4-4 minutes


    “Chapter 203: Thundercloud Boat”


    How? I’m sure the cloud was further away from us. Did it move? Did we not realize how close it actually was?


    – Careful with the lightning! Don’t worry. You’re safe here~


    – This voice…


    – Tell the dragons to keep going straight and you’ll reach the deck of our boat.


    – Boat?


    – Ah, you’re so oblivious. Apprentice, go get them.


    A pink-haired girl with twintails emerged from the depths of the gray clouds.


    – Heeey~ It’s been a month, huh? How you doing?


    – Arueetel-san!?


    – Right-o! I’m the apprentice of the captain of the thundercloud ship! We soar the skies-


    – Can you shut your mouth already and get them inside? D?u?m?b?a?s?s?


    – Sure…


    The clouds around us took the form of a hand and carried us into the center of the thunderstorm.


    The deeper we went, the calmer the storm became.


    And sure enough, a boat was floating in the middle of the clouds.


    – Over here!


    On the deck of the ship was a wizard waving her hand at me.


    Eyes golden just like Arueetel, blonde hair, and wearing a robe with gold ornaments that looked more expensive than anything I’ve ever worn.


    – Sorry for startling you. We saw a pair of dragons flying with an unnatural group of adventurers and I thought we had to investigate.


    – I’m Takaya, disciple of the Sage of the Forest. Who are you?


    – Ah, right, sorry. My name is Rifaiv. I’m the captain of the Rumble Fisher. And sometimes I go by the title of Sage of the Clouds(*)


    So this is the next sage I meet…


    Ever said all the sages have an extravagant side, but for now Rifaiv seems normal.


    – So you’re the famous kid that the Sage of the Forest raised, huh?


    “Famous”?


    – So? What were you guys up to? Why were you flying on dragons? Sightseeing?


    – Something like that. We were headed to Wols. My friends are from there.


    – Ah, to Shamsheel’s place? The Sage of the Volcano lives there.


    – There’s a sage in Wols!? (Akane)


    – Yeah, but she spends all day in her crater so we rarely get to see her.


    The sudden slam of a door interrupted our conversation.


    – YO! Are you the Level IX kid that Aru and Shiori mentioned?


    A young man was showing me his pure white teeth with a huge smile.


    —————————————————————————


    (*) Hey folks! It seems that I have made my first crucial mistake (Crucial, though thankfully I realized this early on). Arueetel is not, in fact, the Sage of the Clouds! I re-read the sentence where she introduces herself for a good hour when I translated it and no matter how hard I tried I could barely make sense of it. This is the main reason why I wanted to catch up on chapters, to ensure that mistakes like this don’t happen. The more I do in advance the less likely it is for these things to happen, so hopefully everything should be perfectly accurate after a few chapters. Should, tho I’m just a human. I’ll make sure to let you know if I make another mistake this big. Thank you for reading and sorry for my terrible Japanese <3


    (I will change the original sentence so if you’re reading this after 25/07/22 nevermind this message)