“Phew...” Following the meeting, Shu was assigned a cabin and went there right away to lie down, still in his costume. Having been drifting around for days, he hadn’t enjoyed this level of comfort in a while.
But then again, he had quite a luxurious bed on the other side.
“Man... They really don’t have enough people.” The fact that they had a free cabin for him indicated that the Adventure II currently had fewer crew members than it was designed to carry.
They had no issues operating it, though, because Granvaloa had maritime technology that enabled their vessels to have a certain degree of autonomy. The more advanced the ship, the more advanced its automation could be, and with some increases in operating costs and decreases in features, they could even make vessels that could be crewed by a single person. A good example of that was Skyanchor—a ship belonging to a Granvaloan-turned-Altarian duelist named Chelsea.
Still, optimal operations required most ships to have a large number of people, and while the Adventure II had enough to run at full capacity, they couldn’t cover every shift.
This ship was designed to have three shifts on every post, but they just barely had enough people for two. If this voyage went on for too long, its performance would degrade over time.
And yet, they had still ignored the words of their nation and departed on this perilous journey.
“Guess I heard as much at the meeting, though...” There wasn’t much of note said during the rest of that. All the enemies encountered by the hunters so far had been Mocks, so they’d simply charted a course past the locations of the sunken smuggler ships.
Shu had asked how they knew where such unaffiliated vessels had been sunk in the first place, and was told that Granvaloa could track any ships out at sea thanks to some of their classified military tech. This was what enabled them to protect their ships and hunt smugglers so effectively.
However, the Adventure II was equipped with a device that jammed this technology, which meant that their pursuers couldn’t track them—but also that they would never be found in case of emergency.
Their defeat would be their ultimate end—no one would come to save them.
This made it clear that the crew had gone out on this hunt fully prepared to die, and the young captain was no exception.
If anything, her resolve might’ve been the strongest of all.
Shu pondered their situation. What if Riella and her crew ended up taken by the sea, becoming nothing more than lifeless remains in its depths?
And that...
“‘Would leave a bad taste in my mouth’...is probably what he’d say right about now.”
Reminded of a phrase commonly used by his little brother, Shu closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
The brother in question was likely tackling his college entrance exams right this very moment.
“There’s already been a lot of casualties, but I guess I can at least help them seize a happy ending,” he said, strengthening his resolve to put an end to this terror.
He then opened his eyes and...
“So? How long have you all been involved in this?”
...addressed his words to the empty air.
There seemed to be nobody to hear him, much less respond, and yet...
“‘How long?’ There are two answers: ‘from the start’ and ‘just at the start.’”
Following a faint warping of space, someone simply appeared. It was a strange entity—a creature covered by a thin, egg-shaped film.
Inside, there was what looked like a human girl. Her appearance called to mind a noblewoman behind a luxurious screen, or perhaps a bride beneath her veil.
“Never a straightforward answer from ya, eh, Humpty?”
Shu knew who this was.
She was Control AI No. 2, Humpty Dumpty, and she was the one who’d handled his entry to Infinite Dendrogram and for some reason continued getting involved with him many times since.
She was also the reason Shu’s avatar looked like his real self, which he always wore a costume to hide.
“Just the start? Ya damn liar. Ya moved the currents or my login spot or whatever to make it so I drifted to this ship.”
“Oh, you noticed?” In response to this accusation, Humpty immediately confessed, showing no intention of hiding it. “By the way,” she continued. “I think you could try being a bit nicer to me. You’re back in a bear costume, just how it was in the early days, so why not give me some of those bear puns too?”
“Ain’t happenin’.”
“That’s a shame,” Humpty said, chuckling faintly at his reaction.
Shu, however, had quite a stern expression on his face.
“Anyway, how did you realize that I was the one who led you here? You were in the sea. There weren’t any landmarks to follow, were there?”
“It’s the stars. The air’s pretty clear here, so I can see them even while it’s daytime. They’d moved from where they were when I’d last logged out. That means I either started driftin’ in another direction, or I was somewhere else entirely.”
“I would expect no less of you, Shu,” Humpty said with a clap.
“And don’t act like it’s the first time you’ve done this either. You’ve been draggin’ me into things like this since I met Figgy.”
“That’s true, but I am keeping my promise, you know. I never incite incidents that would endanger tians just so you can solve them. Believe me when I say that this was not my doing... Not our doing. It’s an Irregularity.”
Humpty’s words made Shu frown dubiously. A Control AI in charge of Infinite Dendrogram had just told him they hadn’t intended to cause this incident, and she’d even used the word “Irregularity.”
“I’m sure I don’t need to explain monster classification to you, do I?” Humpty said.
“No.” Monsters had certain terms attached to them that gave some indication of how powerful or unique they were. The most common of these were “Demi-Dragon” and “Pure-Dragon” or simply “Dragon.” Referring back to the powerful “dragon” type of monster, this meant that the creature was on the same level as a Demi-Dragon or a Dragon, respectively. There were also “High-Dragon” and “High-End Dragon,” descriptions reserved for the rare few who rose above even a dragon’s strength.
However, there were classifications that were even less common—and even more feared.