Reincarnated Hero System - Chapter 1230 - 1230: Fire on the Voyager

Eliza running into Sharon while she was walking through the streets of the ‘city on water’ that was the Voyager, led to her inviting the princess to dinner with Evan.

Their meal took place in a private suite of their own, another ‘building’ cabin on the ship’s terrace deck, one level below where Sharon’s suite was.

One thing Sharon took from that dinner was that Evan didn’t want his presence on the Voyager to become known, at least not for the time being.

Evan hadn’t concealed the fact that he’d left the Alpha Continent from his allies there, but he hadn’t publicly specified how he would depart or where he intended to go first.

When Sharon asked why she hadn’t seen him at any of the guest events held on the ship over the past few days, he explained that he wouldn’t be appearing publicly until they reached the Zeraxes Archipelago, which they were scheduled to pass on their route, as he had business there.

That explanation made Sharon somewhat wary about what business Evan had in that place, and the possibility that he was going there to meet Pirate Queen Zara crossed her mind, which wasn’t unreasonable considering he had mentioned wanting to speak with the Beta Continent’s Transcendents and was on friendly terms with the Alpha Continent’s two Transcendents.

Even so, she chose to honour his request and keep his presence confidential, not even informing the servants who had accompanied her up to the dining room door where she, Evan, and Eliza had dinner.

Evan had cast a soundproofing spell the moment she entered, so even if someone stood directly outside the door, they wouldn’t hear a word spoken within, though they could still sense the presences inside the room.

Naturally, Evan concealed himself with the Concealment skill he possessed, and unless someone saw him with their own eyes, they wouldn’t know he was there.

As they were leaving, Evan stood by a window and glanced at the young princess’s rather modest entourage, his eyes passing over the two Living Legends guarding her before moving down to her maids and knight guards, all of whom were trained soldiers.

His gaze didn’t linger, and he looked away soon after, focusing instead on another section of the ship’s open terrace deck.

“Evan? What’s up?” Eliza asked, stepping up behind him and slipping her arms around his waist.

“Nothing. Just looking for my second target here.”

“Second target?” Eliza repeated, then understanding appeared in her eyes. “You did say you had two passengers in mind. Who’s the second one?”

“A noble from Isolon.”

Eliza paused, trying to recall which country Isolon was and whether anything notable stood out about it, but nothing came to mind.

“What do you want with them?”

“I’d like to speak with them about one of Isolon’s national events,” Evan replied, taking a deep breath before releasing a small amount of his magic power.

After a few seconds with no response, he shook his head and retracted it.

“Oh well, they’d bite anyway. Seems like everything is ready,” he said, turning around and pulling Eliza into a hug as he continued, “We might be a bit busy tonight.”

“Busy? Is what you’re after finally happening?”

“Mhmm,” Evan responded with a nod before posing a question to Eliza.

“Hey, Liz. Wanna go grab a cocktail?”

◇　◇　◇

While Evan was asking his fiancée out on a night-time date, Sharon found herself caught in a rather irritating exchange with another princess from a Beta Continental nation whom she happened to run into on her way back up to her level of the ship’s terrace deck.

That princess viewed Sharon as a rival for reasons Sharon neither understood nor cared to entertain, and she never missed an opportunity to provoke her. Sharon would normally brush off such remarks with calm indifference, but tonight wasn’t ‘normal’, so she ended up responding with barbed retorts before walking out on the other princess.

On her way back to her suite, just as her group reached an intersection with stairs leading up to the next terrace level, a large number of guests began rushing downward at the same time, as though drawn by something happening below, likely some event arranged to entertain the passengers.

Sharon walked at the centre of her escort, her maids trailing about a metre behind her while her knights maintained their protective formation around her without breaking pace.

Her group was approaching from the east, intending to make a 90-degree turn and head north up the stairs, while the crowd was descending from the northern staircase Sharon intended to use, moving toward the stairs to the south of the intersection.

Since the staircase was only wide enough to accommodate five or six people walking side by side, they were naturally on a collision course if neither side slowed down.

The first few people in the rushing crowd didn’t slow even when they noticed the line of knights turning to ascend the stairs they were coming down, and some nearly ran straight into the knights at the front of Sharon’s group.

Naturally, the trained knights reacted in time to stop any collision, reaching out to grab the rushing guests and pull them aside without hesitation.

Those first few who were grabbed stumbled to the side in surprise, but they were released as soon as they were clear of Sharon’s path.

Sharon’s lady-in-waiting, having sensed the crowd ahead, suggested that the knights clear the way before Sharon proceeded, and just as the knights on the right flank of their formation around her stepped forward to do so, someone stepping out of the cabin to their right, adjacent to the stairwell, nearly ran into them.

The lady-in-waiting, one of the Aelum Kingdom’s Living Legends and a member of Sharon’s personal secret guard, reached out and grabbed the person by the shoulder, stopping them where they stood, and when the individual who had exited their cabin with their eyes buried in the phone in their hand looked up after being stopped, their face went pale as they realized they had nearly collided with people that looked like high nobles or royalty.

At the same time, the knights who had stepped forward attempted to redirect the rushing crowd trying to force their way through the narrowing space on the staircase and cross the intersection toward the stairs leading to the lower floor, but their words weren’t getting through to the mass of people.

Annoyed by the situation, one of them, Sharon’s second Living Legend guard, who was mixed in with the regular knights, released a pulse of magic power.

It wasn’t flashy or dramatic, but the pressure was sufficient to make the advancing crowd that refused to stop hesitate as their instincts warned them to keep their distance.

The instinctive fear brought on by a Level 700s magic power pressure caused the moving bodies to back away for Sharon’s group to pass.

Once the space opened up, the magic pressure disappeared. The knights returned to their standard formation, and Sharon continued walking without a word, heading up the stairs as if her guards hadn’t just scared a bunch of people nearly out of their skins.

She returned to her room and, after taking a shower, chose to turn in early for the night.

However, her rest was cut short when her lady-in-waiting barged into her room, the abrupt opening of the door jolting the princess awake.

Considering her status as royalty and the need to travel to other nations as a diplomat, Sharon had taken some time to level up as much as possible, reaching somewhere close to Level 200 so that she could at least protect herself a bit and not be a burden to her guards.

At that level, someone barging into her room while she slept was more than enough to make her wide awake, especially since the intruder immediately began speaking in a loud voice.

“Your Highness! Pardon my rudeness, but there is an emergency. We need to evacuate you immediately.”

All traces of sleep vanished from Sharon’s eyes at the word emergency, and she pulled her hand out from under her pillow, sliding the dagger that had been hidden there into its sheath as she immediately rose from the bed.

“What happened?” she asked.

Her Lady-in-Waiting quickly grabbed a robe lying on a nearby couch, throwing it over Sharon’s shoulders to cover her nightwear, and began leading her out as she explained the situation.

“A fire broke out on the first floor of the suite, from a storage room.”

Sharon frowned at the older woman’s words, confused.

‘Why didn’t they just put out the fire?’ she thought, and her Lady-in-Waiting continued speaking, explaining why that obvious solution had not been possible.

“The sprinkler systems failed to activate. Fire extinguishers had no effect, and even water magic could not quench the flames. Despite all we did, they continued burning in a dazzling white colour.”

Her words made Sharon instantly understand why her Lady-in-Waiting had come to evacuate her.

A strange white fire that could not be put out, even with magically generated water, even by a Living Legend capable of using ambient energy from the world’s laws, was no ordinary fire.

That it had suddenly erupted in her suite made it clear that something suspicious was afoot.

It was very likely a targeted attack.

Several knights waiting right outside Sharon’s room joined them, forming a six-man formation around her as they hurried down to the ground floor.

Just as they reached the ground floor, where her other knights were evacuating her maids and other servants, a loud explosion echoed, shockwaves rippling outward and knocking some servants to the floor with force.

The strange white flames burst from the first floor of the cabin building and spread rapidly, climbing up and down the walls on every side.

Sharon’s knights immediately guided her outside the burning cabin building, where the ship’s lights illuminated the surrounding area, and alarms blared loudly.

Security officers and emergency personnel rushed to the scene, momentarily stunned by the sight of the strange white flames, before snapping out of their shock and immediately began taking action.

The medics of the emergency team tried to treat the injured servants, while the firemen tried to extinguish the flames, both endeavours seeing little success.

The security officers cleared the area and pushed back the quickly gathering crowd, more squads joining them to evacuate the occupants of the adjacent suite cabin buildings, high nobility and royalty from other nations aboard the Voyager.

Some of the security personnel approached Sharon’s group, but her guard knights, who maintained their six-man formation around the princess and two of her closest maids and her Lady-in-Waiting, stopped them from getting too close.

Other knights stepped forward to speak with them, explaining the strangeness of the fire at the request of the security personnel.