The third day on the Grey Expanse was the definition of a wet hell for Elian.
Inside the cramped, musty cabin, the world never stopped spinning. The wooden floor beneath his feet constantly tilted left, then dipped right, accompanied by the groan of wood that hurt the ears—as if the ship The Banshee's Wail itself were moaning in pain from the battering waves.
Elian lay in his hammock, his face the color of old parchment. Cold sweat soaked his forehead.
"Ugh..."
Elian covered his mouth with his hand, suppressing a wave of nausea rising from his empty stomach. He had nothing left to vomit but bitter bile.
"Stop fighting it," Lunaria's voice sounded calm from the corner of the room.
The Elf Queen sat cross-legged on the swaying floor, her eyes closed. Her body didn't sway with the ship; instead, she looked like a statue nailed to the floorboards. Her balance was perfect.
"I'm... not... fighting..." Elian denied weakly, gripping the edge of the hammock.
"You are," Lunaria opened her eyes. "Your muscles are tense. You are unconsciously trying to balance yourself to stay upright like on land. That is a rookie mistake. At sea, upright is relative. You must become fluid."
Lunaria stood up. She walked toward Elian. When the ship tilted sharply to the left due to a large wave, Lunaria didn't resist. She let her knees bend, tilting her body to match the angle of the ship, so her head remained stable even though her legs moved.
"Your problem isn't just seasickness, Elian. Your problem is that ring," Lunaria pointed to Elian's left index finger.
The Ring of Weight.
On land, the ring provided a constant gravitational pull downward (toward the center of the earth). But at sea, when the ship was tossed upward by a wave, the ring's weight felt tripled due to inertia. And when the ship fell into the trough of a wave, Elian's stomach felt like it was being pulled out.
These fluctuating gravitational changes were wreaking havoc on Elian's inner ear balance organs.
"Get up," Lunaria commanded.
"Master... I can't..."
"Get up!" Lunaria kicked Elian's hammock until it flipped over.
Thud!
Elian fell onto the hard wooden floor.
"Ouch!" Elian groaned. His newly healed right shoulder slammed against the wood.
"Get out on deck," Lunaria said coldly, tossing a dirty mop and a wooden bucket at Elian. "Captain Barossa allowed us passage at a cheap price, but he doesn't like passengers who just sleep and vomit in his cabin. The crew is talking. They say you're bad luck."
Elian stared at the bucket with hatred. "You want me to mop... in the middle of a storm?"
"I want you to learn to stand," Lunaria corrected. "Consider this advanced balance training. If you can mop a wet, slippery floor on a rocking ship while wearing that weight ring... you will never fall on land again."
Elian gritted his teeth. He wanted to protest, but he saw Lunaria's gaze. A gaze that said: The world doesn't care if you're sick.
Trembling, Elian picked up the bucket. He put on his tattered cloak, pulled the hood up to hide his pale face, and stumbled out of the cabin.
***
The air on the upper deck felt salty and sharp, stinging the nose like ice needles. The sky was a solid grey, merging with the color of the sea, erasing the horizon line.
The crew of The Banshee's Wail were busy. They were a motley collection of rough men from various races—humans, Half-Orcs, and a few rarely seen seafaring Dwarves. They were shirtless despite the cold, their skin rough and covered in tattoos of sea protection spells.
When Elian appeared, several heads turned.
"Look who rose from the grave," shouted a fat sailor with teeth filed to points. It was Grum, the ship's cook known for his sadism. "Hey, Mute Princess! You gonna puke again? Not on my deck! Puke overboard or I'll make you swallow it back!"
Some of the crew laughed crudely.
Elian didn't answer—he was still playing the mute. He looked down, walking toward the freshwater barrel to fill his bucket.
Every step was a gamble. The ship pitched violently. Elian's legs, heavy from the ring, felt clumsy. He had to widen his stance to keep from falling.
"Let me help," a young sailor—maybe just 16 years old—tried to approach with a mischievous grin. He stuck his leg out, intending to trip Elian.
Elian saw the leg through his Nature Sense.
Normally, Elian would dodge or break that leg. But right now, his body was too slow and his head too dizzy.
Elian's foot caught.
Crash!
Elian fell face-first. The wooden bucket in his hand flew, rolling across the deck.
Laughter exploded across the ship.
"Hahaha! Look at that! His legs are like jelly!"
"So weak. What's the point of carrying dead weight like this, Captain?"
Elian lay on the wet, cold wooden floor. His cheek pressed against sharp splinters. Shame burned his face, hotter than his fever.
He was no longer the Duke's Young Master. He wasn't the killer of Viper. Here, he was just a laughingstock. Trash that couldn't stand straight.
Elian clenched his fists. His nails scratched the deck wood.
Get up.
That voice wasn't Lunaria's. It was from within himself. The voice of an ego that refused to die.
Elian forced himself up. His knees shook violently against the ring's weight and the ship's motion. He didn't look at the sailors. His eyes were empty, hidden beneath his hood.
He walked to retrieve his bucket, filled it with seawater (not freshwater because Grum forbade it), then knelt and began scrubbing the deck.
Scrub. Back. Scrub. Back.
The repetitive motion was painful. His shoulder ached. But Elian turned that pain into a rhythm.
One hour passed. Two hours.
The crew got bored of mocking him and went back to work. Elian became invisible again, just a small shadow cleaning filth in the corner of the ship.
However, Elian was learning.
Every time the ship tilted, Elian learned not to resist his weight, but to flow with it. He learned to read the wave patterns from the vibrations in the deck wood before the wave even hit.
Left... Hold. Right... Release.
Unconsciously, Elian began to synchronize his breathing with the melody of the sea. The water Mana in the air, wild and chaotic, began to seep little by little into the pores of his sweating skin, providing a tiny bit of extra strength.
***
That night, Elian sat at the bow of the ship, the quietest yet most dangerous place as the pitching was strongest there.
Lunaria came carrying a bowl of fish porridge.
"Eat," she said.
Elian accepted the bowl. His hands still trembled, but not as badly as this morning. He ate the porridge slowly. It tasted fishy, but he didn't vomit.
"You survived today," Lunaria commented, sitting on the railing casually, her legs dangling over the dark ocean. "Grum says you cleaned the deck better than his own men."
"They mocked me," Elian muttered, staring at his soup. "They called me Princess."
"So? Do you want to kill them?" Lunaria asked.
Elian shook his head. "No. They don't intend to kill me. They are just... rude. Killing them would only get us thrown overboard by Captain Barossa."
"Good. You're starting to think rationally, not emotionally," Lunaria smiled faintly. "Save your sword for real threats. Let them mock. Mockery doesn't break your bones."
Elian put down his empty bowl. He stood up, holding the bow railing.
The ocean at night looked like moving black ink. There were no stars in the sky, only endless darkness.
"Master," Elian called. "Why does the Mana here feel... angry?"
"Not angry. But free," Lunaria explained. She spread her arms, feeling the sea breeze. "On land, Mana is bound to the earth, trees, and mountains. Its structure is solid. Here, Mana moves freely with the currents. Nothing holds it back. For human mages, this is a nightmare because it's hard to control. But for you..."
Lunaria looked at Elian.
"Your body has no Core to 'control' Mana. Your body only absorbs. So, this chaos is actually a buffet for you. The more you merge with the rhythm of this ship, the faster your body drinks the ocean's energy."
"So I have to become like water?"
"Become like a cork float," Lunaria corrected. "Don't sink, don't fight. Float above it all."
Suddenly, Elian saw something beneath the water's surface.
Deep in the darkness of the sea, there were flickering blue lights. Bioluminescence.
The lights moved closer to the surface, directly beneath where Elian stood.
They weren't ordinary fish.
They were Moon Jellyfish—transparent creatures the size of umbrellas emitting a soft glow. One by one they appeared, then dozens, then hundreds.
They gathered around the ship's bow, right under Elian, as if greeting a passing king.
Their blue light illuminated Elian's face, making his pale skin glow mystically.
"They are... beautiful..." Elian whispered, his eyes transfixed. For a moment, he forgot the nausea and heaviness in his body.
Lunaria watched the phenomenon with a raised eyebrow. This type of jellyfish usually lived in the depths and rarely came to the surface in such numbers, except during a full moon. But tonight was completely overcast.
"They are attracted to you," Lunaria said quietly, more to herself. "The World recognizes its child even on the open sea."
Elian reached his hand out over the rail, as if wanting to touch the light even though it was too far away.
One of the jellyfish leaped slightly out of the water—an unnatural behavior—and sprayed a bit of glowing water toward Elian.
The water hit Elian's face. Cold, but refreshing.
Instantly, the dizziness in Elian's head vanished. His energy recovered slightly.
"Thank you," Elian whispered with a genuine smile—the first smile he had shown since leaving Stormwatch.
Behind him, a crew member on night watch rubbed his eyes, not believing what he saw. Hundreds of glowing jellyfish escorting the ship, and the "mute boy" seemed to be talking to them.
"Ghost..." the sailor muttered in fear, then hurriedly walked away while making a holy sign.
That night, Elian slept more soundly. Although The Banshee's Wail still rocked, his body began to find a new sleeping rhythm: swaying with the waves, not against them.
He didn't know that far deeper below, something much larger than jellyfish had sensed the vibration of his existence. A giant yellow eye opened at the bottom of an ocean trench, staring up toward the surface where the "Child of Fate" was passing.
The journey was still long. And the sea held secrets darker than mere seasickness.