A Budding Scientist in a Fantasy World
Chapter 226

“Did you do that?” asked Ethan, as he glanced at the screaming Immortal in the distance.

Alice nodded. “I gave him a mana baptism. It was a bit clunky and hard to pull off, and I’m almost out of mana in my compound seed, but it worked,” she said.

Ethan grinned, before firing a blast of Thermal magic at the screaming Immortal. A few of the Mages on the deck of the ship tried to defend the Immortal who was undergoing a mana baptism - but Ethan’s blast of fire was simply too fast and too dangerous. Before they had time to react, the place where the Immortal had been screaming turned into a burnt chunk of deck. The other [Sailors] and Mages on the Sigmusi ship seemed shocked - after all, Immortals were supposed to be nigh-unkillable monsters. They were nearly invulnerable to quick wipeouts on the battlefield unless something went catastrophically wrong.

Then again, the Immortal in question had been rendered nearly helpless after Alice’s mana baptism. While it had only been possible because the Sigmusi ship hadn’t been moving very fast, and the Immortal hadn’t detected Alice’s actions, the fact remained that things had gone from normal to devastating for the enemy Immortal in mere seconds.

“One Immortal down,” said Ethan, as he suppressed a grin. “Shame it wasn’t one of the combat-oriented ones, but at least we can properly escape now.”

“So we’re planning on running?” asked Alice. She had already suspected as much - this fight was difficult and dangerous, and so far, Ethan had seemed averse to taking risks that might really end up with someone dead.

Ethan nodded. “We’re running, yes. This fight is winnable, but the longer we can drag this out, the better - especially now that we’ve dropped one of their Immortals. Plus, I don’t like risks, especially when our goal is so important that the fate of the world rests on our shoulders. We’re still looking for an opportune way to do it - Emilia is a huge problem because she keeps getting near the ship, and she’s not going to let us go quietly. But we want to get out of this fight as fast as we can.”

Alice relaxed. She had already suspected the group would be running away - after all, this fight was still dangerous. One of the three Sigmusi Immortals was down, but he was the weakest in a direct fight, and the other two were still alive and well. Still, hearing Ethan confirm their plan to leave the battlefield released a weight on her shoulders she hadn’t even realized she was carrying. She didn’t want to be stuck in this fight any longer.

“So how are we escaping the fight?” asked Alice.

Ethan grimaced. “That’s where things get complicated. Emilia and Brandon know that we’re trying to escape, and they won’t let us. Especially once they realize we dropped one of their Immortals - they’ll assume we spent a large number of Perks to do it, and increase the pressure on us.”

Ethan grimaced. “Worse, they aren’t entirely wrong. None of us are out of Perks, but we’re definitely running low. The sheer number of Sigmusi [Sailors] is draining us a lot faster than a proper fight between only Immortals.”

“Do we have a plan?” asked Alice.

Ethan grinned again. “Wait a few minutes. Help fend off any attacks, and counterattack when you see a good opening.”

“Got it.”

The next two minutes turned into a dangerous slog. Magic continued to fly between ships. Arrows whizzed by the Illvarian ship. Perks were activated left and right. Allira’s shadows hounded and tore apart Sigmusi ships in bout after bout of sneak attacks, while Allira’s occasional humming added unpredictable and dangerous additions to the battlefield. Myra knocked Emilia away two more times, and then she ran out of Perks to keep Emilia off of them. As much as Alice suspected that Ethan’s mother had a massive advantage when it came to being unpredictable in fights, it also came with a major downside. The woman didn’t have the staying power or top-end Perks that other Immortals did.

After Myra ran out of Perk uses, Ethan had to take over Emilia-fighting duty while Myra turned all of her attention back to the ship. Alice, Cecilia, and the other Illvarian Mages were mostly left to deal with the [Sailors] and [Kinetic Mages] of the Sigmusi ships as the ships exchanged projectiles.

Then, out of nowhere, a flicker of rainbow mana popped up around Alice and Ethan.

“Be ready,” said Ethan. “It’s time. If you can, toss a few projectiles Emilia’s way. I know you have no real chance of hitting her, but if you can distract her that will help. Allira will need to focus on something else for a bit.” Ethan paused, before he glanced at the Sigmusi ships surrounding them. He sighed. “Hopefully this works.”

Alice focused on her surroundings and activated {Burst of Multitasking}. She could only maintain it for a few minutes, but right now, five more magic tendrils was a huge boost to her combat prowess. She wanted to have that ready if something went wrong.

A moment later, it started. The entire boat flashed with rainbow mana again, and Alice saw the boat… meld together, almost as if the boat were made of liquid. The boat, which had already seemed sturdy before, looked almost like a metal ship from Earth - at least, in places where the Perk was more concentrated.

Then, Alice saw Ethan’s magic tendrils all shift underneath the boat, before a blast of kinetic energy rocked through the boat forward. It was almost like being hit with a cannonball - but Myra’s Perks and Doll’s craftsmanship turned what should have been a disastrous blow into a boon. The shock that should have knocked [Sailors] off their feet and injured dozens instead sent the boat forward, wholly intact. As the boat rocketed forward, Allira started singing a new song. Her shadows faded into oblivion, and instead, an illusory wind started to swirl around the boat. The wind was clearly unnatural - it pushed the Illvarian ship forward, while actively fighting against the Sigmusi ships. Alice quickly realized what was happening.

Unlike humans, ships couldn’t block their ears. With a mixture of wind and kinetic energy at their back, the Illvarian ship rocketed past two of the Sigmusi ships, then rammed into a third. Rather than a disastrous collision, this also seemed strangely muted - the Illvarian ship rippled, and the ship still lost speed - but somehow, none of the shock and change in momentum hit the passengers of the ship.

The Sigmusi ship wasn’t so lucky. With a crunch, part of the Sigmusi ship’s front end broke before the Illvarian ship barreled past it.

Alice was shocked by the aftermath of the collision. The ship, wrapped in Myra’s Perks and Doll’s constructions, had only suffered a moderate speed reduction from the collision between two ships. The front quarter of the Sigmusi ship had snapped clean off, and the rest of the ship had been thrown into pandemonium by the collision. Sigmusi [Sailors] and [Kinetic Mages] were thrown about the deck like pieces of trash, and unlike the Illvarian [Sailors], they had clearly suffered the full force of the impact. Some of the [Kinetic Mages] caught themselves before they hit something and hurt themselves. Some… didn’t, and bones broke. Alice doubted any of them had died, but they were definitely going to be in a lot of pain until an [Organic Mage] saw to their injuries.

Unfortunately, crashing into another ship did cost them a bit of speed, even if it cost the Sigmusi ship far more. Ethan used another jolt of mana to pump the boat’s speed back up, and Allira began to use her illusory winds with far greater force, driving other ships away and pushing the Illvarian ship to regain its lost speed.

Alice glanced ahead. Two more Sigmusi ships were in the way. One of them wasn’t quite lined up to intercept them, while the other Sigmusi ship seemed determined to meet the same fate as the previous collision ship. Alice hesitated for a moment, and glanced back at Emilia, before confirming that Emilia wasn’t quite catching up to them. Alice still tossed a few items her way with kinetic magic, just to force Emilia to dodge, and then decided to help deal with the ship set to intercept them. She used another wave of portals to pop open a new portal, right in front of the Sigmusi ship that wasn’t directly in their way. Then, she grabbed another of her enchanted bracelets, and fired a wave of projectiles right into the brain of the [Captain] of the ship.

To the woman’s credit, she nearly ducked out of the way of Alice’s projectiles. Nearly being the key word. She ducked by two thirds of the wave of projectiles, before one caught her in the ear and another two caught her in the check. Alice didn’t quite see what happened next, but the back of her throat erupted in a spray of blood, and the woman fell over. Alice had no idea whether the [Captain] had survived Alice’s barrage of missiles, but she was out of commission, and that was what mattered. The Perks applied to that Sigmusi boat fell away, and the boat slowed down enough that it would no longer intercept them.

Ethan dealt with the other ship. Rather than deal with any of the complicated ‘kill the [Captain] nonsense, Ethan had a very different plan in mind. As the group drew closer to the Sigmusi ship, Ethan pulled out a giant canister of metal from his storage Perk. It looked like a bowling ball, except for the fact that it crackled with System energy and regular mana. Alice wasn’t that well versed in thermal enchantments, but she could still tell that this ball of metal was built to do one thing - explode. The moment this thing hit something, it would explode like an artillery shell from Earth, blasting everything around it with fire and shockwaves. It was probably weaker than a real artillery shells from Earth, but against a Perk-empowered wooden boat, that was a moot point. Especially with the unknown System Perks added into the object.

“Alice, make me one of those disguised portals, right over the deck of that Sigmusi ship, would you?” Alice complied, and Ethan used nearly forty kinetic magic tendrils to lob the metal missile through her portal.

A moment later, there was a massive roar, as the deck of the Sigmusi ship in question erupted into a blast of force and flames. It was far less impactful than Alice had expected - even some of the [Sailors] near the epicenter of the blast had survived, albeit with injuries. However, the nearby wood of the ship wasn't so lucky. A moment later, Alice realized why. The metal ball wasn’t an artillery shell, the way Alice had thought it was. It was more like a molotov than an explosive device. After landing on the Sigmushi ship, it began spewing fire and heat in every direction. The panicking Sigmusi sailors rushed towards the cannonball, and after using some kind of Perk to shield themselves, managed to get close to it.

This was where the Sigmusi [Sailors] ran into their second problem. The ‘cannonball’ was as sticky as glue. The Sigmusi [Sailors] simply couldn’t pry it off the deck, even with the aid of Perks and a few [Kinetic Mages] who had also recovered. One [Kinetic Mage] even tried to cut the ‘stuck’ deck off from the rest of the ship, in order to toss the flaming canister away - but the flaming canister brightened with rainbow mana, and then flew through the air in a way that completely defied gravity. It landed right back on the Sigmusi ship. Alice had no idea whether it could repeat the feat, but the Sigmusi [Sailors] started to panic as fire continued to spread throughout the ship. Moments later, several of them were forced to flee the area, as whatever Perks they were using to protect themselves ran out. Finally, as the heat and flames intensified, several Sigmusi turned back towards their ship, and realized collision was imminent. That was when they gave up their attempts to rescue the ship and decided to rescue themselves by leaping overboard.

A moment later, the Illvarian ship slammed into the Sigmusi ship, and with a crunch, wood splintered and shattered. Alice felt this one far more than she had felt the previous one - it was still far more muted than the collision should have been, but she still felt a distinct jolt as the ship rammed through the burning wreck. Unlike the Sigmusi ship, the Illvarian ship didn’t seem to be particularly harmed by either the flames or the impact - it just kept moving along. The metal components of the ship looked denting, but even as Alice watched, rainbow mana flooded the dented parts of the ship, and they started to repair themselves.

Moments later, the Sigmusi ship broke, as Perk-enhanced wood finally gave way to Perk-enhanced metal. The Illvarian ship was free.

For the first time, Alice realized just how much of an impact Doll actually had in this battle. Sure, Doll might have been hiding in her room the whole time and working on golems - but a huge part of this fight had been won through logistics before the fight even started. The reason Illvaria ship could ram other ships and come out with barely any damage was due to Doll’s incredible work on making this ship all those decades ago, and then reinforcing it again once Doll realized their journey involved a boat. Doll’s crossbows and ballistas installed on the ship fired near-autonomously, allowing the ship to take off much of the pressure from the larger number of Sigmusi combatants. The trap that had distracted Brandon had come from Doll, and while it hadn’t taken the man out of the fight, it had certainly distracted him and weakened him.

Despite not lifting a finger during the battle, Doll was the MVP of the fight.

That was Alice’s final thought as the Illvarian ship managed to wriggle out of the back end of the Sigmusi fleet. Seeing that the group was no longer entangled with the Sigmusi fleet, Allira stopped singing of wind and swapped back to shadows. Alice noticed that Allira had notably fewer shadows than before, and she seemed tired - but she still had enough to harass the Sigmusi as they tried to pursue the Illvarians. Ethan continued using kinetic mana to empower the ship’s escape, while Myra used her own Perks to keep the ship moving quickly and efficiently. More importantly, with the Sigmusi fleet distracted and the Illvarian ship no longer surrounded, Emilia stopped trying to harass the ship. She apparently judged it a poor decision to hop onto an Illvarian ship, where she would be surrounded by four Illvarian Immortals and Alice while she had no backup.

Alice continued to watch the Sigmusi, as well as Emilia, as the Sigmusi fleet tried to rally and recover from the Illvarian escape. Two more Sigmusi ships had been destroyed, hundreds of crew members had died, and hundreds more were injured. With the [Slave Hunter] down, the Sigmusi wouldn’t have an easy time catching up or locking on to them as they moved, either. Alice didn’t know if they had truly shaken the Sigmusi fleet off, but she was sure of one thing. They had escaped the fight, dealt with a huge chunk of the Sigmusi ambush, and had nothing but open ocean between them and the System’s mainframe.

She just hoped it stayed that way until they finally arrived at their destination.