In his mind, Noah was distantly aware that he'd just set himself on fire. However, it didn't hurt as much as he expected- it most definitely hurt, but it was more as though he was being pressed against the glass of an oven than what he'd expect from spontaneous combustion.

Everything also felt like it was slowing down to a crawl.

'It is almost scary, how easily you fall into a berserker's rage at a moment's notice.' Salamander commented. 'It appears you have an affinity for fire, given how easily you managed to ignite your spirit… but your body can't keep up. While you are like this, your spiritual ignition means that you gain ten SP and break past the regular limit, but it is a drain on your life force. Once you ignite your spirit, there's no turning back- it will drain on your life until it peters out. If you suffer a lot more damage during the fight, it might even knock you out before your opponent can finish you off.'

'SP? That's a thing?' he mentally asked.

'Yes. But don't focus on that now. Move!'

With that metaphorical kick in the rear to get him to move, Noah scanned the room as he moved forward. Ideally, he needed to get as many enemies out of the way as he could first.

'I'd like not to kill them… but I need to think about me first.' He grimaced.

'You're flattering yourself and underestimating your fellow humans. Just do it.'

"Fine. Get a load of this, then!" Noah thrust his hands outwards in diagonals in front of himself, in front of two approaching pirates. "Raging flames, scatter them like a maelstrom! Mega Fire!"

'Let's do this!' Salamander shouted in confirmation, and a moment later, he felt a larger power surge as devastating gouts of flame ran down the length of the entire room, engulfing everything. All the cannons fired at the same time, creating a devastating boom that deafened Noah.

With a wince, he looked at the destruction he'd caused but was surprised to find that while whatever unattended object was burnt to cinders, the humans were only mildly burnt, but otherwise seemed fine. More than that, a few had avoided the infernal blast entirely. Stares of fear and anger alike met him. Someone shouted something at him, but he'd deafened himself… and probably everyone else in the room with the black powder explosion.

'I knew I was weak, but this is pathetic. These people are humans and all I did was give them second-degree burns.'

'Humans were not made to innately wield magic. It'll come to you yet, but you knew that you did not have the necessary talent.'

Unbidden, memories of his own days doing HEMA came to mind as he adjusted his grip on his sword slightly. The shouting of the instructor, in his deafened ears, could almost be heard. "Langort," he muttered to himself, holding the blade directly in front of himself.

Of course, the difference here was that his opponents were not swordfighters- or at least, not all of them, he was on a moving ship, and the fight would not end with the light prodding of one of the fighters, there were still nine of them… it was not at all like HEMA, in the end.

As a man Noah's age tried to swat at his sword with his hand to shank him with a knife, Noah quickly reared back with his enhanced agility before quickly stabbing at the man's shoulder, kicking him away a moment later with a wet noise that he didn't like at all.

"He'll be fine, keep moving." Salamander prodded, and Noah felt the heat roll of his own body. He was still on borrowed time. Flipping his guard to hold his sword over his shoulder, he transitioned into a Zwerchau, clipping two more people on the side of the head- thankfully his edge alignment was still as poor as it had always been, but he still surged forward through the crowd, before rearing his leg back from an attempt at hitting him with an ax and kicking the offending woman in the ribs.

'Interesting form.' Salamander commented. "I'd assumed you'd resort to brawling since we haven't yet had time to introduce you to sword-fighting, yet here you are.'

The reason for said comment was because, as he took the disadvantageous position in the center of the room, he kept going with overhead cut after overhead cut, side to side, in an attacking pattern that his mates would gleefully refer to as the "Zwerchcopter". It was mostly for show and to keep people from going for him, though he did manage to land his fair share of hits- but then again, the showing of waving a golden flaming sword around like a madman was pretty intimidating.

His stamina couldn't keep up with him for long though. As he felt his arms begin to grow heavy, he stepped back, having secured the distance he needed, and breathed out a prayer. "Tranquil winds of life, restore my wounded body," he said, pouring the remainder of his mana, together with the energy drawn from the beaten humans, into the technique.

As his hearing kicked back in, he found himself suddenly realizing that there were no more opponents to fight. He'd either beaten, fireballed or scared pretty much every person here. The lower deck of the ship was now littered with the pained groans and grunts of beaten men and women.

One man, who wasn't actually that injured but looked unsteady, pointed his finger and shouted at Noah. "Well, ya bastard! You gonna rape us now? Turn us all into your personal semen faucets for your sick desires? Slaughter the women and keep us men like cows to be milked daily, never seeing our wives and children again?!"

"The fuck?" Noah asked, mostly to himself. "No! I'm a guy! And a human!"

"WELL, COME AND TAKE ME!" the man shouted loudly, arms wide open. It was at this moment that Noah remembered that he could hear only because of his own healing.

'It's funny to see how the Goddess' men cope with their own repressed desires.' Salamander huffed in amusement. Noah could only give a disgusted glare to the man, before his thoughts turned inward for a moment.

'Why are you still around anyway? Not that I mind the company much, but…' he felt his thoughts drift towards the game, but Salamander replied before they could devolve into dangerous territory.

'Do you want me to leave?' She asked rhetorically. He was about to reply when the door on the opposite side of where he came out slammed open.

"There's the monster, captain!" a girl with a short bob of green hair and burn injuries pointed at him. "She exploded my guns!"

"Is this going to be common?" Noah asked Salamander in exasperation.

'Considering you insist on shaving yourself, keeping your hair long, and oh, performing a magical feat comparable to most adolescent Yoma? Get used to it.'She laughed in response. As he adjusted his hat to give them a deadpan stare, still holding his sword ready. Thankfully, the flames had already petered out, but now the reek of blood, gunpowder, and smoke filled his nostrils.

With a drunken sway and a half-drunk bottle in hand, a woman with long, white hair and piercing blue eyes stepped into the room. Assessing the situation before looking Noah up and down, she turned to look at her green-haired compatriot. "Cresta… I may be a teeny weeny bit drunk, but I know a guy when I see one. Where's the monster?" the other opened her mouth to speak, but the captain cut her off. "Actually, I don't care. You, what the fuck are you doing on me ship?" she asked. "I didn't ask for no freeloading rats beatin' up my crew."

She took a deep swig of her liquor, and with that, she broke her bottle on the wall next to her, leaving her with a jagged, broken glass bottle.

"Well then, let's do this!"

"MERMAID ROUNDHOUSE!" Suddenly, from behind Noah Bonnie leaped all the way across the lower deck and bowled over the pirate captain in a scene that was oddly reminiscent of just a few minutes prior, and that in no way shape or form resembled a roundhouse kick. "You don't mess with my second first mate, you hear- wait." Suddenly, the mermaid propped herself up for a moment, grabbing the face of the dazed human woman and squinting at her. "Gloria?"

"Fuck, why's it gotta be you…" the woman groaned.

"What the fuck is even going on anymore?" someone asked. It might have been any one of the people present, but it was most definitely a sentiment echoed by everyone.

"And so, that's about it." Noah said with a wave of his hand.

"So, you're a hero, got stranded in Gold, decided to hitch a ride as a stowaway with us all the way to Natalia because you were out of funds, and when Bonnie got knocked out and some of our mates wanted to kill her, you retaliated?" A pink-haired girl recapped.

"Pretty much." Noah glanced in sympathy at Captain Gloria, who was massaging her temples.

"This is what I get for hiring cheap Gold trash to refill my crew… not that Terc and Mick are good for much besides moving cargo, but still." Suddenly, her head thunked into the table. "You're lucky you got to the cannon fodder before I got to you, boy."

At Noah's scoff, the green-haired girl, Cresta, punched him hard in the shoulder. "Trust me, she ain't lying. If you hadn't blown up my flints or if Arianna got to you, things would've been way different. You're strong, but you ain't good."

After a moment's consideration, Noah grumbled his reluctant affirmation. "So, what's the plan now?"

"Now? You incapacitated the entire crew over yer hero complex. We're a gahd-damned stone in the water." The pink-haired first mate rolled her eyes. "Oughta shanked you. Still might."

"Yeah… the crew's gotta recover. Still, this will probably put the fear of Ilias in 'em, at least, if a Hero can just show up and wreck them like this. Maybe I can finally get them to start training." Cresta rubbed her hands together for warmth. Noah still had no idea why even the human women of here dressed like everything was made three sizes too small for them.

"You're surprisingly okay with this." he commented.

"That's because I'm probably going to kill those dumbasses myself." Gloria growled, head rising from the table again, her face flush but stare hard. "Beyond the fact that we ain't no bloody murderers and the fact that Undine herself would probably curse us if we killed one of hers in her territory, and if she didn't, then it would be the monsters of Yamatai the moment they smelled monster blood on our ship."

"...Yamatai?" Noah asked, confused for a moment. Weren't they going westward? He also elected not to tell the pirates that Undine was nowhere near where they believed her to be- which, apparently, is in the northwest portion of the sea.

As he briefly pictured Undine in her spring, he felt his body temperature skyrocket for a moment, the feeling of Salamander's stare burrowing into the back of his head.

"Yeah. It's a little village, a bit out of the way into the boondocks, but they make excellent sake and products you can only get from monsters. Don't worry, 'Hero'- we're going to Natalia after. Though that doesn't mean that you're going to be freeloading off of my ship though, especially with the amount of damage you've caused. Either work for it, or… how do we say, girls?"

"Walk the plank." the pinkette with the eyepatch grinned nastily.

"Joy." Noah rolled his eyes, muttering. He didn't want to admit it, but going from broke college student to having all expenses paid by the crown, even if this world was medieval… when it felt like it, anyways, had raised his standards quite a bit, and going back to manual labor didn't feel good.

"Still, that's you. Now, what the fuck are you doing on my ship, Bonnie?" Gloria turned, staring at the mermaid.

"Huh?" Bonnie turned around, from where she was stuffing her face with a raw fish. "Oh! I lost my crew a while back, so when I found you guys, I decided to sneak on aboard until we reached Safina."

"You… lost them?" the gunner blinked.

"Yeah! I slipped off the ship, and then I couldn't swim, so I kinda just flailed about until the waves carried me to Gold. Nearly got stabbed, but it's fine. He calmed down after we had sex." Noah felt his eyelid twitch at that, but elected not to comment. He was already walking on thin ice.

The three human women collectively sighed, leaving Noah as the only bemused one. "What do you mean you can't swim? You're a mermaid. That's like, your whole way of getting around? You're not injured or anything..."

"Hey, that's racist! What, so just because you're a human, I should assume that you know how to walk?"

"Yes." The four humans in the room chorused, and Bonnie crossed her arms over her chest with a hmph.

"...on that note, not that I make the rules here, but those two eejits weren't the only would-be rapists." Noah glared at the mermaid.

"Meh." Gloria waved him off. "Plenty o' the boys woul' be more than happy to offer their milk to a mermaid. You can keep yours in your pants, pretty boy."

He had to take a deep breath as he felt himself seethe in impotent rage. A more than important concern, waved off with a "meh". 'Different world, different expectations... I just need to get the fuck out of here as soon as I can.'

"Well, I believe that settles that. Now come on up, Noah. We're getting you to do that healing trick on the crew, since you deafened pretty much everyone."

Noah blinked. "Unless you want me to beat them down harder, I can't really do anything without burning away at someone's lifeforce or taking several days." he briefly turned his attention inward, but Salamander seemed to be deep in concentration.

"Hohoho, don't you worry about that. I did say I don't tolerate stowaways, didn't I?" With that, she turned to stare menacingly at Bonnie.

"Eh? Eh?! EHHH?!"

That evening was not pleasant for either of them, but while Noah only felt himself become wrung out by the constant drawing and releasing of magic, Bonnie passed out that evening pondering whether it was worth it to suffer not-quite-death by a thousand cuts.

At the very least, neither Terc or Mick received any healing.

As Luka walks through the village with Alice at his side, he frowns. The streets are completely empty save for an elven woman wearing a green dress and sitting on a log, legs crossed, who is staring at him. The air is thick with tension, and the mysterious village holds an ominous quality about it.

The woman makes no move to approach them, and so eventually Luka does, Alice vanishing as she usually does. His hand is on Angel Halo's hilt, but he doesn't draw.

"You're no merchant nor elf. I'm sure you've been warned ahead of time what this village's stance on outsiders is?" The elf asks.

"...I did. But I don't believe it to be right, for you to discriminate against humans." Luka rebuts, and the elf scoffs.

"And what discrimination do you speak of? Keeping to ourselves, not even having semen to subsist off unless some hapless fool like yourself ignores our warnings? Is living in peace now a crime? We trade with merchants outside well enough, as long as they let us take things at our own pace."

"..." Luka thought about her reply. It... wasn't very wrong, actually. Or at all. "I suppose it's not..."

"Hmph. It seems you haven't taken leave of your wits completely yet. If you've any decency left in you, you will leave peacefully the way you came from."

"Why do you turn away humans anyway?" Luka asks.

"We have our reasons. That-" A woman's voice interjects, before being interrupted by a wracking cough that overtakes her. As Luka whips around to look at her, he sees a blonde woman, her hair disheveled and features gaunt. "-is our b-business alone." she eventually stammers out, barely recovering with a sucking gasp.

"Micaela!" The elf stands up, cold and regal demeanor completely forgotten as she dashes over to the ill woman. "I told you that I could handle things, there was no need to get out of bed!"

"No... I needed to see something for myself..." The ill woman, Micaela, gasps. "That ring. You... you wouldn't happen to be Luka, would you?"

"Huh?!" Luka lets out a gasp of his own. "I- yes, I am..." How does this woman know his name? He's never been here before.

The woman lets out a tiny smile. "You've grown so much... but please leave now. We'll meet again when I'm-" With another rasp, she collapses to the ground. Thankfully, the elven woman keeps Micaela from fully falling face first.

"You... leave. Now." Luka nods, face drawn in a frown as he watches for a moment as the woman carries Micaela off.

"C-c-c-c-" Luka can hear Micaela stammer. "Class... one... cross world contact..."

"Not this again... honey, I told you you shouldn't have gotten out of bed, you're back to talking delirious..." After a moment, she whips her gaze back at Luka with a glare. "LEAVE!"

Luka sagely decides to leave after that.

What the heck is a cross-world contact?

Noah spent the next few days practicing magic under Salamander's guidance… that is, whenever he wasn't busy moving crates around, scrubbing the floors, or doing some other odd chore that the captain found amusing.

Still, he was in a pretty good mood over it. Doing magic always put him in a good mood, and he found himself slowly but surely improving under her guidance. Mostly in terms of precision and control, but she'd also helped him understand how to consistently cast the higher tiers of spells- he was disappointed to learn that his first casting of Mega Fire had been an adrenaline-induced fluke. His damage output seemed to remain depressingly low.

She also threw in a bit of swordsmanship teaching. Not much- not only was that not really his main focus, but apparently, him having previous knowledge of sword fighting made him a "difficult student". Especially because, after a bit of practicing, she'd mentioned that his fighting style seemed to line up with the one that elven nobility liked to use… which meant that it was only really effective against humanoid, sword-wielding opponents.

That didn't mean that all that he knew to do was useless. He now could power himself up in order to do the Demon Decapitation… a simple but effective all-or-nothing technique. And while he picked it up pretty much immediately on the first day, Salamander only used that occasion to drill in him the beginnings of using magic and sword-fighting at the same time.

It was very difficult. In his mind, he likened it to trying to focus on spinning two basketballs on his fingers at different speeds without letting either fall. Salamander was instead adamant that there wasn't a particular difference between the two, and that with practice it would come to him.

Still, now they were on solid land, and approaching Yamatai. He didn't want to if he were honest, but he was roped into helping move cargo for trade on land, and so he was forced to join the rest of the crew.

"Hey, newbie." Cresta approached him, putting the hand on the crate Noah was carrying to stop him. He grunted his acknowledgment, shifting slightly to adjust himself. "Just wanted to say, that Yamatai is a little different than what you hero types may be accustomed to. Here, monsters are practically worshipped. It's fine if you want to do your prayers to Ilias or whatever, but if a monster stops you to ask for semen, you politely decline. No face kicking like you did to Bonnie, alright?"

"I was startled…" he grumbled to himself. "And I don't really care, as long as they leave me be."

"Good. We're not taking responsibility for you if you get yourself raped in some stupid manner."

With that, he kept his hood up, and stayed silent, even through the villagers approaching them and clapping away to the tune of "Oh, mighty merchant pirates!" and the elven kunoichi glaring at them.

Apparently, this was somewhat common, since an inn would accommodate the crew. While Noah and Bonnie wouldn't have had a leg to stand on due to not actually being denizens of the ship, two idiots had oh so conveniently decided to get themselves kicked out as soon as they touched land. Woe betide their sorry souls since they were now stranded in the Noa region with no crew and no pay.

Thankfully, that also meant that Noah didn't have to entertain monsters much. But right as that thought crossed his mind, it was immediately proven wrong.

"My, my." a voice cut through the chatter in a whisper close to him. Noah wasn't inclined to listen, because it was unlikely someone was actually speaking to him. "Ilias must have grown quite cheeky if all she thought to send was one lowly disguised angel. I'll admit, the energy cloaking is ingenious, but have you gotten so arrogant that you don't even bother masking your scent?"

Noah tried to take one more step, but he found a furry appendage having snaked its way around his ankle. Looking to its source, he found himself staring eye to eye- having to look considerably lower to do so- with a short, blonde kitsune. 'Tamamo-no-fucking-mae. She's not supposed to be here.' he thought to himself.

As he turned his panicking thoughts inward, requesting help from Salamander, he could only feel her staring at him incredulously.

"I believe you may be mistaken. I am not a follower of Ilias," he murmured carefully. "Nor am I an angel."

"Hmmm… try again. Maybe try to say something more reasonable." Tamamo's eyes danced dangerously with mirth. He felt himself shake, for a moment. Right, this was someone who, despite her 'redemption', she'd merely gone from "Casual War Criminal" to "Not too terrible".

Ideally, Noah planned to never meet her unless there was a one and a half meters of blue-haired shota between himself and the kitsune.

"...is there no chance of talking this out, perhaps inside? I don't think anyone here fancies seeing you throw me through a tree." With a shudder, he offered a hand to the fox, to give the outward appearance that he was not being taken hostage. Instead, he found his arm snaked around by another tail, in a firm, almost painful grip as she dragged him inside. Tamamo glanced at him, before grinning. "Of course! I suppose turning you to dust in broad daylight would alarm a few people," she whispered coyly, her tails firmly stopping his body's shaking.

He didn't think this world had any therapists, but he severely needed one. Especially since he honestly felt like he had more than a few pairs of eyes trail along him as he approached the inn. He felt like a deer walking into the lion's den. Or the fox's den, really.

He was getting way too many encounters in the past few days with entities powerful enough to crush him like the bug he metaphorically was.

Yamatai! Noah actually got here before the goblin girl, which is a shame. Second time might be the charm, assuming he survives this encounter?

...also a bunch of important things happened prior, but you know. Touch fluffy tail :)

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