Mages who could see straight to the essence without the aid of items were rare. That was why he had come out to see for himself...

Sure enough, something caught his eye. Surging Blue Coral's eyes narrowed at the massive concealment magic that had no reason to be on a trading company building.

"I should report this."

"Did you find something?"

"Probably."

If the goal was to protect the goods, they should have used shielding magic. Who would cast concealment magic?

Even though both were magics meant to cover things up, shielding was for protection, while concealment was for hiding. There was no Mage who didn't know that crucial difference. A merchant group on the level of Gridana shouldn't be ignorant of it, either. If they were the type of people to appoint someone who couldn't tell the difference between shielding and concealment as their manager, they wouldn't have become a large merchant group in the first place.

"I will investigate a little further, so you make the report—"

Harboring an even firmer suspicion at that fact, he opened his mouth to use his guard as a messenger.

SHATTER!

Then, along with a hallucination that sounded like something breaking, what had been hidden all this time revealed itself.

To put it into words, it was a being wearing silk clothes and leather shoes with no seams or needle marks, trying to stuff all the wealth in the world into a pouch made of burning ice. Even so, the inside of the pouch was like a bottomless pit, knowing no satisfaction no matter how much was poured into it, and the hands that wandered in search of precious things did not know how to make themselves precious, only growing more and more wretched. It was that kind of being.

It was that kind of 'essence'.

"... We're screwed."

To 'see' an essence meant daring to perceive an abstract concept with one's eyes, so there was no grasp more intuitive and no room for doubt.

Thus, Surging Blue Coral struck his forehead at the sight of the most extreme greed he had ever seen. Since it was even wrapped in demonic energy, there was nothing more to say.

"It's a demon."

That was a demon of greed.

"Pardon?"

"Prepare to fight. A demon is preparing a ritual inside."

Honestly, why did the world never go the way he wanted it to?

"That's..."

Combat wasn't exactly his specialty. However, people sometimes had to do things outside their field of expertise.

Letting his guard's words go in one ear and out the other, Surging Blue Coral fired a flare.

FWOOSH! CRACKLE-POP-POP!

It was a flare that announced an emergency to the surroundings with an excessively loud noise, indicated a demon's appearance through its color, and even left a clear trajectory to show the reinforcements their location.

"What is that?"

"U-Uh! Over there!"

"A demon! A demon has appeared!"

"W-Where...!"

"Get out of there and run this way! Right now!"

Now they just had to wait for reinforcements to arrive. Evacuating the people was, well, a bonus.

"W-Where do we go...!"

"...! Dodge!"

"Yes— Urgh!"

Then, for a moment, one of the porters who had been trying to follow his guidance out of the trading company died with a hole blown through his stomach.

The people who had been a step ahead of him freaked out and rushed outside.

"... I was wondering how I got caught, but why are you here?"

In the midst of this, the one who had killed a person by piercing his stomach with her hand was a blood-soaked woman.

Surging Blue Coral barely managed to recognize her identity by her hair color and massive build. It was the person holding the title of secretary to the head of Gridana.

"Is the whole world trying to block my path?"

At that moment, the head's secretary gathered mana in her hand. No. Surging Blue Coral's eyes saw its essence. It was demonic energy.

"Otherwise, there's no way you would show up here...!"

Her hand, bulging grotesquely and massively as it was overlaid with demonic energy, raised its sharp claws.

When he encountered her just two days ago, she hadn't had the brand of a contract, so it seemed she had formed one in the meantime. Of course, she had likely been following the demon long before that.

"I never tried to block your path."

True. Come to think of it, even among the many merchants, she had a particularly greedy and filthy essence. The only problem was that while it was rare, it wasn't nonexistent in the world, so he had just interacted with her without paying it much mind.

So from now on, he should weigh things like that too... weigh... wait. How many people in the world, especially in the merchant sphere, actually had a clean essence for him to weigh before interacting with them?

Surging Blue Coral tried to self-reflect but immediately gave up, deciding instead to only remember the flaw in his 'eyes that see the essence'—the fact that there was no way to find out if someone was merely following a demon without making a contract. SWISH. The warrior acting as his guard stood in front of him, preparing to protect him.

"You blocked your own path."

Since most of the people had evacuated, Surging Blue Coral freely threw an item enchanted with explosion magic without worrying about his surroundings. BOOM! The explosion signaled the start of the battle.

* * *

I thought this was the first appearance of the mana-eating Mermen.

After checking the castle walls, which had become chaotic for a different reason, I drew up even more mana. It was to kill even a few more Mermen.

Looking at their total numbers, it probably wouldn't make much of a difference, but still.

"There's a filthy amount of them, these damn rotten fish...!"

'Ah, don't yell. My head hurts.'

I grabbed my head, which felt like it was going to explode. The magic spears required me to perceive the target, predict their next movement, and then fire them at that spot to get the timing right, so it couldn't be helped.

On top of that, the number of enemies I was aiming at right now was so large that I had twice as much to think about.

Honestly, at this point, I wanted to dive into the sea and just SWISH fire a horizontal slash at them. If I just got the height right, I could take them all out at once. It would be a huge risk and quite cruel, but if it succeeded, it would be efficient and fast.

... Even though it would be very cruel and dangerous.

"It's going to explode!"

Using my keenly heightened senses, I snatched one of the incoming attacks. I was late earlier, but not this time.

BOOM!

An explosion went off in midair. The sound could be heard from the turret, but it wasn't enough to cause a tremor like before.

"You're the best, mister!"

"Are you a Mage? Looking like that, you used to be a Mage?"

'Hey, hey, hey, hey. Don't smack my back. It's breaking my concentration. Two magic spears just missed!'

'Ah!'

I dodged the adventurer who was trying to thump my back in excitement. Even in this moment, the Mermen were continuing to swarm in, so I had to diligently keep up my attacks.

SPLASH!

Right then, the Mermen attempted an attack from outside the range I was covering. Their destination was the bridge.

CRASH!

'Wow... I hadn't been able to see it properly with my naked eye until now, so I wondered how they were attacking, but the Legless-type Mermen were just throwing their bodies and slamming their tails into it?'

'Crazy bastards.'

"They're aiming for the bridge!"

"Leave it! Just kill the ones in front of us!"

I was left speechless watching the Merman who had slammed its tail into the bridge fall back into the sea.

'Do they really want to do that, knowing their own tails will be crushed and broken? From what I can see, they seem to have intelligence comparable to humans. Do they feel less fear because they're demons?'

"Still, it's a relief that it's no different from usual. They were so late this time that I thought a tsunami or something might come with them."

At that moment, the adventurer three seats down from me muttered those words.

'S... T... AY! Stop raising death flags...!'

'Stop saying things that sound like a tsunami is about to hit...!'

CRASH!

"...!"

'Look at that! Something exploded the moment you finished talking!'

I lifted my head at the bizarre sound that faintly reached my ears. I was told not to leave my position, but I had to check this one thing.

I put a little strength into my legs and jumped, passing through the ladder hatch and heading up to the next floor. One more floor and I'd be at the roof.

"Wait, where are you going! Insubordination is—!"

THUD!

My body leaped up once more, finally reaching the top of the turret. As I did, the sparsely illuminated night sea entered my line of sight.

"Come down! No matter how capable you are...!"

THUMP-THUMP-THUMP.

The soldier who had guided me here and was taking command of the area eventually came up. He looked extremely pissed off, but I couldn't bring myself to care.

"I told you not to move on your own! Right now..."

"Can't you see that?"

"... What?"

Most people who laid eyes on what was floating in the night sea would react that way.

"... What the hell is that?"

The horizon across the sea I saw during the day had definitely been completely empty, but now, a landmass had faintly been added to it.

A rather round, massive piece of land.

And the way it was gradually getting bigger made it look exactly like it was approaching.

"Why is there an island...?"

Just then, the waves grew violent. It was only natural. Whatever the true identity of that thing was, if it really was approaching, it wouldn't be strange for the displaced water from its movements to turn into waves and come crashing in.

"This isn't the time to...!"

Then, the soldier snapped out of it and shouted. Was he going to tell me to go back to my post even after seeing that? If so, that was some excellent professional dedication.

Just as I was about to think that, the soldier grabbed an instrument nearby.

CLACK, CLACK-CLACK, CLACK, CLACK-CLACK-CLACK.

It was a searchlight. It was quite similar to modern ones, though it was a slightly primitive searchlight that worked by lifting and lowering a front cover.

Furthermore, opening and closing the cover to send light in various patterns was reminiscent of Earth's Morse code.

'In other cities, they're still at the level of beacon fires, so why is this place so advanced?'

'Phew.'

Anyway, I couldn't just sit around and do nothing while the soldier was doing his job.

I really wanted to observe that thing, so I couldn't bring myself to go back down... And honestly, my position didn't matter much when it came to killing Mermen.

Watching the landmass grow steadily larger, I created magic spears in bundles. Raining down like a shower, the magic spears slaughtered dozens and hundreds of Mermen without regard for the different turret sectors.

With this, the number of Mermen I had killed was roughly three to four hundred. The MVP for this raid was definitely mine. Not that I ever wanted it, and it was useless anyway. Hmph.

"Fall back!"

While I was cracking jokes to myself to ease the tension, a signal came from the castle walls. It was a good call.

Seeing how ambiguous the sense of distance was, the enemy seemed overwhelmingly massive, and if a being like that reached this far, honestly, the turrets would end up like Jenga blocks.

In other words, it wouldn't even need to ram into them with its body; just a hard push would likely make them collapse entirely.

"Those on the lower floors move out first! The rest of you, provide cover fire!"

The soldier headed back down, leaving me alone as if he had forgotten about me. At his shout, there was a bit of a commotion inside before they quickly began to move.

Because the Mermen had slammed into it several times, the bridge was quite perilous, but no one complained.

Of course, taking even one more step forward rather than wasting time complaining would be much more helpful for preserving their own lives.

'Now then, what I have to figure out next is how to kill that thing. It's not easy to come up with a countermeasure since its identity is uncertain due to the darkness and poor visibility.'

'Still, it's so wide and huge that there will be plenty of places to step on, so it should be easy to fight. Though just thinking about the castle walls collapsing when that thing rams into them already makes me feel dizzy.'

"They're coming!"

"Run...!"

I smashed the head of a Merman that leaped up to destroy the bridge, then took care of the ones scaling the turret as well.

Anyway, these bastards had supernatural instincts. They immediately realized we were retreating and started swarming in.

"Go. I'll provide cover fire."

"... Damn it. I hate people like you the most. You ruin discipline!"

'Still, it keeps people alive.'

Listening to that scolding that wasn't really a scolding—since the expression of the person saying it showed genuine concern for me—I sent the people off. The continuously forming magic spears kept raining down on the sea's surface like a heavy shower. It was a rain that took lives instead of bringing warmth.

"Waaagh!"

While I was at it, I also paid attention to the nearby turrets. It seemed they had received the retreat signal too, as the people there were pulling back.

"Cross over!"

Fortunately, it didn't take long for the people to retreat.

Receiving the signal from the other side, I slowly prepared to leave the turret. My mana had just fallen below half, so I needed to cross over and regroup.

"Whoa!"

"Look out!"

CRASH!

The problem was... yeah. Everyone had crossed over anyway, and multiple enemies had been simultaneously rushing in for a while. Because my head hurt so much and I was getting pissed off, I stopped paying attention, but a few of them eventually managed to slam into the bridge.

CRUMBLE. Just like I had been told before, the speed at which the bridge collapsed seemed faster than I expected.

"...!"

Before my body could even reach the other side, the bridge I needed to step on collapsed.