After Annie, Black Rabbit, and their Community's ship had blown the Black Pearl to pieces and sunk it to the bottom of the sea during the counterattack, the rest of their voyage was uneventful. They encountered no major obstacles and soon reached their destination, securing victory and qualifying for the next round.
What surprised and baffled them most was that Bai Yasha and her crew—the very people Annie had dismissed earlier and assumed would probably starve at sea—had also won. In fact, they had reached their destination many days before them.
"Huh?"
"We actually qualified?"
Inside the living room of the Bear-Head No-Name Community's fortress, Black Rabbit had just finished giving a brief account of how they had safely reached their destination under the wise and mighty leadership of Captain Annie. Then, looking astonished, she turned to Bai Yasha, who had come to gloat but now sat gloomily off to the side.
"How?"
"How did you manage that?"
"Come on, tell us!"
Before finishing the competition and returning here, Black Rabbit had been sure Bai Yasha's Community wouldn't be able to complete the "Sea Race" and would be mercilessly eliminated. She'd even planned to gloat in front of Bai Yasha afterward.
After all, their No-Name Community was from the Seventh Outer Gate, yet they'd outperformed Bai Yasha's large commercial alliance. Surely that was something to be proud of.
But somehow, despite being a fleet, despite taking the long way around, despite sailing slow battleships and being relatively short on supplies, Bai Yasha's group had still comfortably beaten them. Black Rabbit couldn't imagine how they'd pulled it off.
"Hmph!"
"It wasn't anything special!"
"Our fleet took the North Pacific route. We did waste some time attacking a local place called the Shogunate, but after that, crossing the Pacific went fairly smoothly.