Before boarding, Milady had gone to great lengths to gather information on the "Red Velvet Ship." She'd also braced herself for the many hardships she might encounter: storms, sickness, exhaustion, malnutrition... She did her best to make every possible preparation, even if some were merely psychological.
She just never imagined that one month after boarding, the first trouble she would find herself embroiled in would be a duel.
Milady, of course, was one of the duelists.
Her opponent was a burly, two-meter-tall giant of a man, whose stomps made the very ground tremble. His name was Dao Mingke.
"Duel's on! Eleven in the morning!" a crewman ran past, his feet going THUMP, THUMP, THUMP on the deck as he shouted to everyone he saw. "Tomorrow, eleven AM! Don't forget, everyone gather on the second deck to watch the duel!"
...How did things escalate to this point?
Milady, sitting on the second deck, watched him run past below and let out a long sigh.
The Red Velvet Ship she was on was called the "Night Castle."
Despite its grand name, in reality, it was just a medium-sized adventuring ship with an added fighting platform. Half of its lower hold had been converted for cargo, filled with specialty metals, parts, and chemical materials from Haidu, all set to be unloaded at ports along the outbound journey. This reduced the crew's living quarters. Coupled with the need to save money on wages, the ship was severely understaffed, with fewer than forty people on board in total.
Milady had no doubt that the main reason she'd managed to squeeze aboard at the last minute was her willingness to work without pay. That, and the fact that a request from the Tower family was difficult to refuse.
Because the ship was so short-handed, every crew member had to wear multiple hats. Even the female crew, who were physically weaker, had to contribute in other ways. The navigator spoke several languages fluently and thus doubled as a translator. The Mechanician was not only responsible for maintaining the freshwater and propulsion engines, but also had to manage an assortment of other mechanisms for various situations, including combat. The cook was both the nutritionist and the ship's doctor—which was rather convenient. Anyone she gave a black eye for trying to steal eggs from the chicken coop could be treated on the spot.
Something else Milady hadn't expected: after boarding the Night Castle, for the first time in her seventeen years, she felt truly inadequate.
Compared to the other experienced, multi-talented crew members, everything on the ship was foreign to her. She had thought she possessed at least a basic understanding of seamanship, but once she was actually on a ship at sea, she discovered it was like trying to use a handkerchief for a tablecloth. No matter how she stretched it, it was never enough; her knowledge was full of blind spots, limitations, and gaps.
Milady despised being a burden to others. Ever since one humiliating experience of standing by helplessly while someone else cleaned up her mess, she had secretly sworn never to let herself be in that position again. For the first two weeks on the ship, she barely slept. Even her dreams were filled with reviews of waterlines, sounding rods, wind direction, and vacuum pumps.
However, she wasn't the only one who noticed her incompetence. As she tailed a few veteran sailors to learn the ropes, contempt, ostracism, and hostility toward her began to form among another faction of the crew.
Most of the time, this hostility was personified by one man: Dao Mingke.
"These pampered little whelps from privileged families can go anywhere to pad their resumes and have a little adventure, so why the hell do they have to come on our ship and waste food?" His voice suddenly boomed one day as Milady walked past him and a group of crewmen. "No strength, no skills. What are we keeping her around for? A chicken is more useful."
The crewmen around Dao Mingke immediately erupted in laughter, as if an unspoken, mutual understanding had just been passed between them in that single outburst.
Milady held her tongue, but she silently filed it away.
She knew that until she earned her place on the ship through her own merit, anything she said or did would lack conviction. On an adventuring ship far from Haidu and civilization, where survival and self-interest were the only absolute truths, no one would stand up for a sniveling child, and no one would accuse Dao Mingke of being "unfriendly" to her.
Back in her family, Milady was no stranger to the taunts and sarcasm of her cousins, and she mostly let it roll off her back. But here on the sea, she couldn't help but be on guard. 'If they got the chance,' she wondered, 'would Dao Mingke and his cronies really do what they threatened? Would they abandon me on some remote, savage island and just sail away?'