A dull longsword and a heartbroken villager

Bray ignored the sound and silently swung his sword.

But after swinging his sword a few times, Bray raised his right eyebrow and couldn't help but open his dead fish eyes.

He glanced at the brightening horizon, but Bray frowned.

A bad feeling crept into Bray's mind.

“Nissa seemed to have mentioned… that the sea creatures were coming,” Bray murmured, recalling what Nisa had told him not long ago.

Bray shook his head; he couldn't fly on water, and he couldn't control what happened at sea.

---

While Bray was fretting, Redip had already arrived at the place where he used to set up his stall.

There weren't many people around early in the morning.

If there are many customers, you have to wait until after noon, or even into the evening.

Redip is making preparations.

"Dove." Redip, who was preparing the seasoning for the grilled fish, suddenly called out to Dove.

Dove, who was about to help, jumped in surprise.

"What's wrong?" Doffin opened her beautiful eyes wide and looked at Redip's angular face.

Redip has a lot of beard; I wonder how long it's been since he shaved.

Reddeep would look much more handsome if he shaved his beard.

"If you want to go out and have fun, where would you like to go?" Redup asked Dove this peculiar question.

"Eh." Dove paused for a second, then her expression changed from surprise to delight.

"Doffin wants to go north, to that very cold continent," Doffin said excitedly to Redip.

"Dove has never seen snow!"

“It snows here too,” Redip added abruptly.

“But there isn’t much snow here. Dove wants to see the kind of snow that’s really, really big.” Dove gestured with his arms, trying his best to make Redup understand exactly how much snow he meant.

“Hmm, the northern continent, right?” Redip muttered.

"Anything else?"

"Dove wants to go west, to the far west, to see the cities in the desert." Dove's face was flushed; she was especially happy when talking about where she would go to play in the future.

There weren't many customers, so Redup had plenty of time to chat with Dove.

“Oh…right, I have a gift for you,” Redup said mysteriously to Doffin.

"Huh? A gift?" Doffin looked at Redip in surprise.

Dove looked left and right, but still couldn't find the gift Redup had mentioned.

Then Reddy unzipped his coat and pulled out an atlas from inside.

Redup had no idea how to surprise the little girl, so he thought of stuffing the atlas into his coat, zipping it up, so that Dove wouldn't find it.

Dove's expression was a little strange as he took the atlas from Redip.

Why would Redip give himself an atlas? Dove had a million questions in his mind.

"Why did Redup give Dove the atlas?" Dove tilted his cute little head and asked Redup.

"Weren't you hunched over the bookstore cabinet the other day, staring at the atlas?" Redup asked, looking at Dove with a puzzled expression.

Dove's reaction is wrong; shouldn't he be extremely happy?

Redip was also thinking of giving the atlas to the little girl; she would be overjoyed.

Why is the reaction so cold?

Dove blinked his bright, large eyes, as if he were thinking about something.

After a long while, Dove's mouth dropped open, as if he had thought of something.

“Redip, I was looking at a picture book back then,” Dove said to Redip.

"..." Redup's two dead fish eyes narrowed.

Hmm? A picture book? Isn't it an atlas?

Dove then realized why Redup had talked to him about where he wanted to travel.

It turns out that this was a prelude to bringing out the atlas.

It's impressive that Redip thought of so much.

“I don’t like it…” Redip said expressionlessly, simply lowering his head to continue preparing the grilled fish.

"No, Dove likes it very much." Dove chuckled, hugging the atlas to her arms.

"Don't you like picture books?" Redup asked Dove.

Dove suddenly became happy for some reason.

"Hmm, Dove liked picture books, but now I like atlases too." Dove picked up a small stool, sat down, and placed the atlas on her lap.

Looking at an atlas is undoubtedly an incredibly boring task.

It's not the same as looking at a picture book.

But when Doffin thought about why Redip gave him the atlas, his eyes curved into beautiful crescent moons.

Redup simply wanted to give Dove a gift, and even made a point of finding out what Dove liked.

"Hmph hmph hmph~" Dove opened the atlas, which contained templates of the various continents of Kapras.

Detailed maps of each major city are also included.

Dove's fingers slid across the atlas, lost in thought.

Later, Redip will take her on trips to the places in the atlas.

"Redip, can I really go see all sorts of interesting things?" Dove felt like he was dreaming after living with Redip for more than a year.

It's completely different from life in the deep sea.

Of course, to outsiders, it still seems quite boring.

But for Dove, living with Redup is really great.

“You mean travel?” Redip glanced at Dove.

"Yes." Dove nodded.

“Of course it’s true, I’ve already saved up quite a bit of money.” Redip said calmly as he skillfully started a fire on the grill.

The firelight illuminated Redip's expressionless face. Above Vinipado, Nisha rode her white horse at breakneck speed, anxious to find Bray.

But in such a vast place as Vinipado, finding someone like this is incredibly difficult.

Nisha pursed her lips, realizing that she might have been a bit impulsive, acting on the mere thought of Bray.

Not knowing when the sea creatures would arrive in Vinipado, Nisa didn't have much time to waste.

Just as Nisha was feeling troubled, a seagull, even faster than Pakaso, darted past.

“Stop, Pakaso,” Nisha commanded her white horse to halt.

The reason she stopped was that a seagull landed in front of her.

"Do seagulls generally fly that high?" Nisha couldn't help but wonder.

"Looks like we've found the real deal," a female voice said from the seagull.

Nisha blinked, gazing at the tiny seagull in front of her.

"Transfiguration?" Nisha asked.

"As expected of Captain Nisa." The seagull looked at Nisa with satisfaction.

Feathers fluttered as a charming young woman sat atop a flock of magically formed birds, scrutinizing Nisha.

"Hello, nice to meet you, Nisha."

"Who are you?" Nisa was a little wary of the girl who had suddenly appeared.

Nisha especially dislikes women who look particularly alluring.

“Katrina, an intelligence agent for ‘God’s Great Enemy’.” This voluptuous-looking girl was the intelligence agent that Bray knew.

Nisha was stunned after hearing Katrina's self-introduction.

“Oh, you might not believe it, but that’s okay, look at this.” Katrina showed off a tattoo on her body.

Those were identification documents engraved by members of "God's Great Enemy" using a special method.

Nisha also has it.

“Misala said the mission here went wrong, so I rushed over here,” Katrina sighed.

"Does the 'Great Enemy of God' provide combat power?" Nisa asked tentatively.

“No, other places need manpower, I can only provide some non-combat assistance.” Katrina shrugged.

She's not good at fighting at all.

“Perfect timing, get on your horse quickly.” Nisha pulled Katrina onto the back of her white horse.

"Hey, hey, I don't do yuri," Katrina exclaimed.

"And I don't want to ride a horse!" Now Katrina is wearing a long skirt, which at least risks exposing her skin.

However, Nisha completely ignored Katrina's complaints.

“I’m looking for someone. If you’re an intelligence agent, you’re good at finding people, right?” Nisha said in a deep voice.

"Of course, there are quite a few ways to deliberately find someone," Katrina said, indicating that she felt no pressure in finding the right person.

“But shouldn’t you deal with the sea creatures first? They’ll be able to get close to the shore in a few hours.” Katrina narrowed her eyes.

“I can’t win.” Nisha didn’t try to be brave; she knew perfectly well that she had no chance of defeating those sea creatures.

“You’re not wrong.” Actually, before coming here to meet with Nisa, Katrina had already investigated the strength of those sea creatures.

“Three of them are second-tier sea creatures,” Katrina sighed.

The strength levels of the Bronze type can be differentiated from those of the Iron type, which are differentiated according to the adventurer's level.

Ordinary sea creatures are divided into three tiers, with each tier representing a greater level of power. Of course, greater power does not necessarily mean stronger combat ability.

Above the ordinary sea creatures are the great sea creatures, which are also divided into three tiers.

The hierarchy of demons and angels is very similar to that of the sea creatures.

However, there is of course the weakest, the Bronze type without any rank.

Those are ordinary people, nobody, cannon fodder.

However, even though it is of no rank, it is still stronger than the top-tier S-rank adventurer of the Black Iron type.

In order to finish off Doffin quickly, the Sea King sent out second-tier Sea Creatures into battle.

“…” Of course, Nisha also knew about the differences in the levels of the Bronze type.

"There's probably no time to go looking for someone now, right?"

“That person can help us,” Nisha said earnestly.

After a long while, Katrina realized that Nisha still hadn't changed her mind about finding someone, and she felt a little helpless.

"Okay, who should we contact?"

"An adventurer who is blind in his left eye and lifeless in his right."

"He had short black hair, carried a large sword the size of a door on his back, and had a long sword at his waist."

“There’s a little girl and an Asian girl with him,” Nisha carefully provided Katrina with the clue.

Katrina's expression became quite interesting.

"You should have told me earlier that dead fish eyes were here," Katrina said, speechless.

Although it had been a long time since she had contacted Bray, Katrina still had a deep impression of him, and that feeling of excitement remained.