Heavenly Castle

Extra Chapter 4 – Ayla and Taiki’s day together, Part2

「...Don’t tell me, is that a turtle?」

As Taiki uttered that, Ayla blinked a couple of times and knit her eyebrows.

「I-is it really a turtle? Isn’t it about the same size as that giant sea dragon?」

Taiki replied with a shrug.

「Who knows. It looks like it might actually be even larger than the sea dragon, but in that case, its weight would easily go over a thousand tons.」

While saying that Taiki manipulated the controls and put the white box over the turtle.

Then, new information appeared on the right side of the screen as white letters on a black background.

「What do we have here? So it’s another species of sea dragon? Zaratan, a dragon carrying a giant shell made of its own bone on its back. At most reaches in length 80 meters, weight 600 tons. This is quite huge as well. By the sheer volume alone it’s even bigger than the midgardsormr. And this one lives close to the surface in archipelagoes in blue waters. So it camouflages itself among the countless islands. Eh? It mimics an island? Hey, that’s some scale we got here.」

Taiki retorts to the displayed information. Then, Ayla looks at him awkwardly.

「Is it a time to be doing this...?」

The moment she said that changes occurred in the scene displayed on the screen. The midgardsormr swam by twisting its body while the zaratan started to circle around trying to take its back.

Swift movements, an unbefitting action for something on the sea surface. The giant midgardsormr, cutting through the waves, and the giant zaratan that started slowly circling around it. But obviously the zaratan’s movements weren’t swift enough, and the midgardsormr easily took its rear.

Then, The midgardsormr greatly twisted its body and swung it’s tail at a speed you wouldn’t expect from the 80-meter colossal body. With enough impact to split the sea, the tail made a direct hit on the zaratan’s carapace. Raising giant tsunami-like waves all around, the zaratan swayed from side to side with that impact to its carapace.

However, even after receiving such a terrifying attack, the zaratan continued its maneuver, completely unfazed. Spinning around, the moment it finally faced the midgardsormr, the zaratan opened its giant maw. White breath escaped its mouth, and a moment later was followed by white fire.

「So that is a dragon breath.」

Said Ayla with a gulp. Taiki just silently nodded to that commentary.

「Ice breath. It seems like a special attack of zaratans. I searched for a detailed explanation and it seems midgardsormr and zaratan ended up with their current habitats as the result of strife for spheres of influence. In other words, they are on such bad terms that they eventually had to shift their respective domains.」

When Taiki explained so, Ayla frowned with a stiffened expression.

「...Then this fight, they instinctively went for each other because they spotted someone from the opposing faction...?」

As she raised her eyes after muttering those words, the screen showed the midgardsormr falling backward after half of its body was frozen by zaratan’s breath.

As the half-frozen midgardsormr floated on the sea surface, the zaratan bit on midgardsormr and using its whole body swung midgardsormr around. Swung around like a ragdoll the midgardsormr was once again slammed into the sea surface.

「Noo waay...」

Said Taiki with an amazed expression. On the screen, the thrown midgardsormr began swimming to avoid the follow-up attacks.

「Amazing. I thought it was over when the midgardsormr got frozen but it looks like it was only the surface, huh? By getting slammed onto the sea surface it even regained freedom of movement.」

While Taiki was expressing his admiration, Ayla suddenly went 「Ah.」looking at another screen.

「Ta-Taiki-sama... The huge waves raised by the previous impact, some of them are approaching the land...」

「Huh?」

Hearing Ayla’s words Taiki turned his head to the screen on the side that displayed nearby lands. What he saw there was a tsunami. By comparing the waves with the trees growing there It was possible to discern that the waves were somewhere between ten to twenty meters in height.

And unfortunately, the waves were heading towards a beautiful sandy beach. In a distance a town placed a bit uphill could also be seen.

「...Th-this isn’t good. That previous wave somehow stopped just before the town, but they don’t seem safe even at that elevation...」

Saying that as he furrowed his brows, Taiki returned his gaze to the screen that showed the battle between sea monsters.

The struggle between midgardsormr and zaratan still continued, with a looming uncertainty of whenever that ultimate-grade attack will be repeated again.

「No choice. I guess I’ll punish both sides.」

「Eh? Punish both sides?」

While Ayla stared at the back of Taiki’s head, he swiftly manipulated the terminal.

「If I drop the output it’ll be fine, probably. Or rather, I would prefer if they rampaged even more, but in an open sea, damn...」

As Taiki kept mumbling to himself with a bitter smile on his face, he then pointed his index finger to the display and finished his manipulations by pressing on the screen.

「Ah, the screen...」

Then he switched a screen that was displaying some other sea to a view from a different camera. What appeared was a view on the lower part of the Heavenly Castle. The lower part was nothing but an exposed bare rock, but from a gap in it something similar to a black funnel pipe slowly appeared.

「Ah, that’s...?」

Ayla opened her mouth about to ask Taiki a question, but the moment she did that the pipe began radiating a bluish-white light, with giant, noticeable electric discharges occurring in the surroundings.

The radiance at the end of the pipe quickly turned into a sphere of light which continued to gradually grow in size.

While observing that sight Taiki folded his arms and nodded to himself.

「Yes, 20% should be alright. It should be, it should.」

When he uttered those words, the large sphere of light, displayed on the screen, burst. Simultaneously with the breakdown of the sphere, a lightning bolt of about the same size fired off towards the area below the Heavenly Castle.

On the other hand, the midgardsormr and zaratan were about to clash once again. White breath started leaking out of the zaratan’s mouth, the midgardsormr waved its tail, preparing for the next attack.

In between them, four lightning bolts fell from the sky. Those fired from the flying castle.

On its way, the singular giant lightning split into a few and poured onto the sea as a few medium-sized bolts.

As lightning fell right next to the two kaiju, both of them stopped in their tracks. The midgardsormr bent its body, twisting it, the zaratan shrunk the neck, hiding the head inside its carapace. For a while a dead silence fell upon surroundings, the two beasts timidly exchanged glances. Turning their neck as if to confirm the surroundings until finally both of them pulled back.

The zaratan made an even faster turn than a short while ago and began swimming away, while the midgardsormr twisted its body and delved into the sea depths, escaping from sight.

「...ing.」

Observing the swiftly escaping duo in astonishment, Ayla finally regained her senses. Letting out a weird voice she shook her head so hard that it was possible to hear the rattling, then she turned to Taiki.

「What?! What was that?! Could it be the god’s thunder from the legends?!」

As Ayla drew closer to him with her eyes wide, Taiki’s eyes were also round as if from surprise, then, he said.

「Heeh. So even in Azul Kingdom thunder is considered to be a god’s power? I guess it’s a common feature among those worlds. I mean, in kingdoms that I know it’s called the fire of god’s wrath, with thunderbolts supposedly falling from spear or hammer or holy scepters wielded by gods. There is a lot of different myths and legends on that. 」

While Taiki spoke in a somewhat delighted tone, Ayla suddenly gasped, covered her mouth with a hand. Then she looked at Taiki with a serious expression.

「...So, so that’s how it was. What we have been calling god’s thunder was this island’s...」

「What, no? Well, this one indeed was like that, but the one that usually strikes is a crazy big electric discharge occurring by natural phenomena. Like, there are clouds that you see all the time, right? They gain more moisture and ice at altitudes with low temperature, and then they also accumulate dust that comes with it and then...」

Noticing Ayla’s misunderstanding Taiki rushed to explain the mechanism behind rains, but Ayla’s eyes had fear engraved in them

「How terrifying... Just by pointing a finger Taiki-sama can destroy a country or a dragon...」

「Ah, no, Ayla-san? Please, listen to me?」

Clearly troubled Taiki tried to dispel the misunderstanding by employing gestures and so on, but contrary to his will ended up with Ayla receiving an image of him being some kind of god of destruction