The defeated monsters were bipedal, humanoid creatures. With fins on their limbs and backs, and bodies covered in scales, they were the very definition of merman. Their faces were fish-like, complete with gills, though whether they could fight properly on land remained unclear.

“Do these things have any valuable parts we can sell?”

Since there were no other approaching monsters, we had relaxed our combat stance. If it were just Rio and me, I would have tossed them into my dimensional storage and asked the guild about them later.

“These merman aren’t worth much aside from their magic stones.”

“Is that so?”

“Alright, I’ll extract the stones then.”

“Ah—no, no. We can’t have a lady doing that. Leave it to us.”

Rio had stepped forward to begin dismantling them, but Kant stopped her.

Since he insisted, I decided to help with the dismantling as well.

Since the rest of the remains could be used as fish bait, I arranged for them to be disposed of accordingly.

—Meanwhile, the fishermen were still struggling to haul in their catch.

The intervals between the ship’s violent shakes were growing longer, likely a sign that the giant fish was running out of energy. However, reeling it in was still taking quite some time. While the crane’s reel was gradually winding in when the fish was calm, the moment it started thrashing, they had to stop. According to my Presence Detection, they still had about 500 meters left to go.

“Alright! Now! Pull!!”

Seizing the moment when the fish settled down, the fishermen began turning the reel in unison.

…Wait. That crane reel is manual?

More than a dozen fishermen were gathered around, cranking a massive handle to wind in the line.

“Hmm…”

“What’s wrong?”

Christoph noticed my expression and asked.

“Well… Watching them slowly reel in the fish like this, I kind of feel like jumping in to help and getting this over with.”

“That would basically be stealing their job, though. Best to leave them to it.”

He chuckled at my honesty. I knew that, but still…

“How would you even help?”

“It’s in the water, after all.”

“If we went all out in a tug-of-war with that thing, we might break the crane.”

Kant and the others chimed in with their concerns.

For land-dwelling creatures like us, moving freely in the water was quite difficult. Even magic was weakened underwater, with some spells unable to travel through it at all.

“Well, there are ways…”

Rio extended her hand toward the sea, channeling magic into the water some distance away from the ship. A spell was fired downward into the depths—an Ice Needle, I assumed. It made almost no sound as it entered the water.

“Huh? …What did you just do?”

Alina, the only dedicated magic-user here, was the first to react. The others followed suit, turning their attention to Rio.

Rio leaned over the railing and peered into the water.

“Ah, got it.”

Looks like she successfully took down a fish.

“I see. If you’re not worried about catching them alive, that’s one way to fish.”

As I murmured in admiration, Rio used magic to levitate her catch onto the ship. It was a reasonably sized fish, about a meter long.

I leaned over the railing to observe the water as well. Behind me, the others were chattering, asking how she had managed to take it down, but I left that to Rio.

Scanning the surroundings, I spotted a small island in the distance, but otherwise, there was nothing unusual on the ocean’s surface. Focusing my detection abilities underwater, I mapped out the nearby marine life. There were plenty of fish, but they weren’t densely packed together.

…Hmm, if I used bait to lure them in, wouldn’t that make for an easy haul? As long as I didn’t use oversized bait, I could attract smaller fish instead of giants. Just to be safe, I should do it a bit further from the ship.

About 500 meters away, I opened my dimensional storage and scattered finely chopped pieces of meat into the sea. Small fish quickly swarmed the bait, and before long, larger ones began gathering as well.

Yep, as expected, using smaller bait kept the giant fish away.

Like Rio, I used Ice Needles, aligning them with my detection-based map to fine-tune my aim. While my magical control was inferior to hers, combining it with non-magical skills allowed for more precise applications.

“Alright, firing.”

A volley of twenty Ice Needles shot into the school of fish. Since they were all gathered near the surface, I didn’t miss. Some fish started sinking, but I lifted them with magic and stored them in my dimensional storage.

When I turned around, Alina was staring wide-eyed at the area where I had been fishing. Her gaze slowly shifted to me.

“…Shu, was that you?”

“Ah, you caught me?”

As expected of a mage, she noticed even though I tried to be discreet. Then again, maybe I shouldn’t have been doing this while on duty.

“Well, whatever.”

As long as I did my job, no one would complain.

Before I knew it, the fishermen had finally won their battle. Hanging from the crane was a massive fish, about eight meters long.

“We got it!!”

The fishermen cheered in victory.