Red Ocean (3)

Whenever someone is faced with a decision, their first instinct is to imagine possible scenarios. The extent to which they immerse themselves in these scenarios may vary, but it’s a universal tendency.

My imagination, for instance, was running wild.

“Five days over the estimated arrival date…!”

The mobility of Teams 1 and 2 isn’t so different that it would cause such a significant time difference.

That means something must have happened to Team 2 during the expedition.

The problem was that I had no way of knowing what that something was.

As someone who tended to be pessimistic, my thoughts naturally drifted to the worst-case scenario first.

Could they have encountered plunderers, like the Meiruta Clan we ran into on the fifth floor? It was possible that other explorers had attacked Team Two while they were on their own.

What made this worse was that these thoughts weren’t just baseless delusions.

The Meiruta Clan only tried to pass us by because they were faint-hearted. But is everyone like them? What if Team 2 was unlucky enough to encounter someone more decisive, someone bold enough not to fear my reputation?

This is exactly why I dealt with the leader of the Meiruta Clan so severely. I wanted to eliminate any variable that could threaten me or us, regardless of the situation.

That’s why I executed him as an example. It’s also why I told the vice-leader to spread the word about what happened as soon as they left the labyrinth.

“B-Bjorn…?”

No, maybe I was thinking too narrowly.

What if it wasn’t just a chance encounter with plunderers? I had enemies—Baek-ho Lee, Auril Gavis. And if not them, then perhaps the Noarkans had realized the labyrinth had opened and sent a team in themselves—

“Bjorn!!”

Someone smacked me on the back, snapping me out of my thoughts.

“…Misha?”

“Listen to me!” she snapped.

Ah, she had been talking to me this whole time.

“What is it?”

“Please! Stop thinking weird thoughts! They’ll be fine!”

“…How can you be so sure?”

“Because I trust them.” Misha continued, “Emily, Erwin, Aynar, and the rest… Honestly, I’m a bit worried about Mr Roklov, but never mind! They are all people who can take care of themselves!”

“No, well… it’s not that I don’t trust them—”

“Bjorn, I think you’re seriously misunderstanding something. We aren’t your children. We’re your allies.”

“……I’ll go cool my head for a bit.”

“Yeah, yeah. Go ahead.”

Taking Misha’s worried advice, I stepped away from the portal to clear my head. Even so, the anxiety refused to fade.

I had only followed her advice because I needed a quiet place to think and realized it wasn’t good for the commander to show such weakness in front of the members.

“Bjorn!”

I don’t know how much time had passed since I stepped away, but Misha called out to me from a distance.

“Just how far did you go to cool your head! I’ve been looking for—”

“Tell the team to prepare to move.”

“…Huh? Prepare to move?”

She tilted her head in confusion, and I took the opportunity to explain the plan I had come up with after a brief but intense moment of thought.

“As soon as preparations are complete, we’ll head down to the 5th floor. Rather than waiting indefinitely, it’s better to—”

“What are you talking about! There’s no need for that!!”

“Whether it’s necessary or not is for me to decide. I don’t know what situation Team 2 is in, but if they’re being chased or hiding from someone, we need to help them immediately—”

“No, you idiot! Team 2 just came up!!”

My mind went blank for a moment. Seeing my expression, Misha quickly explained everything.

“They’re all safe! They were late because they entered a rift on the 4th floor! Honestly—what did I tell you? Nothing happened!”

For a brief moment, relief washed over me. Then another emotion, one I couldn’t quite name, rose up as I made my way toward the portal, toward where Team Two was.

“…Huh? Hey! Where are you going while I’m still talking!”

I hurried to the portal and found the members of Team Two gathered in front of it. Amelia was calmly explaining something to the others, while Ainar loudly bragged about what she had gained.

Only then did I realize what that indescribable emotion was.

It was… irritation.

Even I didn’t understand why.

“…Oh? Jandel? You’re here. I heard you were quite worried about us being late.”

Amelia spoke with a slightly teasing tone.

Erwin chimed in as well.

“Hehe, it’s mister! Were you really that worried?”

Despite their welcoming words, I kept my mouth shut. I felt that if I said even a single word, I would give away my feelings. Or had I already?

“Emily… Why were you so late?”

“Ah… did Karlstein not tell you? A rift opened right in front of us on the fourth floor, so we talked it over and decided to go in.”

Noticing my silence, Amelia added, “But didn’t we already agree on this? From the fourth floor onward, we’d enter any rift we could.”

She was right. We had agreed on that.

That was why, even though Team Two was late, the others tried to reassure me by suggesting they had entered a rift. They had done exactly what I, as their captain, should have done.

The problem was…

“Still… wasn’t it too late?”

“…With your level, it shouldn’t take five days to clear a 4th floor rift.”

Amelia noticed the subtle tone in my voice and frowned.

Only then did I snap back to my senses.

The problem was clearly with me.

Or rather…

“We took our time because we moved as carefully as possible. Are you really blaming us for that?”

A faint frown formed on Amelia’s face as she picked up on the emotions behind my question, and only then did my mind begin to clear.

“Jandel… what on earth is making you so impatient?”

There was something wrong with my head.

***

Day 21 in the labyrinth, we ran into an incident upon reaching the sixth floor, but it was handled without issue, and we were finally able to board a ship and head out into the open sea. It was also where we parted ways with the Meiruta Clan.

“We’re finally setting sail…”

“It looks like the Royal Family is getting ready to leave too?”

As we looked back toward the coast, we saw the palace’s expedition force slowly deploying its warships. The sight left me faintly frustrated.

“If they keep up this pace, they’ll probably have finished leaving by tomorrow.”

In terms of timing, it was a bit unfortunate. Despite moving so quickly, we only managed to set sail one day earlier than the slow-moving expeditionary force.

To make matters worse, nearly all the ships still on the island belonged to the palace forces, aside from a small number from a few clans that had stayed behind.

“We’re behind schedule, but don’t worry too much. We’ve still made plenty of progress, and we even cleared a rift already,” Amelia said, trying to reassure me. It seemed my thoughts had shown on my face.

However, perhaps because of what had happened earlier, there was still an awkward tension between us.

We were both holding our tongues about the recent incident.

“Yeah! If you think about it, we probably gained more than we would’ve from five days of hunting, right? So don’t worry too much, mister!”

Hah

Even Erwin was worrying about me. What am I even doing?

For a moment, I felt pathetic, but at the same time, I realized I needed to pull myself together more going forward.

And to do that, I’d first have to deal with whatever was wrong with my head.

Stepping out onto the deck, I felt the cool sea breeze as I watched the waves part before us. I reflected on myself.

The me from earlier wasn’t like me at all.

No, thinking about it, I’d been like this since the Meiruta Clan incident.

It was as if one of the gears in my mind had broken.

My emotions were overtaking my reason, making me overly sensitive and aggressive.

It was the kind of thing that could happen to anyone, even ordinary people who seemed fine until something set them off.

Am I just too stressed…?

That might have been the simplest explanation, but I couldn’t just dismiss it like that.

If a commander loses their composure and acts on emotion, the entire group ends up suffering the consequences.

Someone could even get hurt because of it.

But how do I fix something like this?

“Jandel.”

“Ah… Emily…”

“It’s fine. It’s only natural.”

It seemed she had pinpointed the root of my problem. She really was quite perceptive.

Silence settled between us, though the awkwardness from before was gone.

After some time passed—

‘Ah, right. I still haven’t asked about that.’

“So, what kind of Rift was it on the 4th floor?”

“…It was the Doppelganger Forest.”

“…I see. Shame it wasn’t the Golden Ruins.”

“From what I heard, didn’t you tell Raven you were certain it was the Doppelganger Forest?”

That’s because I didn’t think our team would be the ones going in.

Hah, maybe this was why people needed to think kindly of others.

***

Day 29 of the Labyrinth.

Nine days after departing from the coast of Limia, we finally reached another island, our first after crossing the ocean. It marked the first destination of our expedition route.

Naturally, since we were already five days behind schedule, I thought about skipping it, but…

It would be a waste. It’s right on our path.

Well, we just have to finish it as quickly as possible.

“Ugh… I’d heard about it, but it’s way creepier than I imagined. The whole island is made of bones…”

“Ooooh!! It’s Skull Island! Skull Island!”

“The official name is Catacoma, Ms. Pheneline.”

Skull Island, Catacoma.

Although this was our first time visiting as a team, I had a rather peculiar connection to the island. When I first visited Ghost Busters, one of the pieces of information I sold for GP was about Skull Island, and I had even shared details about it at the Round Table.

“Um… captain?”

Just as I was about to disembark, Sven Parab approached me.

“Do you happen to know? They say if you defeat the boss monster of skull Island and reach the 10th floor, you can experience something special…”

Wow, talk about an obvious Round Table member. That was the information I had shared.

I pretended ignorance as I replied, “A special experience?”

“Yes. I don’t know the details, but… according to a reliable source, such a thing exists. Of course, we won’t be going to the 10th floor this time, but I thought you should know…”

“Is that so? I’ll keep it in mind. Though, as you said, we won’t be heading to the 10th floor.”

After finishing the conversation and stepping onto the island, Beleg, who had gotten off the boat ahead of us, approached me with some information.

“We have company.”

“Company…?”

I had expected this to some extent. Right now, every floor of the labyrinth was like a gold mine. This sort of thing was likely happening all over the Great Sea, not just here. Where there is treasure, there are bound to be competitors.

“I can’t say for certain… but at least one other clan is already on this island. Look over there at the entrance. They’ve planted their flag like they want everyone to see it.”

“I can tell their personality already.”

“It seems like an unspoken warning: ‘We got here first, so don’t come in.’ What do you want to do?”

What else is there to do? We’ve already taken the time to sail here—we should at least take a look.

Still, before going in recklessly, I confirmed one thing:

“Adynus, is that the emblem of the Golden Tree Clan?”

“It is. The clan is led by one of the Seven Powerful—the Golden Ghost.”

I had my suspicions when I saw the emblem, and they proved correct. I was quite familiar with the Golden Tree Clan. For one, its leader was a member of the Seven Strong, the same group Erwin and Aynar belonged to…

“Huh? The Golden Tree? Then that clan must be…”

When Misha glanced at me as if seeking confirmation, I nodded.

“That’s right.”

It’s the clan Mr. Bear belongs to.

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