Due to Ciaccona's situation, they couldn't return to Ragunna City for the time being.
The earlier commotion had certainly drawn the Order of the Deep's attention. They were probably conducting a city-wide search.
For Ray, that didn't matter.
He hadn't revealed his true identity, so the Order of the Deep would never suspect him.
So, Ray decided to take a gondola and catch up to that pilgrimage ship.
If possible, he would try to defuse the bomb before it exploded.
"Come on up."
Ray stepped lightly onto the gondola, then turned to see Ciaccona still hesitating on the shore, staring at the swaying boat, unsure where to place her feet.
He sighed softly and reached out a hand to her. "Take my hand."
"O-Okay."
Ciaccona hurriedly grasped his offered hand, took a big step forward with his help, and finally wobbled her way onto the gondola.
The boat swayed gently with her movements, rippling the water's surface.
Ray took out his terminal and glanced at the time. "The pilgrimage ship should have already set sail. If the Order of the Deep wants to hide their dirty deed, they'll likely wait until the ship is far from Ragunna before detonating it. I don't know exactly when, but the sooner we get there, the better."
"Mm." Ciaccona responded softly, but her gaze kept lingering on Ray's profile.
Such focused attention naturally drew his notice.
Ray turned to meet her eyes. "Is there something on my face?"
Ciaccona shook her head gently. "No."
"Then why do you keep staring at me?"
"I'm just a little curious." Her emerald eyes held the faint light of the sea-sky horizon, her voice gently rising and falling with the sway of the gondola. "Why do you care so much about this? Logically, the fate of those people should have nothing to do with you. And if the Order of the Deep finds out, you'll definitely bring trouble upon yourself."
"What kind of question is that?" Hearing the young woman's confusion, Ray answered matter-of-factly. "Does saving people need a reason? As for the Order of the Deep..."
"It's a tricky problem, but as long as they don't find out, isn't that enough? I refuse to believe that on this vast ocean, the Order of the Deep could possibly know it was me."
Ciaccona propped her chin on her hand, her antlers glowing with a warm luster in the sunlight. "I didn't expect Mr. Ray to be such an unbound person. You're like a knight from a legendary tale brave, righteous, and faithful."
"Stop, stop, stop." Ray quickly raised a hand to interrupt her. "The first two are passable, but that last one... spare me."
The sea breeze gently tousled Ciaccona's bangs. She tilted her head. "Why can't you be faithful?"
"For no particular reason." Ray cleared his throat lightly. "Anyway, saving people doesn't need a reason. I want to do it, so I do. As for knights and all that, it's not that mystical."
He suddenly changed the subject, his gaze falling on the musical instrument she carried. "By the way, aren't you a bard? How about singing me a song during this voyage?"
"Right now?" Ciaccona's fingertips gently brushed the strings, a few crisp notes leaping into the sea breeze.
A sunny smile lifted the corners of her lips.
"Then let me tell you the legend of that knight who cut through the waves and battled the great beast of the deep."
...
...
Twilight descended, the last rays of sunset fading at the horizon where sea met sky.
On the deck of the pilgrimage ship, people knelt with heads bowed on the cold wooden planks.
The biting sea wind, like invisible blades, scraped across their faces, stealing the last traces of warmth from their skin.
This was a ship abandoned by the gods, carrying a group of souls exiled by fate.
Their so-called blasphemy was perhaps nothing more than a careless sigh on some idle afternoon or an unthinking question in the dead of night.
But the Order of the Deep never listened to explanations, in the name of God, words themselves were the original sin.
When judgment fell, even the sea wind carried a bone-chilling cold.
"O God, please forgive my sins..."
As dusk deepened, the salty sea breeze carried fragmented prayers drifting over the deck.
At first, it was just scattered whispers, but gradually, they spread like the tide.
More and more people lowered their heads, clasped their hands in the cold wind, and begged for forgiveness from a god who had never shown them mercy.
But not everyone chose to submit.
"Enough! There is no god! Can't you see it yet? It's all the Order of the Deep's lies!"
A young man huddled in a corner suddenly raised his head, his hands clamped tightly over his ears.
The ceaseless prayers pricked into his mind like needles, making his entire body tremble.
He could bear it no longer. Staggering to his feet, he screamed toward the gray horizon.
"If a god truly exists, why does he turn a blind eye to us? If he has compassion, why is he deaf to the suffering of this world?" His voice tore through the twilight, burning in the wind. "When I knelt in every street begging for my mother's medicine money, where was he? When my caravan was raided by pirates and my brothers' blood stained the deck, where was your god?! Where?!"
As the last word ripped through the sea breeze, the young man seemed to have all his strength drained away, collapsing heavily onto the deck.
The sobs he had suppressed for so long finally burst from his chest, shattering into hoarse cries in the dusk.
The people on the deck remained silent.
Those hunched figures were like a frozen school of fish, lacking even the strength to move their eyes.
Whether a god existed no longer mattered, when fate's iron grip tightened around your throat, faith was merely the last straw a drowning man could grasp.
Until
"Well said."
A clear voice cut through the twilight like a blade, startling the seabirds perched on the mast.
Everyone looked up in unison.
There, at the bow of the ship, stood a figure, their clothes fluttering in the salty sea breeze.
Backlit by the fading sunset, their face was hidden in shadow, but their eyes shone like stars quenched in fire.
"Never was there a savior."
"The future of Ragunna was always meant to be written by humanity itself."
The young man looked up, dazed, tears still wet on his face.
Every gaze on the deck was fixed on the figure that had appeared so suddenly at the bow, like mist piercing through the twilight.
"Who... who are you?"
The weeping young man looked up at the stranger.
"Just a wandering knight passing by. No need to remember me." Ray bent down, picked up the rope ladder piled on the deck, and tossed it neatly over the side. "Ciaccona, you can come up now."
As he spoke, his gaze suddenly fixed on the distant horizon.
Several large ships bearing familiar flags were cutting through the waves, their sails strikingly distinct in the sunset, the ships of the Fool's Troupe.