Chapter 27: Stagnation

Dragon Era 726
「...All right, it’s done!」
「Yay!」

As I declared that while wiping away sweat, Ruful threw both hands up in joy from her seated position.

「Is it really finished now?」

Perched lightly on Ruful’s shoulder, Tia asked in a dubious tone.

「Yeah. This time it should be fine. Right, Ruful?」
「Uh-huh! I designed it so the water won’t leak!」

What Ruful and I built together was a wooden boat.
We laminated multiple boards to keep it light, fitted them snug and precise so no water would seep in, used water-resistant timber so it wouldn’t soak through, and reinforced it with paint.
Not confident doing it alone, I had Ruful—skilled with wood from civil works and building—help, and with her stamp of approval I felt sure there was no problem.

「Hmmm... well, why don’t you try it?」
「Of course. Ruful, can I ask you?」
「Okaaay.」

At my nod to the skeptical Tia and request to Ruful, she lightly lifted the two-seater skiff. Something that would take several humans to hoist was, in the hands of a giant like her, nothing but a toy.

「Here we go!」

The boat was set gently afloat on the waterway.

And then it sank at incredible speed.

「See? It’s no good after all.」
「So that’s how you want to play it!」

Shouting, I slumped in dejection, dropped to my knees, and watched the boat sink to the bottom of the waterway.

The first boat took on water through the tiniest gap in the bottom and sank.
The next one was swamped the instant we launched it—on a river, no less—by waves that sprang up.
Each time it sank we improved it, only to be sunk again, but to have it come at us with sheer brute force like this at last...

If it won’t even float to begin with, the very concept of a boat doesn’t hold.
Even a plain wooden plank will float—so long as I’m not the one throwing it in.

「Isn’t water hating you a bit much?」
「Seriously. Maybe it’s because I’m a fire dragon...」

Boats themselves had been used since Ai’s era—floating on ponds to fish or to cross rivers. In my case it was quicker to just go into the pond or fly, so I’d never used them; I hadn’t realized water hated me this much.

「So what is it you’re trying to do, in the end?」

As I stared at the sunken boat, a leaf drifted softly along the waterway.
No matter how many times I see it, it’s strange.

「Like that leaf.」

I pointed at the leaf floating by and answered Tia.

「I want to float a boat and let it be carried along.」

In this world, boats don’t move forward on their own. If you row with oars they advance, but even if you float them on a flowing river or hoist a sail to catch the wind, they won’t go. It’s probably the same phenomenon as the waterwheel not turning.

Thanks to the waterway Ruful and the others built, we can now easily interact with the merfolk, which is great, but not being able to use it as a canal with boats is a huge waste.

The merfolk do tow small boats to bring fish, but that’s manpower when you get down to it. In efficiency it’s not much different from centaurs pulling handcarts along the land routes.

There aren’t any beasts that will obediently work like horses, either, so transport technology in this world must lag far behind even ancient Earth.

On the other hand, any reasonably skilled mage can fly, and even on foot an individual’s daily range and carry capacity are nothing like humans on Earth, so we win in those areas, but...

「Why won’t a boat drift along like a leaf?」
「Why? That’s just how it is, isn’t it?」

Tia traded glances with Ruful as if to say I was saying something odd.
No, I suppose I am saying something odd. For this world’s common sense, Tia and the others are the ones in the right.

Even Earth’s common sense had plenty we didn’t understand.
If anything, it was nothing but the unknown.

Why does time flow only from past to future?
Why does gravity exist, making things fall toward the ground?
Why do living things live, and then die...?

No matter how far science advances and we tack on reasoning, the “why?” dogs us forever. In the end we have to make our peace somewhere with “that’s just how it is.”

...But that’s not the same as giving up.

Even if we never reach absolute truth, we can keep walking toward it. And that should never be in vain.

Just then, at the sudden sound of wingbeats, I turned and looked up at the sky.
What beat those large white wings wasn’t a bird.
Manipulating two pairs—four wings—deftly and swaying a long tail as it swam through the sky, its figure even looked somewhat like a dragon. Not a Western dragon like me, but a snake-like Eastern dragon.

However, there was one decisive difference from a dragon.
The creature had the face of a cute girl.
She came barreling straight at me like a bullet, and I caught her on reflex.

「Guh...! Welcome back, Rin.」
「I’m back! Sorry, Sensei—I kind of botched the landing.」

Groaning at the greater-than-expected impact but somehow managing to support her, I watched as Rin turned her feathered wings back into her arms and waist fin and offered a cute apology.

Her transformation magic has really come along.
She still can’t become a dragon, apparently, but wings are child’s play now. She says bird wings suit flight better than bat wings, so she mainly uses those; you can fly without wings, but the speed is night-and-day with them.

「No, you totally did that on purpose...」

murmured Tia as she watched.

「What, what? You wanted me to do the same to you, Tia? Okay, here I come—‘I’m back!’」
「I didn’t say that! Stop it, you’ll crush me!」

Tia ran from Rin, who came at her with arms spread wide, but was quickly caught and hugged like a stuffed toy. If Tia got serious, slipping out of Rin’s grasp wouldn’t be hard, so despite what she says she probably doesn’t actually dislike it.

「Ruful, I’m back too!」
「Mm, welcome back, Rin-chan.」

She then squeezed Ruful tight as well. Here the size difference made Rin look like the doll instead.

「Find anything?」
「Yeah. I found, um... what do you call it... a mural? Something people long ago painted. I couldn’t really tell when it was made or what it was showing, though.」

Since then, Rin seems to have been dropping by that village from time to time. She’s apparently searching for Ai’s traces in my stead. It’s probably something I should be leading myself, but...

Even if she did find them, what would I do then?

「Hey, Ruful, I’m a little beat. Will you carry me home?」

While I was mulling that over, Rin asked Ruful that.
Flying across the sea is pretty tough—there’s nowhere to rest if you get tired halfway.
It’s not like you can rest in the sea...

—or so I thought, but Rin’s a mermaid; she can rest in the water as much as she likes.

「Sure, okay.」
「What are you talking about? You live in completely the opposite direction.」

Ruful, like Rin, used to live in a student room in the school building.
But she kept growing and it got cramped, and since she’s constantly expanding the village with civil works, it’s more convenient to have a house out on the outskirts—so now Ruful has built and lives in a detached home of her own.

「Then, Sensei, pleeease.」
「Well, fine...」

Rin pressed her palms together with a little clap. Maybe she’s at an age where she wants to be coddled; I feel like these little pleas have gotten more frequent lately.

When I turned my back, she draped herself on me without hesitation. With a fish tail, mermaids are larger and heavier than humans. Without saying it aloud, I quietly used self-enhancement magic to double my strength.

「Hey, good work, Nina.」

Just as the school building came into view we ran into Nina, and I raised a hand. Lately she’s set up a clinic and spends most of her time working there as a doctor.

As I took one hand off, my balance shifted and Rin squeezed me tighter.

「What are you doing?」

As expected, Nina let out an exasperated remark at the sight.

「Well, she said she was tired from the long trip.」

Maybe I am spoiling her a bit too much? Suddenly Nina’s expression turned severe.

「...Put her down.」
「I mean, sure, at her age a piggyback is a little questionable, but Rin—」
「Just do it.」

Cutting me off in a tone that brooked no argument, Nina ordered me. I moved to set Rin down, but she hopped off me first.

「...Since when?」
「Since when what?」

Pressed by Nina, Rin tilted her head as if playing dumb.

「Don’t tell me you hadn’t noticed! Since when has it been like that!?」

Suddenly Nina shouted and grabbed a fistful of Rin’s long hair.

「Wait, Nina! What are you talking about!?」

I panicked, not understanding what could make the always-calm Nina this furious... and then I realized.

「...Rin. This is—」
「Eh... ah—」

Rin hastily covered it with her palm.
But what we’d seen could no longer be glossed over.
Nina had seized and lifted her luxuriant hair—

—and beneath it were layers upon layers of... deep, deep wrinkles.