Yarra’s Adventure Notes
Chapter 458 - 25 Forced Landing_1

Chapter 458: Chapter 25 Forced Landing_1

"How can we help?" The group gathered around the control platform, Catherine looked at the captain, who was sweating heavily but still trying hard to control the floating ship, anxiously asking, "What can we do?"

"River, no, that person, he’s destroyed many Floating Arrays." The captain quickly answered, "He ruined the balance of the floating ship, now the forces that keep the ship hovering from front to back, left and right are not symmetrical. I am just about managing it so the ship won’t capsize, but maintaining balance in this way could cause the whole vessel to snap in mid-air. The most urgent thing now is to manually shut down the arrays symmetrical to the ones that have been destroyed, which would decrease the hovering force but restore balance."

"So, we go and shut down the arrays now." Catherine asked, "Do you know which ones, Captain?"

"I don’t know." The captain shook his head, "We need to find the destroyed arrays first, only then can we figure out the counterparts."

"You’ve got to be kidding me, there isn’t enough time for that." Vivian looked around and said to the captain, "Captain, you can directly halt the functions of all the arrays from here, right?"

"You want to manually put the ship into a free-falling state, then automatically activate the deceleration and weight reduction Arrays to force a landing, right? No, we can’t." The captain said, "The sails are still up. If we shut down all the arrays now, the floating ship will lose its balance and start to roll forward, we absolutely can’t do this."

"Then take the sails down!" The ship shook more and more violently, Catherine shouted anxiously, "Why not take down the sails?"

"Can’t take it down, the system to lower the sails was destroyed." The captain felt a bitter taste in his mouth. While using the air currents to adjust the balance of the floating ship, he had to come up with a fundamental solution. The old man for the first time felt that he really was old, his mind was not enough," I’ve given the command to lower the sails, but the operators have tried several times, there’s no response."

"And manually lowering the sails?" Catherine asked, "Can’t people climb up there now?"

"It’s shaking too much." The captain shook his head vigorously, "You see those few people under the mast, they’ve tried several times, they fall once they reach five meters high. One almost fell off the ship."

"Vivian." Catherine pressed her hand against the control platform to keep balance, her other hand was holding Vivian’s body as she shouted out loud.

"Understood." Vivian let go with both hands, maintaining her balance solely with the help of Catherine’s hand. She raised her magic staff, and aimed it at the sails on the mast covered with invisible Lan’s mana thread and wind-attribute Arrays.

"You want to burn the sails?" The captain shouted.

"Obviously, this is the only way left." Vivian spoke out loud "I know the sails are very expensive; those thousands of arrays alone are worth hundreds of thousands of gold coins. But it’s cheaper than having the whole ship damaged if we fall."

"That’s not the issue." The captain said with a bitter smile, "Who cares about gold coins now? The problem is if you want to burn the sails, it’d best be from bottom to top or top to bottom, definitely don’t start from one side. I’m at my limit controlling here, if the ship starts to burn from the side, it’s sure to spin like a top."

"Such a pain." Vivian stomped her foot in frustration. The magic on her staff dissipated, she began to gather another broad scope spell, at the same time, she shouted at the top of her voice, "Those few down there, if you don’t want to get burned to death, get away quickly."

A few people huddled under the mast looking for solutions turned their heads to look, seeing Vivian hoisting her magic staff, they were stunned for a moment, then they reacted to what she was about to do and dispersed in all directions. Vivian gave an unsatisfied snort, the magic staff began to trace enigmatic symbols in the air, more and more fire attribute elements aggregated from all around. Just as the elements reached their peak and Vivian was about to cast her spell, the sail, filled with wind, suddenly slid off the top of the mast. Following the slide rail, it fell layer by layer rapidly due to gravity and finally returned above the deck. The magical arrays on the sail lost their effect due to the wrinkles caused by the descending sail and swiftly dissipated the wind elements accumulated by the array, causing the speed of the floating ship to quickly decrease, eventually suspending in the air and ceasing to move forward.

Looking far to the top of the mast, Catherine found Pannis had reverted to his usual lazy appearance, hanging upside down at the very top of the mast, swinging back and forth as if on a swing, while still making an effort to wave and greet them.

"This guy is so annoying. Even if he’s a demigod, it makes me really want to punch him." Catherine’s words were harsh, but she still had a smile on her face. When the floating ship came to a complete standstill, she asked the captain. "So we’re good now, right? Turn off all the Arrays. By the way, where’s everyone? The passengers, and your technicians, and Maggie and the other attendants; everyone’s okay, right? Why haven’t I seen any of them? Have they all retired to their cabins?"

"Don’t worry, we instructed all the passengers to return to their cabins as soon as we began to navigate through the Rinwind Gorge. It’s standard protocol." There was another violent shake of the floating ship’s body. The swaying, though gradually diminishing, clearly indicated a rapid descent. The Captain, however, had a relieved look on his face. Releasing his grip on the console, he turned towards Catherine: "Trust our technicians and attendants. They’re all seasoned professionals and can complete their tasks without further direction. Surely the attendants are comforting the passengers, and the technicians must be busy preparing for the impact."

"Impact?" Vivian asked from the side. "Even with deceleration and weight-reduction measures, does that not completely negate the force of a crash?"

"Regrettably, it can’t negate it entirely," the captain shook his head. "But it’s not a significant problem. At worst, it will feel like falling from a height around ten meters. It will inflict serious damage on the bottom of the ship, but the people aboard won’t be in danger. Furthermore, it will be more straightforward to repair if the ship’s overall structure remains intact. Considering the circumstances, we should be grateful for this outcome."

"You really shouldn’t thank us," Catherine responded with a strained smile. "We didn’t help at all. In fact, you can even say that we’re largely to blame for the current situation."

"No," the captain disagreed, sounding much older now and looking resigned. "Even though I don’t fully understand what happened, I have a general idea, given that I was listening to your conversation. The Dried Corpse probably killed River, stole his appearance, and planned to hijack the ship. The only reason he didn’t act immediately was that he was wary of you. Honestly, this outcome was the best of a bad situation. It’s just a pity that River had to die. I’ve lost another friend."

"Instead of reminiscing, perhaps we should figure out where we’re going to land," Freya suggested, peering over the side of the ship. "I’m getting the impression that we’re going to end up in the sea. Can this vessel even navigate underwater? Also, if we end up on land, our hull is pointed, right? Will we tip over?"

"No, it’s not equipped for water travel; it will spring a leak if submerged. And there’s no need to worry about capsizing. The hull of a floating ship is flat. It was designed with crash-landing in mind, so as the body narrows towards the top but has a broad base, it can come to rest upright," the captain assured her. After wobbling to the side of the ship to judge their descent, he sighed, "We won’t end up in the sea. We will land on the beach, about two hundred meters or so inland. And with the even ground, there won’t be any issues. But... where are we?"

"Eh?" Freya cried in surprise. "You don’t know?"

"Ah, I understand now." After a closer examination of the surroundings, the captain sighed. "How did we end up here?"

"At least you recognised this place," Catherine sighed in relief, "This is a coastline, right?"

"This place... is... an... island." Pannis, who had been ignored and was bored to death, slumped down from the mast after just a minute of hanging there. Even though he was thirty meters or so away, he heard their conversation and called out loudly, "A very big island."

"Yes, he’s correct. This is indeed an island." The captain admitted, looking somewhat vexed. "This is my fault. I didn’t steer the floating ship after the battle in mid-air started, and it just flew all the way over here. This is Swordfish Island. It’s five kilometers off the coastline and five kilometers from the navigation hazard line. It is one of the larger islands that land creatures can easily reach."

"Aha, so this is where Swordfish Island is," Lina exclaimed, flipping through the pages of the Magical Beast Handbook published by the Guild. Her eyes sparkled. "Supposedly, there’s a type of magical beast that lives exclusively on this island, a leopard dolphin if I remember correctly. The picture looks intriguing. Let’s go find one when we land. I’m curious."

"I recommend against it," Pannis dissuaded, "Though this island has been explored before, its forest is the same type as those on the mainland, which doesn’t support human-built structures, making it uninhabitable for people. Because of that, the magical beasts in the forest here are no less numerous than those in the mainland forests. The majority of people onboard are just ordinary people, so it would be very dangerous for them. It’s best not to disembark after landing; we should just wait for rescue on the ship."

"Enough," Catherine suddenly cut in, "We’re about to land. Prepare for impact."

With a resounding ’boom,’ sand and dust scattered all around. The metal floating ship, despite having been decelerated for an emergency landfall, still threw up a cloud of dust when it made contact with the beach. Screams from the passengers in the cabins below could be heard even up on deck. As the captain had said, the floating ship held its ground and came to a stable stop on the sandy beach. (To be continued. If you like this story, please vote and give monthly tickets on qidian.com. Also, visit m.qidian.com for mobile reading. Your support is my greatest motivation.)