Chapter 39: Walking on water

It turns out that the reason Arana didn't fall is that she had secured herself with something that seems like some type of spider web, so I asked her to do the same to me.

"You could have told me about this before I fell..."

"Since you didn't say anything, I thought that you already had a way to keep yourself from falling"

No, I'm sure that she just wanted to see me fall, even when we're pressed for time she still does stuff like this.

"Mistress! Are you comfortable up there?"

"Not at all! But the view is great!"

The dragon is flying much higher than I normally do, we only just reached the coast and I can already see the islands of the Agua kingdom in the distance.

"Ara, do you know which one of those islands is the capital?"

"You mean you don't know? While it's true that most of the territory of the Agua kingdom is on those islands, the capital is actually located on top of the sea"

"On the sea? Do you mean on the water? How can anyone build a city there?"

"The why is that they wanted to build the capital on top of the home of the water spirits, the Agua kingdom was founded by a family that had the ability to communicate with them, so they build a city near them to make it easier to get their assistance. As for the how, didn't you talk before about the magic circuits that are used to create bridges between the islands of the Agua kingdom? A similar type of magic is used to keep the buildings of the capital fixed in place above the water"

"What!? Is that true!?"

Now I want to see those magic circuits even more, I hope that they are the type that can be used by any mage and not only the ones with water as their main attribute.

"By the way, you should probably put this on when we get there"

Oh, it's that mask from last time.

"I don't really want to wear that, but you're right, Nera was able to recognize me the first time she saw me, it would probably be a bad idea to show my face around the place she came from"

"Well, there's that too, but mostly I was worried that all the demons living here would be able to see your mana"

Oh, now that she mentions it, that did cause some trouble back when we were at the ork village.

"It's not as if every demon is able to see how powerful you are, but some of them are, and half of the citizens of the Agua kingdom are demons so it's almost certain that some of them will, that's why I enchanted that mask to hide your mana as well as your face"

"I see... you really made sure that nothing could go wrong this time"

Holding the mask in my hands I stare at it for a moment as I get lost in thought.

"Luna? What are you thinking about with such a worried expression?"

"Nothing in particular, I'm just trying to figure out how everything is going to go wrong this time..."

Perhaps I'm being too pessimistic, but you cannot blame me for being worried after all my previous experiences.

"By the way Ara, do you think that we'll make it there before them?"

"Probably not, this dragon is really fast but they got a pretty good head start and Ranna won't be slowed down by the sea"

She's probably right... I've been looking at the people traveling between the islands and yet I've seen no trace of them, and I think that we're about to reach the capital.

"Don't worry, it's not as if they are going to kill Nera the moment they get there, keep in mind that the knights think that they're saving her so they will have to get rid of them first. Also, I don't know how much Ranna has changed since the last time I saw her, but she's not the type that would have an easy time murdering someone in cold blood"

"Let's hope that you're right..."

After a short while, we finally reach our destination. I bet that a lot of people saw the dragon approaching the city, but we don't have time to worry about that, as long as he goes to his human form as soon as we land nobody should be able to tell that it's him.

And so, we land, or maybe I should say that we 'sea'? We're standing on top of the water after all.

"Woah, it's true that we can walk on the water here"

The lines and symbols of a mana circuit light up wherever we step, turning the surface of the water solid, does this thing really cover the entire city?

The houses around us are also being held in place by the mana circuit, but they're constantly bobbing up and down a little bit, it probably takes some time to get used to living in this place, I imagine that it must be similar to living in a boat, and in fact, these houses do look a bit like square boats.

"Luna! Focus on what we're doing, we need to go to the castle, you'll be able to look at the mana circuits all you want after we find Nera"

"Ah, of course"

Unlike the houses, the castle looks more like a regular building, and it's not moving at all, I wonder if they used a different method to fix it in place...

"Can you use mana sense to check if Nera is inside of the castle?"

"Of course! Let me see... no, she's not there"

Did we make it here before them after all?

"Can you check if she's in the city at least?"

"Uh? Yes, she's here"

Could it that they went somewhere else before the castle? But where? And why?

"Well, where is she?"

"In the city"

"I mean specifically"

"I don't know, I cannot tell the exact location of a specific person in such a large area, if I had any idea of where to look I might be able to confirm if she's there, but as it is I can only tell that she's somewhere in that general direction"

"Oh, that mana sense thing is not as overpowered as I thought"

"Well, obviously, if it was that powerful I would not have so much trouble to find someone every time I'm left alone, and I would never get lost like I always do"

"Is that so... I always thought that you just didn't think of using it"

"What!? How dumb do you think I am!?"

Arana stops to think for a moment and then seems to reach a decision.

"Alright, we don't know where they are right now, but we know that they will come here to the castle sooner or later so all we have to do is keep guard here... Luna, since you can check to see if Nera is here whenever you want you will be the one keeping watch"

"Oh, sure, but what about you?"

"I'm going to go to the castle, I want to get a sense of what things are like in there. As for Irvan, he should go to the direction you pointed at earlier and look for Nera"

"Hey, who do you think you are? I only take orders from my mistress"

"Dragon, go to the direction I pointed at earlier and look for Nera"

"Yes mistress!"

I need to get him to follow Arana's orders as well or I'll probably end up repeating what she says a lot in the future...

"Now Luna, this is important, you're probably the one with the highest chance of catching them so you need to make sure you stay here and not get distracted, it doesn't matter if you see someone with an untied shoelace or if there's some injured fish that you think you can heal, you need to stay focused, understood?"

"What are you talking about!? Of course I'm going to stay focused!"

Just how little does she trust me? Does she think that I'm someone who gets distracted easily?

"Right, of course you will..."

And so I'm left alone to keep guard.

...

..

.

"It sure is boring to be a guard..."

We were in such a hurry until not long ago, and now I'm here with nothing to do...

On the street in front of me there's a strange demon, he looks like a cross between a man and a fish... if I'm not mistaken he's something called a sahuagin, and he's on all fours doing something to the mana circuit.

"Excuse me, sir, what are you doing?"

"Can't you see? The mana circuit on this street had been damaged so I'm replacing it"

Now that he mentions it, I can see that he's already erased everything on the street, so now he's writing it again?

"Do you mind if I watch? I'm a traveler and I had never seen anything like this before"

"Eh, as long as you don't get in the way"

After a few minutes of watching him work, I think that I've figured out how this works, and water magic is not necessary at all! Now I want to try this myself.

"Uh... miss, didn't you say that you had never seen this before?"

"No, but I figured it out by watching you work"

"Are you pulling my leg? Anyone would need a few weeks at least to figure out a mana circuit as complicated as this one"

"What!? Why would someone need weeks for this? All I had to do is pay attention to..."

At that moment I remember to check the castle again to see if Nera is there, but of course, she's not there yet, after all, there's no way that I would miss her because I got distracted by something like this...

forli