* * *

For the group, who had been lulled into a honeyed slumber, the news of Lydon’s disappearance was like a thunderbolt.

“……He’s been around a long time, that fairy. It’s about time we let him go.”

Van muttered as he ran a hand through his messy hair. Even in his drowsy state, the words were half-sincere, but he quickly changed his demeanor under Cadel’s sharp gaze.

“It’s time to bring him back to Commander’s side. What on earth did he do to deserve that?”

Cadel and Lydon were peering through the membrane together, their bodies pressed tightly together, not even an inch apart. The only difference was that Cadel didn’t have the urge to touch the bubble.

“……Lydon must have been possessed by something because he didn’t react when I shook him. He just ignored everything and went inside the bubble.”

Of course, it was also possible that Lydon’s curiosity got the better of him and he acted on his own. But no matter how much he followed his instincts, he never failed to ignore Cadel’s calling.

Once Cadel was convinced of Lydon’s anomaly, Lumen, who had been listening in silence, spoke up.

“Same place, same behavior, and yet one is sane and one is possessed? There must be a difference. Think about it, Leader.”

Cadel replayed his interaction with Lydon over and over, trying to find something else he might have done, something else he might have chosen to do.

“…… No. I don’t remember doing anything particularly different, no matter how hard I think about it.”

“Does that make sense?”

“Even if it doesn’t make sense, I can’t think of anything.”

As Cadel racked his brain in agony, Garuel walked over and squeezed his shoulder.

“If you didn’t notice anything particularly odd about it, it’s probably something you wouldn’t normally notice. Or maybe it’s just a mind disturbance with no trigger condition.”

“No conditions?”

“It could be that it possesses a random target, and since it can only possess one person at a time, Sir Lydon is the unlucky one.”

“……Well, that’s not entirely out of the question.”

If Garuel was right, the bubble could be bewitching random targets and pulling them into the bubble.

“There’s no way we’ll be able to explore this alone, and if we’re going to save that fairy, we’ll need to uncover the bubble’s identity, and to do that, we’ll need a few people to serve as bait.”

It was a horrible conclusion to come to, but he couldn’t think of any other options.

‘It’s an uninhabited island, and the only people who can afford to go are my subordinates.’

To think he’d have to risk the ones he loved to save the ones he cherished. Cadel buried his face in his hands and tried to calm his nerves.

If the risky gamble would reveal the bubble’s identity and allow him to figure out how to rescue them, he’d be able to bring back all of his subordinates. 

But if the plan goes awry.

“……Yozen.”

“Yeah.”

“Can you detect any sign of Lydon?”

Cadel lifted his head slowly and looked at Yozen. Yozen looked around wordlessly for a moment, then spoke in a quiet voice.

“I can’t feel it. I can only discern shallow water. So if Lydon’s alive, he’s sunk deep.”

It was a hopeless answer. The corners of Cadel’s mouth twitched, and his eyes narrowed: why would he go check out such a strange, unidentifiable object? Even if Lydon wanted to go, he should have stayed within his lines.

A tidal wave of self-doubt washed over Cadel. He hesitated, unable to make a decision, and the others fell silent in unison. It was Garuel who broke the awkward silence.

“Knight Commander, you stay here. We’ll go down and check that bubble together. If all four of us go at once, we might be able to get more information.”

If the assumption that only one random target was lured was correct. As Garuel said, it was better to have as many people as possible checking the bubble for clues until the last one was left.

The rest of the group seemed to agree with Garuel, though Cadel announced that he would go with them.

“We need someone to piece together the clues that everyone has gathered. Leader, you stay here.”

Lumen said firmly as he pushed Cadel down onto the sand. If the assumptions were wrong and everyone was in danger, then… Without giving Cadel time to express his worries, his subordinates got up and headed toward the beach.

The water was calm as they swam in. Cadel was submerged below the knees, unable to go any deeper, unable to get out at all.

‘How long am I going to wait? What if they’re in danger now? But if I rush in there and cause trouble…….’

Cadel’s desire to lead and protect his subordinates was torn between trusting them and waiting. Cadel’s grip on the pendant tightened unconsciously.

When his subordinates dove for it, the first thing he did was call Kunra. He hoped that Kunra might be able to give him some important clues. However, Kunra only responded to Cadel’s desperate call with an unenthusiastic reply.

[Don’t worry, halfling, I’m sure you can do it.]

What in the world could he do? He didn’t need that kind of vague encouragement, he needed Kunra to come out and help him right now, but Kunra didn’t respond. He knew Kunra was busy, but wasn’t he the most important person in the world? If he didn’t win, this worldline would be erased. And without his subordinates, his victory would be meaningless.

‘He doesn’t know it, or he pretends he doesn’t know it. This annoying dragon.’

Cadel’s frustration was getting the better of him, and he began to exert force on the pendant as if to break it. Suddenly, the calm waters began to ripple, and soon someone popped his head out.

“……!”

Cadel quickly lit a fireball, sending it flying to the surface, and one by one, everyone who had been submerged surfaced. Worried and anxious eyes scanned the faces of his subordinates in the light.

‘All…… all of them…….’

Van, Lumen, Garuel, and Yozen. Cadel swallowed dryly as he studied their faces over and over again. They looked at each other and said something, then began to swim back to the shore where Cadel was.

“Hey, guys, are you okay? Are you hurt?”

As Cadel floundered toward them, barely able to swim, Van was the first to reach him, grabbing him by the waist and pulling him out of the water.

“Why’d you come out here, Commander? You’ll catch a cold if you stay soaked.”

“I’ll dry off with the fire anyway. Never mind that……. Where are you hurt? Did something happen to you or something?”

As Lumen approached, shaking his wet hair out of his face, he replied to the urgent question.

“As you can see, all four are fine. It seems Sir Garuel was wrong in his assumptions.”

“Gee, I thought it was a pretty plausible assumption. If one of the four is going to be affected by a mental disturbance, please don’t let it be me. It won’t be worth my prayers.”

Behind the chattering Garuel was Yozen, the last to arrive. Yozen retrieved the bandage he’d left with Cadel, then rattled off the information he’d discovered.

“It’s underwater, so I can’t spread the dark energy at will. It’s hard to get a good read on it.”

Still, Yozen said he could vaguely sense Lydon’s energy in the center of the bubble, in its fiery spinning core, and the bubbles it spewed were different from ordinary bubbles and seemed to be laced with special mana.

Lumen added to Yozen’s story with what he had learned.

“The spinning thing had a similar shape to the Sea Dragon we saw during the day, though I can’t say for sure it was the same one because it was spinning so fast.”

Lumen, whose superior fuselage vision usually backed up his incredible airspeed, said that the spinning object he saw looked like a smaller miniature of the Sea Dragon.

“We tried touching the surface of the bubble with aura and demonic energy, but it didn’t budge with any kind of attack, or rather, I doubted it could be popped with a normal attack in the first place.”

Garuel and Van were able to attack from a distance with relative freedom underwater. The two men tried to touch the bubble several times, with no results. If they couldn’t burst the bubble with their strength, it would be difficult to rescue Lydon, even if he was inside.

“If we tried to touch the bubble ourselves like Lydon did, we might be able to get inside, but that might be just as futile, so I think we need to find a safe way in first.”

Cadel nodded in agreement with Van. The last thing they needed was to put everyone in danger trying to save Lydon.

“But there’s no guarantee that Lydon will be safe while we figure out a way in.”

“……What does that mean?”

“Lydon’s energy I sensed. It hasn’t been very stable.”

Cadel’s expression hardened at Yozen’s words. Not stable. What the hell was going on inside the bubble? He could feel his muscles tighten with a surge of anxiety. Facing Cadel, who was speechless, Lumen spoke up.

“Whatever Lydon’s condition, it doesn’t change the fact that we need to get him out of there as soon as possible. We still don’t know what constitutes a disturbed mind, or even if he was disturbed at all. We’ll have to do some more research.”

Leaving a stunned Cadel behind, the men moved in once more. Watching them walk away, Cadel rubbed his cold cheeks with the back of his hand.

“……It’s okay, I can save them, I told them I could.”

Calm, not shaking. With the information his subordinates had brought back, he had to put together a plan to break through the bubble and rescue Lydon.

Cadel stood calmly on the beach where his subordinates had disappeared. No impatience, no anxiety, nothing conducive to rational judgment.

But Cadel’s newfound calm was short-lived.

“……10 minutes.”

10 minutes had passed since his subordinates entered the water. Cadel snapped the lid of his pocket watch shut and pursed his lips.

“They came up in 5 minutes just now.”

His subordinates had a lot of lung capacity. They could dive for quite a while, so 10 minutes shouldn’t be a long time for them. Don’t think of them as ordinary human beings like yourself.

‘Maybe they’ve found a clue, or maybe they’re just doing an experiment that’s taking a while.’

Maybe they’d found a way to rescue Lydon right away, choosing to bring him back instead of reporting, even if it was a bit of a risk. Cadel tried to shake off the ominous thoughts and think of the good side of things, even as his body drew closer to the shore.

One step, one step. Only when the crashing waves reached just below his navel did he stop moving forward. The corner of Cadel’s mouth twitched as he checked his pocket watch once more.

’13 minutes.’

It was time for one or two of them to come up. 13 minutes underwater with no equipment, no matter how good a diver they were, was that even possible?

As Cadel was stomping his feet and eagerly waiting for his subordinates.

‘…… What is that?

Something whitish floated above the murky water. Cadel’s eyes widened as he stared at something bobbing along the calm waves.

“Yozen!”

It was Yozen’s bandage. His bandage, the one he’d forgotten to leave back behind, the one he’d taken into the water with him, and now it was floating, alone and unattended.

Cadel swam out and fished it out. As he clutched it tightly, his eyes trembled.

“Why is this the only thing that comes up……? What about Yozen? What about the others? What happened to them?”

If he could dive headfirst into the water right now, he’d know what happened to everyone. But Cadel couldn’t. If his subordinates were all sunk like Lydon, if they were all gone, he was the only one who could save them.

For now, he had to get away from here. Cadel slipped out into the sand, clutching desperately at Yozen’s bandage as if it were a lifeline. His breathing ragged and fierce, he crouched down and brought the bandage-clutched hand to his forehead.

“Please don’t, please don’t…….”

Yozen had only accidentally dropped the bandage, and one by one, his subordinates, with their incredible diving skills, would surface. Lydon might be among them. He’d laugh loudly at what an amazing experience it was, and then head back to camp, tired. Cadel would breathe a sigh of relief and start a fire to keep everyone warm.

With everyone back, they would gather together in the light of day to decipher the inscription, laboriously but joyfully, dragging their bodies, still tired from the previous day, to…….

“……The inscription.”

Cadel, trying his best to ignore the worst, slowly raised his head. He stared into space, wide-eyed as if he’d remembered something, then scrambled to his feet and ran to a spot on the sandy beach.

There lay a parchment pressed against a conch shell. Quickly unfolding the parchment, Cadel read the words on it. His fingertips eagerly scanned the words, but they stopped at one point.