Chapter 188 : The Party on Board
Although it was called the sea, I wasn’t sure if what was in front of me should be called the sea. Geographically, it was inside Gellerg City. Even if the horizon seemed to stretch endlessly, this body of water had an end. The end of the continent.
Now I knew that it wasn’t treated as unimplemented data like in the game. So, wouldn’t the word ‘lake’ be more fitting? But it was too enormous to be called a lake. In the end, it was best to just call it what people called it.
I was at the sea.
“Thank you for using Future Pass today. We look forward to serving you again next time.”
With the polite greeting from the speaker, the Future Pass limousine left. I thought last time would be the last time I used Future Pass, but experiencing it again like this, the comfortable ride felt like a lingering attachment.
It bothered me that I had used it with a false identity provided by the Blood Alliance.
‘Well, the contractor Allen isn’t my real identity either.’
I was already working as a team leader at a megacorp under the name Arman Hessen, so I didn’t feel any resistance to a new identity.
“Arthur Melberon?”
As I was thinking, a presence that had approached called me. Arthur Melberon, my current identity.
As I naturally turned around, the man who had called me frowned and examined me.
“Hmm.”
“……?”
“Good, you pass. The mask is fine. At this rate, I don’t think there will be any complaints even if we put you in as a substitute.”
He was evaluating me from the start. It wasn’t that I was in a bad mood. I was used to being evaluated.
Contractors would size each other up and test each other’s skills just by making eye contact. It was much better than that unpleasant and sticky gaze.
And that wasn’t the only reason I wasn’t in a bad mood.
“But why were you late? If you’re the youngest, you should come quickly! Everyone is busy and has a lot to say, so what’s the use if the youngest comes last?!”
“……”
He was an ordinary person, unrelated to the contractor industry. He was also Arthur Melberon’s senior.
“I’m sorry, the road was blocked.”
「The World Tree protests that it was not late!」
I wasn’t actually late. If the clock wasn’t wrong, I had arrived 10 minutes earlier than the designated meeting time.
‘Be quiet.’
Still, apologizing was the proper way to conduct a healthy social life.
“Hey, why are you apologizing so stiffly? I was just kidding.”
Sure enough, the man’s stern expression, which he had forced, loosened, and he laughed heartily.
“But it’s true that I have a lot to say. You may have come with a light heart as a substitute, but our work is surprisingly tricky and there’s a lot to pay attention to.”
The man walked ahead and pointed his finger at the pier. To be precise, it was a huge ship, a cruise ship, docked at the pier.
“We’re also inside residents, but you know, right? There’s a difference in class even among inside residents.”
Inside residents referred to the residents of District 2 and District 1. By the same logic, outside residents meant the residents of the districts below District 3.
I knew it as a concept, but it was the first time I had heard it directly from a person’s mouth. It was a discriminatory term, and since the majority of the citizens lived below District 3, it was a word that was not often used.
On the other hand, the self-proclaimed ‘inside residents’ seemed to use it very commonly. The way they uttered the word was familiar and natural.
“It’s a party on board hosted by people who are higher than us. A sense of superiority is a given, and it’s common for guests to find fault and harass you just because they’re in a bad mood. I was thoroughly educated at the company and went, but my mind was all over the place.”
The place he guided me to was filled with handsome men and beautiful women in well-fitting suits, waiting.
“Especially since you’re a last-minute substitute, you’ll definitely be picked on for all sorts of things. For your own sake, you should cram as much as you can, even if it’s for a short time.”
They were the crew members of the party on board that was being held on the cruise ship. I squeezed in among them.
…Well, that’s how it happened. I had become a crew member of a party on board hosted by the upper class under the identity of Arthur Melberon.
***
The identity I had requested from the Blood Alliance was one that would not be met with suspicion even if I met the elf princess. Of course, I thought they would give me a fake identity of a noble, one of the ones they had prepared for their vampires.
Vampires, except for their somewhat gloomy appearance, were no different from ordinary people, so it was a self-evident guess that they would have a fake identity prepared. In that sense, the identity of a crew member of a party on board was honestly outside my expectations.
A noble, in other words, an inside resident. Although he was a crew member who served residents of a higher status.
I wondered if a noble would do such a thing, but after hearing the circumstances, it was a job that was possible because he was a noble. It was similar to how the servants of high-ranking nobles in the Middle Ages were from noble families.
It was because they couldn’t just let anyone serve the upper class of the city. They had also arranged a place where I could naturally meet the elf princess.
They had confirmed with the Brotherhood’s information network that the elf princess was among the attendees of the party on board. In the end, if you just look at the results, the Blood Alliance had done everything I had requested.
If I only pursued the goal of contacting the elf princess, it was also the fastest way. So, even if it was outside my expectations, I had no complaints.
Of course, the Blood Alliance would not have thought of this as a substitute for the reward of the request. In fact, I was the one who had played the biggest role in resolving the Brotherhood’s internal strife.
As a price for defeating Shadowfang, I had practically become a close associate of the ‘Blood Alliance’. As much as I had shed blood this time, they would have to shed blood for me someday.
Anyway, I had ended up experiencing being a crew member, which was not in my destiny, but… it was a fresh experience, so I didn’t feel bad.
「The World Tree inhales the seawater.」
“Why are you drinking that?”
I stopped the World Tree, which had started doing something strange, perhaps out of boredom. If it wasn’t a salt-tolerant plant, it would dry up and die due to osmosis.
The World Tree wouldn’t get sick from drinking a little seawater, but it wouldn’t be good for its body either. It must not have tasted very good, as it spat it out right away.
‘It’s more leisurely than I thought.’
The work was not as difficult as my senior had advised, nor was I harassed with all sorts of slander and fault-finding. On the contrary, it was so leisurely that even the World Tree was doing strange things.
‘Was he being considerate?’
As if to mock the time I had spent cramming, I was assigned to greet the passengers coming and going in the middle of the cabin hallway. It was normal for there to be no work.
Who would stay in their cabin when a party on board was going on? There was no sign of anyone in any of the cabins.
I was also assigned to guard against the approach of suspicious people, but this was a cruise ship where only invited guests and related personnel who had passed a thorough screening process were on board. The approach of uninvited outsiders was impossible.
The crew members also knew this well. In other words, putting me in such a dead-end job was their consideration.
Of course, it probably wasn’t just consideration.
‘It must have been burdensome to put a substitute right into the main work.’
The crew members knew why I was clumsy, so they would have just let it go even if I made a mistake. It was a situation that the passengers didn’t need to know about.
They had brought me in because they were short-staffed, but when it came time to actually give me work, they must have felt burdened.
‘It’s good for me.’
Whatever the intention, it was a stroke of luck for me. A real Arthur Melberon might have been disappointed to miss the opportunity to build connections, but that wasn’t my purpose.
Thanks to that, I was able to buy time to check the internal structure.
A single seed flew in and then melted like a snowflake. It was a seed I had scattered to check the internal structure of the cruise ship.
It was a technique specialized for reconnaissance, like the explosive seed created through grafting. It was light and small, so it flew on the breeze and acted as my eyes.
The fact that it could melt as soon as it came into contact with an object and erase its traces was a bonus. I could observe even the most private places without having to go there myself.
However, the disadvantage was that I couldn’t control its direction as I pleased. I had to pour out a large quantity until I got the desired result.
Fortunately, I was able to solve this problem easily as I had no work and was free.
‘I have a rough idea of where she might be.’
The elf princess was a person whose existence was thoroughly hidden. It wasn’t that she had hidden her identity as desperately as the vampires of the Blood Alliance, but her identity was close to a secret.
She was the only remaining royalty of the elves. As she had to be treated like a sacred object, she must not have been assigned the same cabin as the others.
I hadn’t heard anything about the elf princess from my talkative senior. Perhaps the information was only shared with a few of the crew members.
She would probably attend the party on board when it was approaching its climax. The main character always appears later.
Appearing before others was an undignified act. I didn’t know the personal tendencies of the elf princess, but the arrogant elves would have planned the event schedule that way.
‘So, if I want to contact her personally, I have to take this opportunity.’
After the elf princess attended the party, it would be impossible to even get close to her. The crew member who served her would not be me, and even if I somehow got a chance, it would be strange for me to talk to her alone.
In the end, it was best to contact her without getting caught before that.
“Beta.”
[I will prepare for internal network access, closed-circuit manipulation, and movement route planning.]
He was quick on the uptake. When I left my post, I would set up a fake with the ability of the fraudulent wolf just in case.
Perhaps because the security level of the internal network was high, it took quite a lot of time.
“Hey! Arthur Melberon!”
In the meantime, trouble arose.
“We’re short-staffed outside, so stop standing there blankly and come out!”
***
“You are…”
I came out at the nagging of an unknown crew member. I thought my senior had called me, but the one waiting was a crew member I had never spoken to before.
My eyes met with my senior, who was busy moving around, and he sighed heavily, looking restless.
“Serve the guests over there.”
When I checked who he was talking about, I could see what was going on.
‘He’s trying to mess with me on purpose.’
Pointy ears, chiseled features, elves. Not only Giselle Willow, but elves were generally prickly.
To serve them without offending them, of course, a veteran should be assigned, not a rookie like me. The intention was clear from the way he casually entrusted the job to me.
‘Not everyone is a saint.’
My senior was a better person than I thought, but it was unlikely that all the crew members would look favorably on me. There must have been people who were dissatisfied with the consideration of being kept far away.
“I understand.”
It was manageable. It was a stroke of luck that I had just been standing around without any work, but it was normal to be busy.
Most of all, being assigned to serve the elves was a bombshell for them, but it was an unexpected boon for me.
“I will prepare the drinks you ordered.”
For someone who had learned on the fly, it was a perfect posture. The liquor being poured into the deep glass.
I thought I had passed without any trouble, but then a restraint came.
“……Wait, who told you to fill the glass as you please?”
A nervous voice. The passengers at the table held their breath.
“You have no basics.”
The elf’s annoyance seemed to have dampened the atmosphere. There was a sense of anticipation in their expressions.
A group that relieved stress like a game by making a fuss for no reason. The worst of the worst.
“Is it okay to work like this here?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Does sorry solve everything? What about my hurt feelings?”
The elf clung to the end of my words. But the chaos that the crowd was expecting did not happen.
“……Hmph, I’ll let it slide this once. Be careful next time.”
The elf, who had checked my face, broke his momentum and obediently backed down.
‘It still works well.’
「The race of Mother Nature feels a great instinctive favor towards the druid!」
It was an ability that had made even the more prickly and rigid Giselle Willow show interest in me at our first meeting. Winning the favor of the elves was like eating cold porridge for me.
(End of Chapter)