Chapter 45: The White Ship

On that day, by the time Chiba and Hesta left the White Steamer and entered the Bang Bang Club, it was already more than half an hour later than scheduled.

Hesta noticed that there was also a brief world map on the wall here. Taking advantage of Chiba's registration process, she began to search the map for the location of Vilyuchinsky.

Initially, she looked around the Askia Wasteland with no results, so Hesta expanded her scope to the entire Third District, but still could not find it.

Finally, she had no choice but to start from the left end of the map and scan it bit by bit. At last, she finally discovered her target—at the far east of the Fourteenth District, there was a piece of land extending into the sea like a long, pointed bird's beak, with "Vilyuchinsky" marked in text on the middle part of the beak.

Between Askia and Vilyuchinsky lay the entirety of the Fourteenth District plus half of the Third District—this distance of nearly a thousand kilometers occupied almost a third of the entire map.

No wonder Mrs. Daria said she hadn't been able to go back in over a dozen years...

It was truly too far.

……

As night fell, Chiba drove Hesta back to the base. On the way, Hesta recounted her standoff with Sean from a few days ago to Chiba. To her surprise, Chiba did not seem happy for her.

"How does Ms. Chiba feel about this handling method?"

Chiba pursed her lips. "...It's fine."

"I think I can drag it out like this for now," Hesta said softly. "Next, I plan to talk to Calvin. He doesn't seem as unreasonable as Sean. If I can get his help, I believe things will get better."

"What can he do to help you?" Chiba asked indifferently.

"Give me some early warnings?" Hesta replied. "Since those brothers are always inseparable, he must be the person most familiar with Sean's state. If I have both Liz and Calvin—who is familiar with Sean—by my side, it's bound to be better, right?"

On the dim-lit road, another car drove toward them from the opposite direction. The light from the car's headlights illuminated Chiba's face, then quickly faded into darkness again.

Hesta saw Chiba fall into deep thought, seemingly pondering some difficult problem.

"Is there something I haven't considered thoroughly enough?"

"No," Chiba slowly began. "It's just... making things complicated."

Returning to the apartment, Hesta pushed open the door of Room 403. The room was pitch black; neither Turan nor Liz was around at the moment.

Hesta guessed they might be in the gym or the library on the second floor. She put the desserts she brought back from the White Steamer into the refrigerator.

The warm orange light from inside the refrigerator shone on her face, and she stared blankly for a moment at the pointed strawberry atop the fruit tart.

Even up to this moment, she still didn't understand what the "complicated" part Chiba was referring to actually was—from any perspective, the approach she chose had a lower resolution cost.

Perhaps Ms. Chiba felt that teaching Sean a lesson directly would be better?

However, devising an intricate plan and precisely using firearms to interrupt his bullet-time would only increase the level of complexity even further.

Hesta closed the refrigerator door.

Perhaps... Ms. Chiba simply had this kind of personality.

Earlier, she had sent a handgun without a word, and when they met again, she didn't spell out exactly what was to be done either. It wasn't until Hesta followed her to the shooting range, fully loaded with live ammunition for her first target practice, that she slowly laid out her thoughts.

In Ms. Chiba's world, there was probably a boundary between "communicable" and "incommunicable." Only when she felt the other person had crossed into the realm of "communicable" would she voice her own ideas.

If that was the case, she could only wait.

After about half an hour, footsteps sounded outside the door, and Liz and Turan entered one after the other.

The two almost immediately caught the unusual scent of cream in the air, and Turan's eyes instantly locked onto the unfamiliar paper bag placed next to the refrigerator.

Hesta poked her head out from her room. "I brought some pastries from downtown. Would you like some?"

……

Around the large white square table in the living room, the three of them sat in a row. Liz sat in the middle, carefully untying the red ribbon on the paper box. Inside were four small square cakes pieced together.

Turan and Liz let out a simultaneous exclamation—ever since coming to the base, they had almost forgotten the taste of cream cake.

The two devoured them heartily, and when they reached the very last bit, they felt a lingering reluctance.

"During my previous assignments, I was always taken straight to the destination; they never gave us reserves any time to wander around," Liz said. "I've only been to downtown once so far—and that was sitting in a car, looking through dark gray glass."

"I really want to go out and take a look too," Turan bit her metal fork and sighed softly. "I've almost forgotten what the outside looks like."

Hesta truly hadn't expected the two of them to have stayed in the base for a full two years.

"Essentially, the base doesn't belong to Tany City, nor does it belong to the Third District. The moment you step one foot out of the base, it's equivalent to walking from one administrative district to another—can you understand it like that?" Liz explained.

"Silver Needles who have passed probation enjoy a certain degree of regional freedom, so they can come and go freely in some major districts, but if we reserves want to go out, we need a legitimate reason," Turan added from the side, "such as internship tasks, visiting family—"

"Let's not talk about this... I'm so envious of you," Liz looked at Hesta. "When are you going out next? I need to keep count."

"That doesn't depend on me, it depends on Ms. Chiba's schedule," Hesta replied. "It could be any time during Monday morning, Wednesday morning, Thursday afternoon, Friday morning, or all day Saturday and Sunday."

Turan slumped over the table, gazing longingly at the now-empty cake box. "What's the name of this shop? I want to check it out next time I have the chance."

"The White Steamer," Hesta answered.

Liz's eyes widened slightly. She softly repeated the word, her expression resembling that of someone encountering a long-lost, dear friend. "Where is the owner from?"

"The Vilyuchinsky Wasteland, over in the Fourteenth District," Hesta replied. "The proprietress is Mrs. Daria, and she also spoke to me about Askia."

Liz let out a heartfelt sigh—a sigh filled entirely with surprise and satisfaction. A smile bloomed on Liz's face, the coincidence brought by fate falling upon her head like an unexpected gift.

"Do you know each other?"

Liz shook her head. "Probably not."

Turan looked at Liz's shifting expression and couldn't help feeling curious. "The White Steamer... is it an allusion to something?"

"It's that song."

Liz began to hum softly—Hesta quickly recognized that this was precisely the Askia ballad Liz had taught her to sing a few weeks ago while teaching her the Silver Needle battle hymns.

That day, Liz had played the accordion, gently singing in a language others couldn't understand under the soft morning sunlight:

Is there any river broader than you, Yenisei?
Is there any land more dear than you, Yenisei?
Is there any suffering deeper than you, Yenisei?
Is there any will freer than you, Yenisei? (1)

——
(1) Quoted from the opening poem of *The White Steamer*. Yenisei means "Mother River."