In the middle of the storm, Licorice and I stepped outside.
“Hyaa!?”
“Watch out!”
Licorice was about to be blown away, so I hurriedly caught her.
Then, I tucked her safely into my pocket.
“It should be fine in here.”
“Phew, saved me. If I’d been blown away and something happened, that’d be a loss for the world! Today would’ve gone down in history as ‘Licorice-chan Memorial Day.’”
Can you even make that a memorial day…?
“The wind and rain are incredible. Not just walking— even keeping my eyes open is hard.”
Every time the wind roared—whoosh!—it felt like my body would be lifted off the ground.
Each time, I had to brace my legs and dig in.
The pounding rain was relentless too.
If I kept my eyes open, the drops stung as they hit my face.
I had to squint just to see what was ahead.
“Wouldn’t it have been better if Sofia came along too?”
“That’s not possible. Because of the Dawn Alliance situation, we can’t leave Aisha and Snow alone…”
“Can’t leave them alone?”
“I just don’t want Sofia to go through something this rough.”
“But honestly, Sofia’s stronger than you, isn’t she?”
That was blunt.
Well… she wasn’t wrong.
Sofia, the Sword Saint, was many times stronger than me.
But still…
“Even so, she’s a girl.”
“…”
“Maybe it’s old-fashioned, but I’m a guy… and I don’t want her to go through hardships if I can help it. When I can protect her, I want to.”
“Heeh.”
Licorice gave a mischievous grin and nudged me with her tiny elbow.
“Not bad, Fate. That’s kind of cool. The great Licorice-chan of the world approves.”
At some point, Licorice had apparently become worldwide.
“I see it!”
Pushing forward through the storm, little by little, we finally spotted the river.
The river raged like a furious monster, roaring loudly.
If I slipped, I’d be swallowed in an instant—there’d be no coming back.
“…It’s here.”
Licorice, sitting in my pocket, glared seriously at the river.
She must’ve been talking about the Water God.
“You can sense it?”
“There’s a nasty presence here. If you focus, you’ll feel it too, Fate.”
“Uh…”
GROOOOAAAAR!!!
“…Sorry, hard to focus in this situation.”
“Good grief, can’t be helped. Leave it to the great God Licorice-chan!”
Wait—she’s a god now!?
“Hmm… I sense it coming from upstream.”
“Upstream, got it.”
We followed the river, heading toward the source.
After leaving the town and walking for about thirty more minutes…
Before long, a lake came into view.
It was a large lake, about as wide as Aqualate.
Was this the river’s origin point?
“I feel it from here. Don’t let your guard down.”
“Got it.”
I readied myself so I could draw my sword at any moment and approached the lake.
Like the river, the lake was violently turbulent.
The entire surface churned as if the lake itself were roaring.
And then—
At the bottom of the lake, a huge shadow appeared.
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