The señorita is still useless, and my husband will probably do nothing against the floating fortress, and so it is now my personal mission to bring señorita’s end-of-the-year fiesta packs to the deck.

First, I’m going to need help.

I gun down another group of Flamecrest Sloths. Quickly, I step back, narrowly avoiding the Flamecrest Drop Bear. How cheeky. Please die and be full of lead.

Maybe I should carry around a handgun more often? I do not have to worry about exploding myself in tight quarters with these. Very convenient.

The technician that’s fallen to the floor behind me gets up with tears in his eyes.

“Thank you!”

“If you have time to say gracias, come and follow me.”

“O-of course.”

In this way, I recruit more helping hands. I even bump into a familiar face.

“¡Capitana Sue!”

“Aye? Missy Sophia?”

I explain my mission to her, and she agrees to help me reach the fiesta production room. It also seems that the pirate boy and our special guest is missing, and so she must search for them.

By the time I reach the fiesta production room, I have a following of fifteen crew—various magitechnicians, expeditionary soldiers, and the ship’s own marines together with their leader, Capitana Sue.

They are all very helpful in dispatching demons. Thank God that I do not have to consume more gauge blocks.

I knock on the door and call out, “This is Sophia, assistant to Señorita Colada! Is anyone inside! I have brought help!”

There is some scrambling inside, and the mechanisms of the door unlatch, and it swings free. Unexpectedly, Capitana Sue pushes past me and straight through the door.

“Andy boy! Yer alive!”

Capitana Sue had ruffled the boy’s hair. Behind him, our elf guest is standing together with several of the mages responsible for producing the fiesta packs.

I make my way to one of them. “My husband is on-deck, manually firing the cannons. We need to bring the big fiesta shells upstairs! Now! Ahora, ahora! Or else we won’t deal any damage and even my husband will be useless!”

They all had dark circles under their eyes, but they nod. How understanding of them—or they are actually pushovers? Señorita, what kind of division are you leading?

***

We’ve placed all of the fiesta packs on a cart, and we’re now heading up to the flight deck.

Ah, great, there’s a hole in the deck. I think I can see the wyvern nests below.

We have left the boy and the elf guest below so that—wait, why is the boy hiding in the pile of high-yield fiesta packs!

“What are you doing here?!”

Ahhh Dios mio, if you were my child, I would be chasing you down while dual-wielding chanclas right now.

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I push him off to Capitana Sue, who has taken to chewing him out in my place.

The ship is struck by lightning, and we all float for a while before falling back down—ah, ha? De puta! “The fiesta packs are rolling off!”

Qué mierda and fuck my life. We’ve thrown ourselves around the deck like baseball players just to catch the high-yield fiesta packs, at some point dangling perilously close to the edge.

Anyway, we solve the post-lightning floating problem with duct tape. Actually, we solve the floating problem entirely with duct tape. It’s slightly uncomfortable, but it is okay.

We start off carting around high-yield fiesta packs to the artillery crews.

“Anton! Use this!”

“Huh? Sophia—huh?! Don’t throw it around like that!”

I refuse to listen to my idiot husband’s sensible complaint. Obviously, if I don’t throw it irresponsibly like a drive-by resupply train, I will not be able to reach the next cannon before the enemy’s lightning hits the ship once more.

Halfway to the next cannon, the bright lights of chaos-amplified magic explosions rival the dragons’ attacks on the fortress. The dragons themselves are making strange remarks about it.

“Hol’eeh sh-ee-ite! They been packin’ heat all along?!”

“I- I can do that too!” says another, firing a laser.

The size of their ego… They have nothing they need to compensate for, and yet, it’s that big.

Maybe because of our added high-yield fiesta packs, the outer layer of the floating fortress’s shields breaks with a loud scream that rattles the soul.

Soul-rattling it may be, it has only emboldened us.

Well, maybe we were too hasty.

A bright beam converges and shoots into the hull of the ship, and out the other side. It’s not such a big beam that it breaks the ship, but we’re shaken, and several of us fall to the ground.

It seems we’ve drawn its anger.

Several other beams shoot towards us. One of them hits the cannon just across from Anton’s, obliterating its crew. The others lance the hull of the ship. I cannot imagine that the fire suppression crews are happy about it.

Ah. Señorita. How I wish I could escape this responsibility with you, too.

Ha, the sight of men being vaporized—how familiar.

The ship is listing by a great degree. Anyone who hasn’t used duct tape nor cast some kind of magic is sliding off the edge to their deaths.

… is that the pirate boy? Why is he sliding—HA, HE’S SLIDING?

“¡Hijo! Grab my hand!”

I- I caught him. He’s not crying at all. How brave. I have managed to duct tape myself to the deck of the ship, so we should be both okay.

Another blue bolt crackles across the ship. The lightning attacks still aren’t letting up…

“Where are the pendejos who are supposed to be using the grey cannon!” I don’t know what it’s called, but there are only two grey cannons here, and one looks unusable.

I make eye contact with the working grey cannon’s crew, just downslope of this listing ship. As if encouraged by a commissar, they work their bones to reload and fire high-yield fiesta packs at the greatest possible speed.

Surely, I’m not that scary, am I? My husband loves me, after all.

Normally, the ship’s mechanisms handle loading and firing the grey cannon’s shells. At the moment, there are two men wielding magic screwdrivers, unscrewing and replacing the same panel each time they reload the cannon. Good! Work hard if you are a man!

Industrious as they are, however, they are scoring useless hits against the fortress. It is clear that they are trying to knock out the lightning cannon, but they are useless shots that make big explosions but leave no real impact.

Another lightning bolt shudders the ship, and there is the floating sensation again. The boy—has left my fingers.

I see him floating up.

And then slamming back down.

He is knocked about, and he is sliding. I’m… too far to save him.

“Gotchya!”

One of the magitechnicians manning the grey cannon catches him and straps him onto the operator’s seat. Coincidentally, the former operator is still trying to climb up his rope. It seems he was blown over the edge by the previous attack, but they all have safety lines, so he should be fine.

… Ha, the boy’s operating the targeting console. “You useless men! Don’t let the boy use the cannon!—”

My words are cut off by the cannon’s boom. Instinctively, I turn my head towards the intended target site. I expected a lightning strike to answer us in return, but… there’s no reply.

He hit it.

The boy actually hit it.

The ship shudders, and for a moment, I think that we were being attacked again. Instead, we start leveling, and I could tear off the duct tape I had been using to securely plaster myself to the deck. Perhaps the engines had restarted? It doesn’t sound like it, but maybe the ship is using more magic.

We’ve also managed to exit the range of the fortress’s weapons, I think. Those weapons are still roaring, but it’s now just between it and the dragons.

With this… my responsibilities should be done. I’m going on leave. I must get to my husband, and then I will have the señorita raise my wage. I will argue that I am not only assisting in her responsibilities, but also her irresponsibilities.

… was what I was thinking, just as black shadows crashed into the deck.