Ch.280280 – A Fair Duel

The lower-class students who weren’t particularly close to Oknodie but wanted to use this opportunity to build a friendship were deeply impressed by boarding the cruise ship.

“Wow, look here. There’s a virtual shooting range!”

“Bowling is so fun~!”

“Crew member, can I have one more egg tarot please?”

Unlike the students playing without caution, the members of the Hero’s Guard observed from a distance with expressions mixed with both envy and discontent.

“Are we really just going to watch like this?”

“We finally got to go on a trip…”

“Even if Oknodie and the Foundation are suspicious, do we really need to be this cautious?”

We want to have fun too!

Saint Yufi tried to soothe the guards who were expressing their complaints.

“The cruise isn’t over in just one day. Let’s try to get along with them for at least today. Okay?”

Unlike Ishtar, who was known for having great skills but terrible personality, Saint Yufi had a good image.

In reality, she wasn’t that different from Ishtar, but because Ishtar stood out so much and received so much criticism, Yufi’s outwardly gentle attitude and her class as a Saint clouded people’s judgment.

Thanks to this, following Yufi’s persuasion, the guards gave up the luxury services and rooms of the super-luxury cruise ship and gathered in the third-class cabins.

“We are practically enemies of the Foundation. Don’t leave this room where I’ve set up magic circles that resist status effects so we can respond even if we’re ambushed in the middle of the night.”

Yufi’s precautions were reasonable, and the guards spent the night in the third-class cabin.

They slept on the bare floor with only linoleum under them, relying on a single blanket.

The sleeping arrangements, barely better than sleeping outdoors, caused discomfort with even more cramped conditions than the four-person rooms of the Academy’s lower class.

“Ugh. My shoulders are stiff.”

“I couldn’t sleep well.”

“In the end, there was no attack anyway.”

Half relieved that they safely made it through the night, half complaining about the uncomfortable sleeping arrangements.

The Hero’s Guard, grumbling as they entered the dining hall, sensed something strange.

There were too few students in the dining hall.

“Why is that guy trembling like that?”

In the corner of the dining hall sat a male student alone, trembling with a vacant expression.

Every time he tried to scoop rice with his spoon, more than half of it fell due to his shaking hands, making him look like a conscripted soldier who had been dragged to the battlefield and returned alone.

“Hey, classmate. You don’t look well. Are you okay?”

“Hiiieek!!”

“Calm down! I don’t intend to harm you. I’m a Hero.”

“I don’t want this anymore. The Foundation is scary, and Heroes are scary too!”

“…Yufi.”

“Sigh. Calming spells can be addictive, which isn’t good. But this is an emergency, so we have no choice.”

The calming magic that temporarily removes emotions seeped into the male student’s body.

The spoon that had been trembling non-stop immediately ceased shaking.

“Hero. I’ll tell you everything, so please protect me.”

“If it’s valuable information.”

“We were four new members who joined Oknodie’s Paper Dungeon Exploration Team. We were happy to be invited, so we followed and had fun all day. I was the only one who felt sick from seasickness, so I was just watching, when suddenly there was an announcement.”

“…An announcement?”

“It called out one of our names specifically, and they were guided somewhere by a crew member. And even after a long time, they didn’t return.”

The feeling was ominous.

Not just Ishtar, but all of the Hero’s Guard tensed up, reducing even their breathing as they listened intently.

“When one of our friends asked a crew member why, they heard that the person was taken away to pay off debt because their boarding points went into the negative. Right after hearing that, the announcement sounded again, and that friend was taken away too. It seems they went into the negative just for asking that question.”

“Boarding points… Could it be this number on the boarding ticket?”

“I think so. All facilities here have usage fees. Entertainment facilities, relaxation facilities, accommodation facilities, everything.”

“We’ve fallen into the Foundation’s trap.”

“To survive on this ship, you either have to live ascetically or earn boarding points.”

“How can we earn points?”

“I heard you can do part-time jobs. By helping the crew with their work.”

A guard asked from behind.

“Then are there our students in the kitchen too?”

“No way.”

The feeling was too unsettling to laugh it off.

A student who couldn’t contain their curiosity and peeked into the kitchen made eye contact with a student wearing a red apron and washing dishes.

Raising rubber gloves covered in bubbles, the dishwashing student said:

“Don’t eat any rare food… I ate one and went bankrupt, now I have to wash dishes until we leave the ship…”

The guards, whose appetites had dropped, were relieved that they had brought plenty of black bread they had stockpiled at the Academy, just in case.

“What should we do now, Hero?”

“We’ll trust only you and the Saint.”

Elf Archer Skola glared at them from the side. The guards reluctantly added, “And the Archer too.”

“Let’s find ways to earn boarding points. The Foundation has imitated the Academy’s currency with points. They’re not real points, but that’s why boarding points should be easier to obtain.”

They say you see as much as you know.

As they began to inquire and search, they noticed students who hadn’t realized the secret of the points and were enjoying themselves carefree, students who were anxious about their dwindling points, students who had already gone bankrupt and were engaged in labor, and students like themselves who were going around collecting points.

“You, you, and you. You three come with me.”

The three guards pointed out by Skola followed her with not-so-bad expressions.

Skola is an archer.

The advantage of archers is their wide field of vision and excellent observation skills.

Archers are so valuable that in some parties, they even take on the role of thieves.

Moreover, Skola is a disciple who received archery training from the Divine Archer, the ultimate in the archer class.

She was much more reliable than the Hero with high combat power but terrible personality, or the Saint who was kind-hearted and cautious but whose observation skills were questionable.

“I see that if your points go below 0, you’ll be forcibly collected, which reduces the value of the points you receive, but when it’s above 0, you receive 10 times the reward for the same work.”

“You can receive point cards by fulfilling requests from passengers. The more difficult the request, the higher the reward. Quite tempting. Memorize all names, faces, and requests.”

“In this arcade, if you get the highest score in any game, you’ll receive all the points used as fees for that game machine. Those who are confident should give it a try.”

Skola’s team, who had been breathlessly exploring the ship all morning collecting information, brought back so much information that the entire Hero’s Guard was surprised.

“There are three ways. Either go bankrupt and suffer forced labor. Or fulfill valuable requests. Or challenge the achievements in the facilities.”

There were other small groups with more members than the Hero’s Guard, but none had gathered as much information as they had.

At least, that’s what everyone in the Hero’s Guard believed as they smiled confidently.

Oknodie might have invited them with the intention of making them suffer, but they had a feeling that they would be the only ones to disembark from the ship unscathed.

“Do you think Oknodie knows?”

“Of course she does. Look at her eating all those rare dishes.”

The Hero pointed to Oknodie, who was finishing her third plate of rare dishes in one corner of the dining hall.

From the kitchen, someone’s resentful muttering could be heard clearly: “Why doesn’t she go bankrupt…? Why…?”

Even to the Hero’s eyes, it looked distasteful.

So he approached her.

“Hello, Ishtar!”

“That’s unfair. Only you have unlimited points.”

“Huh?”

“I heard from someone who went bankrupt first how expensive rare dishes are. If you can eat so many rare dishes without going bankrupt, I can only think that you’re not subject to the boarding point restrictions.”

Oknodie giggled.

Before he could get angry at her for mocking him, Oknodie pulled out her boarding ticket from her chest.

“Look!”

[Oknodie, No.0397759]

While others were either dropping below 100,000 points or barely maintaining their position, she alone had recorded nearly 400,000 boarding points.

But it was an ambiguous number to consider as cheating with unlimited points, making him wonder.

“Did you earn all that?”

“Of course!”

“…That was a pointless question. Let me change it.”

The Hero glared at Oknodie.

“Did you bring your friends knowing this would happen?”

“I invited you as a friend too, didn’t I?”

“Why would I be your friend?”

“Friends grow by fighting, you know!”

“…”

This child, is she serious?

After all the intense fighting we’ve done?

I still don’t understand her intentions.

She’s suspicious, uncomfortable, and in some ways, frightening.

“We won’t fall for it. Only your stupid companions will lose their boarding points and resent you. We won’t let you force us to become Foundation scholarship students.”

Though he declared this confidently, he couldn’t shake off his suspicions.

If she wasn’t targeting them, then Oknodie earned points under the same conditions as they did.

Where did she earn the points to consume all those rare foods?

“Chef!”

“Yes, miss?”

“That was delicious!”

The chef, in a good mood, chuckled and was about to take off his hat to wipe the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief when Oknodie’s hand moved like lightning and lifted the chef’s hair.

“!?”

More precisely, she removed the “wig” and quickly put it back in place.

The chef, sensing something strange, was bewildered, but Oknodie was already holding a point card with [+100,000] written on it for all to see.

…No wonder she has points to spare if she finds them that well.

Hero Ishtar found himself somehow understanding the situation.