Ch.279279 – Boarding Ticket

<279 – Boarding Ticket>

Titosoga fiddled with the gold-embossed boarding ticket.

“About this. Why did they give us tickets to board the ship? As souvenirs or something?”

“Whatever the reason, there must be one. Just don’t lose it. I have a feeling it would be troublesome.”

Arcadia felt an ominous premonition.

As someone from the maritime nation of Florence Kingdom, she understood the value of ships more accurately than other students.

The size of this cruise ship was excessively large.

Too large for just over a hundred students.

“Lady Arcadia, you’re not enjoying this at all. We’re on such a magnificent ship!”

“Tito. Have you counted how many crew members we’ve seen coming and going?”

“Not at all?”

“There were over two hundred.”

“Wow. That’s a lot!”

“And that’s just on the deck where we’re staying.”

“…This ship has a lot more than just this deck, doesn’t it?”

“Now do you understand?”

No one makes large investments without reason.

Especially not if that someone is the Foundation.

“They’re making an investment right now. An excessive investment that we can’t possibly repay. And big shots always have confidence they’ll recover such investments one way or another.”

“…I’m starting to get a little scared of this ship.”

“Now do you see? Why I’ve been cautious about using the cruise ship’s facilities?”

Titosoga nodded repeatedly with a terrified expression.

Though she looked pitiful, trembling like a small animal hiding from a predator, it was better to instill some fear in Titosoga who lacked caution.

After thoroughly frightening Titosoga, Arcadia examined the ticket closely under the light, her eyes narrowing.

“Tito. May I see your boarding ticket for a moment?”

“Here…”

“Just as I suspected.”

“Is there something on the ticket?”

“The numbers have changed.”

“What?”

“The ticket number. The identification number used to verify a passenger’s identity. Do you think it’s normal for a boarding ticket to have numbers that change on their own when they absolutely shouldn’t?”

“Absolutely not!”

“I think I need to find Oknodie.”

Arcadia sensed that if they did nothing, they would be caught up in an unmanageable situation.

“Ara. It’s the popular young lady♡”

“…Princess Massgakki.”

“Wanna see this~?”

Massgakki pressed a button on something shaped like a gun that she had brought from somewhere.

Ratatatatat.

Titosoga’s eyes widened as she watched bills being ejected from the muzzle with fierce momentum.

“Wooow! Money is coming out!”

“Hehe. It’s called a money gun♡ Fun toy, isn’t it~?”

“…Surely that’s not real money, right?”

“It’s real though~? I even bought cocktails with it♡”

Arcadia’s ominous feeling grew stronger.

“If you don’t mind, may I see your boarding ticket?”

“Hmm~? Is there something about the boarding ticket~?”

“If you show me, I’ll share information with you.”

“Then I’ll show you♡”

“Y-Your Highness. Readily handing over your possessions to someone from the frontier is…”

“Cheddar~?”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Don’t be cheeky♡”

At the princess’s words, Cheddar PotatoPizza grimaced and closed his mouth.

She truly was a princess with an extraordinary presence.

“Your Highness.”

“You can call me Massgakki~?”

“Doesn’t your boarding number start with a single digit?”

Looking at the boarding number Arcadia pointed to, Princess Massgakki answered cheerfully.

“Don’t know♡”

“Even though it’s your own ticket?”

“It doesn’t really matter if I don’t know about such things~?”

Well, for an Imperial Princess, a boarding ticket was something she could simply have reissued if lost.

If it were an ordinary ticket, that is.

Sensing something from Arcadia’s attitude, the princess stopped a passing crew member.

“Excuse me, staff~?”

“Did you call, ma’am?”

“I’d like to have my boarding ticket reissued~”

The crew member looked at the ticket in Arcadia’s hand and said:

“If you already possess a ticket, I recommend that you take good care of it.”

“Hey~ What happens if I don’t have a ticket~?”

“You will lose your qualification as a passenger and will not be able to use our cruise ship’s services.”

A smile spread across Princess Massgakki’s face, as if she had found a toy more interesting than the money gun.

“The Foundation knows how to have fun too♡”

After sending the staff away, Princess Massgakki took the ticket from Arcadia and asked:

“What’s different about yours~?”

“The number of digits is different to begin with. If I’m right, this number corresponds to the currency needed to use services on the ship, like Academy points.”

Hearing this, Princess Massgakki stared at the ticket and pressed the button on the money gun.

Click.

As a few bills were ejected, the boarding number spun like a roulette and decreased.

[Arcadia, No.00100015]

[Massgakki, No.00008743]

The bright smile on Princess Massgakki’s face visibly stiffened.

Though she wasn’t quite sure, she began to feel she had done something extremely dangerous.

* *

“Doesn’t it seem like there are fewer people?”

“What do you mean?”

At Rozini’s words as she enjoyed the sunshine under a parasol, Sandcooker, who had been rolling around in a pile of sand, raised his head.

The students who had been quite numerous until just a while ago had indeed thinned out.

“They probably went to explore the ship. It’s such a big vessel after all.”

“I guess. The weather’s getting darker, so I was thinking of heading in. What about you?”

“If I can’t enjoy photosynthesis, there’s no reason to stay on deck. Let’s go together.”

After washing off the sand and salt in the shower booths, the students entered the ship.

Among the students dispersing to places of interest like the arcade or training room, Rozini and Sandcooker headed to the same place.

After enjoying some rest, where would mages go but…

“The board game room.”

“The board game room indeed.”

The two headed to the lounge and picked up some playing cards.

Unlike complicated board games that are difficult to understand, trump cards have simple rules and are easy to play with.

While they were deep into their card game, they noticed a student running hurriedly down the corridor.

“How rude.”

“That would definitely have earned demerits at the Academy.”

As they gossiped about their unrefined peer regardless of gender while enjoying their sophisticated card game, an explosion sounded from somewhere on the ship.

“Ah!”

“Idiot.”

Sandcooker, who had dropped his cards, stuck his head under the table.

After picking up the fallen cards from the floor, he raised his head in surprise and bumped it against the table with a thud.

“Are you really an idiot?”

“Ugh…”

Even while clutching his head in pain, Sandcooker somehow couldn’t take his eyes off what he saw.

He hadn’t been conscious of it all this time, but Rozini sitting across from him was wearing a confident swimsuit with just a robe over it, curled up in the chair with her legs together.

Her slightly tilted legs pressed together, creating an enticing view where her calves and thighs were compressed.

“The sh-ship is rocking so I can’t grab them properly.”

“You really are an idiot.”

Maybe he really was an idiot.

What on earth am I doing?

As Sandcooker felt an unnecessary sense of self-loathing and tried to get out by leaning on the table, something fluttered down onto the back of his hand from above.

“How many cards did you drop?”

“It’s not mine. It was under the table.”

Sandcooker placed the card he had picked up on the table.

Rozini showed curiosity.

“A card hidden by a card shark?”

“There’s no way a trump card used for One Card would have such an absurd denomination on it.”

[+10000]

What could this be?

Rozini, with a mage’s scholarly curiosity, fiddled with the card and blinked in surprise.

[+9000]

The number decreased.

What did I just do?

She had only briefly overlapped the card with her wallet containing her boarding card while fiddling with it.

When she overlapped the cards again, the number decreased to 8000.

She took out her boarding card with a suspicion.

When she overlapped the two cards, the number decreased even more.

Conversely, the boarding number on her boarding card had clearly increased.

[Rozini, No.00102915]

“Sand, try putting that against your boarding card.”

Sandcooker’s boarding number was also increasing in real-time.

The two realized.

This isn’t just a simple boarding number.

“Is it currency?”

“It must be something like points.”

“What are you going to do, Rozini?”

“Collect as many as possible, of course. Having too many points has never hurt anyone.”

As they diligently searched for places where points might be hidden, they kept finding point cards in unexpected places.

They found +5000 points inside a fire hydrant, +50 points in a shoe rack, and even +10000 points in glow-in-the-dark numbers on the ceiling of a darkened room.

“Do they get deducted for facility usage fees?”

“Probably.”

“Weren’t there students who rushed to get special rooms because they sounded nice?”

“Many did. We were lucky we didn’t rush to get rooms first because our luggage was light, so we played on the deck instead.”

Still, a question arose.

“What happens if you run out of points?”

“Why worry about it? Just ask a crew member like you’d ask an instructor.”

True to her Red Tower mage nature, Rozini walked straight up to a crew member and asked directly.

The crew member answered politely with a smile.

“You will be charged for any additional points consumed.”

“How?”

“You select an item from the collection menu. Would you like to view the menu in advance for 1000 points?”

Unable to contain his curiosity, Sandcooker spoke from behind.

“Let’s split it.”

“We’ll pay half each.”

Sandcooker and Rozini opened the collection menu.

Their hands froze in place.

━━━

Blood drawing: 10 points per 1ml

Hall serving: 100 points per hour

…

Breaking finger joints: 100 points per instance

Tooth extraction: 1000 points each

…

Receiving Foundation scholarship: 100,000 points

Arranged marriage: 1,000,000 points

━━━

Their playful mood completely vanished.