. I’m going to take a break in the living room before I continue, so tell everyone I’m coming.”

Felicia and Marina-san, who had night vision, were watching us in the sub-control room at the front of the ship, and I could still see nothing but pitch black, but Felicia, who had night vision, could probably see the cliff in front of us.

“Oh, and tell everyone to use the bathroom.”

It’s not a delicate statement, but the Egg is not equipped with a toilet, and depending on the situation in the Duke’s castle, it might not be fashionable, so I give them a proper warning. It’s hard to hold the toilet for hours, isn’t it?

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“Then it’s time to start the operation. If you do it as you have practiced, there will be no problem, so act quickly and without haste. Felicia, please take care of Ines, who hasn’t practiced.”

After announcing the precautions and the start of the operation, the White Dolphin is moved along the cliff.

“Summon the Chris!”

At the word “summon,” a huge magic circle of light appears in the sea. I quickly give the White Dolphin itself permission to come aboard and walk into the magic circle of light, reminding it to appear on the deck.

The hull of the Chris is summoned, and the White Dolphin sits on its deck, slightly tilted but without impact. It is a bit disappointing to think that the White Dolphin would have been able to sit upright had it not had a tail fin.

Now we were in a race against time. We made a quick exit from the White Dolphin, and then I repatriated the White Dolphin.

We went to a simple slide with three wedges (diagonal part of the Sea Serpent’s fuselage) that we had built over the course of two days and called out the Eggs No. 1, 2, and 3.

Each team climbs aboard, pulls on the string attached to the wedge, removes the wedge, and then Eggs No. 1, 2, and 3 slip out and escape from the Chris into the sea.

“Whew, all three boats are out at sea; I guess that’s a relief.”

“Hey, Master. Why are you in such a hurry to get out of the Chris? And why do we have to go through all this trouble to get out of the Chris?”

Ines asked me curiously when I was relieved that the operation was a success.

“I understand what Ines is trying to say, but there is a big difference between the flexible and inflexible parts of Ship Summoning, and this was the best I could do.”

At first, I summoned a rubber boat underwater out of curiosity. I thought I might not be able to summon it because of its unsinkable effect, but I was able to summon it easily.

The rubber boat seemed to have enough air in the barrier, and it floated to the surface at a very high speed.

Since there was no particular shock from summoning the boat into the sea, I tried summoning the Lutto, the Hideaway, and the Chris into the sea as an experiment.

The larger the hull, the slower it seemed to rise to the surface, so I challenged the Chris to see if it could be boarded by the White Dolphin.

The result was that I was able to get in by giving the White Dolphin permission to board, but it was…well, a bit of a disaster as it plunged into the airy interior of the ship.

I’d like to give myself credit for coming up with the idea because I wonder if I would have been in trouble every time if I hadn’t figured out how to get aboard the White Dolphin in the magic circle.

I’ve been flexible so far, but I’m stuck on how to get overboard underwater. We boarded the White Dolphin from the deck of the Chris and found that we were stuck because there was no water.

I tried to see if I could repatriate only Chris while on board the White Dolphin, but I could not repatriate it because it was determined that there was a life form inside.

Even if I summon the White Dolphin out to sea, I can’t get on board because it’s in the ocean. We could manage in the shallow part, but in the deep water, it would be dangerous because of the water pressure and other unfashionable factors, so we had to find a way to safely escape from the ship.

I thought of using magic to solve the problem, but as expected from a cheat Ship Summoning. It resisted magic perfectly and did not move an inch. I had a lot of trouble getting to the simple slipway with the monster material, didn’t I?

“Master. You’ll be left behind, you know?”

Felicia called out to me as I sank into the memory of my hardship. That was it. After we escaped, we had to wait for a while and then follow the Chris as it floated up. The Chris is going up quite a bit, and the Eggs No. 2 and No. 3 should be ahead of us as well. But it’s too dark to see them.

“Thank you, Felicia. I’m off.”

I follow the Chris from a position where no light can reach it. The Chris is playing loud music through its speakers, so I cannot hear it, but from the point of view of a monster that can sense vibrations, the Chris should be quite conspicuous.

The Egg is slow, but the Chris, which is huge and heavy, floats very slowly toward the surface of the sea. The large surface area of the Chris can be subjected to a great deal of water resistance.

“Hey, Master. What will you do when you are surrounded by monsters if you are so slow?”

“Oh, didn’t I tell Ines about that? In a big place, I can summon the Chris, the Fortress, or something like that to fight. If we are in a small place, a rubber boat or a hideout will be used. Well, it will take a long time to escape, so I’d like to settle this battle in the Egg as much as possible without being found.”

Except for the Chris, we haven’t set up a simple slipway, so it’s hard to escape. But the rubber boats are surprisingly easy to handle by brute force.

We make our way through the pitch dark, using the Chris as a landmark and chatting with each other. So far, the monsters haven’t come near us, maybe because of our covert activities, so it’s rather carefree. However, the main force, Rimu, seems a bit disappointed since he is so motivated.

“Master. It’s getting brighter up there. Oh, the Sea Serpents are swarming!”

“It’s true. That must be the Duke’s castle. We’ll wait a little while for the Sea Serpents to leave.”

The Chris, shining brightly and playing loud music, passed by the Sea Serpent’s nest and attracted the Sea Serpents as expected.

I thought it would be foolish to raid the Duke’s castle with the Egg without a plan, so I decided to use the Chris as a decoy, and I’m glad it worked.

“…There are a lot of Sea Serpents out there, aren’t there?”

Felicia is quite surprised.

“Yes. I’d heard they were nesting, but there are a lot more of them than I expected…”

Maybe the Chris was too provocative, but countless Sea Serpents attacked the Chris. From a distance, it reminds me of a TV show about farmed eels swarming for bait.

It’s hard to know when to bring the Chris back when this happens. If I go out to the surface, others will see the Chris, and if I go out too early, the school will return to the Duke’s castle as quickly as possible. If a fishmen or a mermaid saw the Chris, we would have to pretend that we did not know about it and that it was a phantom.

The Chris has moved away, so we launch the Egg again. It was getting a little brighter, and we could see Eggs No. 2 and No. 3 when a huge castle appeared on the cliff.　

Somewhat of an illustration of the Duke’s Castle.

The Royal Capital　

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　　　　　　　　　　｜The Duke’s Castle

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