We exited our cabin and immediately got to see people rushing about, most of them in the same direction, so we just decided to follow them instead of directly looking for the [Captain].

We kept to one side of the corridors so that we didn’t hinder the flow of personnel, and soon enough we were on the deck, where the problem became apparent.

The [Lesser Garudas] were back, more numerous than before.

I looked at the flying slightly anthropomorphic green eagles, and I was happy to see that both them and their attacks never managed to make the ship’s [Barrier] shudder in the slightest. A far cry from the sabotaged one that couldn’t hold back even a couple of them.

Oh, yeah, because there is a lot more than a ‘couple’, possibly in the hundreds.

The sky was blotted by green eagles with muscular wings and red underbellies, yellow talons tipping both legs and wings, the same color of their wide and sharp beak.

Together with them was a number of other avian creatures, mostly [Beasts], but there were some [Monsters] mixed in with them, although only those known for not being particularly aggressive towards other beings. Which made the situation have even less sense, since they were all coordinating in an attempt to bring us down.

And that’s where all the man-power was being redirected: Below deck, they were manning the cannons and control for the defense, while here above they were manually reinforcing the [Barriers] with their [Spells] and attacking with smaller projectiles of their own, with everything between other [Spells] and arrows.

I turned to my companions, “While the [Barrier] and the crew look like they have things handled, the situation makes me think that there’s something deeper afoot here”.

“While loathe to admit it- wait a second, there!- this trip looks like it’ll have to take a detour for no fault of our own”, Sheeno said with a frown, taking a moment mid-sentence to throw an [Ice Spear] to a particularly persistent bird.

With a small sound of acknowledgment, I summoned a bunch of [Turrets] and [Trappers] to help with the defenses; and while I wanted to help with some [Totems] too, I doubt the crew would have appreciated their poles punching into the hull of the ship.

“Then it’s best that we find Rober and tell him that we’re ok with landing, at least until this situation is resolved”, Undine agreed with us.

“I keep forgetting the [Captain]’s name, and I don’t know how since he has a name that gets him to growl on both ends whenever he has to say it.” Not to mention the fact that he looks and sounds like a pirate and the name is literally one letter away from being ‘robber’

My comment was met with blank looks and shaken heads.

We go back down without another word, screeches and the sound of flying projectiles, mixed in with random explosions, fading behind us.

Sheeno knew the way better than I did, while for Undine it was her first time aboard this particular vessel, so she ended up taking the lead and we soon found ourselves in front of the command cabin, but two nervous guard-looking Nymphs barred our way in.

“Restricted access, authorized personnel only”, one of them explained with an apologetic look, with his colleague signaling his agreement with a jerky nod.

“These guys must be part of the new hires that the [Captain] spoke about.”

My mate raised an eyebrow at their action, but she wasn’t about to reprimand someone for doing their job; so, she took out her [Guild Card], sent some mana in, supposedly to send a message to someone, and then just waited.

Only a few seconds later the [Captain] opened the door in a hurry, and quickly welcomed us in.

“Miss Fyrratta! Please, come in. And you two, while I appreciate your professionalism, we don’t just stop the Fyrratta on this ship.” That last part was meant mostly for the guards, who started sweating a bit at his annoyed tone, but I’m sure that he said it so plainly to show that he was still loyal to Sheeno’s family.

“Never mind that; as you said, they were just doing their job as professionally as they could. We’re here because we think we need to talk”, Even as she was stepping in, she was quick to assuage any worry that she had taken offense to what had happened.

If the deck had been a flurry of activity, the control room was a tornado. Even those sitting still had a look of grim determination, while their hands moved in a blur to the panels around them. But most were rushing to and from buttons, levers, valves, displays, and what I could only describe as a random mixture of LED lights and canisters with colorful smokes inside, most things blinking with both magical and mundane lights of different colors.

A very steam-punky look, which I found both pleasing to look at and maddening complicated to work with. Thankfully, we wouldn’t have to touch any of it.

“Sorrrry forr the mess, but we’rre having some slight prroblems, although I must thank you forr helping with the situation above”, he took the time to dry his brow with a handkerchief, obviously both nervous and upset about the situation.

“It’s the least we could do: We’re aboard the ship, and we need it as much as you do, after all”, Undine reassured the man, putting him slightly more at ease.

“Still, this old man has some mannerrs, so I will thank you anyway. Now, how can I help you? You said that we had something to talk about?”

By the way he said that it made me realize that Sheeno had once again started the discussion with those dreaded words that she was so fond of using, and the fellow man got appropriately spooked when he heard them used against him.

“We discussed it among ourselves, and we thought that it would be best to land the ship, at least until this bizarre flock flies past us, and we were worried that you didn’t already do so in consideration for our wishes for rushing to our destination”, my mate looked at us for confirmation, and we both agreed with what she was saying.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

It was true that we had to be speedy about our travels, but it didn’t matter if we ended up being overwhelmed by the first unexpected complication we met on our way. I’m sure we could deal with a little delay.

“I’m sorrry to say this, but we alrready considerred landing, even though it would have been against yourr orrders, but we quickly discarrded the idea”, the [Captain] looked almost apologetic that he had considered the option.

“I won’t reprimand you for being smart, Roger: My mother hired you because you had something useful between your ears, not because you followed every order unquestioningly. But what would make you decide against it, then?” Sheeno asked a good question, because, according to [Unavoidable Detection], the problems were above and around us, not below.

“Simple, rreally: Beforre descending we did a scan of the grround, and ourr devices quickly picked up the signal of a [Dungeon Brreak] not too farr frrom herre. If I werre a betting man I’d bet that that’s the rreason why all these [Beasts] have flocked togetherr”, I was proven wrong when it was revealed that my [Detection] had an effective range inferior to the tools on the ship.

A [Dungeon Break]: A catch-all term that’s used whenever a [Dungeon] overflows with [Mana], and the [Monsters] and within manage to get out of its bounds, which is unfortunately quickly followed by [Demons] also making their way through.

Interesting… and definitely not a coincidence what we just so happened to fly over an undocumented [Dungeon], that just so happened to [Break].

But while I was mentally shaking my fist at the sky, the discussion for what to be done went ahead unhindered.

“A [Dungeon Break]… while unexpected, this could be an opportunity for us”, Sheeno started explaining while holding her chin

“I know”, I responded, but except for a light twitch on my companions’ faces, I didn’t get any sign of acknowledgment.

“How so?” Undine asked innocently, seemingly uncaring of my baffled look.

“We’re going where this will be a frequent event, so a fresh one could work as a sort of ‘test run’ for us, to not even consider the fact that this needs to be closed, and it will let us test our improved powers after the last bout of [Level Ups]”, Sheeno kept explaining, and now even the [Captain] was hesitantly nodding along.

“I know”, I said again and then sighed, seeing where this was going and that I would be ignored again, for some reason.

“I suppose that you would have us find someplace to land, wherre we’ll be waiting forr you all to come back to us?” The bearded Nymph asked the pale [Heliokan] with a frown, and she smiled back.

“Good man. I hope it won’t be too difficult to achieve?” My mate asked.

The [Captain] huffed in displeasure, “Who do you take me forr? Of courrse, I can land me ship in enemy waterrs-

“But there’s only dry-oof”, my pedantic statement was brought short by a sudden elbow to the chest.

“-and I’m surre that could hold off any annoyance that might be looking forr trrouble forr a couple hourrs strraight, without prroblems.”

While everybody seemed concentrated on the ‘how’, I was still trying to figure out the ‘why’ we were doing this: For all intents and purposes, it was an unnecessary risk.

Yes, an uncontrolled [Dungeon Break] could be troublesome so far from the [Army]… but we could just report it, and it would be what was expected of us.

Yes, clearing one ourselves should be feasible… but why take the risk when we had yet to accomplish our mission?

All questions that I would have to save for later because I can’t be seen questioning Sheeno’s authority in public, even though she had technically made the [Party Leader].

“Good. Then we’ll move back to the deck and help with the defense, at least until we get low enough to jump down safely”, my amazon nodded at the [Captain] and gestured at us to follow her out.

“Underrstood!” The Nymph responded by bringing a fist to his chest.

I didn’t intend to fight them here, so I followed quietly along, but something must have tripped them off because Undine pulled me gently toward her. At the same time, Sheeno used her [Artifact] that created a bubble of privacy, fortunately, one that moved with the tiny pyramid in her hand, so we didn’t need to stop or anything.

“Is someone going to explain why I got vetoed and ignored without even discussing it?”

“Darwin, you know I love you, right?” My mate surprised me a little by how she answered my question with another, unexpected one.

“Humm… yes? And I love you too?” Caught flatfooted, I ended up responding a bit awkwardly.

“And I personally find your capacity for ignoring rank and societal disparity, and the way you treat [True Gods] just like regular people, quite endearing”, Sheeno smoothly moved past my gaff.

“A quality that I also appreciate on a personal level”, Undine briefly piped in. And who could blame her: She definitely appreciates the fact that I never looked at her differently because of her status, but Sheeno had emotionally charged the discussion to a level that forced her into the background.

“Ok… where is this going?” I was starting to get worried now.

“This is going towards the fact that most people will not react too positively when you very clearly go against the [Will of the Gods]”, she finally dropped the Chekhovian bomb.

“What?” I mean, it made sense, but… what!?

“Come on now, you can’t tell me that it isn’t obviously too coincidental that a [Dungeon Break] just so happened to be between us and our main objective, right?” Sheeno put on her best ‘really?’ face, and yeah, it was pretty obvious.

“Even a common man, who doesn’t know just how much you tend to get mixed up in these types of things, will be able to connect the dots and figure out that there was a [Divine] hand involved”, Undine hammered the last Chekhovian nail in the Chekhovian coffin.

Hoping that my sudden need to put ‘Chekhovian’ in front of everything wasn’t a smoking gun of its own, I got to thinking.

Shocking.

“Shut up.”

I could not remember any instance of this coming out in front of ‘normal people… for however ‘normal’ people could be in a world where [Magic] was the norm. Even in front of Cherry or the granny twins it only was mentioned in passing, and every time it was more of a background thing than an active part of the moment.

And yeah, I’m not stupid enough to believe that everyone will accept me blasphemously and casually chatting with my [True God Patron], like we were just friends, part of the same book club.

“Ok… I think I’m starting to understand why you did what you did…” Was my response once I was done with my musing.

“Have you?” my girlfriend asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Probably not fully, but at least it’s better than nothing”

Sheeno coughed out a laugh at that, while Undine helplessly shrugged at my lack of concern, a small smile on both of their faces.

After that the privacy screen was dropped, and thankfully even having it on didn’t hinder us in helping the crew defend the ship; because even while talking and thinking, we had been assisting with attack and defense both one we got back out.

I was glad to see that most of my [[Turrets] were fine, though a couple had been destroyed, angry scratches on the hull as the only sign that they had been there, and unfortunately most [Trappers] had been taken care of by the [Beasts], which did not take kindly to having their territory encroached by the cubic flier.

Another few minutes of holding birds and whatnot at bay later, and I finally felt the [Dungeon] getting within my perception range. Soon after, I even got to see it, and at that point even the most persistent [Beast] decided to leave us well alone, fleeing the nasty [Aura] coming off it.

“Is that giant pit where we’re supposed to be going?” I asked, pointing with my still broken staff towards the pitch-black hole in the ground.

It was so black that I was convinced there had to be some kind of black mana just stopping light from shining into it.

Probably [Void].

“So it would seem”, was the growled-out response I got

“Gals, I’m having second thoughts about this”.