"..." Although Edwina didn't say a single word, Alice still felt a strong sense of doubt from her gaze.
Alice silently lowered her head.
After Edwina stared at her for over ten seconds, she finally withdrew her gaze and said in a soft voice:
"If what you said is true, then compared to the endings of similar situations I know... your condition is abnormally good."
Thinking of how the goddess said she claimed to have fished out the Key of Light from the River of Destiny, Alice fell silent.
...She always felt that she might have "accidentally" swallowed the source essence.
No, it could also be that the Key of Light delivered itself... never mind, it's about the same either way.
"Alice," Edwina said as she paced toward the door, "you can first get familiar with the 'Golden Dream', and also get to know the others… hmm, I heard you know Danitz?"
Alice nodded subconsciously, then remembered Edwina had her back to her, and replied aloud:
"Yes..."
Hesitating for a moment, Alice swallowed back the words that Danitz might not want to see her.
"You can have him show you around and introduce you to the others."
As Edwina said this, she opened the door to the captain's cabin.
This was a problem—five or six people at the door were just pushing each other and backing up. When they saw the two come out, a yellowish-brown head got shoved to the front.
"Hi, Cap—Captain," he stood still, looked up and greeted.
Eh, it's that "provoker" who only knows how to stomp his feet... Alice's beautiful blue eyes quickly turned a circle, then she showed a shy smile and timidly called out:
"Danitz... can—can you take me for a walk around the 'Golden Dream'?"
As she spoke, in order to match her persona, she even shrank her body slightly toward the side away from the crowd.
Danitz's eyes widened in horror.
Compared to the other crew members who knew nothing about Alice, Danitz, who had met her once, clearly understood just how vile Alice's personality was—just like now.
Feeling those sharp, blade-like gazes suddenly locking onto him, a thought flashed across Danitz's heart… if translated, it should be two words and six dots:
It's over...
He urgently looked at Edwina, only to discover something that made him unsure whether to be happy or sad—oh no, his captain had already gone back into the cabin and closed the door.
Alice, not getting a response, wasn't willing to let him go that easily. She walked over in small steps and without any sense of boundary pulled on Danitz's sleeve, half-tilting her head to ask:
"Can—can't I?
"If—if you're busy it's okay, I can walk around by myself..."
This action successfully made Danitz feel the blades of hostility condensed and stabbing into his body. He finally couldn't help but shake Alice's hand off and shouted irritably:
"You're insane!
"You're clearly not like this in front of Gehrman Sparrow!"
Alice didn't try to grab back his sleeve again—or rather, she had no intention to continue acting. She took two steps back to increase the distance, looked at Danitz, and began thinking how Klein would respond in this situation.
Probably not much better than Danitz. At most he'd look calmer... no, not necessarily. Maybe sometimes if he was in a good mood, he'd act with me till the end...
Alice suddenly missed Klein, whom she'd just parted with not long ago, but the emotion didn't last long—after all, as a playmate, Amon was obviously more…
Damn it, I would never do this kind of thing to Amon!
Having failed with the substitute, Alice stepped back two steps in panic.
This instead made Danitz start to feel unconfident. He had to start wondering what he'd done to deserve such a reaction from Alice.
Alice seriously looked him up and down once and came to the correct conclusion that the "provoker" was not as good as Amon.
No, maybe it has to be the "Iron-Blooded Knight"... uh, that might not be enough either. Does this pathway have a King of Angels? If so, maybe it could compete with Amon...
Now it wasn't just Danitz who felt something was wrong. The others behind him kept making faces and gestures, but no one dared to speak first.
Alice glanced thoughtfully at these pirates, then turned back to look at the direction of the captain's cabin and suddenly asked:
"Did your ship already have surveillance before?"
"What do you mean?" Danitz clearly froze, not understanding Alice's wording.
"Um... what I mean is..." Alice struggled to organize her words,
"Did your captain always secretly watch you from the captain's cabin?"
The pirates' expressions visibly turned horrified one by one, while Alice suddenly noticed that ever-present feeling of being watched vanished in an instant.
Ah—this.
"Well then, looks like she's still different from the class teacher after all..." Alice glanced again toward the captain's cabin,
"Mm, anyway, she's not watching now."
After a pause, she looked at Danitz again and asked:
"Can you show me around the ship? Also..."
Her gaze fell one by one on each person behind Danitz, then she smiled and said:
"I don't know everyone yet."
After speaking, it was like she suddenly remembered something and asked Danitz:
"Oh right, you know my name is Alice, right?
"I remember Gehrman should have called my name in front of you...
"£5500."
Danitz clearly saw Alice lick her lips when she said that last sentence.
He suddenly had a good idea. Facing Alice, his attitude visibly became more enthusiastic. He smiled kindly at her and said:
"Let me introduce the others to you.
"This is..."
Danitz pulled a man about 1.8 meters tall with a monocle who had been standing in the back up to the front, successfully making Alice recoil half a step in fright. She crossed her arms in front of her chest and glared at the two of them warily.
This made the two of them hesitate.
"…Are you okay?" The man with the monocle asked after a moment of hesitation.
Alice was silent for a while, then took out the monocle Amon gave her from her pocket, put it on her right eye, pushed it up, and finally said:
"I have psychological trauma toward people who wear monocles, especially those who wear them on the right eye."
"Ah?" The man with the monocle looked at Danitz in confusion, as if saying, "There's such a thing?"
"I don't know." Danitz defended himself.
"It's okay," Alice silently took off the monocle,
"I think there's no way you could be like Him... haha."
Him…?
That pronoun made everyone's heart skip, and all eyes turned to the most likely to know—Danitz.