POV: Wynter Ash
Time: Day 4 Post-Fall.
Location: Cabin 304 & Captain's Quarters -- The Gilded Wreck.
The first thing I felt wasn't pain. The first thing I felt was a salty taste.
A salty taste that burned my throat, seeped into my lungs, and coated my tongue with a rough, sandy texture.
"Hhk... HHHAAKK!"
My body jolted awake with a violent, reflexive spasm. I was thrown from the darkness of a coma straight into the reality of vomiting. I tilted my body sideways, spewing clear liquid mixed with bitter bile onto the damp wooden floor.
My lungs screamed, trying to suck in air greedily, but the air... was wrong.
This wasn't the sterile air of Nexus Hall. This wasn't the thin air of the Stratosphere.
This air was heavy, damp, and smelled of mold.
"Finally. I thought I'd have to hit you to wake you up."
That voice. Cynical. Rough. But oddly... familiar.
I looked up, wiping my trembling lips with the back of my hand. My vision spun, blurry for a moment before focusing on the figure sitting on the floor, leaning against a moss-covered wooden wall.
Solstice Burn.
She looked a mess. Her gray hair was plastered down by sweat and seawater. She wore a dirty, worn leather vest, and her arms were covered in small burns and metal scratches.
But she was alive. And she was staring at me with her pale blue eyes, tired yet sharp.
"Solstice..." my voice came out like a ghost's whisper. Hoarse, as if my vocal cords had been sanded down. "Where...?"
"In hell," she cut in flatly. She threw a dirty rag at me. "Wipe your mouth. You smell like dead fish."
I picked up the rag. My hand was shaking violently. Not from cold—though I felt cold—but from extreme muscle weakness. I tried to move my fingers, tried to call on my Mana circuits to scan my own body.
Silence.
Empty.
No hiss of Aqua. No flow of Gale.
The Core inside my chest felt like a parched, bone-dry crater. Not shattered, but drained. Like a lake sucked down to the mud at its bottom.
I tried to force a drop of mana out. Squeezing a sponge that was already dry.
SHARP PAIN.
A tremendous dizziness slammed into my head, making me groan. It was the symptom of acute Mana Exhaustion. My body refused to cast because there was no fuel left.
"Don't try," said Solstice, her tone warning, watching my twitching hand. "Your tank's dry, Ice Block. Completely empty. You burned all your reserves to freeze us during the fall."
She played with a small knife in her hand, looking at me seriously.
"If you force a cast now, you're not siphoning mana, you'll be siphoning your own vitality. You could die of shock."
I leaned weakly against the wall. Reality hit me.
I wasn't broken, but I was useless.
Without Mana, I was just a lump of cold, weak meat in a wooden box. It would take weeks, maybe months, to refill a Core this empty without external help.
"Status," I asked, forcing analytical mode to suppress the panic. "Situation report."
"In short? We fell. We were picked up by pirates. And now we're slaves," Solstice answered casually.
"Slaves?"
"Crew," she corrected with a bitter sneer. "I signed a blood contract with Captain Sable. Five years. I'm this ship's Furnace, and in exchange..."
She pointed the tip of her knife at me.
"...he didn't throw you overboard for shark bait. You're alive because I sold myself, Wynter. So, you owe me your life. And the interest is ticking per second."
I fell silent. Staring at this "Walking Disaster" girl.
She wasn't the self-sacrificing type. She was the burning type. But she... she sold her freedom for this battery-dead lump of flesh?
A strange feeling stirred in my chest. Shame from this helplessness.
"You're an idiot," I murmured softly. "You should have let me drown. I'm a liability."
"True," Solstice stood up, stretching her stiff muscles. "But you're my liability. And I don't like throwing away my things."
Suddenly, the cabin door was pounded hard from outside.
BAM! BAM!
"Hey, Furnace! Break time's over!" a hoarse voice came from behind the door. "And bring that Walking Corpse! The Captain wants to see if his investment is still breathing or has already turned to fertilizer!"
Solstice looked at me. Her expression hardened.
"Can you stand, Princess? Or do you need to be carried?"
I gritted my teeth. A shred of my ego remained.
"I can walk," I lied.
I tried to stand up. My knees immediately gave way.
I would have fallen face-first into the vomit on the floor if Solstice hadn't snatched my collar and held me up.
The heat of her body immediately stung my cold skin. It hurt, but it supported me.
"Don't be stubborn," she whispered in my ear. "Lean your weight on me. And for God's sake, don't puke again."
We walked out. Towards a new trial.
The journey to the upper deck was sensory torture.
This ship—The Gilded Wreck—was a nightmare of inefficiency.
With every step I dragged, I heard the sound of waste. A steam engine coughing due to incorrect fuel ratios. Pipes hissing with steam leaks—venting precious energy into the air. A crew working uncoordinatedly, shouting at each other and wasting effort.
As a logistics expert, this was painful to witness. This ship was "bleeding" energy from every corner.
"This place..." I hissed softly beside Solstice. "Its management is trash."
"Focus on walking, not auditing," Solstice retorted, dragging me up the last set of stairs.
We arrived at the Captain's Deck.
The gray light of the Aurum sea sun stabbed my eyes, accustomed to darkness. The salty sea wind slapped my face.
In front of us, sitting on a cargo crate draped with stolen red velvet, was Captain Sable.
He was eating a green apple with a dagger. His mechanical eye whirred, scanning us from head to toe as we approached.
Around him, Quartermaster Grimm and several armed crew members stood grinning, waiting for entertainment.
Solstice let go of me. I stood swaying, but I forced my spine straight. I might be wearing tattered clothes and smell of vomit, but I refused to bow.
"Well," Sable took a bite of his apple. A crisp crunch sounded loud. "The corpse is awake. Grimm loses the 50-Coin bet."
Grimm spat on the floor. "Tch. Should've just killed him in his sleep."
Sable stood up, walking around me like a buyer inspecting a sick horse. His camera eye projected a red beam onto my chest.
"Irregular heartbeat. Body temperature 34 degrees—chronic hypothermia," Sable read out the medical data. Then his eye focused on my chest. "And the Mana Core... Dry. Completely empty."
He stopped in front of me, looking into my eyes.
"You're scrap, kid. A dead battery. You're pretty, I'll admit. A noble face. But on this sea, a mage without mana is as useful as a gun without bullets."
Sable turned to Solstice.
"Furnace, your friend here is trash. Our contract says I'll keep him alive as long as he has potential value. But look at him. He can't do hard labor. He can't do magic because he's empty. He's just another mouth to feed."
Sable drew a flare pistol from his waist, twirling it casually.
"Economically, it's cheaper if I shoot him now. The deficit is too large."
Solstice tensed. Her hands clenched, smoke beginning to seep from between her fingers. She was ready to burn this deck.
"Don't," I whispered softly, holding Solstice's arm.
I took one step forward. My legs trembled, but my voice... my voice returned to Senate mode. Cold. Flat. Transactional.
"Deficit," I repeated.
I stared into Sable's mechanical eye.
"You're talking about economics, Captain. But from the way you run this ship... you're actually slowly going bankrupt, aren't you?"
A tense silence fell. The crew gaped. This scrap slave just insulted the Captain?
Sable stopped twirling his pistol. His eyes narrowed. "What did you say?"
"I can hear your engines," I said, ignoring the threat in his eyes. I pointed towards the ship's smokestack.
"The compression ratio in boiler number two is leaking 30%. You're burning twice the fuel for half the speed. That's a waste of 500 Coin per week."
I pointed at the pile of cargo on the deck.
"And the way you stack your cargo... you put heavy metal in the upper left hull. That tilts your ship's center of gravity by 5 degrees. That's why your ship maneuvers sluggishly. If chased by the Aurum Navy, you'd be dead in 10 minutes."
I looked at Sable again.
"You're not a businessman, Sable. You're a lucky scavenger. You're throwing money into the sea every time your propeller turns."
Sable aimed his pistol right at my forehead.
"You've got a big mouth for someone who's completely empty, Scrap. Give me one reason why I shouldn't blow your brains out right now."
My heart raced. Here it was. The wager.
I slowly pushed the gun barrel aside with my index finger—an incredibly risky move, but necessary.
"Because I can fix it," I answered calmly.
"I don't have muscle. I don't have mana right now. But I have Data."
I tapped my own temple.
"In this head are the encryption codes for the Aurum Trade Route logistics lanes. I know the patrol schedules of the Navy that aren't on your maps. I know how to calibrate your old engines to be 40% more fuel efficient."
"You need a 'Furnace' to cut iron," I pointed at Solstice.
Then I pointed at myself.
"And you need a Brain to sell that iron for the highest price."
I spread my weak hands.
"Kill me, and you lose the map to millions of Coin. Let me live, give me a desk and a pen... and I will triple this ship's profits within a month."
A long silence. Only the sound of wind and waves.
Sable stared at me. His mechanical eye spun rapidly, calculating probabilities. A lie? Or an opportunity?
He slowly lowered his pistol. A lopsided smile appeared on his lips.
"You're cunning. I like cunning. What's your real name, Scrap? You talk like a Senate man."
"My name..." I paused for a moment. Wynter Ash the Grand Praetor died in that lift.
"Call me The Auditor."
Sable laughed heartily.
"Auditor! On a pirate ship! The world truly is insane."
He holstered his pistol.
"Alright, Auditor. You get a trial period. One week. Fix my ship's efficiency. If in a week I don't see the fuel savings you promised..."
He brought his face close to mine.
"...I'll have your own Furnace burn you alive. Understood?"
"Deal," I answered shortly.
Sable turned, waving a hand at Grimm.
"Get him a desk in the logistics storage. And feed him. Don't let my brain asset starve to death."
The crew dispersed, returning to work with disappointed grumbles because no blood was spilled.
Solstice approached me. She looked at me with a disbelieving stare.
"You're insane," she whispered. "You just bluffed a Pirate Captain with... math?"
I let out a long sigh, my legs finally giving out. I slumped down onto a wooden crate. Cold sweat soaked my back.
"That wasn't a bluff, Solstice," I murmured weakly, massaging my aching temples. "It's the only language they understand. Greed."
I stared out at the open sea.
I survived. For now.
But I was no longer a King. I was a battery-dead Pirate Accountant.
"Help me to the storage," I asked Solstice. "I have a lot of numbers to fix before they decide to eat us."