Lich for Hire

Chapter 413: Keeping Up the Act

The members of the Silent Sea Pirate Company were not blessed with keen intellect. They were undead in the purest sense, the kind that lunged snarling at anything warm and alive.

Dim as they might seem, they were devastating in a fight.

Ambrose also noticed, for the first time, that the Silent Sea Pirate Company had more legends than just Aige and Phil. There was also a legendary wraith among them, whose voice, when she opened her mouth to sing, produced a terrifying sonic assault that left shagin and ixiray alike bleeding from every orifice.

Phil was cutting a path of destruction at the front with his fish spear, but the wraith was taking down more opponents far more quickly.

As a crew that had conquered the ocean, the Silent Sea Pirate Company was truly formidable. Ambrose realized he had been underestimating them.

With their superior numbers and individual strength, the outcome was never in question. The battle was over quickly. Every last shagin and ixiray was dead, their vital essence slowly being drawn into the ghost ships.

The other ships, however, confined themselves to the shagin remains. All the ixiray were absorbed by Aige alone—not out of possessiveness, but because ixiray blood was toxic. Only Aige could withstand it.

As the toxic blood entered her, the humanoid form she maintained began to change. A faint flush of pink appeared in her otherwise pale face, making her look more alive than usual.

"Drunk?" Ambrose asked, with some concern.

Aige shook her head. "I'll be fine. Just need to rest for a bit."

Ambrose nodded. "Don't worry. I'll keep watch."

From anyone else, that kind of familiar presumption would have quickly turned them into a meal for the wraiths. The Silent Sea Pirate Company hardly needed outside help.

But coming from Ambrose, Aige found the sentiment entirely reasonable.

The combined intelligence of the whole crew wouldn't fill a fraction of this lich's brain. Having Ambrose keep watch would be a relief.

Aige's humanoid form dissolved back into the ghost ship as she settled into brief dormancy.

Ambrose sent the crew to search for Aiolos. The battle had been chaotic; somewhere in the confusion, the fool had vanished. Nobody had any idea where he'd gone.

After a lengthy search through the open ocean, the crew eventually found Aiolos wedged inside the hull of a half-sunken wreck.

Nobody knew when he'd crawled in there. When Sharpspear Phil located him, he appeared to be fast asleep—snoring, even.

Phil reached in to haul him out, but immediately, a formless current of water surged forth from nowhere and sheared off half his fingers.

Phil recoiled in shock, kicking himself backward a good dozen meters.

"What in the hells was that?!"

He quickly waved the others well clear and returned to Ambrose with his report.

Ambrose stared. "Asleep? He was fighting not ten minutes ago."

Phil shrugged. "I have no idea either."

Ambrose thought it over and made an educated guess.

This fool's been living in the ocean and he doesn't know about ixiray blood? He must have swallowed some by accident.

He was half right. Aiolos hadn't swallowed some by accident. He had eaten two ixiray during the battle, on impulse, because they were right there.

Then the world had started spinning, and he had drifted off without quite registering how he got to where he was. He wasn't entirely sure whether he'd swum there himself or been torn apart and regenerated in that spot from whatever pieces remained.

By the time Ambrose reached him, a colossal vortex had formed around Aiolos, pulling everything nearby inward. More alarming still, anything that entered the vortex—rock, coral, and whatever else—was ground to powder by the water pressure.

"He's gotten this strong?"

The raw power on display during the battle was one thing, but generating a defense on this level while unconscious—could divine blessings really go this far?

"What do we do with him, Master?" Phil asked.

Killing him wasn't the issue. Getting him out safely was a problem Phil genuinely had no answer for.

Ambrose considered it, then said, "I'll sober him up."

Cold gathered in his palm. He began firing Frost Rays at Aiolos in rapid succession.

Pillars of ice formed and were immediately shredded by the vortex. More formed; more were shredded. Under Ambrose's sustained output, the violently spinning maelstrom was gradually encased and stilled, locked solid into one enormous frozen mass.

Ice of that volume would normally float upward. Ambrose summoned a dozen Mage Hands and pushed the block down onto Aiolos's head.

Whether it was the cold or the impact, or possibly both, Aiolos finally stopped snoring and opened his eyes.

He was still thoroughly bleary. The first thing he did on waking was belch, expelling a puff of black vapor.

"He really did drink ixiray blood. How much did he even swallow?"

Ambrose was about to say something when Aiolos let out a thunderous roar. "Who's disturbing me?! I'm trying to sleep! Hic!"

Eyes barely open, not even looking at who was there, he thrust both hands out and summoned dozens of currents that tore the ice block apart.

Before Ambrose could get a word in, those currents came streaming straight at him.

Fortunately, a lich didn't rely on eyes. Ambrose perceived his surroundings through pure magical sense, which meant invisible water currents in the open ocean were readable from the way the water moved.

Phil already had his spear raised. Ambrose sighed. Aige was resting. There was no avoiding the expense today.

The Golden Throne materialized behind him. He extended one finger forward, and a ripple spread outward through the water.

Where the ripple passed, time seemed to stop. The water currents, capable of grinding even through stone, froze in place. When the ripple reached Aiolos, his entire body went rigid. Only his head could still move.

Ambrose had cast the ninth-tier spell Time Stop.

This spell went beyond Ambrose's natural ability. Specialization had its limits, and the strongest spell Ambrose could manage unassisted was Finger of Death. Other ninth-tier spells were beyond his usual repertoire.

But the Golden Throne granted him free access to ninth-tier casting, turning Ambrose into the most versatile mage alive.

Still, that one Time Stop had cost him several hundred thousand gold. It was roughly equivalent to purchasing a Time Stop scroll outright.

Muttering "such a waste, such a waste," Ambrose swam over to Aiolos, whose body was frozen but whose head could still turn, and said, "Old friend, do you remember me?"

Aiolos had been struggling furiously. The moment he made out Ambrose's face, his expression shifted to surprise. "It's you! What are you doing with all these fish people? Hic! I was just passing through, but those fish people attacked me out of nowhere!"

Ambrose kept his response to himself. Shagin were the most aggressive fishfolk species in existence. If you wandered into their territory, you were either an invader or prey. There was no third option.

"It was all a misunderstanding. I've dealt with all the shagin who attacked you."

He snapped his fingers and ended the Time Stop.

Aiolos regained his freedom, and apparently his reason along with it. He said, with some embarrassment, "Sorry to cause you trouble again, friend."

"Weren't you looking for your wife?" Ambrose asked. "What are you doing in shagin territory?"

Aiolos looked helpless. "I don't know where Ariel is. I've been trying to ask for directions, and every single creature I approach just attacks me without a word."

That was... probably because Aiolos was extremely ugly.

A face covered in lightning-bolt scars was objectively alarming. He wasn't much better than the undead Phil, honestly.

"Never mind that," Ambrose said. "You clearly can't find your way on your own. Why not travel with me for a while? You might even run into Ariel along the way."

Aiolos considered this. "That makes sense. Thank you."

Ambrose smiled pleasantly. "No need for thanks. Friends look out for each other."

Perfect. Keep this fool close, away from the Ragetide Kingdom and out of his plans, and use the time to get whatever divine intelligence could be extracted from him. It was a win-win situation for Ambrose and... Ambrose.

Ambrose moved to bring Aiolos aboard Aige's ship, but Phil stopped them both and steered them toward his own vessel instead, adding by way of explanation, "Master Megaman, the captain's ship isn't for just anyone. Until the captain wakes, he'd best sit with me."

No one in the entire Silent Sea Pirate Company had the standing to board Aige's deck. That privilege belonged to members of the Elegiac Society alone.

Aiolos didn't seem to care about any of that. The residual intoxication hadn't fully been dispelled. The moment he was aboard, he collapsed face-down and went straight back to sleep.

A few minutes later, Aige woke up and the Silent Sea Pirate Company set sail again. Aiolos was still passed out cold on Phil's ghost ship.

Ambrose had no choice but to stay. The thought of this man unconsciously dismantling Phil's ghost ship while dreaming was too real a possibility.

He ended up waiting eight or nine hours. The fleet had nearly cleared shagin territory entirely before Aiolos finally stirred, pressing his hands to his temples as he came to.

The pounding headache that came after a particularly savage night of drinking made his already alarming face contort into something even more unsettling.

Fortunately, the entire crew was undead. None of them had grounds to comment.

"My head," Aiolos groaned. "Those fish were toxic."

"You're only realizing this now? You're like a newborn. How can someone who lives in the ocean not know that ixiray are toxic?"

Aiolos shook his head. "Nobody told me."

He had been given only the most basic information when he came into being—language, elementary reasoning, and general knowledge like "things in the water are fish and things on land are beasts." The specific traits and dangers of individual species were not something Thanos had bothered to include. There was simply too much to cover.

Ambrose gave him a companionable pat on the shoulder. "Don't worry about it. You'll learn. I can teach you. But first, I'd like to ask you something. Which god sent you, and what exactly is your mission?"

"I'm—no, I wasn't sent by any god. I simply follow the Lord of Storms, Thanos. My mission is to marry Ariel. That isn't a divine mission, but rather something I want to pursue on my own."

Ambrose: "..."

He was still keeping up the act, it seemed.