Extra 4: Ayla and Taiki’s day together part 1

The control room on the fifth floor. Taiki was staring at the sea displayed on the big screen with a gloomy face. Then, Ayla came out of the elevator and after looking at the image on the screen and at Taiki, tilted her head.

「…A sea?」

She muttered in a small voice and approached Taiki.

「Taiki-sama, why are you looking at the sea so intently?」

When asked, Taiki made a light nod and turned to Ayla.

「There is just something that kind of bothers me. So I went into the open sea for a bit.」

「Something, that bothers you?」

Taiki’s vague words made Ayla tilt her head even further. Smiling wryly at that sight, Taiki pointed at the screen with his finger.

「Here, can you see this dorsal fin?」

When Taiki said that, Ayla also strained her eyes and examined the sea surface projected on the screen.

Then, she noticed that there was indeed a fin moving in the water as if cutting right through the middle of the sea. Though it was hard to tell since there was nothing to compare it with, yet, even so, it was possible to recognize that the size of this fin was out of the ordinary.

「Yes, I see. Could it be some species of a sea dragon?」

When asked, Taiki folded his arms and hummed. Then, he touched the control panel a couple of times.

The next moment a white box appeared in the lower part of the screen. He smoothly moved the rectangular box to the center of the screen and enclosed the fin with it along with the black silhouette beneath.

The white rectangle flashed twice and a window with a black background appeared at the edge of the screen.

And for a few seconds, one after another, white letters were appearing on that window.

While reading the letters Taiki kept murmuring 「Fumu, Fumu.」 to himself
「Ehm, it’s a species of sea dragon, The midgardsormr. Approximately 350 years old. Female. Body length roughly 85 meters. Weight about 300 tons. Danger level maximum. That’s a real kaiju we got here. It’s quite big, could it be that it usually dwells in the sea depths?」

As Taiki read out aloud, as if checking information on some monster from a game, Ayla turned to him with a blank face.

「…I wonder if it’s my imagination. I felt like Taiki-sama just gave a description of a mythical grade dragon… No, that must be my imagination. Such absurdity is…」

「Well, it seems to have a maximum possible danger level, so it’s far more dangerous than your average dragon. All of the dragons we saw so far were mostly A or B, and some small dragons even had danger level of C, it’s quite new that this time it’s not even expressed in the alphabet. In a way, it’s no different from saying that evaluation is impossible.」

As Taiki spoke, laughing 「Hahaha」, Ayla’s expression changed to an astounded one.

「Isn’t that an actual mythical grade dragon?! To think it’s so close… Taiki-sama, is it possible to do something about it…?」

To the words Ayla spoke with a pale face Taiki made a vague smile and shook his head.

「Hmm… Let’s see. After all, it would be a problem if that dragon is an endangered species. It would feel really bad if they went extinct at my sole discretion, so I will investigate it for a bit.」

Taiki said that and put an Index finger to the screen. Ayla looked at Taiki somewhat bewildered, but ultimately ended up just observing his action without saying anything.

And after fiddling with the control for a while Taiki exclaimed 「Here it is.」and raised his head.

Then, the screen split in two, with the image of the dragon projected on the left side and rows of even smaller letters, than previously, on the right side.

After staring at them for a while, he murmured.

「Ehmm… The midgardsormr. Dwells from the sea surface to 4000 meters deep. A species of giant sea dragon that grows in size up to 100 meters. They mainly inhabit the great white sea. Estimated population over five thousand, the number that hasn’t decreased for the last several hundred years, in part due to their longevity. A powerful monster of the seas. Scales, leather, viscera, teeth, can serve as raw material. Eyes, brain, and heart are top grade items in alchemy. This dragon is incapable of using magic but possesses magic resistance of the greatest level and abnormal regeneration ability. As such, a subjugation of one is an extremely difficult feat. Currently, there are no cases of one being defeated by humans, in turn, midgardsormrs have no interest in humans, as such, the damage to humans is extremely low so far. 」

Carefully reading each line, Taiki nodded with a serious expression.

「Hm. Looks like there is no particular danger. Probably, if we won’t do anything provocative it will just go back from where it came.」

As Taiki said that with a wry smile, shocked Ayla replied in a series of small nods.

「I see. It’s not like it’s necessarily dangerous just because it’s a dragon… But even so, how terrifying. So there are more than five thousand of such giant dragons…?」

When Ayla uttered after hearing a shocking fact, Taiki burst into laughter.

「Ahaha. That indeed was a surprise. I wonder what kind of other things are there, it arouses my curiosity.」

While saying that Taiki manipulated the camera, and suddenly The midgardsormr movements turned violent.

With a huge splash, it slammed its giant tail on the water surface. Then the midgardsormr poked its head out of the water. On top of its head, enormous horns were protruding and the back was decorated with a splendid dorsal fin. The colossal body that gave off quite an impression gradually showed itself from under the water and now towered over the surroundings similar to a lighthouse.

Only about a third of the body showed above the water, but even that was more than dozens of meters. Raising its massive body the midgardsormr turned around and squinting its eyes looked towards the tail. Right behind the midgardsormr huge waves were spreading across the sea and in the direction where it looked there appeared to be an island. A round island, about the same size as the midgardsormr. Grey in color, here and there it had pointy boulder-like formations.

However, a giant head showed itself from below the island, causing Taiki to open his eyes wide from surprise.