She Can, but I Can't, Is That It? / Ghost Ship.

"I hope it's really as good as you say."

"If you don't like that style, I can take you to see other worlds. We can keep looking until you're satisfied!"

"Is your hometown one of them?"

"...No. It's a place I can never return to."

Sirin: "..."

68

Chapter Sixty-Eight: She Can, But I Can't, Is That It?

A place she could never return to.

No matter the reason, it must be a wound in her heart that she couldn't bear to touch, right?

"...Sorry."

Sirin didn't dare look at the sadness that might have surfaced on Kiana's face. She lowered her head and glanced at her phone.

There was a new message from a minute ago.

"Weren't you curious about the cause of the crash?"

Sirin's eyes lit up when she saw the message. It had come at just the right time.

She would change the subject right away!

"You got the information so quickly?"

"Of course."

Sirin carefully read through the message, speaking as she did. "Just as I thought, that guy was wealthy in Shanhai City. His character... and he had quite a few enemies."

Sirin frowned, clicked her tongue, and placed her phone facedown on the table, looking thoroughly annoyed.

"It was definitely revenge."

"You're that certain?"

"After reading this, even I wanted to kill him."

Sirin spoke terrifying words with a look of disgust. "That animal actually dared to target those underage orphans. He deserved to die a hundred times over."

There had been many victims he had humiliated. Because he had a respectable background, he had used his power to suppress a great deal of public criticism.

But power only worked against those who followed the rules. If he could refuse to follow the rules, he couldn't blame others for doing the same.

Sirin didn't want to get involved in such dark matters. Maintaining a healthy state of mind would help prevent corruption.

"Children?"

Kiana's expression changed, and she suddenly found it hard to eat. She hadn't expected to encounter something like this while going out for a meal.

"Yes. The message said he had set his sights on the children of an orphanage three days ago and sent people to cut off their funding."

"...He really deserved to die!"

Kiana slammed her fist against the table in anger. If that bastard weren't already dead, she really wanted to pull out her gun and feed him a few bullets.

It was good that he was dead!

She had been curious before, but now all that remained was the satisfaction of seeing an evil person punished.

"You're right."

Sirin picked up her phone again and tapped out strings of messages. Now that they had encountered this matter, she would feel uneasy if she didn't do something.

Especially since some of the victims were orphans with neither father nor mother. If Sirin hadn't been found compatible with the Edict Blade, she would have been sent somewhere similar to grow up.

The world's evil could never be eradicated, but she could uproot the evil in front of her. She had the ability to do so.

They had lost their appetite.

"How about we go take a look at the orphanage?"

This matter had nothing to do with them. They were merely passersby who had almost been caught up in it. But knowing about it made them very uncomfortable, leaving them with the urge to do something.

"It's too late."

By the time they got there, it would be after ten. The orphanage would already be closed, so there would be no point in going.

"Then tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow? We have to go see Whale Monster first. If it's still lying on the seafloor, we'll have to use torpedoes to anger it and make it rise to the surface."

"Then the day after tomorrow!"

Kiana said, "Let's deal with Whale Monster first. After that, we can stay in Shanhai City for a few more days. How does that sound?"

"I don't mind."

Sirin said, "My only mission lately is killing Whale Monster. The rest has nothing to do with me. Once this matter is over, I'll go straight on vacation."

Can you really take a vacation?

Kiana was full of doubts, but she knew Sirin's attitude toward work and vacations, so she said nothing. She simply ate faster, planning to leave as soon as she finished.

After encountering such an infuriating crash and uncovering something like this, she no longer felt like continuing to shop.

Sirin was probably the same.

The two hurriedly ended their outing. They ate a little wherever they happened to be along the way, then took a different route and hired a taxi back to the hotel to rest.

Lying alone on the bed in her room, Kiana tossed and turned sleeplessly. It took a long while before she finally fell asleep.

Early the next morning.

She was woken by a phone call.

Still half-asleep, Kiana buried her head in the blankets, but the ringtone kept ringing stubbornly without stopping.

Annoyed into opening her eyes, Kiana felt that she didn't necessarily need a phone after all.

She rolled over to the edge of the bed and found the phone that had been ringing for quite some time.

The caller's name was displayed.

—Sirin.

"Hello?"

"Come downstairs for breakfast. After we eat, we'll head out to sea. Raiden Mei is waiting for us on the boat."

"Huh? Mei is waiting for us? Give me a moment. I'll be downstairs right away!"

Her plan to sleep in vanished. Kiana climbed out of bed, quickly tidied herself up, and hurried to the dining floor.

She saw Sirin and Yae Sakura at the entrance.

"Why are you in such a hurry? We're going out to sea first thing in the morning?"

After washing up and coming downstairs, Kiana was completely awake.

It was only seven in the morning.

"Isn't this to prevent complications from dragging on?"

Sirin handed Kiana the food they had packed and said, "Take it with you and eat on the way. Let's go to the boat first."

"Sure."

The seaside was just a short walk downstairs. The boat was docked nearby, and once they boarded, it would take them toward the waters where Whale Monster was located.

"Didn't you sleep well last night?"

As they walked over, Yae Sakura asked with concern when she saw how listless Kiana looked.

"Running into a crash late at night... How should I put it? It was my first time seeing something like that happen up close."

There had been the crash, her anger toward the dead man, and other things as well. In any case, her mind had been a mess when she went to bed the previous night.

With so much weighing on her heart, the quality of her sleep naturally hadn't been very good.

"You encountered a crash yesterday?"

Yae Sakura was somewhat surprised, but when they were nearly there, she said, "If you want, you can talk to me about your troubles whenever you have time."

"Sure. We'll go together then."

The group boarded the boat. Once they had found seats, the small vessel sped toward the target waters.

"Mei, you didn't stay up all night, did you?"

Kiana sat beside Mei, whom she hadn't seen all night.

"I rested."

Mei shook her head, but after studying Kiana for a while, she said, "But you don't look well-rested."

Before Kiana could say anything, Sirin couldn't help leaning toward her. After staring at her for a while, she was still filled with confusion. "How can you tell she didn't rest well?"

"You're about to press against me."

Sirin suddenly leaned her face close, startling Kiana. She could only lean back as far as possible, but the backrest behind her left her nowhere to retreat.

"So what if I press against you? Aren't we friends?"

Sirin immediately became unhappy when she heard that. "Raiden Mei can press against you, but I can't, is that it?"

Mei has never even pressed against me!

Besides, how is that the same thing?

Kiana awkwardly looked away at the waves kicked up by the speeding boat and suddenly said, "This little boat really won't capsize when we fight, will it?"

"The speedboat is only a means of transporting us there. This speedboat isn't where we'll be staying," Yae Sakura explained.

"Miss Sirin, please return to your seat. The wind is strong."

The smile on Mei's face faded by three degrees.

69

Chapter Sixty-Nine: Ghost Ship.

As someone who could only be handled by being stroked in the direction of her fur, Sirin naturally refused to go along with Mei's wishes when she heard that.

She simply sat beside Kiana, pressed tightly against her, and even reached out to cup Kiana's face. "You're seriously so pathetic. It was just a car crash. You were scared enough by that to lose sleep?"

She treated Raiden Mei's words as if they were nothing.

No, she had simply ignored Raiden Mei outright.

She was unhappy too. Wasn't Raiden Mei merely acquainted with Kiana earlier than she was? She acted as if Kiana belonged to her family.

If Mei wouldn't let her touch Kiana, then she would insist on touching her.

Not only would she touch her, she would pinch her too!

"What are you doing?"

Kiana hurriedly tried to remove Sirin's hand from her cheek. Sirin was even more familiar with people than she was.

She hadn't even dared to treat others like that.

Yet Sirin had beaten her to it.

"Stop fooling around, Sirin."

Seeing that the smile had completely disappeared from Raiden Mei's face and that she was merely pursing her lips and glaring unhappily at Sirin, Yae Sakura pulled Sirin back to the rear row.

They were about to subdue Whale Monster. This was no time to create extra conflict.

Sirin looked at Yae Sakura unhappily after being pulled back, but she said nothing more. She also knew this wasn't the time to keep fooling around.

The most important thing now was still Whale Monster.

But she simply couldn't stand it just now.

Seeing this, Mei suppressed her displeasure and reached out to stroke Kiana's tender cheek. "Does it hurt?"