Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody

※9/22 Typo corrections made.

※9/23 Added revisions.

This is Satou. There is a saying, "Too many cooks spoil the broth." It always comes to mind whenever I attend meetings without a clear organizer. But in another world, having a ship that climbs mountains might actually be normal.

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To avoid intersecting with other ships’ sea routes, our sailing ship is flying quite far out in the open ocean. Since we’re only flying slightly higher than the crest of the waves, even if spotted from a distance, it should just look like a normal ship sailing.

That said, our speed is over three times that of a regular sailing ship, so anyone clever enough would probably notice something unusual about this ship.

We’ve enjoyed the sea journey, passing by pirates without incident, exploring underwater ruins, and even landing on the coast for a swim.

By keeping an eye on nearby vessels on the map and taking careful routes, we’ve ended up going somewhat out of the way. At one point, I thought of using illusion magic to project the sea’s image, but since we still can’t get too close to other ships, we didn’t go through with it.

In the first three days, we traveled about 1,200 kilometers southwest by west. Currently, we’ve landed on water and reduced speed to that of an ordinary sailing ship. This is to enter the port in Count Ukeu’s Domain, located inside the bay ahead. Lulu and the others might get seasick, but they’ll have to bear with it for a while.

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At Count Ukeu’s Domain port, there are seven galleys and three sailing ships about the size of ours docked. The port facilities are somewhat lacking, so only four ships are docked while the remaining six have dropped anchor offshore a bit away from the harbor.

Our ship also drops anchor on the water surface.

Since we don’t need to unload cargo at the port, we decided to lower our small boat to go sightseeing in the port town. Once everyone was aboard the small boat, I used "Magic Hand" to gently lower it onto the water’s surface. Of course, we lowered it from a side not visible from the port or other ships to avoid drawing attention.

The ship’s guard duty was entrusted to Scarecrow No. 8, an owl-shaped automaton. Though owl-shaped, it cannot fly. Its capabilities include surveillance, notifying of intruders, and some wire operations. These wire operations are used to move puppets mimicking crew members or trigger traps. The puppets have no combat ability, but from a distance, it looks like humans are working, which is sufficient for security.

Riza and Nana were assigned as the rowers of the small boat. Although called small, it’s large enough to hold eight adults.

“What kind of port town is this?”

“This is Count Ukeu’s Domain’s port. But if you cross that mountain, you can take a shortcut to Count Kirik’s Domain’s port. Using this shortcut saves you from having to go around the peninsula that stretches 500 kilometers south from here, which greatly cuts travel time.”

“So, a round trip of 1,000 kilometers would take about two days, right?”

“Arisa, don’t treat Master’s magic ship’s speed as normal.”

“That’s right. A normal ship would take over half a month.”

Riza corrected Arisa. The others seemed uninterested, playing with their hands in the water. Tama was desperately stretching her body from my lap, trying to touch the water. She doesn’t need to contort like that—she could just get off my lap.

“How long does crossing the mountain take?”

“It’s about 20 kilometers, and there seem to be rest stops every 4 to 5 kilometers, so many ships unload their cargo here.”

I thought it’d be easy to use magic to create a canal, but maybe they lack the budget or a magician to hire. Since it seems to be a key point for sea transport connecting the Duke’s Capital and the Royal Capital, I’d think some investors might finance it.

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As we approached the dock with the small boat, a man who looked like an official at the landing area gestured for us to moor the boat at the proper place.