If You Can't Ride a Ship, Buy One

"You really didn't have to go this far," I murmured — but the surroundings had already erupted into chaos.

With so many people packed into the port and the usual din covering everything, the scuffle itself hadn't drawn much attention. But the moment I put five sailors flat on the ground and their screams went ringing across the harbor, every eye in the place snapped toward us at once.

The sailors' glares turned razor-sharp, and the townsfolk hurriedly averted their eyes. Even the port guards, unmistakable by their uniforms, came sprinting from the far end of the dock.

And of course, the ones who looked at me and recoiled in open horror were, without exception, players.

Before Yena could open her mouth, I left a single message behind and slipped away at speed.

Yena stared blankly at the empty spot where Lily had vanished, the groans of the writhing sailors still ringing behind her — then, as if her buffering had finally finished, she whipped her head around.

"What the—where'd she go?!"

"A message?"

Dodging the eyes of the advancing guards, Yena slipped into the port's shopping district. The situation had been breathing down her neck, but to a Top 100 Ranker assassin, distance meant nothing.

A short, considerate message — coordinates stamped right onto the map and everything.

"...You really didn't have to go this far."

It was true that Lily had ignored Yena's plea to think of her relationship with the Empire and acted on her own. But that was only from Yena's point of view.

Lily was, after all, someone who drew public confessions and stalkers the way lamp draws moths — the type who attracted trouble whether she wanted it or not. If she'd been exposed to an event like this, the odds were high she'd have reacted badly and done something drastic.

And the event itself was trash to begin with. Even with outlaw status, it could be reversed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠well enough by paying back the Empire's devotion and coin, so if it came to it, Yena intervening wouldn't have been a problem at all.

But Lily shouldered all of it herself.

This was supposed to be a Newdlebak from a genuine Top 100 Ranker — and instead, here she was, being looked after by the newbie.

Yena, hair still a mess, sprang to her feet.

Right. This much was nothing.

Lily had shown her so much trust and consideration — which simply meant Yena had to give back something even greater.

Just as she always had.

"Time to show her what a real Newdlebak looks like."

There was nothing in this world money couldn't do.

"Are there really no ships that aren't Empire-affiliated?"

The quiet fringes of the harbor. No matter how far I looked, all I found was a scatter of broken hulks and rowboats fit for nothing beyond a calm river crossing.

Less developed than the port's heart, this stretch was dotted with rotting wooden shacks leaning into collapse, and a foul stench seeped up from somewhere unseen. Cats and dogs wandered between the shanties — most of them, it seemed, long since accustomed to human hands. When I crouched and held out my palm, a brown tabby came rubbing its head against my fingers, shamelessly angling for affection.

"I see."

No ships for an enemy of the Empire, then.

I'd braced myself for restrictions, but they were far tighter and more airtight than I'd expected. Usually, when you pushed out to fringes like these, you'd find the odd vessel living beyond the law's reach. In my experience there were always one or two — smugglers' boats, ships slipping away under a kingdom's blind eye.

But Deoen's Empire was so solidly entrenched that such ships were nowhere to be found.

Which left two possibilities. Either life inside the Empire was comfortable enough that nobody needed to commit such crimes —

or they'd purged every last one who tried, records and all.

Either way, one thing didn't change: I couldn't use a ship.

"You're right about that. I definitely sent the coordinates."

Before leaving, I'd pinned the spot on her map and sent it as a message. A veteran — and a first-rate assassin at that — like Yena should have had no trouble tracking me down.

Yet thirty minutes had passed with no sign of her. Even the viewers, who'd been feeding me live intel through the chat, had gone quiet.

"Haah!"

"Hm?"

Just then, the tabby still lounging in my hands bolted backward in a flash.

An enormous wind came billowing in from behind. Blue hair the color of the open sea, and a snow-white outfit, whipped and fluttered.

Punching straight through the blue expanse of the harbor, a colossal ship had appeared. Its sails were pristine white, but the hull beneath them gleamed black, streaked with red — a single massive vessel swaggering into the port's shabby outskirts like it owned the place.

A sailing ship that enormous had no business showing up in a dump like this.

Who on earth—?

Then I spotted a familiar face atop the bow, waving both arms in great sweeping circles. Which meant...

"Yena?"

An outlaw could not board a ship. Yena was an ordinary citizen; her companion was an outlaw. The two of them could not ride the same vessel.

Wrestling with those three premises, Yena had mulled it over briefly and arrived at a very simple conclusion.

'Can't we just buy the ship?'

The problem had only ever existed because they were passengers — customers paying for passage. If she became the owner, that was an entirely different story.

"...So you bought a ship. Because of that."

"Yep!"

Yena said it on deck, the creak of timbers rising around her, a chilled drink in hand. The attitude was so bright and guileless it left me briefly speechless — but wanting to understand, I sat down across from her.

"Why, though?"

"Because I'm the one helping you, and you went and became an outlaw, so now you can't use ships at all. So obviously, you buy a ship."

"You could have found another way to travel. There was no need to go so far as buying one, was there?"

Wasn't it just too wasteful? To purchase a ship this massive for a single trip?

At my question, Yena fired back without a moment's hesitation.

"Nope. Nuh-uh."

"...?"

"There's gonna be a lot of sailing from here on out. Content, guild business, all of it. Which means we'll be using ships all the time, and I can't exactly wait around at the docks every single time, can I?"

She said it with total confidence, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

But it wasn't obvious. Not at all.

"You bought it because of me."

"Not necessarily."

"So there is a part of it that's for me."

The only sound on deck was the sea slapping against the hull. Silence swallowed the ship — the sole exception being the chat window, which chattered on with the diligence of housewives watching a morning drama, eagerly offering up their opinions.

Yena let out a long breath and nodded.

"Fine. I bought it because of you, Lily. Honestly, for a newbie you've been absurdly good to me — I've gotten way more than I've given. I just wanted to give something back for once."

"...You don't need to do anything that big. I've already received more than enough."

"No. I'm the one who's received more."

Lily would never know. How enormous her own value was — here in Deoen, no, far beyond Deoen, out in the real world itself.

And even if she did know, she wouldn't ask for a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠thing more.

That was simply the kind of person Lily was.

"So just think of it as repayment."

"Repayment?"

"Yes. You're the one who stopped me from becoming an outlaw, remember? Thanks to you I avoided friction with the Empire and got the whole tax mess sorted out. That quarrel event wasn't aimed at you alone, Lily — I was caught up in it too."

The price of all that is this ship.

"So? Is it still too much?"

"......Well. It's reasonable."

Having run some very brief calculation, Lily nodded, conceding a step. Yena turned her head away, feeling as though a weight had finally lifted off her chest.

'...It is absolutely not "reasonable," though.'

Who knew what figure Lily had in her head — but no matter what happened, no matter what anyone said, the fact that this ship had cost somewhere in the hundreds of thousands of dollars was a secret Yena resolved to carry to her grave.