45. Parrrley (3)
45. Parrrley (3)
*Per reader advice that even a sailing ship would cover 190 km in three days, the distance has been increased to 800 km.
"We're almost out already. What a shame."
"...Want to turn back and catch the Kraken too?"
"Find something to eat with your booze once we're back on land."
"No, seriously, I've never had anything this good with booze. Would ordinary octopus taste this good too?"
"Probably."
A week had passed since we'd encountered the Kraken. We were making steady progress toward land.
Ever since we'd left the Misty Sea, we hadn't run into any real trouble. The days passed peacefully, with only gentle waves accompanying us. We took it easy, living on parboiled Kraken meat soaked in the booze left behind by the late Wilsons to remove the smell.
"Yohan. What are you planning to do once we reach the continent?"
"I don't know yet."
What I did wasn't up to me. Sadly.
Still, it looked like there'd be a reward, so that was some consolation... or was it? It wasn't going to toss me a single stat and call that a reward, was it?
"If you really don't know, come with us. We can find you a decent spot. Someone like you can get work at a perfectly respectable place."
"That's right. You're a great cook, you know how to handle a ship, and..."
It was a little embarrassing when they said it so seriously, though it did feel good. That was what it meant to be acknowledged by others. I wolfed down my share of the meal and got up. I was the only one who could handle the wheel, so I didn't have much time to rest. I couldn't exactly leave it to one of the others for a while, either.
Karina didn't have the strength to turn the wheel properly. Reni could turn it just fine, but she might wrench it too hard and break it. And leaving the wheel to Millia made me nervous. She steered fairly well, but she tended to get distracted and send us off in the wrong direction.
In the end, the safest option was for me to stay at the wheel, especially since I was the only one who knew our exact heading.
I leaned against the wheel and opened my Status Window. The only thing that had changed since the day it started working properly was the distance in the mission field, and the stingy thing was unchanged again today. I felt like I'd used my Skills an absurd number of times, but couldn't at least one of their ranks go up? I wanted to breeze through life with an SSS-rank Skill too. But no, I got an A. What the hell was A supposed to be?
Couldn't I at least have gotten an S?
...Come to think of it, were the ranks attached to Skills and Traits fixed values?
Or did they increase with my proficiency?
The system was different from the Survival Academy I remembered, so I had no way to tell. I still had no idea why I'd been given this Status Window. Couldn't it have just given me the Survival Academy-style Status Window? Had the entire system been overhauled when the True Ending DLC was patched in?
The more I thought about it, the dizzier I got.
Nothing seemed to be working out properly. It was frustrating.
I'd transmigrated and everything, yet my life was still this hardcore. Why couldn't I ever coast through life? I wanted at least one cheat Skill or cheat item, just like a web-novel protagonist.
Craft wasn't a bad Skill, but it lacked impact compared with something like an overwhelming mana pool or a hidden job.
"...Forget it. Things'll work out one way or another once we set foot on land."
What was the point of complaining like this?
I decided to think positively. Positively.
Still, getting close to Karina had been a major gain, so I decided my time on the deserted island had meant something after all.
I'd gotten a slightly easier start, so figuring out how to use it to reach the True Ending mattered more. Remembering useful items and in-game knowledge would be way more constructive anyway.
What was there again?
First, I remembered there had been five or six heroines.
First was Karina, the key to the main story. Then Lana from the Magic Department, and... who else had there been? One in the Alchemy Department, one in the Knight Department, one among the teachers, and... who was it?
Anyway, that was roughly it for the heroines.
Other important characters included the principal and vice principal... Uh, I thought one of them had been the mastermind, but which one was it?
No, before that, what was going to happen to the protagonist?
I probably wasn't the protagonist...
If I remembered right, the protagonist had some kind of special mark etched onto their body.
That meant the protagonist of Survival Academy had to exist somewhere.
Were they the default character that came up when you left every setting blank? But wasn't it a case of choosing one from several presets?
And was the protagonist male or female? I didn't even know their gender.
What had the default name been?
My head spun.
I'd run into a problem I hadn't even imagined. I'd been trying to settle into a leisurely train of thought, but this felt like dozing off and jolting awake from a nightmare.
"...Whatever happens, happens."
It'd come back to me once I saw things for myself.
Just as my memories had returned the moment I saw Karina even after ten years. Human memory was like that: sometimes a shock could revive even very old memories.
----------------
"Yohan! Look over there! Land, it's land!"
Karina's bright, cheerful voice reached me while I was spacing out, leaning against the wheel. Perhaps because she'd gone so long without setting foot on land, she looked happier than I'd seen her in a long time. That was only natural; by the time we were about a hundred kilometers away, all of them had clearly been bored out of their minds.
All there was to see was blue water, and the only attraction at sea was the most fucking obnoxious bird in the world—the seagull. How could anyone not get bored? Fuck. It shit on the deck again. Whose turn was it to clean today? Millia's?
No sooner had I thought of Millia than she came onto the deck with a mop and cleaned up the splattered seagull shit.
Whatever else you could say about her, she worked hard at every task she was given. Though I suspected that was partly because she enjoyed it in her own way.
Rubbing my stubbly jaw, I turned the wheel slightly. I'd thought the distance was shrinking slowly; apparently our heading had drifted while I was leaning against it.
"Once we dock, the first thing we need to do is find a currency exchange."
It was time to sell off the belongings left to us by the Wilsons, who'd tragically met their end at sea.
There was jewelry set with expensive gems and antiques that looked fairly valuable. I'd gathered everything that could be converted into cash, so it should at least cover the travel expenses to the academy. Ah, maybe I should keep a few pieces. If I studied them, I felt like I might be able to put them to use with my Skills.
"Captain! I can see the port over there!"
"I know, Millia."
Couldn't she put that disgusting mop away? She'd just used it to wipe up seagull shit.
"Captain! What're you gonna do once we get to port?"
"...First, we'll dock the ship. Then we'll exchange the gems."
In the end, money was the most important thing in society. Without it, you couldn't eat, find a place to sleep, or buy clothes, so turning our valuables into cash came before anything else. It was about time to start taking in the sails. We were going too fast; at this rate, instead of docking, we'd launch a charge that would put a suicide squad to shame.
"Millia, go tell Reni to take in the sails. We'll be arriving at the port soon."
"Got it!"
Millia ran off with a clatter of footsteps toward Reni, who was leaning over the railing in the distance.
Once the sails were taken in and my view opened up even wider, I narrowed my eyes at the port. Bathed in bright sunlight, it was as dazzling as it was vast. Maybe it was about half the size of Busan.
Then again, I'd never lived in Busan and had only visited once as a child, so it probably wasn't an appropriate size comparison. But it was the only port city I knew, so I had nothing better to compare it with. In any case, I savored the feeling of my heart racing for the first time in a long while as I watched the ships passing near ours.
There were fishing boats passing with nets, merchant ships boasting colorful designs, and even vessels with rows of cannons along their sides like warships from a movie. Seeing the people aboard them made it sink in that I'd finally reached a place overflowing with people.
As many people as there were rabbits.
Yeah, this was where people lived.
Not some hellscape like the deserted island where I had been the only human.
"Yohan! Snap out of it! Put a shirt on!"
"Got it."
I obediently put on a shirt at Reni's words. Even I knew I couldn't walk around shirtless in civilized society. I chose the most presentable shirt, the one Karina had picked out. Ugh, the smell. There was no way to do proper laundry aboard a ship, so even the best-preserved clothes were bound to smell.
Once I had some money, I'd buy clothes first. Something sturdy, while I was at it.
After that, I'd get a room at an inn and eat a meal loaded with spices. Then...
"Captain?"
"Ah, Millia."
"Captain, something feels strange."
"Put your head on straight before you talk."
Millia's head, which had been about thirty degrees askew, finally returned to its normal position.
"So, what's strange?"
"Um, there are people with scary-looking weapons gathered at the port?"
"What?"
I dashed straight to the bow and stared at the port.
Soldiers?
Why?
They were looking our way, weren't they?
...Ah.
"Halt! Under Imperial law, unregistered ships are forbidden from entering the harbor!"
A man who stood out among the soldiers, dressed as if to announce, "I am someone important," shouted at us. Suspicion practically poured from the eyes visible through the slit in his helmet.
...Our ship's sorry state seemed to have caused a misunderstanding.