Magical Hot Potato

After arriving safely at the Port of Piraeus, Barbarossa and his crew unloaded their cargo before finally collapsing from exhaustion. Several crew members, including Barbarossa, required immediate medical treatment.

Meanwhile, the Royal Navy transported the Kraken’s corpse to a private naval port, where professional dismantlers and scholars from the Adventurer Guild began studying the creature and attempting to extract the massive Mana Stone hidden inside its body.

Lina and Skayla were invited to stay at Sera’s residence. After a warm bath and a proper meal, the two slept through the entire day and night, waking late the following afternoon.

“I’m so sorry for sleeping so long!” Lina apologized.

“It’s completely fine,” Sera assured her, chuckling at Lina’s messy bed hair. “Sleeping that long only proves how exhausted you were.”

Skayla was still curled up on the couch in her rabbit-pattern pajamas, hugging a pillow as her eyes slowly began to close again.

“Wake up!” Lina demanded, grabbing her shoulders and rocking her back and forth.

“Okay! I’m awake!” Skayla protested, suddenly sitting up and headbutting Lina.

A loud BONK! echoed as their foreheads collided.

“Ow!” Lina shouted as she silently rubbed her forehead.

“...Oops, sorry,” Skayla apologized.

Sera giggled as she watched them, remembering similar moments from her childhood with Queen Seraphine.

“Okay, let’s get started with both of your versions of what happened,” she said, preparing to write down their stories.

Lina and Skayla recounted everything that had happened after leaving the Port of Cremonia, from the Mana Core suddenly losing power to the Kraken’s appearance and the final lightning strike.

Neither of them initially mentioned Anne Reed or the Ghost Armada, but Barbarossa had apparently already told Sera the entire story.

After an hour of going back and forth, Lina and Skayla were exhausted. Sera, on the other hand, was perfectly fine and continued writing notes as a large stack of paper grew across the coffee table.

“I see... I see,” Sera muttered. “There’s one thing I don’t understand. How did you cast an Extreme spell like Keraunos? It requires an enormous amount of mana and precise control. I can believe you possess the control, but neither of you has enough mana.”

Sera inspected them with Mana Sight as Lina and Skayla exchanged uneasy glances.

“I assume it had something to do with the spear tips Skayla enchanted throughout the battle, correct?” she deduced.

Lina and Skayla both flinched with a startled GHEK!

Sera placed her pen down.

“I’m not going to pry if you don’t want to tell me, but I need to formally submit a report to multiple parties, including the Royal Family of Eldoria,” Sera explained. “Since this involves an unknown sea monster and Extreme magic, there is a strong possibility that you two won’t be allowed to continue your travels if they find the report lacking.”

Lina and Skayla exchanged another uneasy glance before Lina reluctantly began to speak.

“As someone who once served the Kingdom, I understand why you need to submit an accurate report,” Lina said. “However, the method we used would be extremely dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands.”

Sera took a moment to consider Lina’s concern. Lina was clearly serious, while Skayla avoided eye contact the entire time.

“In that case, can you trust me?” Sera asked. “If you tell me, I can relay the information to Seraphine and ask her to support you regarding this incident. Otherwise, there are too many unanswered questions that could cause problems for you later.”

Lina looked down at her hands, still feeling uneasy, only for Skayla’s face to suddenly pop into view.

“Lina, let’s trust Sera,” Skayla said with a smile. “If she wrongs us, then we can always tattle on her to Queen Seraphine.”

Sera sprang out of her seat and slammed her hands against the coffee table.

“DON’T YOU TWO DARE JOKE ABOUT THAT!” she shouted. “I’m sorry for startling you, but when my older sister finds out that someone has wronged the people she cares about, her anger is no joke.”

Lina giggled when Sera began to tremble, realizing that Queen Seraphine frightened even her own younger sister. That alone convinced Lina that Sera could be trusted.

“Okay, okay. You win,” Lina said with a smile. “Go ahead and explain it.”

Lina gestured for Skayla to begin.

Skayla cleared her throat with an exaggerated AHEM!

“Before we begin our deep conversation within the wonderful realm of magic, how would you describe your knowledge of magic?” she asked in an obnoxiously pompous tone.

Sera remained silent, taken aback by the sudden change in Skayla’s voice.

“Are you serious right now?” Lina asked.

“Lina, look at my face,” Skayla said, gesturing toward herself. “Can’t you tell I’m being absolutely serious?”

“Your serious face is covered in cookie crumbs,” Lina replied as she aggressively wiped Skayla’s face with a napkin.

After a few moments, Lina finished wiping away the crumbs, leaving Skayla’s mouth bright red.

“Magic is divided into five ranks: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, Extreme, and Legendary,” Skayla began. “Beginner magic usually requires a single word. Intermediate magic can require an entire sentence, while Advanced magic requires several sentences known as verses. Extreme magic can contain dozens of these verses.”

“How many verses are in Keraunos?” Sera asked.

“Keraunos has thirty-three verses, and all of them must be chanted in under one minute,” Skayla answered. “If you make a single mistake, the spell fails and sends the uncontrolled mana surging back toward the caster.”

“O-O-ONE MINUTE?!” Sera shouted. “How is that even possible? I can get tongue-tied just talking normally!”

Skayla reached into her item box and pulled out a spare spear tip she had prepared in advance.

“We divided the thirty-three verses into one hundred thirty-seven fragments and enchanted each one onto a piece of metal,” she explained, proudly holding up the spear tip. “The opening fragment was placed on Anne’s cutlass, while the remaining one hundred thirty-six fragments were placed on the spear tips across the Kraken’s body in the same order as the original incantation.”

“What about the required amount of mana?” Sera asked. “Even if the incantation were broken apart, wouldn’t you still need enough mana to cast the spell?”

“The squall provided the mana,” Lina explained. “The storm clouds were filled with lightning-infused mana, so Skayla enchanted the cutlass to draw in the mana from the clouds the moment a single bolt struck it. Basically, the cutlass became a lightning rod.”

“Once lightning struck the cutlass, the mana traveled from one fragment to the next,” Skayla continued. “The complete incantation reconstructed itself within three seconds, allowing us to cast Keraunos.”

“Huh?” Sera muttered in confusion. “D-D-Did you say t-t-three seconds?! How is that possible?!”

“Well, lightning magic is considered the second-fastest type of magic, with light magic being the fastest,” Skayla explained.

“THAT’S NOT THE POINT!” Sera shouted, suddenly feeling mentally exhausted.

She poured herself a cup of tea and took a slow sip to calm down.

“Let’s move on,” she said. “What do you call this method?”

“Magical Hot Potato!” Skayla proudly announced.

Sera spat out her tea with a loud PFTTTTT!

“I THOUGHT WE AGREED ON SPELL RELAY!” Lina shouted as she clobbered Skayla on the head.

“Why not Magical Hot Potato?” Skayla pouted. “We invented it while eating steamed sweet potatoes when we were eleven!”

“Wouldn’t that make it Magical Hot Yam?” Sera asked with a chuckle.

“THAT’S EVEN BETTER!” Skayla shouted. “SERA, WRITE THAT DOWN AS ITS OFFICIAL NAME!”

Sera gave Skayla a blank stare.

“Um... no,” she said. “Let’s go with Spell Relay, like Lina suggested.”

Sera wrote it down, adding Magical Hot Yam in parentheses because she knew Seraphine would immediately recognize that part as Skayla’s contribution.

“BOO!” Skayla pouted, leaning back against the couch.

“Now that we’ve settled that, let’s move on to the Kraken,” Sera said with a soft chuckle. “We are still dismantling the corpse, but its skin is unusually rubbery, so we haven’t made much progress. We managed to extract what remained of its five large yellow eyes, and we found this symbol etched into the one in the center.”

Sera showed Lina and Skayla a drawing of the strange symbol.

II

“None of the scholars examining the Kraken recognize it,” Sera explained. “Does it mean anything to either of you?”

Skayla studied it for a long moment before shaking her head.

“The Second Savior... the Herald of the Sea,” Lina muttered softly.

“Lina, you can read it?” Sera asked.

“It’s the symbol for the number two used during the Age of Chaos,” Lina answered. “Master Atena taught me a bit of the ancient script from that era.”

“If it only means two, then why did you call it the Second Savior, the Herald of the Sea?” Sera asked.

Lina blinked, wondering why she had said that.

Suddenly, a sharp pain tore through her head. She grabbed her temples as blood began dripping from her nose.

“Lina?” Skayla immediately tried to stand, but Sera was already at Lina’s side.

“Lina, are you okay?” Sera asked, placing both hands on her shoulders. “Can you hear me?”

Lina opened her mouth, but no words came out before she suddenly went limp and collapsed into Sera’s arms.

“LINA!” Sera and Skayla shouted.

Lina’s eyes slowly closed as their voices grew quieter.

Everything went dark.