As if hearing him, the winds picked up again. Marco jumped up, ignoring his friends as he made his way back to the wheel. He forced every bit of non-wind-assisted power he could into the ship, surging the boat forward towards the stormfront just as the horror breached the water where the ship had just been.

Marco was never sure how to describe what they saw as the monster breached the surface. It was like the living form of a cut, a slice that sawed away at reality. It was almost without color, not white but no tone his eye could make sense of at all. It wasn't just that he didn't know if they could beat it, anymore. He didn't even understand how they'd go about trying.

The storm saved them. As the thing hung overlong in the air, the winds and rains kicked back into gear just as suddenly as the hurricane had when they entered the first time. The beast lingered near the surface of the water for a moment, as if regarding the storm, then seemed to decide the death it had wrought in the waters below was enough to sustain it for the time being. It sank, and the crew clung to the mast as they spent the next few minutes in suspense, wondering if it would come back.

It didn't. In its place, the second half of the storm came. And the second half of the storm hit harder than the first.

The crew retreated before it really got underway, just taking enough time to tie down his ankle again before retreating belowdecks again. Marco was glad they did, that they didn't have to face what he was facing. It hurt. The wheel nearly broke his arms when the gusts slammed against the hull, wrenching control of the rudder away from him. He forced it back into position at the cost of his body, sending every muscle in his arms screaming.

Hours bled together. The ropes cut deep into his ankle until he lost feeling in his foot. His back ached. His head pounded. Eventually, he had no idea if the ship was still on course. He only knew he had to keep the ship floating, fighting the storm until it finally blew past them.

At last, the winds began to ease. The waves grew not exactly small, but survivable. The rain slackened to a steady downpour, then ceased. Through the fog of exhaustion, Marco realized he was still alive. More importantly, the ship was still afloat.

His friends were safe. His wife was safe. His paper pulper acquaintance was safe. Even the chickens were probably fine.

He slumped against the wheel, trembling. His eyes burned with salt, and his throat was raw, but he managed a hoarse laugh. The storm had thrown everything it had at him, and he had held on. Barely. When the crew finally emerged, they found him pale, mostly drowned, and still lashed to the stake. He managed to croak out words, if only two.

“Still here.”

—

Elisa and Aethe sent him to bed, but it was Riv that carried him there. He was stripped and dried, and he never knew by whom. He slept for at least an hour before he was able to shake himself awake and found Aethe there beside him, holding on to him.

"Hey," he said. "Did I miss lunch?"

"You missed three meals." Aethe said, squeezing him to her body. "That's how sleeping for an entire day works."

"An entire day?"

"Yeah. And you snored. Loudly." She smiled and snuggled her head into his chest. "A manly snore. I think I like it. You should do it more often."

"I feel like that's the kind of thing that gets old sooner rather than later."

"I'll let you know. Are you ready to get up now?"

"Not quite yet. Give me just a bit."

Fifteen or twenty minutes later, they emerged from the captain's cabin to a completely blue sky and sea. Riv saw him, shook his head, and walked straight to their deck-top cooking equipment to fry him some eggs.

He told everyone else the story of the storm, such as it was. It was hard to do it justice. They already knew he had gotten wet, but there was no way to impress on them how he had almost drowned with his feet on the deck in the open outside air. He told them about the wind and all it took to fight it, but there was no way to make them feel what it felt like when the wind was winning that battle, how close the ship had come to capsizing.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from NovelBin. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

"I honestly don't know how anyone else would have survived it. Those rune blocks did most of it," Marco said.

"The rune blocks only amplify," Kuzai said. "They can't do most of it. I'm sure they helped, but there's only so much they can help."

"Even so. We'd be sunk without them. Or any number of Conquest skills."

"It's too bad you didn't get a Conquest skill from that," Elisa said. "I bet it would have been a doozy."

"Huh." Marco actually hadn't checked. There was no reason to think he would have achieved anything the system recognized by simply surviving a storm. Unless, of course, the storm had been a system-related monster in the same way the whirlwind had all those months ago. He checked for kicks.

For once, it wasn't a reward. It was something different.

"It looks like we should get where we are going sooner rather than later. Elisa, please point me in the right direction to get to Kuzai's Main Island port. I want to check something out."

Elisa did some quick calculations, then pointed in the exact direction the ship was already headed. That was normal enough; there had been no reason to waste time navigating while Marco was out.

He checked it against his new sense of where the next temple-related objective was. This was nothing new for him, really. It was just a matter of considering various routes until one made his soul feel tingly, and then continuing on in that way.

It was always a fast process, but this time it was even faster. The exact direction they were headed already was the exact direction the temple sense wanted. Whatever ruler had control of this area was there.

"Oof," Marco said. "What do you think the chances are that the ruler of this entire area is friendly to talk about temple things?"

"Given our track record?" Elisa asked. "Just about nil, if not quite. Why?"

"Because that's how this trip is shaping up."

"Wait. Wait," Kuzai said. "Should I be worried about this? Are you attacking my homeland?"

"It's more like your homeland might attack us once they realize what we are," Marco said. "And we might not have any choice but to show them. Elisa, could you catch him up?"

Elisa sat down to tell Kuzai tales of obsidian golems, temple-bearing sea turtles, power, deceit, and everything else that had come with being on the trail of the temples. Marco didn't mind Kuzai knowing at this point. He had seen the man's powers in action, and most of what he claimed to be was exactly what he had demonstrated he was. There was likely only so much a paper-crafting class could do to hurt them even if Kuzai turned out to be deceptively hostile, and there was little in the world that Marco considered less likely than him turning out to be an evil spy.

"Wow." Kuzai had sat wordlessly after the explanation for a while. "That's a lot to have gone through in so short a time. Years and years of adventure in a fraction of that time. No wonder you all seem so young."

"It hasn't been great. Though it was never boring." Marco sat down next to the pulper. "What do you think?"

"I'm just wondering why all this means you have to go to Main Island. If you know there's a fight waiting there, you could just drop me off somewhere else."

"That's easy." Aethe said. "That hurricane. What would it do if it rolled over a normal ship? Or a normal settlement?"

"Level it or sink it."

"Right. And my system notification says this is going to get worse over time. Imagine dozens of those hurricanes, or volcanos and earthquakes of the same magnitude. Tidal waves."

"Ah. And you think you can stop this from happening?"

"I think the system thinks so." Elisa said. "Marco, what is your charisma stat at these days?"

Marco looked at his status screen. He didn't keep up with it very much these days, as the distortions of his class made it all but nonsense compared to how strong he was wearing his equipment or standing on his ship. His charisma score was there, though, and this was a situation where the raw number mattered.

"That is high. I guess the system tends to get you mixed up in things?"

"Triple what you are thinking," Elisa said. "The temples magnify the effect. We run into trouble literally everywhere we go."

"If it was anything like the outpost, you at least leave it better when you go." Kuzai shook his head and then slapped his face with both hands, lightly. "Okay. I believe you aren't going to start trouble just for trouble's sake. Just… play it cool, if you can. Let me lead. For better or worse, I'm a known quantity in the capital. I might be able to make some introductions that lead you where you need to go."