Dimension Wave

“Yamikage, are you really okay?”

It is good that everyone has started exploring the ship, but they’re obviously scared.
Even Alto is visibly worried about Yamikage which says a lot.
But well, I don’t really get that feeling.
The field of view in the ship is bad, and the area we can see is an eerie white color.
Moreover, when you touch the wooden walls they feel slippery and cold, more like a haunted house than a ship.
If anything, aren’t ghost ships and haunted houses similar?

“I am well”
“Wouldn’t it be fine if you just follow me? Isn’t that better than fighting while afraid?”
“I cannot do such. For I am the party’s mage.”

Yamikage is also considerate towards her companions huh.
Although it is out of character, I feel touched.
Alright, Yamikage. One way or another, I will take care of any ghosts that try to attack us.
I look towards the front of the party and see Shouko leading the way while on guard.
While Tsumugi is covering the rear.
Because the passage is narrow, it is impossible to spread out and fight like that.
Hence we split our firepower between the front and the back to be ready for any contingency.

“We have walked quite a bit, but we have yet to see any monsters.”
“Indeed. I expected these dungeons to be filled to the brim with monsters.”
“The map isn’t getting filled in either.”
“Like a labyrinth…”

Now that she mentioned it, a labyrinth is probably the right word for it huh…
The strangely spacious interior of the ship. And the narrow hallways.
Seeing as the Naval Combat skill is active this place is obviously a ship.
But the map is vast and doesn’t fill in properly. If the path was paved in stone it would be easy to confuse it for an underground labyrinth.
As we were chatting while moving along, Shouko noticed a door ahead of us.

“Everyone, there’s a door. We don’t know what lies ahead, so please be careful.”

Everyone nods after hearing the warning. She opens the door and immediately jumps to the side.
It’s not like we’ll get shot out of nowhere, everyone seems a bit overly cautious.
A few seconds pass without an enemy attacking, so I stick out my head and look through the doorway.
The mess hall?
I don’t know much about the layout of the ship, but there are multiple chairs and a long table with plenty enough space for multiple people to sit together. Naturally, all of them are shabby, but they don’t look like they’re part of a horror scene.
Shouko, Sheryl, and Alto enter one after the other, but when I try to enter next.

Bang!

The door suddenly slams shut.
I put all my strength into trying to open the door, but it won’t budge.

“Hey! Are you guys alright!?”

I yell out and bang on the door.

“We’re fine! There ar―”

Shouko’s voice suddenly cuts off, and no matter how much I yelled, there was no response.
It is hard to believe that Shouko and Sheryl would lose to monsters.
This is probably a trap to split up the players.
If a party gets split up in a large dungeon like this, the fighting power gets split up and it’ll become more difficult.
Seems that’s why you have to enter one at a time huh…

“Brother, why don’t you just send a chat message?”
“Good idea Tsumugi. However, is it okay to just do so in a game?”

However, it is a good idea.
I open the chat menu and try to send a message to Shouko.
It doesn’t send.
I guess the chat function has been disabled in this area.
It doesn’t matter, maybe we’re just overly conscious of this being a ghost ship.

“They have Shouko. She said everything was fine and I believe in her.”

We waited in front of the door for a few minutes, but it showed no signs of opening.
This could be a warp trap which means they got sent to a different location.
If that’s the case it wouldn’t be a good idea for us to just wait here silently.
I believe that on the other side, Alto will talk to Shouko and Sheryl about this as well.
He knows a lot about games. They will probably be fine.

“Well, shall we look for another passage then?”
“I shall follow thee”
“Yes!”

The scared Yamikage and a happy Tsumugi.
Frankly, it feels dangerous for these two to mix.
Ah well, it’s fine. Right now we can only try and meet up with the other three.

“There’s a passage over there. However, it is darker because there are fewer people now.”
“It seems the lantern doesn’t work.”
“Is that not the work of ghosts?”
“No, it seems like it is set up that way. Yes, that’s right…”

My eyes are drawn towards my fishing rod which still has the shining lure equipped.
Maybe I can use this?
I took out the fishing rod to give it a shot. I swung it and watched the lure fly.

“Oh, I can see it.”

Well, it’s only the lure that you can faintly see so it looks a bit like a lit-up boomerang.
Nevertheless, it flew a long distance…

Thump!

At the same time, I hear the sound I feel the hook hitting something.
I don’t think it was a wall. It sounded more like bone.
After all, we’re talking about monsters on a ghost ship.

“Yamikage, Tsumugi! There’s something there. Be careful yeah?”
“Mhm!”
“I-I, I shall be alright!”

Uhm… It doesn’t sound like she’ll be alright. But I have to believe.
I put the lure away after reeling it in and take out a silver garasuki. [1] It is a rank higher than the previous knife so I should be able to trust it.
I hear rattling sounds coming from in front of me as if something is hitting the wood.
The origin of the sound becomes apparent right away.
It is indeed a monster.
A bandana is wrapped around its head… A pirate skeleton.

“Eh…? I know it’s a pirate, but don’t its clothes look kind of weird?”
“Doth thee think so?”
“I don’t know! Isn’t that just how they were designed?”

That being said.
The clothes the pirate skeleton is wearing don’t look like the worn-out clothes of a ruffian. Instead, they look more like a worn-out suit, it feels more elegant.
Maybe I’m just overthinking this. Even without seeing its name as soon as I saw it, I understood that this is a pirate skeleton.

“Oof!”

While I was lost in thought the skeleton brandished its cutlass and swung it at me. I just barely managed to avoid it. I do have all kinds of Naval Combat skills after all.
Now is not the time to be thinking about all these things.
Our first priority should be to quickly reunite with Shouko and the others and figure out how this dungeon works.
Above all, Tsumugi’s Naval Combat skill is still low-level.
So I will have to act as the vanguard and keep the enemy at bay.

“Slicing!”

This is the second attack skill of the elementary gutting skill.
While Cleaver is a heavy attack, this one focuses on cutting specific parts of the enemy. Originally these kinds of physical attacks shouldn’t be effective against skeletons which are made of bones, however, it is better than nothing.

“Huh?”

The pirate skeleton got hit by Slicing which was accompanied by red light and fell easily.
I looked suspiciously at the corpse however, it didn’t stir.

No way, that’s impossible.

If you look at it objectively, I’m the weakest after Alto.
Of course, it isn’t fair to compare me to Alto, who mainly focuses on business. However, in the party, my main skills are butchering and procuring food by fishing.
So isn’t it strange that it died from just one hit from my butchering weapon?

“I finished killing them all~!”
“It wasn’t as frightening as I thought.”
“Is that so… Is it just my imagination or…?”

Oh well, it’s fine.
Anyway, the three of us started exploring the ship.

TN: The most painful part about translating this chapter was probably Yamikage’s speech. It sounds quite odd in Japanese and trying to convey this in English is the bane of my existence.
I hope you enjoyed the chapter and if you find any errors feel free to point them out.

Footnote(s)

A Japanese knife used for cutting and de-boning various kinds of meat. It is on the larger side. If you want to know more feel free to take a look at this site: https://yagihanaretail.com/pages/knife-types-and-their-uses⤴