By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 12 - Chapter 7

Chapter 7, Episode 45: Catalyst to the Ordeal

In the early morning following Serge’s attack, it was overcast, without moonlight or starlight. As the city of Gimul slumbered, waiting for morning to come, dots of light began to flicker in the sky. A chain of thunderclaps followed, rocking the city awake much earlier than it was accustomed to.

A roaring sound snapped a man out of his sleep. “Wh-What was that?!” he cried, looking to and fro in confusion. When he looked through his window, he froze a few moments in abject disbelief. Then he ran. “Hey, wake up! Everyone get up!”

“What’s going on, dear? It’s the middle of the night...”

“Get up, already! The house across the street’s on fire!”

His wife bolted to their still half-asleep children as the man ran out into the street and shouted the news from door to door. Fear and confusion spread through the neighborhood in a flash, leaving people scrambling to evacuate or shouting to organize an attempt to extinguish the fire.

Similar scenes were unfolding all over the predawn city.

“Water! Open up the water tanks! Hurry!”

“Are there any neighbors you haven’t seen yet?! Wake up everyone!”

“Take the children somewhere safe!”

“Someone contact the security teams!”

Breathing heavily, a man came running around the corner. “Th-This is bad!”

“What are you, blind?! We know! Just move!”

“N-No! I’m not talking about this fire! That shop over there is on fire, and a bunch of other buildings too. I can’t even count how many fires there are! There’s not enough manpower to go around! Security? What security? They’re not going to make it here anytime soon!”

The news rattled the neighbors—who’d been busy with the fire—even more. Dread colored their faces. It seemed only a matter of time before the whole city burned to the ground.

“Make way!” a boy shouted over the cacophony, accompanied by the sound of rushing water. People turned to the voice to find a pair of figures riding a small boat atop an incoming wave. One of them was a boy wearing strange clothes.

At this point, many of the people on the street knew just who it was that had arrived. People cleared the way. Before those who knew Ryoma could even call his name, the torrential wave carrying Ryoma’s boat rushed past and pooled in front of the burning building. Without missing a beat, the surge of water rose high into the air, then came down upon the fire like a roaring waterfall. At the same time, it began gathering piles of snow and dirt into itself too—it was as if an enormous slime were trying to engulf the building. Before long, a huge blob of muddy water wobbled around the building, weakening the fire within a matter of seconds. Relief crept into the onlookers’ faces now that the immediate danger had been eliminated.

Meanwhile, a man called, “H-Hey, you!” to Ryoma atop his boat, obviously agitated. He was the same man who had brought the message about the city burning all over to the neighbors. All out of sorts, he ran over to Ryoma’s boat, shouting, “What’s going on?! There’s fires all over the city! You have the security teams and your project! If you know something about this, you better tell us now! And it’s great that you put out the fire, but what if there were still people inside—”

The man gasped and suddenly took a step back.

Ryoma was staring at him, unblinking. His face betrayed no emotion whatsoever. With the fire put out, the street was dark again, so only the man interrogating Ryoma noticed his look...until his silence drew the attention of the crowd.

“You look scary again,” Hudom said, standing atop the boat next to Ryoma. “I know controlling your magic is intensive work, but...”

“I’m sorry about that. It might have looked like I was glowering,” Ryoma said in his usual tone. He turned to the crowd to answer the man’s question. “There’s no one inside the building; I verified that with magic as I arrived. All I know is that there are several fires throughout the city. I rushed out onto the street so I could start putting them out. However, my security company is working alongside the Adventurer’s Guild to investigate and extinguish these fires.” His words, along with the absence of an immediate threat, seemed to placate the crowd, although it still seemed agitated. Ryoma continued. “I won’t ask you not to worry! This is a serious situation. Protect yourself, first and foremost! Then, if possible, please help us evacuate the city and put out these fires! The more hands we have, the better. Thank you!” he called over the murmuring crowd.

Hearing this, the onlookers began to recognize what had to be done.

“You bet I’ll help!”

“We can’t just stand by and watch!”

“Thank you!” Ryoma answered. “Oh! My hospital is preparing to take in anyone who is injured. Don’t hesitate to go there if you feel it necessary!” As the crowd began to stir into action, Ryoma looked to the man who first spoke to him. “You, sir.”

“Who, me?”

“If you don’t mind, could you deliver a message to the constabulary? If only to tell them there was a fire here and that it’s been extinguished?”

“S-Sure, I can do that.”

“Thank you! Then, get on.”

“What?”

“I’m headed to the next fire, and it’s on the way to the constabulary. Let’s ride together as much as we can. It’s faster,” Ryoma urged.

His tone was rather demanding, but in the current state of emergency, no one thought that Ryoma was overstepping a boundary. In fact, the crowd looked accusingly at the man, who was hesitating to climb onto Ryoma’s boat. It didn’t take long for the silent pressure to get to him, as he hurriedly leapt onto the boat.

“Let’s go!” Ryoma called, and the murky water encasing the building burst, flowed out, and rushed under the boat again.

As the current picked up speed, Hudom spoke to the man aboard. “Sorry about that. My boss is a bit assertive today.”

“No, it wasn’t right of me to talk to you like that,” the man said. “This whole thing has gotten me flustered.”

“I appreciate that,” Hudom replied. “Like I said, it’s very taxing for him just to keep this spell going.”

“It’s that bad...?”

“Oh, yeah. Takes a ton of magical energy. And it needs to be meticulously controlled, so he needs to be completely focused on that, if we’re going this fast. Can’t even talk to him right now. That’s why I’m riding along, so I can help him. Which reminds me—I have to do some work too.” Hudom began working at the back of the boat.

The man quietly observed Ryoma and Hudom. Making sure that Hudom was preoccupied and Ryoma wasn’t looking at him, he stealthily reached for his belt and drew his dagger. He’d crept up on Ryoma from behind and was going to thrust the blade into his back...when suddenly Ryoma spun around and struck his wrist with a wire slime. As the man dropped the dagger in pain, Hudom grabbed his arm from behind and twisted him to the ground, slamming his face into the deck and holding him there.

“H-How...?” the man muttered.

“We’ve been expecting an agent like you.” Ryoma swiftly wrapped the wire slime around the man’s neck and choked him out.

“Beautiful work,” Hudom said, “but are you sure you didn’t want to ask him a few questions?”

“We don’t have time. Besides, he has to be disposable at this stage.”

“I suppose you’re right. If he’d been privy to anything important, he would have gotten away with the help of his allies, or been silenced by them... Either way, he wouldn’t have ended up with us. But how much easier would it be if catching this one guy could give us their whole plan?”

“It must have been his job to frighten the crowd and worsen the confusion in the city,” Ryoma said. “He did start things with us, but I don’t think he planned to find us... My guess is that he was testing his superiors’ patience because of us and rushed to produce results for self-preservation. He took the first bait we dangled in front of him.”

“Sounds about right. I’m impressed you saw through him, though. He seems like some sort of undercover agent. I didn’t think there was anything too suspicious about what he said until he drew his blade at you.”

“About that... Apparently I’ve acquired the Ill Will Detection and Animosity Detection skills, somehow. Earlier today—yesterday, now—when Serge was attacked, one of the guards, Yashuma, pointed it out, and I confirmed it by checking the status board. I hadn’t checked mine in a long time, but I might have had them already when we first met,” Ryoma explained.

“Right. You were really on edge back then. You’re saying that while you didn’t realize it at the time, you had grown sensitive to the ill will around the city.”

“Well, my reaction back then... I haven’t been faced with much animosity lately. The people around me now are mostly kind and generous. I’d like to think...it was like I was a starving person who suddenly ate a giant feast, and my body rejected it. Something like that.” Ryoma chuckled cynically.

“But that’s how you prevented yesterday’s attack, right?” Hudom said. “That’s a good thing.”

“Sensing his animosity helped, but I was lucky that my practice of detecting magical forces with slimes worked well against the assailant’s power.”

“It’s been said that purposefully learning those detection skills is very difficult. It’s a real advantage if you ever need to look for a bodyguard gig too. It won’t hurt you, in any case. I didn’t think slimes could detect that well, though. I’m impressed.”

“I assume it’s difficult without great compatibility with slimes. Besides, it gave me a wicked headache before I got used to it, so many people may not notice they’re developing the skill, or may find it too troublesome to use. I could handle the pain, and I was driven by my curiosity for slime behavior.”

“I certainly haven’t met anyone more passionate about slimes than you, Chief.”

“Plenty of people are passionate about them,” Ryoma said. “You wouldn’t know this, but there are three former slime researchers working at the laundry shop, for example.”

“Wait, really?”

“Not that I consider myself less passionate than them in any way... Well, we’re almost at the next spot.”

“Got it. We do have a job to do.”

“Let’s do whatever we can,” Ryoma said, hastening the boat as he gazed up at the darkened sky.