Chapter 579 (1/2)

Young miss, thanks for saving us…」

「I can’t believe that Modoki would even go to this area….」

「Aah, our cargo is…」

The five crew members who had been rescued by Fran were grimacing on the shore. Some of them had drunk a lot of water, but their lives shouldn’t be in danger.

The old man, who seemed to be the captain, lamented as he stared at the sinking ship.

「Is your cargo is something that shouldn’t get wet?」

「We have no choice but to let go of the grains we brought. But we have to recover the Scarlet Waterweed medicine back somehow. There’s a shortage of it after all. It’s stored in a sturdy crate, and I’m sure some bottles are safe」

「Scarlet Waterweed medicine?」

「Yeah. It’s the recently developed medicine made from Scarlet Waterweed. It works the same as the conventional pills against the endemic diseases, but I’ve heard that its efficacy is enhanced by being made into a potion」

And he told us that that ship was loaded with that new medicine.

「I guess we’ll have to ask the adventurers to pull up the medicine later… I hope this is a place with few magic beasts though」

I wonder about that. Right now, thanks to the Modoki, the other magic beast seemed to have escaped, and there was no sign of them. But I’m sure they would come back after a little while.

(Master)

『You want to help them?』

(Nn)

Well, we can go get it now though.

「Where did you store that medicine?」

「Eh? It’s in a storage room on the port side. Right around where that damned Modoki pierced our ship」

The captain pointed to a large hole on the port side of the ship, which was sinking with the starboard side facing down.

(TLN: port, nautical terms for ship’s left side, starboard > right side)

It wouldn’t be a problem for us if it was there. Rather, that big hole would make it easy for us to get into. Well, that hole was half of the reason the ship was sinking though. The other half was the cracks that had formed all over the hull. It was because of the Modoki’s tentacles.

「I’ll be right back」

「Y-young miss!?」

Waving lightly at the surprised captain, Fran jumped out again.

「Let’s retrieve the medicine」

『Wait, let’s see if I can store the hull itself first』

「Aah, I see」

That would be the fastest way to do this. However, I failed to store the whole hull. Maybe there were living beings inside the ship. It didn’t have to be human beings, just a fish or a rat, and it wouldn’t be able to be stored in the dimensional storage.

「It won’t be stored…」

『We don’t have any choice. I’ll take care of the air for you to breath, Fran, use your water magic to move』

(Okay)

If we were going to explore the small ship, it would be safer for Fran to move around on her own.

Fran then jumped into the ship through the hole made by the Modoki. The inside was already filled with water and half of it was submerged.

Fran landed on a half-flooded crate and looked around the storage room.

「Where it is?」

『Hmm…』

The captain had told us before that it was a magic potion, so I tried to use my magic detection to find it, but I got no response here.

But I could feel a small hint of magic power in the entire water in this room. Perhaps the bottle of the scarlet potion had been broken and the contents had dissolved into the water.

It’s just that there’s something weird about it…

『We had no other choice, we’ll have to check the label on each crate 』