Chapter 30

Along with my shaking semicircular canals, the fragile fate of a reincarnated extra was also beginning to wobble.

Is this where it ends?

Like a protagonist facing their final battle, I muttered bitterly and let out a long sigh.

I just wanted to stay as a frail duke’s daughter, secretly enjoying a comfortable life.

Two months into my possession, all the hardships I’d been through flashed before my eyes like a revolving lantern.

With an anxious expression, I spoke to Larienne, who was tightly holding my hands.

“Larienne, can I ask you for healing again?”

Larienne drew up her power even before answering.

As healing light wrapped around my whole body, the nausea vanished completely.

After patting her hands in thanks, I stuck my head out the cabin door and shouted loudly.

“Linus! Your Highness! Return to the cabin! Come back!”

Then I also called to Cheryl, who was guarding the deck outside.

“Cheryl, once they’re back in, fire off one big shot and get inside.”

She looked puzzled, but swallowed back her rising nausea and nodded.

Soon, Heide and Linus retreated toward the cabin. Monsters swarmed after them.

Linus pushed them back and blocked the cabin door with his whole body.

Through that opening, Cheryl and Heide slipped safely inside.

After confirming that Cheryl was wrapped in a silver glow, I tapped Linus’s shoulder.

“Fall back, Linus. Rest for a bit.”

“What are you planning to do?”

“I’m planning to fail spectacularly, that’s what.”

I shrugged and flashed him a grin, then stepped in front of him.

I glared at the monsters and murmured quietly,

“Skill: I Will Block It All.”

At the same time, I swung my sword in a wide horizontal arc, and the countless monsters swarming toward us were sliced cleanly in half in a single stroke.

* * *

A blue aura I had never seen before surged outward like a wave and swept the monsters away.

When their screams disappeared, an eerie silence fell over the ship.

But only for a moment, new monsters began lifting their heads above the deck.

Linus stared blankly as Ayrbet raised her sword and leapt over the monsters’ heads.

Cheryl, who had barely recovered from her seasickness, Larienne wrapped in a silver glow, and even Heide leaning on his sword to catch his breath, all of them were speechless.

Linus was the first to come to his senses and approached Ayrbet, but she swung her sword and shouted,

“I’m fine, so go to Larienne, Linus!”

“But…”

“I’ll be okay on my own for a while, so get treatment first!”

Ayrbet insisted with a relaxed expression, and her obedient lover Linus sprinted into the cabin.

Ayrbet’s A-rank skill, I Will Block It All, was the ultimate defensive ability that nullified all attacks for a short time.

Normally, it was used to buy time in a crisis, but Ayrbet mostly used it as an aggressive hacking tool.

Watching her tear through monsters, Heide muttered something between awe and disbelief.

“Wasn’t Lady Titanoa supposed to be frail?”

He had seen Duke Titanoa worry endlessly over his daughter, so the scene before him felt unreal.

“I heard she was bedridden for ten years…”

Larienne, feeling the same disbelief, murmured blankly, but Linus suddenly burst between them.

Without asking permission, he seized the crown princess’s hands and shouted urgently,

“Healing power!”

“Ah, yes, yes!”

Flustered as she was, Larienne shared her power, and Linus, recovering instantly, dashed back outside.

Cheryl, having snapped back to reality after watching that, let out a smirk.

“Ayrbet, not bad at all.”

Then she also went outside to join the fight.

Heide tightened his grip on his sword.

Dragged here without knowing why and overwhelmed by one absurd event after another, he now had no time to think about anything else with monsters flooding the deck.

He held his hand out to Larienne.

“I should go too.”

Larienne stared at his hand for a moment before taking it with her glowing white one.

They exchanged a brief glance, and Heide also joined the battle.

The grueling fight dragged on for a long time.

With Ayrbet joining, fighting the monsters became easier, but the night felt endless.

Only after each person had taken turns recovering from seasickness and exhaustion twice over did the sky finally begin to brighten.

As dawn broke, the pirate-like skeletons all threw themselves into the sea.

And they did not come back up.

The long, long battle had finally come to an end.

Ayrbet threw her sword aside and collapsed onto her back.

“Ughhh, I’m dying.”

Linus also sank down beside her.

“Are you all right, Ayrbet?”

“No, I’m not. This dress is uncomfortable, my feet hurt from the shoes, and my necklace snapped earlier and disappeared somewhere. It was expensive.”

Linus let out a small laugh at Ayrbet’s leisurely complaints.

After spending a night fighting monsters with their lives on the line, even the faintest anxiety dissolved thanks to her worrying about a lost necklace.

His lover was cheerful, beautiful, strong, and unusual.

And because of that, he liked her even more. He kept liking her more.

Strange emotions settled inside him where nothing had existed before, growing little by little.

Sometimes he just wanted to look at her, sometimes he wanted to touch every part of her, sometimes he startled himself with the fierce desire to swallow her whole, and other times he ached with the ticklish wish to hold her gently like a feather.

Every moment with her was a sweet, overwhelming happiness that tightened his chest.

He was smoothing out Ayrbet’s cotton-candy hair when…

Heide and Cheryl approached the stern with Larienne.

Cheryl glanced around and spoke to Heide.

“Looks like the black hole didn’t appear.”

“To open a black hole, it seems we must defeat a special kind of monster. Last time was like that as well.”

Having somehow ended up clearing a third dungeon already, Heide answered with a disappointed expression.

He stared resentfully at the calm sea as though last night’s events had been a lie, then looked back at Ayrbet as she awkwardly pushed herself up.

“What are we supposed to do now?”

Heide naturally asked Ayrbet about what came next.

Right after they arrived here, when everyone was confused, Ayrbet had predicted the night battle.

Larienne had blocked him from questioning her further, but she had clearly known something.

Heide thought the black hole must be the work of someone targeting him, and last time, Ayrbet and Linus must have been unlucky victims swept along.

But this time, things were different.

On top of that, he had seen Ayrbet’s incredible swordsmanship, something he would never have expected from someone who had supposedly never held a sword.

He was starting to wonder if this was really just a coincidence.

Ayrbet also realized that Heide was trying to probe her.

She lowered her gaze politely and sidestepped his question.

“I should sleep for now, Your Highness. I’m too tired.”

Heide stared at her openly as she so obviously pretended not to know anything.

But though his gaze lingered, Ayrbet simply turned her head away, ignoring his suspicions.

Since everyone was exhausted from the long battle, even with the healing power replenishing their strength, Heide decided to overlook her avoidance.

“I see. The monsters seem to have disappeared, so resting is best.”

Everyone agreed to sleep for now.

Linus and Heide remained on deck, and Ayrbet, Larienne, and Cheryl decided to rest inside the cabin.

Ayrbet collapsed onto the cabin floor with an exaggerated groan, and Larienne approached her.

“Ayrbet, should I share my strength before you sleep?”

“Would you?”

Ayrbet brightened and held out her hands, happy at the thought of sleeping soundly for three hours.

As she passed healing energy to Ayrbet, Larienne asked carefully,

“By the way, Ayrbet… did you learn swordsmanship after you woke up? Your skill was so exceptional that I was surprised.”

“Well… I didn’t exactly learn it…”

“You didn’t learn it? Then how…?”

Ayrbet’s mind filled with excuses only for them to evaporate immediately.

No matter how she thought about it, there was no reasonable explanation that would both hide the truth about her possession and the dungeon appearances, and justify why she could suddenly fight with a sword the moment she got out of bed.

Giving up on finding a proper answer, Ayrbet decided to be shameless.

“I’m not really sure either, Larienne.”

“You don’t know?”

“It just felt like I could do it, so I tried, and it worked.”

Ayrbet spoke nonsense, yet Larienne nodded calmly.

She believed Ayrbet had inherited the power of Amspellow.

It wasn’t widely known, but perhaps Amspellow’s power wasn’t limited to foresight alone.

“I see…”

Larienne nodded as if understanding perfectly, and resolved that no matter what happened, Ayrbet’s connection to Amspellow’s power must be kept hidden.

It must never reach the emperor’s ears.

But since the crown prince Heide had now witnessed Ayrbet’s swordsmanship…

What were they supposed to do?

Ayrbet didn’t notice, but Larienne’s worries grew deeper as she struggled to find a way to protect her friend.