Ch.99[Chapter 99] Humility

“Spider! It’s a spider!”

“Almighty Abyss Demon, protect us. Almighty Abyss Demon—”

While the ghost ship pirates were panicking at the sight of the spider tank, Sir Dominic was clinging to it, climbing up the wall of the ghost ship.

“I didn’t expect things to turn out like this.”

“Me neither.”

Sir Dominic spoke to Alice, who was dangling from the railing.

Alice gripped the railing tightly and looked down.

Since they were attached to the wall of a pirate ship floating in the sky, it looked to be about 11 meters to the ground.

If she fell, she’d be badly hurt. In reality, Alice in her equipped state would never get hurt, but she couldn’t help feeling physiologically afraid.

Sir Dominic desperately moved the control lever to climb up the wall.

The engine roared and screamed.

Clearly, Sir Dominic and the spider tank had been pushed by the ghost ship’s ram and stepped on a landmine.

But how were they now climbing up the wall of the ghost ship?

The answer was simple.

Although Sir Dominic had been damaged by the ghost ship’s ram, in Gacharland, what you see and what you actually experience are often different.

The ghost ship’s lurking ram was closer to a CC skill, focusing more on knockback than damage.

Sir Dominic was pushed back but hadn’t taken much damage.

However, the shock made him stagger and lose his grip on the control lever.

As the control lever moved on its own, the spider tank lost control and began to fall.

Then another miracle happened.

The spider tank fell onto a landmine.

The mine reacted to the spider tank and exploded, and the force of the explosion caused the falling spider tank to stand up again.

It all happened in an instant.

Neither Sir Dominic nor Alice could notice what happened in that brief moment, which led to an even more absurd situation.

The leg of the rising spider tank got stuck in a plank near the ghost ship’s keel and began to rise with it.

“Wh-what? Master! We’re flying!”

Alice was so surprised she bit her tongue.

As they continued to rise, Sir Dominic tried to pull out the spider tank’s leg, but it was deeply embedded due to the force of the explosion and the tank’s enormous weight.

In this situation, Sir Dominic had to make a decision.

Should he somehow pull out the leg and fall 11 meters to the ground?

Or should he climb up to the deck and politely ask to be let down?

At least Sir Dominic thought the latter would be better than the former.

His special ability [Rider] would reduce fall damage, but after taking significant damage from the landmine, he wasn’t sure what would happen if he took fall damage too.

With this in mind, Sir Dominic immediately increased the engine’s RPM and began climbing up the side of the ghost ship.

Just like a real spider.

Finally, Sir Dominic’s desperation and effort paid off, and he was able to climb onto the ghost ship’s deck.

“Master? They’re all trembling.”

“Spider! It’s a spider! We’re sinking! Save us!”

The ghost pirates were terrified of spiders.

Spiders build their homes where there are many insects.

If there are many insects on a ship, it means something is already rotting somewhere.

Whether it’s food or timber.

And when a ship finally sinks, spiders instinctively abandon their homes and try to evacuate to safety.

Yes, anyone who has seen swarms of spiders covering walls and decks just before a ship sinks would act like the crew of this ghost ship.

“Excuse me…”

“It’s the end! Death has come!”

Sir Dominic tried to speak to the pirates, but his words couldn’t reach the crew trapped in their PTSD.

“It seems we’ve made some kind of mistake.”

Sir Dominic scratched his cheek as he watched the pirates running around screaming as if the apocalypse had arrived.

“Indeed. Selling such a defective product—I must complain when I return.”

“Huh?”

Alice heard a low, polite but sticky and unpleasant voice.

She turned her head back from where she was leaning on the spider tank’s railing.

And there, an enormous hermit crab was looking at Sir Dominic and Alice.

“M-“

Alice stood dumbfounded at the sight of the hermit crab, whose head alone was about the size of the spider tank, then took a breath.

“Master—!”

With a tremendous scream, Alice lunged toward Sir Dominic.

Sir Dominic had already seen this giant hermit crab and had drawn his sword and shield, but they inevitably looked puny compared to the crab’s size.

“There’s no need to be so wary. I’m just another… being here to get my license.”

The hermit crab rummaged through the side of the pirate ship and pulled out an old top hat decorated with barnacles and sticky mucus.

Then, placing the hat on what appeared to be its head, between its eyes, the hermit crab began to introduce itself.

“Pleased to meet you. I didn’t mean to startle you. I am ‘Mister Hermit,’ the owner of this pirate ship.”

The hermit crab slightly lifted the giant top hat on its head with its pincer as a greeting.

“Master! It’s a hermit crab! A huge hermit crab!”

“I see. Nice to meet you. I am Sir Dominic of Feralant.”

“My goodness.”

Sir Dominic returned the greeting to the hermit crab that had emerged using the pirate ship as its shell.

The hermit crab was surprised by Sir Dominic’s words. He was quite a famous person. It was said that anyone who didn’t know about the recent issues surrounding Sir Dominic might as well be a spy.

“Sir Dominic? The Sir Dominic I know?”

The giant hermit crab couldn’t believe the situation.

“You know me?”

“Of course I do. I’ve been a fan since Enchant. I had to sell five villas to get your card. No regrets though. It was worth it.”

This giant hermit crab was one of Sir Dominic’s ardent fans and one of the few who possessed his card.

“Five villas…?”

Sir Dominic was speechless at this point.

He was stunned by the amount of money that came out of the hermit crab’s mouth—an amount he couldn’t even imagine with his financial sense.

Even by Feralant standards, villas were nothing more than playthings for the wealthy.

According to Lady Alice, a villa built in a scenic location cost enough to maintain a castle for ten years and still have money left over.

That meant this giant hermit crab in front of him had spent enough money to maintain a castle for fifty years—the entire lifetime of an ordinary soldier from enlistment to death—just for his card.

“The rarer something is, the more valuable it becomes.”

The giant hermit crab grinned.

Thinking to himself: He’d be shocked if I told him I actually spent relatively little compared to others.

In reality, there were people who had spent the Empire’s annual budget to draw Sir Dominic’s card, and others who had invested enough money to buy a small dimensional realm.

Sir Dominic couldn’t understand the current situation.

His card was sold for that much? Why?

Having not received particularly good treatment in Feralant, such treatment was quite unfamiliar to him.

Who would show such interest in a knight who originated as a conscripted serf?

Sir Dominic had only printed about ten of his cards with such thoughts in mind, but seeing the current reaction, he thought perhaps he should have printed more.

“By the way, seeing that you’re trying to get a license, are you planning to change your class to Rider?”

“Rider?”

“No? Ah, I see. This exam wasn’t for a single class change. My apologies.”

The hermit crab uttered a word that aroused Sir Dominic’s curiosity, and Sir Dominic eagerly absorbed it.

Finally, with curiosity filling his head, Sir Dominic tried to ask the hermit crab more, but his attempt was interrupted by someone.

“Excuse—”

Yes, the ghost captain had cut in.

“That, um, spider… I mean, the metal spider. Could you please move it? We might be late at this rate…”

The ghost captain was a person with a stronger mind than his crew.

That’s why he could overcome his fear of the spider tank and speak to Sir Dominic.

However, the hermit crab, observing this situation, burst out in anger.

“You’ve already been traveling for fifteen days, so being fifteen more days late won’t make much difference.”

“But days with such good wind are rare…”

“Who told you to turn your helmsman and navigator into shark bait!”

At the hermit crab’s sharp retort, the captain’s neck retracted like a turtle’s.

In fact, this ghost ship wasn’t supposed to be this slow.

Looking at its speed stats, it was actually quite fast among vehicles, and except for its low durability, it was fairly well-balanced.

So why was it moving as slowly as a crawling snail?

It was because of the hermit crab.

This huge hermit crab was intelligent and wise enough to be called a divine spirit in most dimensional realms, and had a body as large as its intelligence and wisdom.

Naturally, it weighed a lot.

It was only natural that the ghost ship’s speed would significantly decrease due to being overloaded.

Of course, without a helmsman and navigator, it would be even slower in an already slow situation.

“Sigh. I feel like I’m going to go crazy from frustration. If only there was an alternative…”

The hermit crab heaved a deep sigh.

It sighed so heavily that a hill directly beneath the hermit crab was flattened with just one breath.

Sir Dominic knew this hermit crab was in quite a difficult situation, but he had no way to help and could only roll his eyes.

“Um, couldn’t Mister Hermit just carry this ship?”

That’s when it happened.

Alice made a suggestion to the hermit crab.

“My mom also carries things in her hands when nothing fits, and it makes her faster. Wouldn’t that work?”

Advice born from experience. However, it was an approach the hermit crab had never even considered.

“That—”

Why had he been bound by common sense? In Gacharland, common sense is useless!

Having gained this insight, the hermit crab looked at the ghost ship in which his body was wedged.