Chapter 76: Talking Sense to the Captain

Captain Daniel slammed his fist down onto the battered oak table, sending a pair of brass navigational dividers clattering across the parchment charts.

"We press on," Daniel growled, his jaw tight as he winced from his bruised ribs. He glared across the table at Ayanokoji and Miyuki. "The lead ship’s hull is compromised, yes, but the sister corvette is intact. We can transfer the remaining provisions, combine the surviving wind mages, and proceed west under reduced sail. Her Divinity’s orders were explicit: locate the lost vanguard, verify if Wallachian hands are behind it, and establish an imperial presence on the Cragspine shores. A soldier of the Holy Empire does not flee because of a single mechanical apparition!"

"Fleeing isn’t what I suggested," Ayanokoji said, leaning his shoulder against the cabin bulkhead. His hands were tucked deep into his pockets, his posture relaxed despite the bloodstains clinging to his light tunic. "I suggested you stop moving entirely."

"Stop moving?" Daniel’s voice rose, vein pulsing against his temple. "To sit dead in the water like sitting ducks? That is cowardice, boy! If this ’United States’ is hostile, advancing or retreating changes nothing. Our duty lies forward, toward the western continent!"

"Advancing toward a superior military force with broken wood and exhausted mages isn’t duty, Captain. It’s suicide," Ayanokoji replied flatly. "You’re treating this like a duel between knightly houses or an imperial skirmish where sheer fervor turns the tide. In modern warfare, enthusiasm has an operational value of zero."

"You keep talking down to me as if your magicless homeland holds the secrets of the cosmos!" Daniel snapped, crossing his arms over his steel cuirass. "Even if that flying iron carriage possessed great speed, it has already departed. The skies are empty. The sea is quiet once more. We have a window to slip past whatever perimeter they hold."

"The skies aren’t empty," Ayanokoji said, his brown eyes shifting toward the small glass porthole that looked out into the starry night. "Just because your lookouts can’t spot a silhouette doesn’t mean no one is watching. Right now, miles above our heads, outside the range of your vision and far beyond the reach of your best archers or wind spells, there is almost certainly a reconnaissance drone or an orbital satellite tracking the thermal output of these hulls."

Daniel blinked, his brow furrowing in irritation and confusion. "A... a drone? An orbital what? Stop speaking in foreign riddles! How can someone watch us from beyond the clouds without a high-tier scrying crystal? Even imperial divination mages require a focus point, hair or blood, to pierce that far across the sea!"

"They don’t use scrying crystals," Miyuki spoke up softly, though her voice carried an undeniable firmness. She set her cracked staff against the table, her gentle eyes meeting the veteran officer’s glare without flinching. "In our world, humans built artificial eyes that orbit the entire planet in the vacuum of space. They have high-altitude unmanned aircraft that can stay airborne for days without landing, equipped with lenses that can see the heat radiating from your body through wooden planks. When Ayanokoji says we are being watched, he isn’t guessing, Captain. He’s stating the standard operating procedure of the American military."

Daniel looked between the two students, his mouth pressed into a thin, white line. "Unmanned... You claim an iron beast flies without a soul or a pilot inside, merely watching us like a silent god?"

"Precisely," Miyuki murmured, clutching her hands in front of her. "Captain Daniel, please listen to him. Back home, my country was allied with the United States. We grew up seeing their bases, their ships, their drills. When the American military decides to enforce an exclusion zone, they don’t guess where the enemy is. They control the air, the sea surface, and the depths below all at once. If they wanted these ships destroyed, we wouldn’t have even seen that jet bank over the deck. A missile launched from beyond the horizon would have torn both corvettes apart before anyone could draw a sword or cast a shield."

The cabin fell silent for a long moment.

Daniel looked down at the map of the western ocean spread across the table. His fingers twitched near the pommel of his sword. For all his imperial pride and devotion to the Goddess, he wasn’t an idiot. He had seen the Kraken—a monster that would normally require an entire fleet of gilded battleships and high-tier templars to subdue—torn to pieces from beneath the waves by an invisible, silent strike.

"Then what are you proposing?" Daniel asked, his voice dropping into a tense, begrudging mutter. "We sit here and wait for starvation? We abandon Lady Viona’s mandate?"

"We wait for their next move," Ayanokoji said calmly.

"And what move would that be?" Daniel challenged, narrowing his eyes. "If they aren’t firing, what do these ’Americans’ want with two wooden corvettes?"

"Contact," Ayanokoji answered without hesitation. "That jet wasn’t an executioner. It was a herald. Saving our ship, then flying a supersonic pass close enough to rattle your teeth—those are deliberate signaling behaviors. They know who we are, or at least that we represent the power that sent Valerius. They’re observing our reaction."

He pushed off the wall and took a step closer to the table, tapping the blank western expanse of the sea chart.

"If you raise the sails and attempt to force your way toward the western shores, you turn this into an active breach of their defensive perimeter. That forces their commander to classify us as an uncooperative target. On the other hand, if you attempt to turn back toward the empire, they might decide we carry too much intelligence on their presence and neutralize us anyway."

"So you’re saying we have no choice," Daniel said, his knuckles whitening as he leaned over the table. "We are trapped in their palm."

"We were trapped the moment we cleared the imperial breakwater three weeks ago," Ayanokoji said plainly. "The difference is that now we know the cage exists. Until a surface vessel intercepts us or they issue clear instructions, keep the crew focused on basic repairs. Do not cast combat spells. Do not prime the fire ballistas. Any aggressive mana signature will look like a weapons lock to their sensors."

Miyuki nodded in agreement, looking at Daniel with quiet pleading. "It’s the only rational path, Captain. Let them make the first formal approach. If they wanted us dead, we wouldn’t be standing here talking about it."

Daniel stared at the two Japanese youths for several agonizing seconds.

The weight of his imperial oath pressed against his chest, but the memory of the deafening roar that had split the sky only minutes prior was impossible to ignore.

Finally, the captain let out a long, ragged breath, slumping slightly against his chair.

"Very well," Daniel muttered, bitterness dripping from every word. "I will order the men to secure the deck and stand down all offensive runes. But hear me, Hero Ayanokoji... if these magicless barbarians prove to be butchers, my sword will not remain sheathed."

"Understood," Ayanokoji replied evenly, entirely unbothered by the warning.

As the captain turned to give the orders to the quarterdeck, Ayanokoji glanced back toward the dark waters visible through the porthole.

"Now, show yourselves."