Chapter 97

Alone on the Sky Ship, the girl realized.

The more this girl encountered, the more the situation worsened. If she had been subdued when they first met on the rooftop of a building, what would have happened? Or if she had been subdued on the ground, what would have transpired?

Their initial meeting had been when she was exhausted, making it easy to subdue her. Even when she was on the ground, it would have required a great deal of effort but it wasn’t entirely impossible to win.

The meetings with Erica, whom she was supposed to protect, had been steadily worsening. Now, she could no longer afford to keep running away. It had become clear that the next time she wouldn’t be able to defeat the opponent, so she had to place her bet now.

As the Busan Girl made her decision, droplets of seawater, previously frozen by the Revolutionary of Busan beneath the ship, began to slowly drip from her fingertips.

While the seawater dripped from all ten of her fingers and briefly soaked the deck, the Vice-Captain was buying sufficient time.

“Ugh!”

The Sky Ship rocked violently like a Viking ship, flipping and shaking dozens of times in ten seconds. The Vice-Captain and Captain, protected by the [Sailing] ability, didn’t feel any nausea or dizziness from the ship’s movements, but Erica, who had no such protection, felt it quite differently.

Already in poor condition from recklessly using her abilities multiple times, Erica could feel these movements as if they were direct hits.

“Uninvited guests naturally deserve an unfriendly ship~!”

Though Erica resisted vomiting and retorting to the Vice-Captain to avoid showing any weakness, the dizziness she felt caused her to stretch her arm in the wrong direction when she tried to counterattack the youth rushing toward her.

It is common to lose a sense of direction at sea. The [Sailing] ability could momentarily disorient one’s sense of direction as if they were under the waves. It was a skill that effectively weakened the opponent.

While Erica stretched her hand in the wrong direction, the youth who had moved closer to her delivered a fine straight punch to her face.

With a sound like “Punch!” Erica swung a retaliatory punch where she thought she had been hit, but it hit only empty air, not the youth.

The moment [Sailing] disrupted the opponent’s senses, it became impossible to determine whether the direction one perceived truly had the opponent or whether their body failed to swing correctly toward the intended target.

Indeed, this was a worthy skill for the right-hand of the second-in-command of Busan—a skill focused on supporting and weakening the opponent. Though she was ranked second beneath the Busan Girl, her true rank might align more with a third or fourth place due to the nature of her supporting and weakening abilities.

“You!”

Growing increasingly irritated, Erica changed her method, attempting to convert everything within her cognitive range into bl**d.

Since wide-range techniques work despite direction issues, the ship would naturally avoid falling victim to such deceitful tactics.

However, contrary to Erica’s expectations, the Sky Ship continued flying intact. All spaces Erica had attempted to convert were nothing more than empty void due to distorted directional senses. In an empty void, there was nothing to convert, so naturally, no bl**d would have formed in such spaces.

As she felt herself sinking deeper into quicksand, Erica weakly thought that if the Student Council President had been there, she might have been able to provide a solution.

During this time, the sailors knocked unconscious or incapacitated by Erica’s ability began waking up and moving again because sailors had to continue ‘sailing.’

Though the aggressive knockout from Erica had prevented the sailors from immediately joining the fight, they were members under the Vice-Captain and Captain after all.

These individuals, though momentarily defeated due to exceptional abilities from Erica, possessed skills and application senses that were by no means trivial, rivaling world-class strong individuals.

Real power players would intervene soon. Erica’s remaining ‘transformation time’ was 2 minutes and 10 seconds. Time was not on her side, so she needed to take decisive action.

‘I need to recreate the sensation I had just moments ago.’

Erica believed that the recreation of the feeling of bursting a single drop of bl**d was the only key to resolving this situation. Grinning ferociously, she inserted her thumb into her mouth and slashed it.

As a few drops of bl**d trickled down her thumb, marking what she thought was the key to victory, the young man across from her looked at her with confusion. Erica then spoke irritably:

“Let’s see if you can control this, even if you can manipulate direction. I’ve designated all spaces.”

And then the explosion came.

Kooowwwwwww!

With the determination to just burst the bl**d without considering distance, scope, or any possible damage to herself, Erica executed the explosion.

It was both a failure and a success. Thinking it dangerous, the young man had stepped a few paces back and avoided the explosion range—making the subjugation of the Vice-Captain a failure. However, what flew off during the explosion wasn’t just dust from the floor.

“There. I can finally see everything.”

Since everything within Erica’s vision was always visible, just distorted due to directions, her words carried meaning. The near-suicidal explosion wounded Erica alone, but it had damaged and restored her directional sense, resetting it to normal.

Whether this was pure luck turning the damage into a healing process, or a stroke of battle intuition from the future Erica who had witnessed the conclusion of a bl**d-red world, remains unclear.

Still, the most important thing was the present action. Erica swung her bleeding thumb toward where the Vice-Captain stood.

As a drop or two decorated the air heading for the Vice-Captain, Erica immediately attempted to detonate it.

“Huh? To think I’d fall for such a simple move? Aren’t you the fool here~?”

The ship rocked again, moving the Vice-Captain elsewhere, and the bl**d droplet from Erica’s thumb just missed and fell over the edge of the ship.

“You’re the fool for forgetting what I was trying to do earlier.”

The battlefield of the Sky Ship was extremely disadvantageous to Erica. Thus, there was only one thing she needed to do to change the battlefield.

As Erica’s vision pointed downward, she immediately activated her ability to attempt converting the entire ship into a pool of bl**d.

A fall from this altitude would definitely k*ll Erica, but she could survive if she utilized the pull of bl**d. Others’ survival was irrelevant to her mindset.

However, either fortunately or fatefully, the ship refused to transform. It had been inexplicably coated with a transparent liquid containing bl**d.

“Oops, looks like you’re onto me, huh~.”

Erica’s gaze turned toward the most likely suspect. During the Vice-Captain and Erica’s confrontation, the Busan Girl had been coating the ship and crew to counteract Erica’s explosive s*icide tactic.

If the opponent was seen as a madman ready to self-destruct, it was only prudent to prepare against such a possibility. It was also necessary to counteract her ability to arbitrarily convert everything to bl**d.

“Are you saying you’ve created some sort of ability nullifier?”

Even with preparation, it wouldn’t make sense if everything could be perfectly countered. Erica couldn’t believe it, but this was a difference in experience. Had the individual ever fought targeting someone’s weakness?

Erica’s ability was merely to convert things into bl**d, and it failed because the ship and its crew had already been coated with a material containing large amounts of bl**d, making them unconvertible.

While being toyed with through manipulation of direction, Erica’s plan to explode the ship and turn the tide had been thwarted by the Busan Girl’s earlier actions.

[One minute remains.]

“I’ve lost.”

In the grim situation, Erica announced her defeat, yet her posture was far from that of a defeated individual.

Busan Girl, sensing something amiss, shouted, “Strike now!” and moved her subordinates, though her command was one step too late.

For someone with experience and intellect, reacting proactively to anticipated actions is key, whereas Erica, with less experience, acted on instinct, keeping her strongest card ready as soon as she anticipated possible defeat.

Kraaack!

With the sound of something breaking, the sailors aboard turned around to find that a blond delinquent girl, also known as the Student Council Vice-President, covered in bl**d, appeared, gasping as she crushed a sailor’s head under her feet.

“Are you insane, calling me when I’m this exhausted?”

“Call it not insanity but cleverness. And we’re short on time, so let’s hurry.”

Would continued divine protection apply even in her already exhausted state?

Erica had absolutely no intention of continuing to gamble with her life. While List of Bad Endings 0 remained active, she would decisively end this situation.

Even if it meant forcibly summoning the Vice-Student Council President, who was resting, through the pull of bl**d against her will.

[Your favorability with Vice-President Riki has updated.]

Erica usually wouldn’t care for such a favorability update alarm.

But considering her resolve never to fall for a delinquent’s advances, she viewed this as an absolutely unattainable safe asset.

“Just hurry up and finish this.”

The moment of genuine engagement began aboard the Sky Ship.