Risou no Himo Seikatsu Vol 5 Prologue

Prologue: The Sign of a Ship at the Seaport

Valentia had the biggest harbour in the Carpa Kingdom.

And this extended to Aura as well, the current Queen.

After all, Valentia was the largest commercial harbour in the Kingdom as well as an important source area for salt. Depending on the season, it sometimes had an even greater circulation of people, goods and money than the royal capital.

Having said this, Aura actually had no one to appoint, even if she wanted to, since all members of the royal family besides her died in the previous war.

Normally the governors of detached lands used their appointments to illegally amass a fortune and build a private army and nothing else, but the Carpa Kingdom was relatively free from that worry.

As such, the governor would naturally hesitate to do anything illegal under these circumstances, in which a trusted retainer of the Queen could suddenly drop by at any moment.

In Valentia the majority of money and manpower was obviously expended to the harbour.

Moreover, the water was so deep that even the big ships from the North Continent with a very large draft could moor with no problems whatsoever.

Thanks to that, not a single harboured ship had capsized in the dock of Valentia in the last decades, not even during the typhoons of the rain season.

It was a columnar building, looking like a candle, with an height that would pass into oblivion amongst the buildings of a modern metropolis, but overwhelmed here, since there was nothing on par with it.

All of them were beautifully built from stone to such an extent that anyone, who saw the spent budget and manpower, would feel giddy. It was not for nothing that it was the biggest harbour in the western part of the South Continent.

Accompanied by a cleared up blue sky and a pleasant sea breeze, a great deal of sailors and dockworkers were shouting and running around sedulous in the harbour.

“Hey, are these really the barrels with the dried meat? They’re rather light.”

One wrong step in this buzzy atmosphere could lead to a quarrel and soldiers armed with short spears were mediating in loud voices.

And on a closer look, it became apparent that the spearheads of their equipped spears were not reflecting the dazzling sunlight at all. Most likely, the spears utilized sharpened dragon bones instead of iron.

Roughly speaking, it was a specific equipment for coast areas in a way.

On sale at the merchants of the capital quite recently, that wooden gadget was quite valuable in the harbour, where large amounts of goods had to be moved around on a daily basis. The ground had to be at least somewhat even to use the handcart, which only had small wooden wheels, but fortunately enough, Port Valentia fulfilled that requirement completely.

In fact, its usefulness was painfully obvious once you used it. The majority of dockworkers worked up a good sweat by shouldering wooden crates or hemp bags. In contrast, the dockworkers with a handcart easily pushed a multiple of that weight, so its utility was beyond question.

Therefore it was probably inevitable that it was someone pushing a handcart noticed a certain something first.

The young dockworker looked beyond the horizon and stopped in his track.

Behind him, a middle-aged worker carrying a largo cargo over his shoulders called out to him, whereon the young dockworker started walking again while replying to the man walking behind him.

“Huh? An unfamiliar ship?”

Unfortunately however, he only saw the wide open sea like always.

“No, it’s there. It was just a mast appearing above the horizon, though.”

“Oh right, you’ve good eyesight.”

“Oho, I see. Then it’s probably a large sailing boat from the North Continent.”

“Yeah. Whether fore-and-aft sail or square sail, the sailing ships here only have one mast. But you see, the North Continent has large ships with three masts.”

With his eyesight however, he could barely make a small dot out in the distant sea.

“Can you tell?”

“FOUR!? Are you sure!?”

“Yes, I am. It definitely has four masts.”

“Here, take this!”

“Hey! Don’t do that! The wheels will crack when it’s overloaded! Do you know how many days I’ll have to work for free if the cart breaks?”

“Dun have time for this! I’ve gotta report this to the governor! If it breaks, you can blame it all on me!”

“Just to be on the safe side. Later!”

He passed through the crowded pier in no time while repeatedly saying “Please let me through!”.

Who could blame him? Unaware of the circumstances, it only appeared to him as if the middle-aged man had abandoned his work in a grand fashion.

The shipbuilding was kind of inferior on the South Continent, so small ships with one mast were the norm.

On this basis, it was easy to imagine how significant a ship with one more mast, namely four, was. It was truly the cream of the crop and a state property that was not available to the private sector. Moreover, even on the North Continent, the only countries that could build and maintain these ships were major powers with a development above average.

At the same time, that meant that a key figure of a major power on the North Continent had come over.

The official name of the four-master that had shown up in Valentia was “Yellow Leaves”.

Standing on the deck of that large ship, Freya Uppsala seemed moved as well as relieved when saw land again at last after approximately one hundred and twenty days at sea.

“Yes, Milady. It is a magnificent harbour. Our ship will be able to dock there without problems.”

The girl named Freya Uppsala had her silver-blue hair cut short around her neck and kept her eyes on the port of Valentia before her while she replied to the tall female soldier standing behind her at an angle.

The tall female soldier known as Skathi showed a soft smile and bowed a bit.

Her straight hair had a silver-blue colour, her ice-blue eyes tended to give off a cold impression and her skin was unrealistically white.

But right now, Princess Freya was wearing men’s clothing, which were kind of gorgeous, but prioritized functionality above anything else, and her beautiful hair, which originally had extended to her waist, had been cut drastically around her neck.

According to the traditional practice, the people of the Uppsala Kingdom also known as svenskar regarded their ships as women. Becoming a captain could therefore be compared with marriage, which made it necessary that the captain was a man. Consequently, a woman always had to “cross-dress” on top of the ship if she wanted to be its captain.

For that reason, Princess Freya simply was a “beautiful girl in men‘s clothes” right now.

When Princess Freya turned around, she called out to her trusted retainer standing behind her.

“Yes. Judging by the distance we travelled today and the star constellation last night, we most likely arrived in the Carpa Kingdom.”

Princess Freya inclined her small head puzzled, searching her mind for it.

Having said this, Princess Freya had become the captain of this ship of her own accord and was more knowledgeable about the South Continent than the average person from the North Continent.

Having recalled the matching memory from the back of her mind, Princess Freya discerned that, whereupon the tall female soldier consented with a brief nod.

The “Sea Codex” was the conception that those living on the sea supported each other.

After all, the seamanship in this world was hopelessly inferior compared to modern Earth. They technically devised a course before departing, but it was exceptionally unlikely that they travelled according to plan.

Due to that, the most important thing was to be allowed into port during an emergency.

“It seems like I will be able to grant my crew a long-awaited shore leave then. They definitely earned it, since I have put them through a lot.”

“Yes, indeed. However, Captain, please apply the same attention to yourself, too. If I may say so, your stamina rather ranks at the bottom end from all our crewmembers.”

“That goes without saying. The ship would be done for if something were to happen to its captain.”

The shipbuilding on the North Continent was around the same level as the one on Earth during the Middle Ages, but varied on two points: It had an advantage over Earth, but also a disadvantage.

Especially the “Drinking Water Treatment” magic revolutionized the sea travel.

In this world however, drinking water could be obtained by treating salt water with magic, so they were truly worlds apart from each other in regards to water matters.

Considering that fact, it became clear that the female soldier wasn’t joking or anything when she said that the ship would be done for if something were to happen to the captain.

If something were to happen to herself, the whole crew would die of thirst before long. Princess Freya properly acknowledged that heavy responsibility, so she had paid heed to the warning of the veteran sailors and female soldier, and stayed out of danger during their more than 120-day voyage.

“Anyway, the sea and sky are really blue on the South Continent.”

“Certainly. A bit too bright for us, perhaps, since we are used to the northern sea.”

And the heat was foreign to them as well, even though the people of the Carpa Kingdom no longer conceived it as hot, since the hottest season of the year had passed.

The refreshing sea breeze was at least a glimmer of hope, so that they had no trouble breathing.

Amidst that, Princess Freya revealed skin so white that it seemed out of place. Maybe she rarely ever left her own cabin or she did not tan that easily?

“Amazing. Not even the North Continent has many harbours as imposing as this one.”

Princess Freya curtly nodded her assent to the learning-never-stops speech of the female soldier without averting her eyes from the sea in front of her.

On the South Continent a unique “bloodline magic” was practically essential for royalty, but on the North Continent, royalty with a “bloodline magic” were actually scare.

But on the other hand, the North Continent had the edge on technology. Be it shipbuilding or ironworking or architecture, they were one step ahead in every department.

Princess Freya realized that her thoughts had unknowingly strayed from the right path and she took a deep breath for a change of mind. At that moment:

The young sailor in the lookout reported an emergency with a loud voice.

The sudden turn prompted the female soldier to call her master erroneous again, but Princess Freya just ignored it, since she knew how foolish it would be to correct her in such a situation.

A Sea Dragon. It was a major disturbance to seafaring that didn’t exist on Earth.

First of all, its size was different. Of course it would be considered small when comparing it to the large tankships or nuclear- powered aircraft carriers from modern Earth, but at least in this world, there was no ship bigger than the largest Sea Dragon yet.

To such an extent that it often got too exasperated and chased after its prey even outside its territory.

“Milady, we still cannot use the large crossbow on the poop deck, because of the storm last night.”

“Yes, I know. The defence forces of the harbour would surely have an easy job dealing with a Sea Dragon of this size, but it would be anything but desirable to cause them trouble right from the beginning.

“As you wish.”

The ship was rocking quite a bit, because they were outside the breakwaters, where the waves were still high, but she moved on the deck as if she was on the ground.

The female soldier let the salty air vibrate through her voice and the sailors answered her right away.

“Good!”

The spear was a little bit longer than one metre at best and had a flavescent milk-white colour. For its small size, it was actually rather heavy.

A wooden spear with an iron head, like it was used ashore, was extremely unsuited to use for a throwing attack against Sea Elephants or Sea Dragons living in the sea.

“Move it. I will handle it.”

“Please do.”

Without slowing down in her full-speed sprint, she kicked the ground and jumped onto the poop deck.

“So that’s it. Guess I’m lucky. I should be able to deal with it.”

Its kind was called “Long-neck Dragon”. As a blessing in disguise, it was a relatively small specimen of its kind. Considering that one would have to “look up” to its head from the deck if they were dealing with a large Long-neck Dragon, they definitely had a stroke of luck here.

“Fuh…”

On a closer look, it became apparent that her leather shoe had a thick dent, into which the butt end of the spear fitted perfectly. The female soldier then used her right hand to balance out the spear, so it wouldn’t fall over. Before long, she took away her hand and the spear stood upright on top of the bridge of her right foot without toppling.

“Puh… Hah…”

Upwards, forwards, downwards. If you will, it looked like the motion of a high front kick or roundhouse kick from Karate or Kickboxing.

It was a kicking spear technique, which was passed down from generation to generation in the north of the North Continent.

Either way, it goes without saying that it was not an ordinary technique.

However, the inherited techniques coupled with the practice of talented people improved the efficiency and made the impracticable practicable.

“GRAAAR!”

One shot one kill. She truly finished off the Sea Dragon with a single spear.

Hitting that very head with a spear kicked by a foot and even delivering a fatal blow to the skull in one hit was truly a brilliant feat. The ship’s crew went nuts when they witnessed the skills of the female soldier.

“That’s our Victoria-sama!”

Stomping on the deck with their feet, the sailors cheered, whereupon the female soldier turned around, smiled a bit and waved her hand briefly, then she jumped down agile from the poop deck.

“You honour me, Milady.”

As Princess Freya approached her through the crowd of the sailors, the female soldier lowered her head a bit with these words, now that her job was done.

Since the emergency was over, Princess Freya reprimanded her with a bitter smile and the tall female soldier, realising her mistake all too late, kept her head down.

“I will not bear that title for much longer, so please let me make the most of it.”

Matching with that, the female soldier laughed as well while she nodded.

Saying so, she looked behind her at the sea, where the corpse of the Sea Dragon floated.

leather was robust and repelled water, its bones were strong, yet supple and the meat was edible, albeit not very delicious. On top of that, its fat was sold at ridiculous prices, because of its nice fragrance when burned.

“No, we better not do that. We almost caused troubles for the harbour, and I do not wish to push our luck in the first harbour we dock at.”

Although she replied dutiful like that, the female soldier regretfully glanced at the remains of the Sea Dragon.

“Do not be so worried about it. I will talk to them, so that they will definitely return your spear.”

The female soldier expressed her gratitude to her master with a red face.

Chapter end