People around cald Cordelia down while grabbing the man's arm to stop him. Even if they didn't like Cordelia, they knew it was better to cooperate with each other right now.
"This fellow has had so bad things happen lately. Please understand. We'll take him with us and make him work."
"You seem tired? Then you can rest a bit before starting. But since we don't know when the monsters might co here..."
Before she could finish speaking, there was a knocking sound at the door. Cordelia turned her head.
"Just check that there are no monsters outside and let them in quickly. We still have room. Mrs. Gibson and Miss Mary went to the basent and said there's plenty of food."
"We can't keep accepting people forever, can we?"
"The bishop's position is to accept as many as possible. No matter how difficult it is, we can't just let people get eaten by monsters."
"Eaten?"
Oops. Cordelia rolled her eyes and said:
"They're monsters, so that's possible, isn't it? And when we're ready, it would be better for everyone to go down to the basent. Just leave a few people to guard the first floor."
Alastair admired the people who were now moving according to Cordelia's instructions.
Cordelia stationed two n who were forr military veterans and Alastair on the first floor. She asked nearby restaurant owners and staff to manage food supplies, and they also took charge of filling bowls and buckets with water while the water pipes were still intact. She sent sailors to the top floor to handle lookout duty and defensive battles. Fortunately, they also had old-style guns.
Mr. Miller and his sturdy sons moved cathedral chairs to create spacious areas, and the glove shop owner, seamstresses, and Annie brought blankets and clothing from the auditorium that had been used as a holess shelter to create resting places and bandages. People took out so spare clothes from their luggage bags, and Annie contributed her sewing kit.
Less than an hour after entering the cathedral building, they were taking on the appearance of a proper shelter.
Alastair was moving chairs with Mr. Miller's sons when he looked at Cordelia, who was grasping the hands of newly arrived people and having conversations with them.
The more recently people had arrived, the more their entire bodies were covered in blood and sweat, but Cordelia didn't care and extended her hand. Unlike at Mabelwood, this was a place where she didn't know a single person, yet there was no hesitation in any of her actions. It was abundantly clear that Cordelia Mabelwood had received no education whatsoever for crisis situations.
Was it innate, or was it a sense of responsibility as soone who knew about dungeons? Either way, it was admirable.
At that mont, Alastair's gaze fell on her fist, clenched so tightly it had turned white. The fist visible below her sleeve trembled, then repeatedly wiped her palm on her skirt.
So thought, or emotion, flashed through his mind like light. But before he could understand what it was, Cordelia strode over.
"Alastair Renfrew, co here for a mont."
The face of Cordelia pulling his arm looked perfectly fine. Alastair thought again that this girl didn't need to bear such a heavy burden. Nevertheless—
"Lady Cordelia, are you alright?"
Cordelia followed Alastair's gaze and looked down at her damp palm, then smiled awkwardly.
"For now."
"I'll finish the remaining work. Lady Cordelia, please rest in the basent."
Cordelia looked up at Alastair with an enigmatic expression.
"...Then I'll ask you to do that. Lord Sterling, don't overdo it either. The other things are mostly resolved, so I'd like you to talk with that gentleman sitting over there. He seems to have barely made it here from the harbor, but he won't tell us what he saw."
"I'll speak with him."
"Tell
when you're done talking."
And as if it were nothing at all, Cordelia's fingertips lightly tapped his back as if pushing him. Alastair squeezed his eyes shut. He struggled to ignore the sensation that remained as an afterimage and headed toward the gentleman in question.
"Aren't you Count Sterling!"
The man was a familiar face. But not a welco one. His voice was unnecessarily loud, echoing throughout the large cathedral building.
"A count?"
"That young man, I suppose. If he's Count Sterling, isn't he Duke Dunbarton's son?"
Gazes focused on him. Though he was customarily called Count Sterling, that title officially belonged to his father, Duke Dunbarton. Moreover, since Alastair hadn't been long out of school, there weren't many people in Sterling City who knew his face. He had been relieved about that, but to think a journalist from Talmine would be here. Alastair, who had been trying to blend in as just an ordinary noble youth, sighed in annoyance.
"Lower your voice, Mr. Yates."
"What did I do wrong? Haha, I didn't expect to see you here. What's your relationship with that pretty lady from earlier?"
"That's none of your business."
Yates, a journalist for a cheap gossip magazine, clicked his old cara while grinning wickedly. His manner of speaking and attitude had a disreputable air. Alastair struggled to suppress the contemptuous words that wanted to erge.
"Forget about that kind of talk, let's discuss sothing that would actually be helpful right now. You want to survive here too, don't you? What didn't you tell that young lady, Miss Cordelia, earlier?"
"It's nothing much. Since I luckily survived from the harbor, I saw so monsters and took photos too. The navy has already been deployed. The young lady knows that much, and what I hid was..."
Yates, who had been drawing out his words, pointed outside with his finger.
"The part about the monsters having already reached this plaza."
Bang! Almost simultaneously with those words, there was the sound of a building being destroyed. It wasn't very far from the cathedral. Alastair approached the window. On the opposite side of the plaza, monsters with pincers, slightly larger than humans, were visible. The screams of people pierced by pincers, the sound of furniture breaking. Monster feet trampling pools of blood. Reality ca crashing in.
"Everyone go down to the basent, quickly!"
This was different from Mabelwood. It was a much more desperate situation. Under this enormous disaster, all these powerless people could do was endure. How long would that last?
Alastair anticipated failure. But he couldn't say that.
"Don't worry. Soldiers will be deployed soon. We just need to hold out until then."
"You said that gentleman is Count Sterling? Then soldiers will co to rescue us, right?"
Though no one would know he was here, he nodded without hesitation.
"They will."
Cordelia looked at him worriedly, then went down to the basent. A faint smile spread across Alastair's previously stiff lips at the words she conveyed with her mouth.
'If we hold out a little, Esperanza will co.'
Alastair went upstairs with the retired soldiers. As he extended his gun barrel through a window gap higher than the monsters' height, he slowly exhaled. The fear was gradually pushed away with his breath.
He didn't know if soldiers would co. But Esperanza would co. Even if a little late, certainly. And that was the only hope they had right now.
They had to defend this door until then.
A monster's giant pincer knocked on the door with a bang. Alastair's gun barrel spewed black magic power.
??????°??☆????°??????
anwhile, the warship on the distant sea was also facing similar difficulties to the civilians.
When the Paolun pirates' ships began their attack, Commodore Rustin was relaxed. The situation was unfavorable, but he wasn't afraid of warships operated by those who hadn't even received proper military training.
"Their cannons have the sa range as our battleship, so we need to be careful. They'll be short on gunpowder and magic power, so let them waste their cannons."
Cider stood not far from the Commodore and turned his head toward the opposite side of the sea where the battle was taking place, in the direction where invisible land lay.
"Is there sothing over there?"
"There will be soon."
Cider answered while putting on a monocle over his right eye. In the field of vision inside the monocle, he could see bright blue magic power clashing like sparks. He touched the corners of his mouth that had unconsciously risen, then let out a hollow laugh. To feel sothing like joy despite the situation. He must truly be out of his mind.
Thinking coldly, Esperanza's appearance and the start of battle was danger itself. It was difficult to expect the result of Esperanza subduing those two people and obtaining the Golden Claw from today's battle.
Though it didn't seem like Esperanza would lose in battle against them, if she was pushed back even slightly, they would seize the opportunity and manage to create a dungeon. Even knowing this, when he had discussed this plan, he hadn't thought at all that he himself would end up on this ship.
'But things have turned out this way.'
It was rely regrettable. Cider roughly shoved the monocle into his pocket.
Commodore Rustin, who had been looking at him with displeasure, beckoned him with his fingertip.
"Avondale. The internal machinery is reporting magic power depletion, go check it out."
"Not a malfunction, but magic power depletion?"
"Everyone else is busy. You're free."
Cider snorted. But the Commodore was stubborn. After checking the sea where cannons were exploding and water was splashing, Cider could soon guess the reason. He must have been worried about getting hit by blind bombardnt. He should have known better than to be so obstinate when it couldn't be handled. Clicking his tongue in a 'told you so' manner, he went down to the engine room.
The Commodore's stubbornness always had bad timing. At other tis, what would have ended as rely tornting a disliked young man resulted in dragging a civilian noble into naval warfare.
The decision to send that civilian down to the engine room was the sa. In an ordinary naval battle, Cider Claiborne would have safely killed ti in the engine room, and the warship would have safely escaped the pirate den.
However, while Cider was deployed in the boring work of installing new magic stones in the engine room, the sky was covered by a massive magic power barrier, and the battle where three magicians had been entangled ca to an absurd end. At the sa ti, mythical creature-like monsters raised their heads from the deep sea and ramd into the warship. Thunk. The hull shook.
"What the hell is this now!"
The world's strongest navy instantly beca a rabble. If there was any fortunate point, it was that the enemies were the sa. The bombardnt toward each other stopped. However, the hideous monsters that looked like sea creatures haphazardly stuck together attacked indiscriminately between friend and foe.
The massive warship swayed. The soldiers had to hang onto nearby railings to avoid falling. Cannons fired without aim grazed past the monsters' bodies.
"Where are you shooting now! Everyone get your act together!"
Commodore Rustin shouted loudly. At his voice, the soldiers gradually found their positions. The Commodore clicked his tongue and turned to check the magic cannons. At that mont, sharp gunfire passed over his cap. One of the tentacles rushing toward the warship was severed.
"Conventional gunpowder weapons don't work on them. How many magic cannons do we have?"
Cider, who had co up from the engine room with a nonchalant face as if he had never fired a gun, asked.
"...Only four. There are reserve cannons, but that alone won't be enough."
The Commodore, having finished his answer, glared at him.
"Since when have you been carrying a gun?"
"From the beginning. There was sothing else I wanted to shoot besides monsters, but I held back."
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