"How is that possible!"
Bull Demon looked as though it had just heard some absurd fairy tale. "This damned Faith system can maintain long-distance communication over three or four thousand kilometers at most!"
Ronan said nothing else. He simply looked at it.
Bull Demon swallowed, pretending it had accidentally run out of breath before hurriedly continuing. "Occasionally—occasionally, it can still work. But it's really difficult. When I try to contact him, seven or eight times out of ten, it doesn't go through."
"What about from his end?"
"Uh, that seems... the success rate isn't very high either?"
"Even so, with a maximum range of four thousand kilometers, it could still reach south of the equator." Ronan gave Bull Demon, which had already lost all sense of time and distance, a little lesson. Then he asked unhurriedly, "During your communications, you were constantly asking him for help, weren't you?"
"Uh, yes."
"Was it effective?"
"P-Pretty effective."
"So can I say that thanks to your ally, you, a nearshore Aberrant Species unsuited to the local environment, managed to overcome countless hardships, cross half the Pacific Ocean, and reach the waters near Di City in just ten days? The conclusion is: he's a very good online guide."
"This..." Bull Demon's bovine eyes widened, and it looked somewhat dazed.
"Ah, don't pay too much attention to it. There are still too many coincidences in there, things that are hard to explain. Like that Ship-Cutting Sword that chased you until you cried for your parents, and the person behind it."
As Ronan spoke, he reached out again and touched the muscles and bones on Bull Demon's head that had begun to knit back together. The latter shuddered again, reacting strongly.
How much of that was terror of death looming so close, and how much was