"Captain, Sabaody Archipelago is coming into view."
"It is?"
Kurogane Ren looked into the distance. Sure enough, he could already see the massive crowns of the giant Yarukiman Mangroves.
"Nina, go tell Esdeath, Teresa, and Xu Nian to come ashore with me."
"The others stay on Leviathan."
"Yes, Captain!"
Leviathan was the name Ren had given their new ship. Since they had changed ships, there was no way he could keep using the old name.
Then Ren ordered Little Black to surface and released Lucky from the dock built inside Leviathan.
He planned to take Lucky into Sabaody.
Running a hand over the little ship, Ren let out a long sigh.
"I don't want to sell you either… but there's no helping it. That ship spirit of yours is too ridiculous. If I don't sell you off, every ship around me is going to suffer."
Ever since Leviathan set sail, accidents had followed one after another.
Either Esdeath and Teresa beat holes into the hull, or Little Black got attacked by some giant Sea King.
There had even been one time when they'd just surfaced to get some air, only for a meteor to come crashing down from the sky. If Esdeath and Teresa hadn't reacted in time, Leviathan would've needed at least a month to recover.
After it happened over and over again, Ren finally came to a conclusion.
Once or twice was bad luck.
Dozens of times? That was a pattern.
That was when he remembered Lucky's ship spirit—Yukikaze.
Its special trait was brutally simple.
The ship itself stayed safe.
Its allies took the hit instead.
So Ren made a guess. Since Lucky and Leviathan counted as allies, Leviathan had become the one eating all the bad luck.
If he sold Lucky to someone else, Leviathan should finally stop getting plagued by disasters.
That was why Ren had already decided. This trip to the auction house wouldn't just be about other items.
He was selling Lucky too.
As for whether selling Lucky would hurt him?
Not at all.
If anything, it would help.
First, Lucky was just too small. In large-scale naval battles, its firepower was pitiful.
Second, its tiny size meant a tiny operational range. No matter how useful the ship was, it simply couldn't carry enough supplies.
And third…
Selling Lucky to another power was actually the smartest move.
Take the Marines, for example.
If Ren ever went to war with them in the future and Lucky was on their side, then the fate of the rest of the Marine fleet would be… entertaining, to say the least.
If Lucky stayed on his side, then Leviathan and any future allied ships would be the ones taking the punishment.
So in Ren's eyes, Lucky being in someone else's hands was the ideal outcome.
Of course, before putting it up for auction, he had stripped out all the advanced tech inside it.
That included the giant refrigerator he'd bought long ago.
Ren planted one hand on his waist and pointed dramatically ahead.
"Forward! We march on Sabaody!"
Not a single person answered him.
Ren turned around.
"West wind."
"Pong!"
"Eight of Wan."
"Mahjong."
"Pay up, pay up."
Esdeath, Teresa, and Xu Nian were sitting there playing mahjong.
Back when Ren had pulled mahjong tiles and playing cards from the system, he'd handed them over to the girls to pass the time.
The result?
Esdeath and Teresa had stopped wrecking the ship through sparring and started competing through mahjong instead.
Normally, nobody on the ship liked playing Xu Nian.
It was too miserable.
She could remember every single tile.
If you played ten rounds with her, she'd win nine.
And the only reason she lost that tenth round was because she didn't feel like winning all ten.
Watching the three of them in high spirits, Ren didn't dare go over.
If he interrupted them now, Esdeath and Teresa would probably treat him to a mixed magical-and-physical beatdown.
So in the end, he could only sulk his way to the helm and steer the ship alone.
Thankfully, Lucky was small and easy to handle.
And Sabaody wasn't far anymore.
A little over an hour later, Ren finally guided Lucky into Area 55 of Sabaody Archipelago.
By the time he docked, Esdeath and Teresa had conveniently just lost all the money they had on them.
Ren stared at the three of them getting up right after he finished parking and was suddenly certain they'd planned it all out in advance.
Xu Nian waved the money she'd won with a bright smile.
"Esdeath, Teresa, let's go shopping. My treat today."
Looking at the cash in Xu Nian's hand, Ren felt a fresh wave of heartache.
Thanks to her terrifying gambling skills, if there was one person on the ship who could be called the richest, it was absolutely Xu Nian.
The entire crew of over a hundred people had basically become her personal ATMs.
As long as someone sat down to play mahjong or cards, their money was as good as gone.
So when Xu Nian said she was paying, Ren didn't doubt for a second that she meant it.
"Captain, come shopping with us."
"No."
Ren rejected her on the spot.
The reason Xu Nian wanted him along was simple.
They wanted to use him as a walking storage unit.
Sure, each of them had a storage ring, but those only held one cubic meter. Once they stuffed their own things inside, there wasn't much room left.
So Xu Nian wanted Ren to come along and dump everything into his storage bag.
Just as Ren refused, a thick stack of cash appeared in front of him.
He immediately swept it with Observation Haki.
Twenty thousand? No.
Two hundred thousand Beli.
Not a small amount.
"Captain, come shopping with us. If you do, this two hundred thousand is yours."
Ren was still wavering when Teresa spoke up.
"Captain, can you really relax while three weak girls like us go shopping alone? What if something dangerous happens?"
Ren looked at the three of them.
Weak girls?
If the three of them got serious, they could probably sink the entire Sabaody Archipelago.
Still…
His eyes drifted back to the cash in Xu Nian's hand.
The crew still had money, but that was for supplies and emergency use. It wasn't something he was supposed to touch lightly, even if the money was sitting right there inside his storage bag.
Xu Nian gave the stack another little shake.
Ren couldn't help but sigh bitterly.
Teaching them mahjong had truly been one of the worst mistakes of his life.
In the end, for the sake of Esdeath and the others' "safety," he decided he had no choice but to accompany them.
Absolutely not because of the two hundred thousand Beli.
After paying the dock workers, Ren left Lucky at the port and followed the three women into the shopping district.
Under the guidance of the signs, they headed straight for Area 35 and immediately began spending like lunatics.
That day, the merchants of Area 35 were all smiling so hard their faces hurt.
Because three beautiful women were rampaging through the district buying things.
And they weren't buying one item at a time.
They were practically buying out entire stores.
If it looked nice, they bought all of it.
For the merchants, it was pure joy mixed with pure suffering.
After all, if a customer bought out your whole shop, you still had to package everything for them.
And there was a lot.
By the end of the day, countless temporary workers in Sabaody had been hired at premium rates just to help pack mountains of merchandise as fast as possible.
At one point, Ren finally couldn't hold it in anymore.
He asked why they were buying so much.
Esdeath, Teresa, and Xu Nian answered with complete sincerity.
They weren't just shopping for themselves.
They were shopping for the more than one hundred women back on the ship too.
Watching yet another mountain of goods get stacked in front of him, Ren could only quietly shove everything into his storage bag.
Then suddenly, he froze.
It wouldn't all fit.
He checked the storage bag and nearly cursed on the spot.
A thousand cubic meters.
Completely full.
It wasn't even that the three of them had bought too much.
The problem was that his storage bag had already been packed with all kinds of other things long ago.
Forced into a corner, Ren had no choice but to slide a bracelet off his wrist.
It was a storage bracelet.
Its capacity wasn't as absurd as the storage bag, but it still had around two hundred and fifty cubic meters of space.
Over the years, Ren had pulled dozens of storage items from the system—rings, bracelets, necklaces, all kinds of things.
But the largest one by far was still that original storage bag.
He handed the bracelet over to Xu Nian.
"Use this for now. I'm heading to the auction house first to clear out some of the stuff in my storage bag."
Then he added, "I'll come find you after."
Because now that they'd reached Sabaody…
it was finally time to start making some noise.
[Author Note]
More chapters available on Patreon: AbyssCrown