If you want to read the first 5 chapters, you can go to my P@treon and become a free member. If you want me to continue this fanfic, please support it with powerstones and reviews. 💭 Thank you so much!!!
[Start of the chapter]
Escoffier felt her heart settle at once.
She still didn't know what Lynn was plotting, but she trusted him—always.
Just now, she'd panicked for a moment and forgotten that things were different now than they used to be. By instinct, she'd slipped back into her old habit of walking alone, trying to shoulder everything herself.
But the reality was: someone was sharing the burden with her now.
She knew how reliable Lynn was, and she was willing to let him take charge. Besides…
I'm not who I used to be.
Her thoughts shifted. Without drawing attention, Escoffier placed a hand over her chest, looking exactly like an ordinary girl gripped by fear and worry.
What outsiders couldn't see was that inside the inner pocket beneath her clothes, a Vision was hidden—quietly gathering Cryo under her control.
That process should have given off a faint glow. And in a corridor this dark, even if her outfit was rather modest, it would've been hard not to give something away.
But her palm covered the spot perfectly, sealing it from view.
When you're out and about, keep an ace up your sleeve—Lynn had said that. She'd thought it made sense.
Now she was using it.
On the other side, the Captain seemed to be getting angry.
"Pretending?"
"What are you talking about, Lynn-san? I kindly offered the two of you passage. And when you boarded, I emphasized again and again: please don't go into other areas and delay our work."
His tone grew heavier—almost wronged—like he'd done a good deed only to be repaid with spite.
"Now, please leave this place and return to your cabins! We'll reach Hailu Port around three or four in the morning today. Then you can disembark. And before that, I won't pursue the matter of you breaking our agreement and trespassing into the cargo hold. I only hope you won't keep barging around everywhere—"
Lynn didn't move at all. He tapped the side of a cargo crate lightly with the sword in his hand.
"Kindly?"
He sounded like he'd just heard a joke.
"A smuggler—moving Les, of all things—and you want to claim you're not viciously criminal? And then you tell me you invited strangers aboard out of kindness? You'll even dock at a proper port like Hailu Port?"
"I really should get out more. A joke this funny—I've never heard one in Natlan or Nod-Krai."
He turned his head slightly.
"Have you ever heard one like that in Fontaine, Escoffier?"
Les!
Escoffier's heart jolted.
That stuff hadn't been around for very long. Ever since the Spina di Rosula publicly exposed its harm and announced a ban on its spread in Poisson, it had quickly gained official "recognition" across Fontaine and was listed as a high-risk prohibited substance.
How could she not know it?
She just hadn't expected her first real encounter with it to happen like this—seeing the real thing up close.
"Smuggling? Yeah, that is pretty funny."
Using the chill of Cryo to keep herself steady, Escoffier played along with Lynn's mockery.
She'd traveled plenty—her experience wasn't any less than a veteran adventurer's—and she understood exactly how people like this operated.
Smuggling came with enormous risk and enormous profit, so during the run they pursued stability to an extreme—often even more skittish than ordinary people. In the most extreme cases, they'd postpone even a life-or-death vendetta until after the cargo was delivered.
This Captain clearly wasn't some green rookie. For someone like that to claim he'd acted on "a moment of kindness" was already a joke. Stirring up extra trouble on top of that was another joke.
And the part about disembarking at Hailu Port? Even more ridiculous.
Carrying a whole ship of contraband and docking at a legitimate port—what, looking for thrills?
Whether this ship was even headed for Fontaine at all was questionable. Other kinds of contraband were one thing—you could still consider slipping them into Fontaine without using official ports.
But this was Les.
No one could find its source, but plenty of Fontaine people had their suspicions: this stuff didn't cause much trouble abroad. Only in Fontaine did it keep resurfacing no matter how often it was banned—meaning it was very likely a local "specialty."
Importing a local specialty from overseas—did he think smuggling had no costs?
"Even though I don't go to the Opera Epiclese very often… I feel like this is about as funny as the comedies Furina-sama has performed."
The two of them traded lines back and forth. At the doorway, the Captain stopped pretending. The fake friendliness vanished from his rugged face, replaced by a hard, vicious gloom.
"You two… when did you figure it out?"
He looked genuinely baffled—or maybe just unwilling to accept it. His disguise had been flawless. How had two youngsters seen through it?
Perhaps he sounded sincere, or perhaps Lynn was simply in a good mood. Either way, Lynn actually answered him.
"When? Hmm… from the start."
"From the moment you invited us aboard for a free ride."
The Captain didn't believe him.
"From the start?"
"My act had flaws?"
Lynn fell silent briefly, as if replaying everything since they'd met. Then he shook his head.
"Your act… had no flaws. You were professional. At least, I didn't see any cracks."
The Captain received the affirmation, but the question still gnawed at him.
"Then how did you discover it?"
What he didn't notice was that the moment he asked that, something shifted in Lynn's gaze.
The disgust was still there.
But now there was also amusement.
"You really want to know?"
"Of course."
"Fine. Then I'll tell you—"
Lynn nodded, like someone who'd accepted the situation and decided to "be reasonable."
"Because I'm unlucky."
"Unlucky?"
It was too broad of an answer—too much like he was brushing him off—so it obviously couldn't satisfy the Captain's curiosity.
But before the Captain could decide how to press him, Lynn continued in a relaxed, story-telling tone:
"Don't misunderstand. That 'unlucky' doesn't mean you. It means me."
"Let me give you an example. You do this for a living, so you probably know a bit about Nod-Krai. Have you heard of the 'Wild Hunt'? If you haven't, it's fine—it's a kind of Abyss disaster that's unique to Nod-Krai, and in theory it happens most often north of Pilamida City."
"But south of Pilamida City—especially around Xixi Island and Lunbo Island—it's much rarer. A normal person could run around outside for ten days or half a month and not bump into it even once. If you've got good luck, then even more so."
"As for me… here's how it is. Two months. I left Nasha Town fewer than twenty times. And the number of times I didn't run into the Wild Hunt? I can count them on one hand."
"Then there's what came after. I wanted to leave Nod-Krai, but for all sorts of reasons I missed three ferries in a row. In the end, I finally used connections to get onto a cargo ship that was willing to take passengers—only to realize halfway through that it was a smuggling ship…"
"That alone would've been fine. Back then, I didn't want to poke my nose into other people's business—I just wanted to keep my head down. But midway, they started fighting among themselves, and on top of that we ran into a maritime disaster."
"With luck like that, I miss a passenger ship at the port, and right after that a cargo-ship Captain kindly offers you a free ride—"
Lynn tilted his head slightly.
"Tell me, Captain. If it were you… what would you think?"
(End of Chapter)
If I see that this fanfic has support, I will upload 20+ chapters to Patreon!!
[[email protected]/Zukooo]
[Thanks for your support!]