Eventually, Doran led her to a large steel-bound door. The door was bound in several heavy chains and seemed to be extremely durable.

He pulled out a ring of keys from his pocket and began to undo the three locks on the door. Each of the locks gave a heavy clank as they came undone.

The door was so heavy it took Doran both hands to lift open. Beneath Kotori could feel a slight chill. As if the hull storage was refrigerated. She soon realized that the hull storage sat below the water and thus the cool seawater was chilling the bottom portion of the ship.

Doran led her down and she was greeted with a bountiful sight.

Fresh fruit neatly plucked and organized into wooden crates, Racks of salted hams and meats that were meant to endure the long journey. Sacks upon sacks of flour, many of which were from Kotori’s village,

It was a verifiable buffest of food and Kotori could feel herself salivating at the thought.

[No, we are just here for the ingredients.]

Kotori walked over to a row of vegetables and picked out some spring onion that looked like it was about to wilt. She felt bad taking anything fresher and didn’t want to anger Fawks too much.

She could feel her karma dropping slightly but it was a negligible amount.

[Very good, looks like this doesn’t have too much consequence.] She thought.

Spring onion in hand she walked back to the entrance, shuddering slightly at the chill in the hull to spot Doran scanning a rack of bottles.

She could see deep amber liquid swishing inside.

[Don’t tell me he’s here to filch something too.] Kotori thought.

Kotori saw Doran quickly grabbed one of the smaller bottles and securely wrapping it in his loose-fitting clothing. To an unsuspecting person, the existence of the bottle would be almost unnoticeable.

She realized now, why Doran was willing to bring her to the hull storages.

[He was looking for an excuse to filtch a drink!] She thought.

“You ready?” He called out, while walking over he had a wide grin on his face.

“We’ll keep this our little secret alright? Consider it the cost to me bringing you down here ok?” Doran said while making a “shushing” motion with his mouth.

“How much does that bottle cost?” Kotori asked.

“Oh about a  month’s salary for me”

Kotori frowned. A month's salary for a sailor was a piddling amount, but Doran was the captain of the whole ship. She was sure that it was quite a sizable sum.

She could feel her karma dropping more than she cared to accept.

She reached into her pocket and felt for a gold coin. Although Kotori had not been able to bring much onto the ship since being attacked by Hatake she at least had some pocket changes. Although, the gold coin probably couldn’t be considered pocket change since it had the buying power of about 1 Million yen in her old world. It was the last of her money but she hoped that she would be able to scam Fawks out of some money later.

“Take this and put the bottle back,” she said holding out the coin

“Doran looked surprised but upon seeing her insistence shrugged his shoulders and set the bottle back.

She felt her Karma raise back to its the normal level

[Good.] She thought.

Kotori had become much more conscious of her Karma number in recent days. It loomed over her head and she had to resolve it sooner rather than later.

While in her room Kotori had realized that if she became a queen her plans on gaining Karma would be much easier.

She could much more easily fund public works, do good deeds, and even start her religion proper. Having a whole kingdom helping her do good would be sure to raise her Karma back to normal values and ensure her another cozy afterlife.

Though, Kotori had been wondering. What exactly was the point of Karma? To her, it didn’t seem like a stat that was particularly precise. In fact, she was sure the system was almost completely arbitrary.

She thought back the experience in the cloudy room with Gabriel.

Being tied up in the room and having a knife to her throat felt incredibly real. She was sure that wasn’t just a particularly vivid dream.

The encounter with Nero and Okateratsu also gave her further suspicion on the angel named “Gabriel”.

She wasn’t even sure she wanted to die in this world.

Well, of course, she didn’t want to die before her Karma issues were resolved but she didn’t want to die AT ALL.

She had a feeling in her gut that meeting Gabriel again in the afterlife, would not bode well for her.

[Does immortality for humans exist in this world?] She though.

Okateratsu and Layla both had very high age numbers. Even if Layla didn’t act the part. She was wondering if old age was something exclusive to spirits.

Kitsura

The chapter from this morning was meant to be posted yesterday so this chapter is your due chapter.