A Budding Scientist in a Fantasy World-Chapter 224

As the Illvarian ship finished laying out Doll’s trap, the two Sigmusi fleets drew closer. Alice started to sweat as Ethan, Allira, and Myra checked their equipment, eyed their surroundings, and prepared for combat. Alice glanced at the open sea behind the first Sigmusi navy, and sighed at how empty the sea looked.

The fog had not caught back up to the Sigmusi fleet yet. She could still faintly see it in the distance, but it was far away. In other words, it wouldn’t play any role in this fight - this battle would come down to raw military force and maneuverability, without any outside factors capable of overturning the battle. Alice was more than slightly frustrated by the fact that the fog hadn’t come back yet. Whenever Allira had ‘fed’ the fog, it would slow down for a few hours, before it would come right back and start hounding them again. It was like superglue stuck to the bottom of their shoe - practically impossible to remove. Now, right after the fog’s impact had changed from hindrance to help, the fog was no longer reacting the same way.

Alice suspected that this wasn’t without cause. Allira had only ever fed the fog swarms of her shadows. Allira’s shadows weren’t even real life forms to begin with - they were essentially fake people animated solely by Allira’s Perks. Meanwhile, the fog had recently fed upon a ship of real Sigmusi [Sailors]. It was entirely possible that the reason the fog had followed them so persistently in the first place was because every time Allira ‘fed’ it, all of the ‘food’ vanished the moment it was in the fog’s stomach. Even so, Alice wished the fog would come wipe out another ship or two and make things easier for them.

For a moment, Alice idly wondered whether she could use belief-strings of mana to manipulate things. Perhaps she could somehow guide the cloud of monster fog towards the Sigmusi?

A moment later, Alice shook her head. She didn’t think there were even enough people on the Illvarian ship to influence the fog’s behavior through raw belief manipulation. While Alice had also confirmed via tests during the journey to Morendia that belief-based manaborn monsters were very malleable to manipulation when cut off from external mana, she doubted she had any real way to isolate the fog from the rest of the world even for a brief period of time. Worse, she didn’t even know if the fog was a swarm of monsters, one singular monster, or some kind of ‘ship’ piloted by monsters. There was just no real hope on that path.

She felt helpless as the two fleets crept closer, so Alice watched the approaching ships and hoped. Any action she could take was unlikely to matter at this point, so all she could do was prepare her enchanted items and pray for the best.

Soon, the Sigmusi ships came within range. The Illvarians had had time to rest in between this fight and the previous fight, so many people’s Perks with shorter cooldowns had recovered. Soon, the first [Archers] from the Sigmusi ship crept in range, and started unleashing a few stray arrows at the Illvarian ship. Alice deflected a few of the larger arrows that came close to hitting an Illvarian [Sailor], while Allira opened up the first counterattack. A wave of shadows popped out of the water, leapt onto the nearest Sigmusi ship, and tore into the back line of [Archers]. The Sigmusi ship reacted rapidly, and a wave of projectiles tore through the air and towards Allira’s shadows - only for the shadows to dive back into the water.

Alice checked the aftermath of Allira’s attack, and smiled grimly. Allira’s attack hadn’t managed to do much damage, but she had gotten one of the higher-level Sigmusi [Archers]. Alice had only seen one of Allira’s shadows drop during the exchange, while seven or eight Sigmusi were dead, and another few were injured. A good opening for the battle.

She glanced at the trap area, and confirmed that the Sigmusi had yet to enter it. But they were close. She used a few bits of kinetic mana to deflect stray arrows, and confirmed that Ethan was doing the same. However, both of them refrained from making any big moves. Right now, Brandon was still free to deflect their attacks. It would be much better if they could surprise him with Doll’s trap, then kill him before he had time to reorient himself.

Allira sent another wave of harassing shadows after the nearest Sigmusi ship, and the ship finally drifted a bit further away. The Sigmusi had clearly realized that they didn’t want to be at the front of the pack - they only wanted to confront Allira and the other Illvarian Immortals once they had both fleets ready to attack.

Unfortunately, the enemy could only be dissuaded for so long. As more Sigmusi ships caught up to the frontrunners, they started creeping back in range. Alice and Ethan quickly fell into a defensive position as they held off a rain of arrows. Meanwhile, Allira’s shadows occasionally harassed the Sigmsui, but didn’t make any big moves. Doll’s underwater ballistas began to fire. Perk-enhanced bolt after Perk-enhanced bolt tore through the water, ripping into the undersides of Sigmusi ships and turning them into swiss cheese. Right as the fight started to heat up, Alice saw a distant gleam of System mana. A moment later, a rainbow-colored cloud leapt off of a Sigmusi ship from the new fleet, and then began to dash towards them. Rainbow mana emitted from its feet as it skipped across water like a frog bounding through the waves. Alice’s heart palpitated as anxiety crawled up her spine and through her veins.

Emilia was coming again. The same woman who had ambushed her during her journey from Cyra back to Metsel, and had very nearly captured her in the process. Alice was already aware of how terrifying Emilia was - and this time, the situation was far more chaotic than before.

Then, to Alice’s shock, she noticed something that she hadn’t before. On the same Sigmusi ship that had been transporting Emilia, there was another cloud of rainbow mana. This one had been standing quite close to Emilia, which was why Alice hadn’t noticed it before. This, combined with the distance, had obscured this Immortal from her sight. Now that Emilia was making her way towards them, Alice finally realized that they weren’t dealing with two Immortals.

They were dealing with three. Alice shuddered.

“Ethan, they have two Immortals, not one. Emilia is making her way towards our boat. I have no idea who the other Immortal is.”

Ethan glanced into the distance, at the boat Alice had pointed at.

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“One boat with two Immortals on it?” Ethan grimaced. “Allira! The enemy has another Immortal on that ship!” he said, pointing out the ship Alice had indicated. “Get a few shadows over there and see if you can find someone we recognize!”

“Got it.” A dozen shadows peeled off from one of the other Sigmusi ships, before they dove towards the final Sigmusi Immortal. A moment later, Allira started to sing a rich, vibrant song, and this time, Alice felt as if her [Dexterity] had received a small, hidden boost. It was very minor, though - and to her surprise, Alice didn’t see any of Allira’s usual illusions spring into existence after she started singing.

Alice blinked in surprise.

This was the first time she had ever seen Allira focus mostly on ‘buffing’ people. As far as Alice had seen, Allira’s build was mostly focused on creating illusions and summons that would rampage around a battlefield and kill enemies. She was more like an eldritch summoner than a classic [Bard]. However, a moment later, Alice realized why Allira was focused on buffing them, even though her build wasn’t very good at that role.

The Sigmusi already knew how her illusions worked - they also knew that if they simply blocked their ears, Allira’s illusions would no longer be threats. This would make it hard for them to hear their [Admirals] and coordinate mid-battle… or, at least it would have if most Sigmusi [Soldiers] didn’t explicitly take Perks to fix this very problem. Allira’s status as an Immortal, as well as her build being well known, meant that the Sigmusi’s [Soldiers] came to every battlefield with solutions ready. On the bright side, they didn’t seem to have a good way to handle Allira’s shadows - which might be part of why Allira focused so much on her shadows to begin with.

Even though Allira’s new focus on buffs made sense, it was far from good news. It meant that Allira had been stripped of one of her best weapons.

Allira's shadows finally made it to the Immortal-bearing boat, and several of them peeked at the deck of the ship. A moment later, Allira snorted.

"The third Immortal is a [Slave Hunter]. At least we finally know how they tracked us. He’s great at tracking people even from smaller clues. Combined with a few informants in the capital who probably saw our ship leave, and the Sigmusi could have plausibly tracked our route,” said Allira.

“Is he strong in combat?” asked Alice.

“Not directly, no. He’s good at tracking, survival, and retrieval. He’s kind of like an Immortal who is half focused on combat, and half focused on other stuff. Much weaker than Ethan and I in a direct confrontation. Still, he’s no slouch. His presence here is also troubling. With him, it’s going to be hard to ditch the Sigmusi even if we escape from this battle. Worse, they have two and a half combat-oriented Immortals, and so do we,” said Allira, as her eyes flicked towards Ethan’s mother. “Doll gives us a slight edge, but Doll’s direct combat power is terrible. Her items are all we’ve got as far as advantages here.”

Alice felt her heart sink. She had been hoping that they could just escape, and then hopefully the Sigmusi would screw off and go back to whatever they were originally doing. But now, it sounded like breaking free would be hard - and worse, the Sigmusi might very well be here for her. Doll's items would need to pull their weight and then some - otherwise, the whole fight could go very wrong very fast.

Right after Allira finished her report, Emilia finally reached the ship. Without a shred of hesitation, she dashed towards Ethan.

Right before Doll made contact, Doll’s trap finally erupted - right on top of Brandon’s ship. A colossal wave of steel, barbs, and rainbow mana erupted in the distance, as Doll’s trap grew. Originally, her trap had been the size of a ball of wire - but in a fraction of a second, the wire expanded like a living vine. It grew up and down the Sigmusi ship, and its steel barbs shredded wood and flesh alike whenever it came into contact with anything. Alice saw Brandon immediately react, as he tried to fling away Doll’s trapped ball of steel wire. However, the steel wire was clearly meant to deal with Mages - it resisted Brandon’s attempts to deflect it as it twisted, churned, and writhed. Every one of its movements tore further into the wood and [Sailors] of the Sigmusi ship.

Even Emilia seemed a bit stunned by the sight. Alice shuddered. Doll’s traps were terrifying. No wonder no one had ever assassinated her.

A moment later, to add insult to injury, the ball of steel wire flashed with a brief, blinding light. Alice realized that she couldn’t see - her vision had literally been blocked out by Doll’s trap. It didn’t feel like she had scorched her retinas, but she still felt stabbing pain as she blinked in pain and tried to adjust to her surroundings. A moment later, Alice felt Ethan toss a surge of organic mana into her body, and her eyes rapidly healed.

Alice finally regained vision of the rest of the battlefield, and realized that the flash of light hadn’t hindered Emilia any more than it had hundred Ethan. The two were now locked in combat. Several of the Sigmusi [Archers], as well as the Illvarian [Sailors], had completely lost vision for now - and while Ethan was healing the nearest [Sailors] the entire battle had come to a standstill because almost nobody could see the others. Only the Immortals were still active.

While the Sigmusi [Archers] were blinded, Ethan’s mother stopped paying attention to the ship. Rainbow mana surged through her body as she pulled out a broom, and then tried to slap Emilia with it. Alice blinked in utter confusion at the surreal sight, before a cascade of rainbow mana tore through the ship and shoved Emilia backwards like the hands of a giant. For once, Emilia failed to dodge an attack. She was knocked away like a baseball soaring out of the stadium.

Ethan’s mother winked at Alice.

“Being able to sweep up trash is a very useful skill for a [Housewife]. I just got the Perk last year, so even Emilia wasn’t ready for it.” she gave Alice a cheeky grin as Emilia reoriented herself in midair.

Alice immediately turned back towards Brandon, and realized that the man had utterly given up on rescuing his ship, or the [Sailors] on it. Instead, the man was flying through the air towards the next nearest ship - and Ethan and Allira had turned their attention entirely towards him. Allira’s shadows were popping out of the ocean like flying piranhas and trying to take chunks out of him, while Ethan was harassing Brandon with flying projectiles, bursts of flames, and bolts of electricity. However, to Alice’s dismay, she could see that Brandon was dealing with all of the attacks handily. She lent her own strength to the assault on Brandon, adding what projectiles she could to the chaos - but it wasn’t enough.

Soon, the first Sigmusi [Archers] started to recover, and Alice was forced to swap back to defense before the Illvarian [Sailors] were ripped apart. Ethan and Allira kept the pressure on Brandon for several more seconds as the main finally lost a leg to one of Allira’s shadows - but it was too little, too late. Brandon alighted upon one of the other Sigmusi ships, and retaliated with another wave of projectiles, forcing Ethan to swap back to defense as well.

Alice gritted her teeth. The original plan had been to knock out one of the Sigmusi Immortals, giving them leeway to deal with the other one in a three on one battle and then escape. However, Doll’s trap was used up, and while Brandon was injured, he wasn’t out of the fight. Their initial gambit had failed.

Updated from fr𝒆ewebnov𝒆l.(c)om