Agnisotra: Origin Tails

The storm came earlier than I expected. It was supposed to hit us early in the morning of day 3 but we got hit in the evening of day 2. I am all for scaring the humans but this time I tried to keep the ship as calm as possible and it was extremely exhausting. I can’t keep this up for the whole storm. The panic seemed to warm the humans up though. The Healerchick seemed to be casting something to keep everyone calm but it didn’t seem to be super effective.

“We’re all going to die!”

Well, I told you guys this was a floating coffin, do you all believe me now? This ship was too big and bulky and any attempt to prevent this ship from getting thrown off course was futile. I also had to strengthen the ship with frost magic because the waves were doing a number on the wood. This thing would sink the second I drop my frost magic. I’m already planning an assassination for the jerk who gave this ship an ok. I stopped trying because I was exhausted and the ship became like a rollercoaster ride. I got annoying comments but I ignored them. I can’t keep flushing idiots off the ship. I had hoped that those 2 from hours prior would make for good examples but apparently not.

“So, what is the plan Silver Torrent? You look exhausted, want one of my Wild snacks?” He pulled some beef jerky from his small pouch. Uhh thanks. There is not much we can do. I can’t stop this ship from becoming a circus attraction. I can only make sure we don’t capsize. I moved a large volume of water to prevent us from capsizing.

“I see, what happens if this wild storm keeps going on and you need to sleep?” Uhh, that is a very good question. The ice will stay but there will be nobody preventing us from capsizing. I thwarted another attempt of the ocean to tip us over. This ship sucks…

“Shit, I wish I had put in wild effort into water magic! I’m so stupid!” Don’t be so hard on yourself preventing ships from capsizing isn’t included in a normal and basic skillset… The exhaustion started to mount and I felt like I needed a nap. The ocean was as merciless as ever.

Hey Wild Fang, I really need a nap, can you get some strong guys and go below deck and move the weight around in the hold to prevent capsizing? Have someone on the deck call out for what you guys need to do. Another save. I stopped attempting to send the ship in the correct direction because the waves highly disagreed with our course.

“Ok, I will get these humans to form a wild anti-capsizing party!” Uhh good luck with that. My body had difficulty listening to my commands because of the exhaustion. I had been at this for hours now and it seems many more to come if I don’t rest. I started to hear complaints like

“Why do we have to do this?” and

“Can’t someone else do this?” Do these guys even want to live? It was getting close to midnight and I found a spot, tied myself to the mast and fell asleep.

I awoke because of a big drop. The floating coffin was still afloat. It had taken a lot of water on deck and the humans were trying to get it off the deck. A big wave approached. Someone shouted and the ship started to tilt toward the wave. A big crash, more water on deck and the ship tilted to the other side but didn’t capsize. It was 6 in the morning and everyone seemed exhausted. The storm didn’t seem like it would stop anytime soon. I jumped on deck, connected to the air leyline currents and [Flushed] all the water off. The waves seemed less violent than before. Fixing the course of the ship will alleviate our problem. I [Flushed] people off the circle but not off the ship and changed the course of the ship. I went down to tell the hard-working crew that they can sleep.

“Oh, thank god! We can finally rest!” Most of them just collapsed on the spot and instantly fell asleep. Wild Fang helped me tie the cargo back down and then he went to sleep too after a fist bump. I returned to deck and talked to Jeff. We were so far off course it wasn’t even funny. It would take almost an extra day now to get back to the island. Well, that is bad news. More bad news is that we seem to have ended up in dangerous territory. Full of sea monsters and the like. I looked at the floating snackbox we called a ship. We are screwed, aren’t we?

“I’d hate to admit bet we are yes… it will take us half a day to get to the safer area.” Jeff seemed to be keeping his head cool in this panic.

I really hope that this all is worth it… if these islanders are ungrateful, I feel like sinking the island.

“Haha, there is no way you can do that but I hope the reception is favorable yes, this trip has been nothing more than a nightmare.” Why can’t I ever have a normal adventure. Next time you need an adventure like this don’t invite me, there is a high chance nothing strange will happen. I might be cursed.

“I don’t think that’s true; we would’ve not even been able to leave the city without you and even if we did, we’d be quite dead.” I didn’t feel like explaining that everything around me turns into a clownfiesta. A normal life is an unrealistic dream for me. I sighed. I had been keeping an eye on it the whole time but the thing that I saw on the surface on day 1 had been following us the whole time. There was no need to interfere but I was getting worried now.

Our new ETA was on day 5, we just entered day 3 and shit had already hit the fan. 3 more days of this circus? Someone help me! Something answered. Unfortunately, it wasn’t help. People screamed as an enormous sea snake decided that we would be his next breakfast. It looked enormous; it might be mistaken for a no winged water dragon. I already got tired thinking about having to deal with this thing. Oh wait! Maybe I don’t need to do anything! The wannabe hero seemed to be preparing a huge skill. Gogogo become a real hero and allow me to slack! His bravery rallied some people to help him out.

“Shouldn’t you help too?” Shht this is their moment! Kill stealing is rude!

“What? I don’t understand? Isn’t it better if more people help?” Jeff was right but I felt like I had done enough, these guys can shine and make a name for themselves. They will forget about me and talk about how this brave hero singlehandedly saved this whole mission. Yeah, let’s go with that! I sat down next to a crewmate who seemed to be writing his will. Whatcha writing?

“A will, there is no way we get out of this alive!” He talked calmly but his hands were shivering and he was only writing gibberish on this magic paper because of it. Are you leaving assets behind and assigning them?

“No… I have no assets; I just want to tell my family and friends how I feel and what I think of them but my hands won’t stop shaking.” Hmm I might have to write one someday too can you tell more about it?

I listened to the sailor. The adventurers were putting up a fight in the meantime. And I’m being generous with this description. They managed to not get this ship sunk. After hearing the crewmates story, I decided to stop messing around and get this sea snake off our backs. Wild Fang had woken up and he is surfing around the sea snake and clawing at it but the scales of the sea snake protected it from any damage. I was wondering how this guy had so much energy.

He reminds me a bit of Raishin. He wasn’t stupid and he noticed that this didn’t work and he ran up the sea snake’s body and tried to go for the head I assume. Another bigger sea snake appeared and I saw many others under the surface. Did we disturb their nest? Wild Fang reached the head and clawed one eye out. The snake thrashed and threw him off. I connected to the air leylines and caught him with a [Waterball] and brought him back to the ship.

“That was wild! Thanks!” I am going to be serious, to some extent, are you in?

“Always! I might be able to claw my way through its eye into its skull and claw its brain out!” That sounds… messy but effective. We have to make sure this boat doesn’t sink though. I shifted my stance and used a floating snackbox sized [Ocean’s Wrath].

Go! But make sure to evade whatever I will send at the snakes! Wild Fang howled and went back to surfing. My [Oceans Wrath] caught any attack the sea snakes threw at the floating snackbox. The adventurers were useless so I didn’t count on them. The storm picked up but I couldn’t be bothered to keep the ship steady. The ocean got wilder and wilder and more and more sea snakes appeared. One went straight for us attempting to swallow us whole. I had to thwart his attempt by creating several frost pillars on the snackbox to make sure he couldn’t chomp us down. It surely gave the humans a scare. I hit both of its eyes with some of the swirling currents from [Ocean’s Wrath] and turned this hungry snake into a blind noodle. It kept thrashing and hissing spitting water everywhere.

You can look but you can’t touch! Wild fang seemed all bloodied but it didn’t seem to be his blood. He did exactly what he told me he would do. Claw through the sea snakes eyes all the way to its brain. It seemed he had already killed 2 sea snakes like this. This guy is insane and fearless. This guy deserves an A-rank. I will put in a good word for him if I have the chance and remember. I sent a shadow clone to him telling me that he should get ready to dodge as If his life depended on it.

But in fact, it did. I bundled all the currents swirling around me into one. I saw Wild Fang surf for his life. I sent the enormous blast of water at them and wiped out 8 of the 24 snakes. It blasted through them as if they were made out of paper. The other sea snakes didn’t like this though. Also, some other types of sea monsters started to appear interested in this floating snackbox. I created a series of [Steam cannons V2.0] and bombarded them with frost balls.

This is how a pirate is supposed to fight! With cannons! Hahaha! The humans looked at me as if I was insane. They might be right but I don’t care. Wild Fang used one frost ball as a baseball, he discovered after 1 try that touching the frostballs was a bad idea so he used his surfboard as a bat. Surfing, beach baseball is there anything this guy can’t do? There were too many sea monsters. Sticking to water leyline will probably take too long. I wanted to switch over to lightning but some sea monsters were charging up a beam. I swear someone needs to ban lasers! I made the [Steam cannons V2.0] shoot frostballs into their mouths. A success! Now time to zap them before they start getting serious with lasers. I have yet to find an appropriate counter to lasers.

I swapped myself with Wild Fang and started using [Accel step]. A few [Crimson Palms] here and there and I fried some sea monsters. Normally I would cut them up and stash them but I’ve had it with them. Wait, why don’t I just cut them up? Shirayuki would make quick work of them. I took out Shirayuki and cut the head of a sea snake. I kept using [accel step] and dashed over the stormy ocean imbuing Shirayuki with purple lightning. Many more sea monsters haven’t bothered surfacing yet.

How do I get them all? A concentrated lightning slash will get most of them or do I use [God of Thunder] and fry all of them? I cut up more sea monsters as I decided to get it over with and use [God of Thunder] I had no assistance from my tails, I had to do this with the [Accel Step] route. I used [High Voltage] in between the sword slashes to keep the damage rolling. The lightning around me crackled and turned red. This should be enough, right? I will become a hot topic if I go orange here. I started to concentrate the lightning around me. I sheathed Shirayuki, she can take a break. I kept dashing around luring all the sea monsters to one spot. The spot was above the nest of sea monsters chilling under the surface.

Hasta la vista noobs! I unleashed the red pillar of lightning. It reached all the way down to the sea monsters in the depths.

I used this opportunity to go back to the ship. I shoved the humans aside who were chilling in the circle.

I have had enough of this! I wrote the same rune 5 times.

Acla! Acla! Acla! Acla! Acla! The floating snackbox turned into a speedboat. I heard various comments but I ignored them. I had 0 tolerance for those who entered the circle unauthorized. I instantly [Flushed] them out of the circle and froze them to the mast for 20 minutes. The usual people were allowed. Jeff sent me on the right course. I kept accelerating this coffin and reduce the resistance the ship got met with by parting the water in front of the ship. It was extremely tiring but extremely fast. I kept it up for a day until I almost collapsed from exhaustion. The island was in sight. It would probably take 3 hours to get there. I told the humans to figure the rest out and I went to sleep.

I woke up 3 days later. It seemed we were on our way back on a normal ship.

Wild Fang told me that the inhabitants already had more than enough and that the person who requested the mission kept insisting on sending them aid. The inhabitants gladly accepted the supplies still. This of course made the whole crew and the adventurers upset but luckily nobody was immature enough to take it out on the inhabitants. They would all take this up on whoever organized this mission. What a clown show. I’m glad I was asleep for that. At least nobody of importance died.

I tried to avoid most of these people because they all wanted to talk to me and thank me. I didn’t do this for thanks I was just tired of this clownfiesta. We arrived safely at Gavin without incident and everyone put up a complaint. The Adventurer’s Association said that there was nothing they could do about that.

I agreed, but I can! Call me petty or a villain but this mission was doomed to fail from the start, we literally got sent out in a coffin so I will just return the favor. It was extremely easy to find out who put up the request since he wanted it to be known that he helped the island. I snuck into his mansion and I put the chefs under an illusion. I opened a jar and emptied my secret weapon into the sauce. I undid the illusion and observed how this jerk got his food served. He took a bite and instantly reacted.

“Aaagh! Who! Who put this much mustard in my sauce! I will have his head!” He trashed like a spoiled toddler. It was fun to watch him squirm. I opened a vial. I took out a drop before the smell could spread. I aimed and flicked the droplet at his forehead. I licked my finger and enjoyed the smell of fresh rain.

The jerk turned into dust 45 seconds later and I returned to my room. I left the city early in the morning. I did say goodbye to Wild Fang first who was also leaving. He had recorded everything and needed to show it to his friends. I totally forgot that he was recording. I hope that my malicious compliance won’t cause me too much trouble. Maybe I could use a stain on my reputation, I hardly do anything and people think highly of me if they would see me as just another jerk with a name that might change. I hope that will happen. I decided to take up more missions but simpler ones. I felt like I had to stay low for a bit.