章節 78: That's not Just a Sea Serpent!

Earth Land, Ishgar, Kingdom of Fiore, Akane Beach.

January, x781.

After breakfast, Alfonzo, Elicia, and Erza were led to the Seto Group's training ground for a light round of training. Then, after two hours of training, they returned to their bedroom and washed up once again. At noon, they would set out to attack the sea serpent that had been attacking the Seto Group's merchant ships.

After they were all dressed, Alfonzo in a sleeveless, black martial arts out fit with a white t-shirt underneath, a blue sash and blue boots with adamantite alloy gauntlets and grieves, Elicia wearing a blue t-shirt, black corset, pink skirt, black ankle-length, leather boots, thinly armored black knee-high leggings, and armored arm sleeves that covered her biceps, forearms, and the backs of her hands, and Erza, wearing a silvery cuirass, pauldrons, and gauntlets, a blue skirt, and black boots, made their way to the Escalade.

When they arrived at the vehicle, they saw that there was a convoy of other magical vehicles, each using Alfonzo's patented engine, waiting for them. Standing in front of the convoy were the Setos, Gozaburo, Ren, and Sun with a number of their men standing behind them.

"These are the men who will accompany you to the sea serpent's layer." Gozaburo said with his arms crossed in front of his chest. "I will be sending Masa and Shark Fujishiro with you as well."

"I guess that means we'll be traveling with more than one ship, huh?" Alfonzo asked as he surveyed the gathered men.

"That's right." Gozaburo replied with a nod. "Not only will there be more options if escape is necessary, but the five of you will have more footholds to fight from."

Hearing that, the three Fairy Tail wizards nodded their head in understanding.

"Then, we'll follow them to the pier." Alfonzo said.

"Dad." Sun said, tugging on her father's sleeve.

"Yes, my angel?" Gozaburo replied with a doting smile on his face.

"Can I go to the pier, too?" Sun asked. "I'd like to see everyone off."

"Of course." Gozaburo replied with a nod. "We will all go."

"Yay!" Sun sheered happily. Then, she looked at Alfonzo, Elicia, and Erza with shining eyes. "Can I ride in your magic vehicle? It looks so cool."

"That sounds like a great idea." Ren said with a smile. "I'd like to see how comfortable such a unique magic vehicle is, as well."

As soon as Sun made her request to the Fairy Tail wizards, Gozaburo gritted his teeth. Just as he was about to refuse Sun's request, however, Ren shot him a sharp glare, causing him to remain silent, before she made a similar request.

"Sure!" Elicia replied happily. "We can take two more with us, anyway."

And that sealed the deal. While Ren and Sun would be riding with Alfonzo, Elicia and Erza, Gozaburo would be riding in one of his own magic vehicles with his men.

"Let's stop wasting time!" Gozaburo shouted, the barely restrained anger seeping into his tone.

With that, everyone present started boarding the vehicles. As soon as the last man was in his place, the entire group started their engines and left the Seto Group headquarters. From there, it only took ten minutes for the convoy to reach the pier where the Seto Group's ships were docked.

When the convoy arrived and everyone disembarked from the vehicles, they saw six ships made of a black metal being prepared to set sail. Gozaburo explained that those six ships would be the vessels used to combat the sea serpent. Then, after going over the rough strategy, everyone boarded their assigned ships with Alfonzo, Elicia, Erza, Masa, and Fujishiro boarding the flag ship of the fleet.

"Dad, do you think they will be okay?" Sun asked in a worried tone as she and her parents watched the ships sail off into the distance.

"If those Kids are as good as they say they are, they should be fine." Gozaburo replied with his arms crossed. "But if that brat were to kick the bucket, I wouldn't mind."

Rolling her eyes at her husband's comment, Ren shifted her attention toward sun and placed a hand on her daughter's shoulder.

"You just have to believe in them, Sun." Ren said in a soothing tone. "They are strong. Those are the Seto Group's best men. Plus, they have three S-Class wizards with them. So, there's no need to worry."

Although Sun nodded to her mother's words, the worry in her eyes did not disappear as she gazed upon the horizon.

Meanwhile, on the open seas, the six metal ships were moving at a speed much faster than any normal boat could achieve.

"It looks like these ships are using modified versions of my engine to move." Alfonzo said as he watched the waters from the ship's deck.

"That's right." Masa replied from Alfonzo's right. "We bought the upgrades from the Magic Council."

"I see." Alfonzo replied with a nod. "I knew making those design modifications for ships was a good idea."

"You made those, too?" Masa asked in an impressed tone.

"Yeah, It took too long to get to the site for our S-Class Promotion Exam, so I decided to upgrade Fairy Tail's ship." Alfonzo said with a shrug.

"So, how long will it take us to get there?" Elicia asked from nearby. "Although the sea is pretty, there's nothing to see out here."

"It should only take us about an hour more." Masa replied.

"How long would this voyage take if we were using normal ships?" Erza asked in curiosity.

"If I remember correctly, it used to take almost six hours." Masa answered. "And that was if the wind was with us."

Like that, the group continued to chat on the deck. Eventually, all six ships began to slow down as they reached their destination.

"Masa, Sir!" A man from the ship's wheelhouse shouted. "We have arrived."

"Good." Masa replied with a nod. "Deploy the magic depth charges and lure it to the surface."

"Underst---" The man in the wheelhouse began to reply.

"There's n o need for that." Alfonzo said as he approached the ships railing.

"What do you mean?" Masa asked, a bit confused.

"I'll get its attention." Alfonzo said.

In fact, as soon as the ships began to slow down, Alfonzo had deployed his [Magic Power Sense] into the water. Although he was surprised by how deep the sea was in this location, he could still reach the bottom with is sense. And when he did, he found a being with an enormous amount of magic power.

"Lici, Erza, get ready." Alfonzo ordered as he started forming a conical chunk of metal in front of him. "This thing has a whole lot of magic power."

Nodding in response, Elicia and Erza tensed up, ready for battle.

"Electromagnetism Magic: Railgun]." Alfonzo said as he stretched his right arm with his index finger pointed toward the place where he felt the large magic power source.

*Buzz!*

*Boom~~~~~~!"

*Splash~~~~~~!*

A moment later, Alfonzo's entire arm lit up with sparks of electricity. Then, the conical piece of metal fell, landing on his outstretched finger. As soon as it did, with the aid of the electric current running over Alfonzo's arm it was fired into the sea at six times the speed of sound, or 5,400 miles per hour. (8,690 kph)

Immediately, a large spout of water was shot into the air, causing large waves to rush in all directions from the point of impact. Luckily, the ships were all made of metal. Using his [Metal Magic] Alfonzo was able to stabilize them before they could sustain any serious damage.

Meanwhile, everyone on the ships was dumbfounded by the level of devastation from Alfonzo's attack.

"Hey Mas? Did we even need to show up?" Fujishiro asked with is eyes wide open.

"That's a good question, my friend." Masa replied.

"If he had used an attack like that during the S-Class Exam, no one would have passed." Erza said watching the waves rolling across the open seas.

"Yeah, I wonder if Fonzie can beat Gildarts now." Elicia asked with her eyes sparkling, she was feeling immense happiness for Alfonzo and his growth in power.

"We can talk about that later." Alfonzo said as he used his [Electro-Magnetism Magic] to float above the ship's deck. "I think I pissed it off. It's rushing up to the surface."

*Splash~~~!*

As Alfonzo spoke, he raised himself higher into the air. At the same time, he lifted one of the ships, as well. A moment later, just as the ship's crew was confused and scared, a large, serpentine head shot out of the water with its mouth wide open, intending to swallow at least half of the ship.

The sea serpent that just shot out of the water hissed after missing the ship as it sailed through the air. With it jumping as it did, everyone was able to get a glimpse of just how enormous it was. From the tip of its nose to the tip of its tail, the serpent was a hundred feet (30 m) long with three pairs of fins on its sides and a fin on its tail. It also had a pair of long whiskers and a haorn in the middle of its forehead.

"A sea serpent my ass!" Alfonzo shouted. "This is a fucking Leviathan, a dragon derivative."

"That's not important right now!" Erza shouted. "We have to defeat this beast before it can hurt anyone else! [Requip: Black Wing Armor]."

Erza was then covered in bright light. A moment later, she was revealed wearing a new set of armor consisting of a long, sleeveless, black armored cloak that was open in the front, a pair of shoulder pads made of metal plates, a chest plate that did little to cover her chest, exposing a large amount of her breasts and cleavage, a small pair of armored shorts that covered her pelvic region, leaving her abdomen completely visible, elbow length black armored gloves, and thigh-high armored boots. She also held a well-crafted broadsword in her right hand. The look was completed with her long scarlet hair tied in a high ponytail.

Seeing Erza's new look, many of the men had hearts in their eyes. However, before they could gawk for too long, a pair of wings, resembling those of dragons, that was folded on her back spread from the armored cloak. Then, she bent her knees and shot off into the air toward the Leviathan that had yet to return to the sea.

With both hands wrapped around the hilt of her sword, she swung it upward as she flew past the Leviathan's neck.

*Screech!*

*Roar!*

With her high speed and pumping as much magic power into her sword as it could handle, Erza caused the Leviathan to roar as her sword cut through its scales and into its flesh. Though this would be nowhere near enough to injure it severely.

*Splash~~~!*

As soon as the Leviathan splashed back into the water, it tried to dive. However, before it could get too deep, it felt resistance. When it turned its head back to where it felt the pull, it saw that there were a large number of threads wrapped around its tail. Immediately, it gave up on diving deeper, so that it could perform another sneak attack, due to rage.

Swimming back to the surface, the Leviathan looked in the directions where the threads were coming from. While quite a few of them were connected to one of the floating pieces of metal where the humans were standing, Most of them were connected to one human who just landed on another one of the pieces of metal.

"Hurry up and spread out!" Elicia shouted just after landing on the closest ship. "You need to surround it with the ships. That way, when my threads are anchored to the ships, it won't be able to move too much!"

*Roar!*

The Leviathan , locking onto Elicia who was trying to keep it from diving too deep underwater, opened its mouth wide. Then, the surrounding sea water was drawn into its open jaws, forming a large spinning orb of sea water.

"Oh, this isn't good." Elicia said after she heard the roar and saw the water gathering in the Leviathan's mouth. "Fonzie! Do something!"

"Got it!" Alfonzo shouted in return. "[Metal Magic: Watershed Shielding]."

With Alfonzo's chant, two things happened simultaneously. First, the Leviathan fired its attack, a high-pressure water beam. Second, a thick sheet of metal tall enough to cover the entire ship Elicia was currently standing on appeared in front of it. This shield, however, was different in the sense that it was not flat. Instead, it was a wedge shape with the pointed end directed at the incoming attack.

On contact with the shield, the water beam was split, shooting to either side of the targeted ship. However, the force behind the water was causing the metal to dent inward.

"[Electromagnetism Magic: Electrical conductivity]." Alfonzo said, chanting another spell.

In the next instant, the wall began to spark with purple bolts of electricity. Then, due to the high conductivity of sea water, the electricity rushed up the water beam toward the Leviathan, as well as into the two jets of water that were split by the shield.

*Roar!*

The Leviathan unleashed another roar of pain as it was electrocuted. As it did, it thrashed hard enough to snap most of the threads wrapped around its tail. On top of that, as most of the threads were still connected to Elicia, she was flung off the ship.

Meanwhile, Just as the Leviathan began thrashing around, Erza, who was high above the battlefield, flew down at high speed, slashing her sword just as she reached the Leviathan's head, leaving a gash on its face and destroying its left eye in the process.

*Roar!*

Once again roaring in pain, the Leviathan dove beneath the surface while Erza corrected her course, and caught Elicia before she could fall into the water.

"*Sigh* Thanks for catching me, Erza." Elicia said in a relieved tone. "Wearing wet panties for the rest of the battle would have sucked…."

"You can think about that later, Elicia." Erza said while staring at the shadow of the Leviathan she could see under the surface. "We're not done yet."

"Yeah…" Elicia said with some disappointment. "And I don't think it will let me tie it down again. Looks like that plan failed before it even got started."

With that, Erza, with Elicia in her arms, landed on the deck of the flag ship with Alfonzo not far behind them.

"If I could use more aspects of the EM spectrum, this fight would be over already." Alfonzo muttered as he landed. Then, he looked at Elicia and Erza. "Lici, are you alr--- Everyone, get ready! It's gathering magic power!"