Chapter 599 (1/2)

We got Zelyse’s whereabouts out of him. Apparently, he was in the atelier where the Scarlet Waterweed medicine was made.

(Should we head to where Lovren is going?)

『Yeah, but…』

Could he have possibly run away from this? It wasn’t like I was making a fool of Lovren, but I didn’t think he could handle Zelyse.

If they found out that we were suspicious of their atelier, Zelyse might try to flee immediately.

But we couldn’t leave this ship unattended either. We hadn’t been able to capture all of their top brass, such as the head of the merchant association.

As I was wondering, I then heard Urushi’s howl from outside. And at the same time, I could sense that multiple presences were coming towards this ship.

『It looks like the Adventurers have arrived』

There was no hint of tension in Urushi’s voice. So, they were probably not enemies.

As soon as we stepped out onto the deck, we saw a group of Adventurers coming towards us in a small boat. Some of them looked familiar to me. They were Daghour and some C-ranked Adventurers that we fought during the mock battle.

「Black Lightning Princess-dono! It’s been a while! I’m glad to see you are well!」

「Nn. Likewise」

「Hahaha. Well then, we’ve been asked by Lovren-dono to assist you to take over this ship, but what’s the current situation?」

She then explained to Daghour, the leader of the group, that Gregory, who was tied up and lying next to her, had told her everything, and that this merchant association was a front for the Raidos Kingdom.

「I had heard about it from Lovren-dono, so it was actually true, huh…?」

「Can I leave the rest to you then?」

「Yes, you can leave it to us. But Black Lightning Princess-dono, what are you gonna do now?」

「I’ll head to the atelier」

「I see」

「No one has escaped since we went in. But I don’t know if they could have teleported or not」

As she said, it would not be surprising if their top brass had some kind of teleportation device to help them escape. However, they should not be able to travel very long distances.

In fact, it would be just far enough to escape from the ship. It would have been impossible for Urushi and I to not notice if someone had teleported that close to us.

However, there was a possibility that they had a magic tool that we did not know about, and there was also a possibility that the president of the merchant association was actually a Space-Time Magic-User himself. In that case, there was honestly nothing we could do.

「For now, we need to capture everyone on this ship」

「Understood」

With this handled, we could finally head for the atelier. We just didn’t know exactly where it was, so we would need a guide. It would be much easier if we could just see it from here.

But just as I was thinking that―――

Boooom!!

「Uh!」

「Woof!」

「Wha!」

Fran and Urushi were surprised at the sudden explosion. I was so surprised that I couldn’t help but let out a yelp.

When I looked in the direction where the sound came from, I immediately knew the cause.

A huge pillar of fire was erupting into the sky from a small ship that was part of the Commercial Fleet. There must have been something that exploded.

What happened?

Was there an accident? Or was it attacked by a magic beast?