Solitary Island

A broadside from the Seahorse blows gaping holes in the Captain Sharkrider, and with dawn approaching Bonebeard breaks off the fight and submerges his vessel, vowing to settle matters later. Roderick's crew celebrates around Guts, marveling at how easily he handled the tentacle monsters, but their captain broods over how Bonebeard's men, human only days earlier, could have become such things. His navigator interrupts with word that the Seahorse's hull has sprung a bad leak and needs timber, so Roderick orders the ship to put in at a nearby island for inspection and full repairs.

The island bristles with sharp, forbidding rocks, and a naked, blue-haired young girl holding a fishing rod and a net full of fish watches the Seahorse draw near. Once ashore, Magnifico and Isidro rejoice at solid ground, but Schierke distrusts the place and tells Guts she senses something off. Guts admits his Brand of Sacrifice has bled ever since he felt that strange wind. Schierke voices her worry to Roderick as well, but he insists the ship cannot sail again until it is repaired, so they must stay the night.

Isidro sets off to explore with Puck despite Schierke's telepathic scolding, promising to reach out by thought if trouble finds him. Climbing to the island's peak, he is let down to find it smaller than he had hoped, until Puck spots a large cavern in its flank. As Isidro hunts for dry wood to make a torch, the blue-haired girl reappears, now in a long shirt, and warns him not to go inside. She stares up above his head at Puck, fascinated by the elf, then realizes Isidro has only just arrived aboard the newly docked ship and could not have known the cave's danger. She explains that it is the dwelling of the Sea God.

Meanwhile Roderick, Guts, Serpico, Farnese, Schierke, Casca, Magnifico and several sailors wander into the island's lone settlement, a small fishing village that offers no visible food, repair materials or lodging. Roderick waves at a figure watching from a window, only for it to shut at once, and he shrugs the villagers off as timid. Schierke still cannot pinpoint the source of the faint od she feels blanketing the village. Casca suddenly drifts away with Farnese following, and finds an unsettling shrine statue shaped like a one-eyed octopus with its single eye closed.

The Seahorse drives off Bonebeard's ship, then docks at an island to repair a leaking hull. Isma appears for the first time and warns Isidro away from a cavern she identifies as the Sea God's lair. Schierke senses a pervasive od over the fishing village, and Casca discovers an octopus-shaped idol in a shrine.

The twenty-one page chapter continues the Fantasia Arc and was first published in Young Animal issue 4 of 2010. It introduces Isma, the half-merrow girl central to the arc, and establishes the island setting and its worship of the Sea God.