WE TOOK A GHOST SHIP
The ghost ship finally started moving and slowly drifted away from the shore.
“Hey, Beelzebub? How is this ship moving?”
All the sails had holes in them, so I didn’t think they were catching much wind.
“I am not certain of the details myself, but I have heard that it is propelled by the emotions of evil spirits. It is the captain who controls them.”
“You said it like it was no big deal, but that’s insane!”
“And a few of the skeletons seem to be rowing with oars. As dark as it may be, this is still the best way for us to reach Outofreach Island. ’Twill be a long journey.”
“Right—I never asked you how long the journey will actually take. How many days is it?”
There weren’t any regular ships out there, so I hadn’t gotten any word on that front.
“We should be overnighting for two days on this ship one way.”
“That’s super long! We’re staying the night?!”
“’Tis all right. There are private rooms and showers. Sleep when you have the time. I shall wake you when it is time to eat.”
There was no turning back now, so I may as well enjoy the cruise.
“I guess I’ll check out the view on the deck.”
I went up the stairs to the deck.
It sucked. There was so much fog I could barely see a few feet in front of me.
“Oh, right! It’s only dark around the ship!”
Well, what did I expect from a ghost ship? So much for taking in the view…
I sensed someone approaching.
There was Smarsly, in the arms of a skeleton.
The other skeletons on the deck spread out a paper that looked like a keyboard. Fortunately, it was compatible with the human language I knew.
Smarsly hopped around across it.
“What’s up? Life—is—like—a—boat—without—rudders—or—oars—Where—are—we—headed—It—is—a—mystery.”
This was one of the three most difficult sages to meet in the world, after all. Maybe I should’ve expected the theatrics.
“I know what you mean. Only a small portion of people make real plans for the future, but most people can manage without drowning, even with half-hearted plans. I guess life is like a boat, huh?”
Smarsly started hopping around on the keyboard paper again.
To summarize: It had lived underground for a long time, so it was shocked to see just how much information there was in the outside world. Since then, it had made many discoveries.
“Yeah. I’ve been to way more places than you, but I can only say I know about a very small portion of the world. It’s so big out there that you can never get bored.”
At some point, I’d sat down on the deck for a proper conversation with Smarsly.
The view outside still sucked, but this wasn’t so bad. Constant sun would get boring, too.
Smarsly taught me about geography.
“Huh, so this sea is well-known for how rough it is. Maybe a ghost ship was the right choice, after all.”
“It iiis. A ship that relies on the wiiind is much too daaangerous.”
“I get that, which means we were really particular about planning—wait, are you allowed to be out and about, Captain?!”
The next thing I knew, Imremico was standing next to me.
Merpeople could apparently stand and move around on their fish tails.
“The skeletons are keeping an eye on thiiings, but this ship can baaasically drive itself.”
Maybe ghost ships were actually super high-tech.
“I’ll do my beeest as caaaptain once we get closer to Outofreach Iiisland, but until theeen, I’ve got nothing to dooo. Oh, crab roll?”
The captain showed me a bread roll in the shape of a crab.
“Sure… Thanks.”
Despite the gimmicky shape, it tasted just like a regular bread roll.
“So slooow, right?”
I found it hard to suss out whether I should reply, “Yes, you are!” But maybe the captain herself knew that. A yes to a question like that was asking for trouble…
“This ship is so gentle and relaaaxing.”
Oh, she was talking about the ship…
“Time chaaanges on the sea. It’s sooo different compared to life on laaand or in the merpeople villages; sooo slow. I reeeally like this.”
I nodded. I honestly didn’t think I’d gotten to experience anything this slow and relaxing before.
“It is niiice just to be present with nooo thoughts.”
“Yeah. They say that, even if you’re studying hard, you do need to space out for a little while so your knowledge will stick. I think it’s really important to have moments like those.”
Maybe just hanging out on the waves like this would be good for me once in a while.
And as we relaxed—
The captain fell asleep…
“Captain! You probably shouldn’t be asleep, right? Should you?!”
I was scared, so I woke her up just in case.
“Oh, whoooops… Sooorry…”
She apparently did end up falling asleep when she wasn’t supposed to. I wished she would be a little more responsible.
Afterward, I decided to explore the ship.
Rosalie was chatting with the skeletons the whole time.
She seemed to be having a lot of fun, so I thought I’d done right to bring her along.
Curalina sat on the opposite end of the deck, quietly painting.
We probably wouldn’t need her help as the jellyfish spirit this time around, but I also felt like I’d made the right choice inviting her, too.
Beelzebub was sitting down, checking some documents…
“What you’re doing is almost too boring, Beelzebub… You’re like some bureaucrat…”
“Silence, you! Why must you open your mouth and comment whilst I do my work? And I am a bureaucrat!”
Everyone was making the most effective use of their time on board. Even just sitting around and spacing out was a perfectly good way to use this time. No need to worry about productivity.
And so, our first day on board passed.
It would be dinnertime soon.
Hmm, I’m getting worried again…
What would dinner on a ghost ship be like…? I sure hoped there would be food on board; not all of us were skeletons, after all.
When dinnertime arrived, we went to the dining hall.
The skeleton crew brought us our food. The captain was sitting at the table, too. I was a little worried about the navigation and such, but we would probably be okay.
“Our food todaaay is a full-course craaab dinner.”
The first thing they brought out was a huge platter of boiled crab! There was also crab omelets, crab soup—everything had crab in it.
“Wow, this is fancy for a ghost ship!”
“Oh-ho. One cannot often eat these things out in the demon lands. In fact, I never have.” Beelzebub seemed excited about this, too.
I was a little worried about how it would taste—I mean, if skeletons were cooking it, how could they taste test?
“Oh, they’re perfectly delicious,” I said. “The ingredients themselves are fantastic from the get-go.”
Beelzebub sipped on her wine and offered her compliments to the ghost chefs. This service was great.
Curalina, the jellyfish spirit, was ominously murmuring “A pretentious feast…” as she sat sketching something, but it wasn’t like she needed to keep good manners at the moment. I paid her no mind.
“This shiiip catches craaabs. They are then processed and sooold. I heeear this used to be a craaab fishing ship, after all.”
“Do fishing ships come with dining halls like these? Oh, I guess it’s been remodeled in the past, though.”
Rosalie then approached with a skeleton.
“Big Sis! I heard that this ship used to be a crab fishing galley!”
A crab galley!
Oof, just hearing that sounds like a harsh labor environment…
“It was rough, so there were a good handful of people who died on board. The skeletons working here now are part of those who did.”
“Um… Uh-huh…”
I didn’t want to hear that while I was eating.
“And then there was mutiny among the crew, which resulted in those holes in the hull. That’s how it sank. After that, the ghost ship sailed the seas aimlessly, and then the mermaid captain here purchased it, and the rest is history— At least, that’s what they told me!”
The skeleton nodded, so that was probably the truth.
“Hold on. I want to know if something happened after it became a ghost ship. There’s clearly some drama waiting for us… I mean, this isn’t a regular ghost ship.”
How on earth could it have been available for a mermaid to purchase?
Rosalie asked the skeleton again. The skeleton couldn’t speak, so I had the ghost interpret for me.
“Ghost ships are at risk of getting attacked by other boats, so they apparently decided to become a legal, registered ship. They would often be targeted for takedown requests in adventurers guilds, and seafarers would try to get on board as a test of will, he says.”
“It’s just a haunted house on the water, then!”
People weren’t that afraid of ghost ships, in the end…
“And even though grudges and stuff keep the boat moving, it was still hard on the skeletons to keep it afloat when it was basically ready to sink, so they wanted to repair it. And they needed money for that, of course, so they decided to go legal for the convenience. Underground ship repair sounds super expensive.”
“This is a lot to take in!”
“Hmm… I do not know much of matters of the sea… I am fascinated to hear such things…”
Even the demon minister was surprised. There were still so many things in this world that we didn’t know about.
“Well, this ship doooes have a history. If you waaant, I could show you the old torture chamber and galley facilities. Some of us heeere lived through those days, so they can give a veeery vivid description.”
“That…sounds terrifying, Captain, so I think I’ll pass…”
“Okaaay. Well, feel freeeee to speak up if you ever start losing your mind with boredom. There are looots of spoooooky stories. Skeletons I don’t recogniiize popping up on board and such,” the usually cheerful Captain Imremico said. I probably would have said no anyway.
After dinner, I took a shower and went into my room.
“The room is like a regular hotel room.”
Rosalie was right beside me, too. “Looks like we’re in the same room, Big Sis.”
“I know you don’t really have much use for the concept of rooms, but I’m glad to be paired with you.”
“Our first boat trip is getting interesting, isn’t it?!” Rosalie buzzed around the room. She was in high spirits.
“Yeah, I completely agree. I kind of wish I’d brought along more of the family, too. But I probably would have opted for a normal ship and a normal route instead…”
We could make plenty of other opportunities for us anyway, so a boat trip with the family was something I could put on the list.
“All the skeletons have such funny stories, Big Sis. Like a galley with a crew of a hundred reaching its destination with only ten left—”
“Rosalie! That’s a scary story!”
History really was full of terrifying truths if you did a little digging.
“Then I’ll tell you about the crab fishing. You pull them up with a net, right? This one time, they found a guy with the net wrapped around his neck, and when they pulled it, his head—”
“Stop making this scary! These are all horror stories!”
“Okay… I don’t mean to upset you, Big Sis, so I’ll try not to talk too much to you…” Rosalie shrunk a little.
“Oh—you know I’m not telling you not to talk to me at all, right?”
“No, it’s nighttime now anyway. You should get some rest.”
“That’s also true,” I replied. “Right, early to bed and early to rise for me, then.”
Rosalie turned to face the wall. “Hey, she’s going to sleep, so don’t talk to her right now!”
“There’s something there?!”
Now she was scaring me through implication!
“There’s a seal attached to the back of the picture frame on the wall, and it’s starting to come off. The ghost there is about to come free.”
“That’s the last thing I wanted to hear!”
Laika and Halkara, who absolutely could not handle anything scary, would not be able to ride this ship…
I filled my head with as many happy thoughts as I could and went to bed.
Luckily, the ship didn’t rock that much, so falling asleep wasn’t difficult.
I dreamed of riding on Laika as she soared through the sky. The gentle rocking of the ship was a lot like Laika’s, actually.
The next day, I ran into Beelzebub in the dining hall.
“I dreamed of riding on Vania in her leviathan form last night,” she said.
“Hey, that’s like my dream. I was riding on Laika.”
“I was surprised at how smooth the flight was, but it turned out to be a dream.”
Was riding on Vania really that bad…?
Smarsly was also in Beelzebub’s arms.
“How is Smarsly doing? Is the traveling wearing it out?” I decided to ask Beelzebub instead of Smarsly. Smarsly couldn’t talk.
“It seems no different than usual. And perhaps it is not so much tired as it is intrigued by all the new stimulations.”
I could see Smarsly blobbing up and down slightly. I think that’s a nod.
“We’ll be getting to Outofreach Island tomorrow. That’s perfect, then. I bet it’s turning out to be a good break for you, huh?”
“One that would have been better if the children were here.”
That was all this demon could think about…
“Fine. Then I’ll bring them onto the ship next time.”
“Oh, no need for you to come.” I was getting annoyed.
That was when Curalina appeared. “I finished my sketch.”
I remembered her drawing during dinner the night before.
It was a picture of the skeletons wolfing down food at a feast.
Food that the skeletons had already eaten was poking out of their bones…
“That’s dark! I mean, I know it’s your style, but still!”
“You really get the sense that nothing satisfies them; oh, I like it. Jellyfish-fish-fish…”
Well, if the artist liked it, then that was good enough.
More importantly, I wanted to know what was for breakfast today.
“I wonder what we’ll have! I hope it’s like a fancy breakfast buffet at an expensive restaurant!”
When we came to the dining hall, the skeletons were bringing out food that looked very familiar.
“Our breeeakfast is a full-course crab meal, too,” Captain Imremico drawled with delight.
“Um… Isn’t this the same as what we had for dinner?”
“The skeletons ooonly catch crab on this ship, sooo it’s aaalways going to be crab.”
I’ll get tired of that quick! Wait, there’s a crab-shaped bread roll sitting on the captain’s table.
“Um, Captain? Is that…?”
“Feel free to buy breeead from the shop if you’re bored of crab.”
So that’s what the shop was for!
“I believe I may go to the shop…”
“A crab course is too much for breakfast. Fish-fish-fish…”
We all went to the shop for bread. The crabless crab roll was a welcome reprieve from seafood.
I guess ghost ships had their own problems.
…Although, this one seemed very solvable.
I thought our three-day voyage would pass by in a blink, but I found myself bored already by day two.
“Spacing out for too long is actually kind of painful…”
I was lying down on the deck.
And since the ship was shrouded in a black mist, I didn’t really know what it looked like outside. All I knew was that we were bobbing along the ocean.
Then Smarsly approached me. The cloth keyboard was still laid out from the day before.
“Hey, Smarsly. What’s up?”
It typed out a question.
“‘What is god?’ Sheesh, that’s a sudden question…”
I saw Godly Godness’s mild smile in my mind’s eye.
That’s right—Smarsly had seen a god with its own eyes at the UFC symposium.
Any sage would be intrigued if they saw her.
But…I wasn’t sure if she should be the baseline for the divine. It was rude to the whole concept. Nintan should be more of the standard…
“I’m sure Godly Godness would give you a quick answer if you asked her, but I’ll just speak from my own experience.”
I gave it a quick rundown of my thoughts on deities.
But there was no end to Smarsly’s inquiries.
It even asked me about spirits (I thought it’d be better if it asked Curalina herself, but she would probably only say spirits were meaningless or something).
It also asked me about time (and I answered honestly that I didn’t understand such philosophical ideas).
…And at some point, I ended up talking about my past life.
“I don’t really tell other people this, but you’re Smarsly, so I guess it’s okay.”
Smarsly was more the type to deepen its inquiries in its own mind; I doubted it would share any of this with others.
Now that I was talking about it, I realized I remembered a surprising amount of things from my past life.
And the more I talked, the more regrets I found I had.
If only I had done this thing or the other back then; if only I hadn’t done this or that; if only I had approached that problem another way.
And as those might-have-beens bubbled to the surface, I started to truly understand that I was living more in this world than I ever had back then.
Things were going well overall.
Creating a family was something I had never expected, but I was taking care of us well, if I do say so myself. No one would be able to find a better family than the one in the house in the highlands.
In that sense, all my failures had led to now. It hadn’t been a waste at all.
I was giving my life story to a slime after killing its kind all these years—life was a funny thing.
Smarsly would occasionally hop up and down, as though acknowledging me and telling me it was still listening.
“—I guess that’s it, though.”
Smarsly used the keyboard to tell me something: “Thank you.”
Just writing that out on the keyboard was tough for Smarsly, which is why it touched me so deeply.
“I think I understand why you’re a sage, Smarsly. You’re so earnest.”
It then wrote out, “I could do better.”
And humble, too. “But you know, it’s okay to rest. I don’t know if slimes can die of overwork, but you must be exhausted.”
I smiled as I gave Smarsly a pat.
What a good slime.
And even though I came to dinner that night in high spirits—
“I knew it, full-course crab dinner again!”
The lineup on the table was exactly the same as the night before.
“There are secooonds,” the captain said leisurely. She was eating the bread. “This ship only catches craaab, you see. If only they caught mooore seafood, though.”
I really wished they had another option…
I would probably lose my mind if this trip lasted a whole week…
Day three at sea.
We came to the dining hall for breakfast to find the tables filled with crab again…
“I don’t want crab this early. I’ll get bread…”
“As will I…”
“Jellyfish-fish-fish… I will skip breakfast.”
Beelzebub and I bought bread at the store without issue. Curalina was apparently not going to have anything, but I doubted it would do too much to hurt such a long-lived spirit.
“We’ll finally be getting to Outofreach Island today,” I said to Beelzebub as I munched on my crab-shaped bread.
“Or so we are scheduled. We must first cross these currents in order to approach Outofreach Island safely. We will need to do that to see.”
“Yeees, leave that to meee.”
Captain Imremico and her extended vowels approached us.
“You have some bread crumbs on your mouth, Captain…”
She wiped her mouth, but all that did was move them to the side.
I couldn’t really say it out loud, but I didn’t trust her… I didn’t want my captain to constantly panic, but one who was way too relaxed was a bit scary.
But I’m sure she felt completely confident.
“It will be smoooooth sailing. I do, after all, have a boooating license!” Captain Imremico held her license before us with a triumphant look.
“Oh, well that makes me feel bett— Wait, that’s the bare minimum! You can’t even drive this thing without one!”
“Azusaaa, getting close to Outofreach Island is truuuly an ordeal. But IIII have a winning strategy. Does thaaat make sense?”
“I want to know what it is. Also, you still have bread crumbs on your face.”
Captain Imremico wiped her mouth once more, again failing to actually get the crumbs off her face. She was so graceless!
“It iiis…keep tryyying until we wiiin!”
The captain ever so slowly raised her hand.
Right. I could understand that logic.
“No matter hooow many times we hit ground, no matter hooow many times we sink, if we keeeeep trying, we wiiill reach Outofreach Island!”
“Uh-huh, trial and error is really importa— Hey, you can’t go running this ship aground or sinking it! You won’t get a second try!”
“I failed my license exam sooo many times, but I eventually got it. Weee can get there!”
“Don’t announce that to your passengers!”
Suddenly, I didn’t feel so great about this. Was this ship going to make it…? As of now, all the information I was getting was telling me we were screwed…
“Azusa, you can use levitation magic, no? We will manage somehow.”
“Do you not see the problem with that, Beelzebub?”
I didn’t want to reenact survival missions drifting at sea like a Japanese envoy to China.
“Well, there were no ships that went in Outofreach Island’s direction… Even the foolhardiest of sailors flinched at the thought… And that is how I ended up choosing Specter No. 7.”
“Oh, I’ve aaalready changed the name to SS Heavenbound.”
The name of this ship wasn’t sounding very lucky anymore. I wanted to arrive at my destination, not heaven, thanks.
The captain patted me on the shoulder. “Azusaaa, we merpeople always say thaaat there are times in life when you float—and times when you siiink. There is nooo point in worrying before the fact.”
“Okay, I appreciate the positive mindset, but this ship? Should not sink! If it was going to be this risky, then maybe we should have thought a little bit about it beforehand!”
I was starting to get a very specific grip on the captain’s personality.
Her life was very much driven by winds and whims and a let-it-be attitude, along with a heaping helping of positivity.
And honestly, that’s great for her. But she had no safety net for any of the risks!
Closing your eyes and diving in headfirst, and hopping in after careful examination, should be entirely different approaches, but they were a total mishmash to her.
Like, constant pessimism won’t get you far in life, but this kind of personality was problematic…
Smarsly was fidgeting a lot in Beelzebub’s arms, so we laid down the keyboard fabric.
As it hopped around, Beelzebub translated.
“Oh-ho, it says…fools do occasionally open their own doors.”
And by fool, it meant the captain.
The captain ignored Smarsly and stuffed another bite of bread into her mouth. There were even more crumbs on her cheek now.
“Weeell then, we’ll be coming up to a spot with diiifficult currents. It is tiiime to show you what III can do.” She rolled up her sleeves.
Oooh, she was getting serious.
“Please remember wheeere the lifeboats are.”
“Please don’t say that while you’re rolling up your sleeves!”
“It should only take thiiiirty tries or so.”
Should she really have a license?
To be honest, we were so distrustful of her that we all went into her office and found the wheel. We could turn this ship around right now.
“All riiight, everyone, can you see the white surges aheaaad?”
Ahead of us were several rushes from the current. Some of them were even whirling in circles.
“We must slip our way through those in ooorder to reach Outofreach Island. Fiiirst, we’ll squeeze through the two surges ahead.”
“Listening to her explain, I almost believe she truly is a professional, despite…everything else,” Beelzebub said.
I wished she’d hired a professional without the “everything else.”
“First, we spin the wheel to the riiight, then we quickly spin it to the leeeft. There is then anooother sudden curve to the right. Does thaaat make sense?”
The gaps between the billows were starting to look like a road.
That was the only way we could proceed forward, so maybe this choice was right, after all.
“All right, I’m going through the fiiirst one!”
The ship leaned to one side, then way over in the other direction.
Were we going to make it?
“Oh, we hit a current, so we faaailed.”
“That was fast!”
“Azusa, a mistake does not mean much here. We will simply be returned to where we started.”
Just as Beelzebub said, we were brought back to the beginning of the complicated route of currents. It was a lot like a video game in this respect.
I now had a clearer understanding of what the captain meant when she said we would try as many times as we needed. Just because we’d failed at getting to Outofreach Island, that didn’t mean we were in danger.
“All right, nooow we will try a second time! …And we faaailed.”
“You could at least stick with it a little longer!”
As the ship leaned to the left and right, a thought came to me.
I am definitely going to get seasick…
In fact, Beelzebub had opted to hover in the air with her wings.
I also decided to deal with this by using my own levitation magic.
The current-dodging challenge continued for a while afterward, and eventually, we made some progress.
“Oooh, we cleared the fiiifth spot! The tight tuuurn!”
“Keep at it, keep at it! Go straight there!” I called.
“No, I believe we should keep going like this!” Beelzebub argued.
“She’ll lose control if she does that, Beelzebub. She needs to be thinking two, three steps ahead.”
“Returning to a neutral position does not guarantee our safety. You trust in the status quo more than you ought! If it ruins her timing, the effort is wasted!”
As we argued, the ship once again collided with a current and was pushed back.
“Aaagh! So close! I can almost see Outofreach Island!” Beelzebub cried.
“It’s okay, it’s okay! Captain’s getting better and better at this!”
This was more like a game than I was expecting.
Then Rosalie floated over to us.
“The ship sure is rocking a lot today. Many of the skeletons have fallen over.”
“This is our test to get onto Outofreach Island,” I said.
“And the jellyfish spirit is too seasick to move now.”
I didn’t know a jellyfish spirit could get seasick…
Captain Imremico tried over and over after that, but she just couldn’t get through the currents.
And it seemed like the more she tried, the worse her concentration got.
“Oooh, this is so haaard. But I wiiill succeed, even if it means success tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that, or the day after thaaat. I will succeeeeed one day, which means I have baaasically succeeded now.”
I wished she’d consider taking an extra day to be a failure…
“Captain, can you not steer this thing a little more smoothly? You have a boating license, no?”
“I was giiiven my license out of piiity; the goddess of fate will suuurely pity me enough one day.”
Again, not what I wanted to hear!
* * *
“Very well, then I shall take over!”
Beelzebub pushed the captain out of the way and gripped the ship’s wheel!
“What? Is this legal…? You don’t have a boating license, do you?”
“It matters not—we are in no danger of encountering other ships! The only problem here is one’s skill with the wheel!”
“Oh, yeees. So long as you haven’t had any aaalcohol, you should be all riiight.”
Even if she wasn’t drinking and driving, I still didn’t think she should sail without a license. But it was true that there weren’t any other ships we could collide with and cause trouble for. Not like there were many people trying to get to Outofreach Island anyway.
“Hah, hah!”
“Beelzebub, you need to lean with the wheel, too.”
Now she sounds like a driving instructor.
“Leave me be. It matters not if I succeed— Aaah! I struck a current…” Beelzebub seemed really disappointed in herself.
“No amateur can maaake it. You need a veeery delicate steering technique.” The captain looked a little smug, but she hadn’t been successful either…
Beelzebub gave a few tries, but she failed partway through each time.
“Drat! That fourth curve is sneaky! You cannot even reach it if you do not pass through the very middle of the third curve!”
This was like the Dark Souls of boating!
But y’know, I’d played a few games in my past life.
“All riiight, it’s my turn!”
…But Beelzebub wouldn’t let me have the steering wheel.
“I will keep at it for a while yet. I feel I am about to get the hang of this!”
“That’s not fair! It’s time for me to try now!”
“We made no such decision! And we have a greater chance of success of bypassing the currents if the same individual is the one doing the trial and error!”
It was like we were fighting over the same game in the arcade…
Eventually, I somehow managed to get Beelzebub to step away, and it was my turn to take the wheel.
“H-here we go right, and then immediately to the left…and then right again…”
“Should you not be leaning with the turns, too?”
“Shut up! I need to concentrate! Hey, I made it through!”
“Fool. Turning that way will not get you through the next curve. Were you not paying attention to my technique?”
“I told you to shut up! …Look, you were annoying me so much that I hit the current!”
“Impossible. You had already failed. You cannot concentrate on getting through one obstacle at a time; you must make it all the way to the end, lest you be brought back after getting through the first. Do not blame me.”
I was totally engrossed in this game (?), too.
“Hey, Big Sis? Can I give it a shot?” Rosalie was showing interest, too.
“Sure. Go on.”
I mean, she probably wasn’t going to be as good as I was, considering how I had gaming experience from my past life.
But…when Rosalie gripped the wheel (or to be more precise, when she started moving the wheel with her ghostly powers), the color in her eyes changed.
“Yeeeaaah! I’m gonna get this! Watch me fly! Oraoraoraora! Oraoraoraora!”
She was getting violent!
I didn’t know she would change completely when she took the wheel. She really was a punk kid…
And strangely adept at steering. She’d avoided the currents by a hair.
“Yesss! Got through! Let’s get the next one!”
“Hey! Well done! We’re still leaning way to the side, but we’re making it through!” I cheered.
“I have a good feeling about this! I can see Outofreach Island straight ahead of us!” Beelzebub joined in.
Just two more curves she needed to get through, and then we’d reach our goal.
But there was a difficult spot ahead of us.
She would need to successfully make turns at practically right angles through very narrow curves in order to get through!
“Whoa, hey! How am I supposed to navigate this?! …Crap, I hit a current!”
“So close! I’m starting to wonder if we can actually steer through this.”
“We are better leaving it to fate…”
As Beelzebub and I leaned forward in anticipation, the captain sat beside us, munching on bread. Smarsly sat in her arms. Apparently, it wanted to see the action, too.
Afterward, Rosalie gave us a brilliant display of her technique, which might otherwise have been described as reckless…
But she just couldn’t get through those tight turns!
“She so much as touches the wheel, and she hits a current, but if she waits too long to turn, then she won’t make it in time. This is tricky.”
“This is quite difficult without some sort of way to cheat…”
Beelzebub, this wasn’t a real game, so there weren’t going to be any cheats. But I understood why she would start wondering. That was how hard this was.
I sensed someone else enter the room.
“I’ve been so sick, but I’m used to it now…” Curalina seemed to be curious about what we were doing.
“Oh, would you like to play, too, Curalina? We’re so close to reaching the island.” I told her what was going on.
“I see. Can you wait half an hour? If you give me that time, we’ll be fine. We’ll get there,” Curalina declared with a calm expression.
“Okaaay. We will wait thiiirty minutes,” the captain agreed. After all, she was still technically in charge.
Meanwhile, Beelzebub and I were super into this whole thing, so we ended up getting in a few more runs…
After thirty minutes had passed, Curalina came back.
“It’s ready. You should be all right now.”
I didn’t know what was “ready,” but if she said so…
“Then you should try this game now, jellyfish spirit.” Beelzebub was also calling it a game…
“Oh, I’m not interested in games, so I will let someone else try.” Curalina stared blankly and waved her hand.
What?! Then what was that half an hour for?
In the absence of any other takers, Captain Imremico took the wheel in both hands. I’m pretty sure the captain was the only person who was allowed to steer this thing anyway…
“All riiight, it is time to show what a captain can dooo!”
We were going right back into the currents.
The first curve.
“Ooooops, I turned tooooo fast.”
“You messed up right at the beginning!”
Early do-overs were less of a big deal, but it did make me uneasy. That said…
“I can keeeeep going!”
She adjusted the wheel and got through!
After that, the captain managed to navigate the currents with rather impressive timing.
“Hey! You’re doing really well, Captain!”
“I only sat in the baaack watching you try over and over again, so I leeearned juuuust when I neeeeed to turn.”
Should a captain be learning from amateurs…? Well, this was a pretty unique case, so it was probably fine. We were making progress anyway.
We eventually got to the part with two consecutive ninety-degree turns. It’d be difficult to do this with a car, even.
“I do not know the right answer heeere, so I’m not sure of the tiiiming.”
That’s where her watch-and-learn technique fell apart!
But a miracle happened.
Just before the ship was about to get caught in the current, a wave suddenly came from the opposite direction and pushed the ship forward.
“This is a miracle, Big Sis! We can keep going!”
“Yeah, if it keeps happening, we’ll be in luck. But it’s really narrow here…so a sudden turn like this means we’ll hit the current on the opposite side.”
It was so difficult that we honestly needed a perfect run to survive it.
But…
Another conveniently timed wave came from the other direction, putting the ship in precisely the right spot.
“Oooooh, we should be able to make it throoough now.”
“Yes! We are past those hellish turns!”
“That is the skill of a captain, you seeeee.”
I was pretty sure that was all luck, so maybe she shouldn’t crow quite so much.
But that didn’t matter anymore. Outofreach Island wasn’t so out of reach anymore!
“We sure have been lucky… I guess we have been at this for a long time, though…”
“I had the wave spirit make good waves for us.”
It was Curalina who whispered.
Oh… Now that she said that, a similar thing had happened in the past when we needed to move some jellyfish out of the way.
“I told you we would be fine. Jellyfish-fish-fish.”
Indeed, waves came from either side of the ship, almost as though protecting it during the double ninety-degree turns, forcibly changing the angle of the steering.
We finally got to use our cheats.
I was so, so, so glad I picked Curalina to come along. Otherwise, we would have been eating crab for days…
With nothing else in our way, the ship sailed straight to Outofreach Island.
The beach was right in front of us, and in a deeper spot along the shore were what looked like the remains of a stone harbor. Those were probably from when the pirates used the place.
At the same time, when I peered inland, I could see a few ruined buildings standing quietly among the trees.
The sage was somewhere in here.
“My captain’s power was exploooding!”
“’Twas specifically the wave spirit’s power…,” Beelzebub remarked, and I agreed.
But Smarsly was hopping in delight, so I guess it was all fine in the end.
Cheats or no, the most important thing was that we got here.
But in that moment, something strange happened with my stomach.
Grrrrrrooooooaaaaaaaawwwwwww…
“That was quite a stomach growl,” Beelzebub teased. It was long…
“It’s already past noon, Big Sis. Living people need their sustenance.”
I had been so engrossed in this game that I’d forgotten to eat. It was like I was child again.
“You’re riiight. Then let us dock at the island and have luuunch,” Captain Imremico suggested. I could eat an entire animal. “We have pleeenty of crab left.”
In the end, that’s all they had…
I was so hungry that I was delighted to chow down on the crab.
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