[Voidknight Ascension] Chapter 252 – Stowaway

Sam thought that the lurching, disorienting sensation of being thrust back into the flow of time last time was bad. This was on an entirely different level.

The large man slammed into the hard wooden floor as salt water rushed and flowed over him. Hail and stinging rain pelted his exposed skin.

Throughout it all, he kept a tight hold on Komachi. He kept her tucked up into a ball to protect her from the jolting sensations that rolled through Sam’s body in waves of agony.

Komachi was the first to recover. Perhaps the time shift didn’t bother her as much or she was simply more at home with changing realities.

Sam was beginning to believe it was the latter.

“Woah, where are we now?” she asked, excited as ever.

“Man overboard!” a hoarse voice shouted above the roaring thunder of waves nearby.

As Sam came to, he found there was little time to indulge his nausea and disorientation. He immediately understood where he was and the danger that it presented.

The ship he was on lurched and pitched violently, caught in a squall of monstrous proportions. Walls of water the size of mountains rolled up in front of them, and the ship pitched back as it climbed.

“That’s some very madge water!” Komachi cried.

Unable to gain his footing fast enough, Sam was sent rolling across the deck, taking his cat with him. The beginning of a muted [Regen Paeon] was cut short. He slammed against the rear of the ship and only managed to leap aside at the last minute before a large barrel of wood careened across the deck toward him.

It shattered into what Sam first thought was a monster. Some sort of jellyfish creature with swaying draped skin.

As the haze of confusion and disorientation cleared thanks to his surging adrenaline, Sam understood the truth.

It was a child covered in sodden silks.

Judging by the fear in his eyes and the way he swayed on his feet, Sam guessed him to be a stowaway. What sailors he could see in the chaos were too busy to notice. They struggled to keep the ship afloat against the plunging waves.

Before he could think to ask the boy any questions, several crates snapped free of their lines and slid across the deck. Sam rushed the boy, who had been rooted in place by Sam’s appearance and his own discovery.

Tucking him up under one arm with Komachi under the other, Sam pounded across the deck and out of the way of shattering crates and broken pots. Detritus littered the ground everywhere he looked. Men and women were sprawled across the deck.

The few that were upright were listening to the barking orders of a salty sea dog of a captain that joined in to tie off lines and get the sails furled. Already several pieces of the masts were showing signs of splintering or cracking. One of the three large masts, the middle-most of them, was nothing more than a shattered stump.

“Komachi, can you help get them up?” Sam asked. He found a grate in the floor and without bothering to ask the kid a single question, kicked open the hatch and dropped him down inside.

From Sam’s estimation, the hold below was the safest place for the boy. He could see nothing sliding around down there.

The child would be too much of a liability on the deck and Sam realized that he was going to have his hands full helping with the ship. He couldn’t babysit a kid.

Komachi looked around, squirming to get a proper sight line over his armor. “Gimme some room, Sam.”

He reluctantly loosened his grip on Komachi. She got into playing [Regen Paeon] that filtered glowing healing notes out and across the ship’s deck.

At first, he could barely hear it over the waves. Then, as more of those miniature instruments began to play all over her fur, the volume picked up, boosting the healing effect.

The dancing silvery white notes gathered on the injured people, converging on their wounds.

Sam rushed about the deck, hauling people away from the sliding cargo that would have crushed the life out of them.

He unceremoniously chucked one after the other down into the hold when Komachi deemed them stable enough to survive.

As much as he wanted to drop Komachi down there too so she would be safe, he didn’t. She was his lifeline in more ways than one, and he would not wish to be separated from her.

There was no telling how she would react. A panicked healer in this mess wasn’t good for anyone.

It was a testament to how savage the storm was that most of the crew hardly noticed the burly armor-clad man stomping up and down the deck, saving people from being crushed alive or pitched overboard.

Sam lurched out with a hand and grasped the sodden pant leg of a woman who had been launched over the railing. He couldn’t afford to be gentle. She let out a scream when he slammed her onto the deck with the force of his grab.

He tried to hold out his hands to tell her he was just trying to help when she kicked up with her foot right between his legs.

Sam thanked his armor multiple times that night because that groin kick wouldn’t be the last he suffered while trying to save the frantic crewmen who mistook him for an enemy.

A few bruised or broken bones were a small price to pay for being alive in Sam’s book. And thankfully, his armor continued to hold against the assaults.

“If ya keep kicking Sam’s junk, I’m not gonna keep healin’ those feets!” Komachi shouted over the storm.

Men and women too tired from the assault sagged against the ropes. They pulled sluggishly as the rain and ice pelted them, making their hands slippery.

Seawater flooded over the deck and rolled out the other side. If not for Sam, it would have washed out more than the cargo.

Low on MP, Komachi took a break from casting healing magic.

Seeing most of the crew upright or safely in the hold, Sam took to following the captain’s orders. The man cast him a strange look but didn’t bother to look a gift horse in the mouth.

He clearly needed all the help he could get.

“Pull for all yer worth!” the captain cried.

One of the forward sails was too full of the gusting wind to be furled properly. Try as the crew might, the ropes would not heed their command.

Sam stepped up and gently–but firmly–brushed aside three men hauling ineffectively on the rope. He set his stance wide and gripped the rope with both hands. Sam heaved with all of his might.

The rope began to fray, but Sam didn’t stop.

Even above the roar of crashing waves and the peals of thunder that shook the deck, he could hear the cracking of the wooden mast as he hauled on the rope. Even if they had access to repair powder, it would be useless in their present circumstance. The powder would be swept away by the storm.

The pulleys groaned but held against his monumental force. Inch by inch, Sam furled the sail though it felt like he was trying to pull the entire ocean with that single rope.

Grunting and cursing under his breath, Sam’s progress became easier as less of the sail was filled with wind. He handed the rope back to the gawking crewmembers. “Might want to tie this off.”

Sam had no idea how to do any knot more complicated than the “bunny ears” he learned to tie his shoes.

With the sails under control, the ship still had to weather the torrential squall that threatened to capsize them at any moment.

Perhaps it was his ascension to Tin, but now that he wasn’t scrambling about, Sam could feel the thick water and wind mana throughout the air.

A flash of elemental crystals scattered across the deck, shining with blue and green mana. The majority of them disappeared into the sea as quickly as they appeared.

The ship pitched violently as it reared up and finally crested the towering mountain of a wave.

“Brace!” the captain cried, and every crewman found a line or hold to grab onto. Sam was unfamiliar with rollercoasters let alone the colossal scale of the sea he was currently riding, and as the ship went down, Sam stayed where he was.

For a moment, he floated in the air as the ship careened down the back side of the wave.

It didn’t take a genius to see how this was about to go from bad to worse.

Sam used [Quickfall] to drop himself to the deck of the ship. He lunged out and wrapped his arms across the base of the shattered mast. He screamed with the rest of the crew as they careened into the deep trough between two waves the size of skyscrapers.

Even Komachi’s pitched howl was drowned out by the waves.

The ship lurched and groaned. Above the din, Sam could hear the captain say that the ship couldn’t take much more.

With the ship making its slow ascent up another wave that seemed to touch the black sky, Sam wondered if he had finally met his match.

The captain came up to Sam, his blue greatcoat soaked through and a stern gleam in his amber eyes. “I don’t know where yer from, mister, but ye best be gettin’ belowdecks. This storm ain’t spent herself yet!”

“Is there no way to brace the ship?” Sam asked.

He had already thought of using [Void: Surge] but it wasn’t a barrier. He couldn’t sustain it around himself for very long. A ship would be an impossible task even with his enhanced aura control.

The captain pointed to the stern of the ship where the man Sam had scooped off the rail a few minutes ago was wildly waving his arms around. The man dropped to the deck, then got up again to start all over.

Sam recognized the problem immediately.

“Thestren–” the captain began, but Sam was already turning away.

He pounded up the broken steps to the rear of the ship, where the mage was clearly in the throes of spellcasting despite the listing and tilting of the deck below his slippered feet.

In one smooth motion, Sam unsheathed his greatsword and drove it down into the deck boards. Kneeling beside his sword, he put his gauntleted hand on the deck and cast [Void: Smother] targeting the thick water mana in the area.

The boards dried up immediately and repelled the water in a circular area around Sam and the mage.

Sam had to give some credit to the mage because the man never blinked or batted an eye at Sam’s actions. He reached forward with one hand and steadied himself using the hilt of Sam’s blade and the dry deck beneath his feet.

A flare of power unlike anything Sam had ever seen before fountained out of the mage’s outstretched hand. A hexagonal barrier of shimmering white light rolled out like an egg to encase the entirety of the ship.

In an instant, the rolling and rocking of the ship stilled as if it were sitting on calm seas.

The storm raged all around the ship, but the barrier kept most of it off. They punched through the waves without ever bothering to ride them to their peaks.

“Dang, that’s amazing magic!” Komachi said, looking everywhere at once.

Though fatigue rimmed the eyes of the mage, he kept the spell going until the squall was just a black wall of watery death behind them. With a gracious nod at Sam for his aid, he collapsed to the deck, completely spent.

Sam motioned for Komachi to check on him and stood up. He pulled free his sword and sheathed it just in time for the crew to climb the steps and notice the scene before them.

Despite all the aid he had given, Sam was hardly surprised to see several of them draw weapons as they took in the rather unfortunate scene.