Chapter 90
Chapter 90
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 27
Chapter Title: Pirates and Friends, the Sea, and the Queen (1)
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“More booze! Bring more booze!”
“Heh heh heh.”
Drunks chugging whatever liquor they could get their hands on early in the morning, despite not even being able to hold it down, while humming tuneless songs.
“Hey! Thief! Thief!”
“Grab him!”
Kids snatching goods from the unloading docks and bolting, with sailors hot on their heels.
“Why the hell are you staring like that? Got a problem?”
“What the fuck, you bastard?”
Men bonding over hearty punches.
“Brings back memories.”
Malta hadn’t changed a bit.
Still as lively, noisy, filthy, chaotic, messy, hectic, and... well, a total shitshow, just like always.
“Numan. Watch your step...”
I was warning him as we crossed the gangplank connecting to the pier.
-.......!
Stiff Imperial curses rang out.
Glancing back, Numan had stepped in something I didn’t even want to identify, unleashing a torrent of Imperial profanity. His face said it all—it was shit.
“Tch.”
The entire pier was covered in puke from the drunks and the bird shit drawn to it.
“Ah, sorry...”
“Missed.”
“Gah!”
We kicked away the pickpocket kids swarming the pier— one every ten steps or so—sending them flying far off, and finally escaped the docks.
Then we headed straight for an inn called ‘Bread and Wine.’
Like most inns, the ground floor doubled as a tavern, and even at this early hour, it was packed.
We grabbed a table near the entrance and sat down.
“Room first? Or food?”
A freckle-faced tapstress—the young girl who handled the beer taps—rushed over like she’d been waiting, ready to take our order.
“Unwatered wine, soup with no chunks, and bread baked less than three days ago. Enough for the number of heads here.”
I glanced at Boris and the girl, then scanned the room.
A guy already face-planted on his table, snoring away. Sailors clinking wooden mugs loudly like they were trying to shatter them. Gamblers fiddling grimly with their card hands.
Your standard tavern scene.
Clunk.
While taking it all in, I untied the two-handed sword from my pack and leaned it against the table corner.
Boris finished ordering, and the freckled tapstress vanished toward the back.
“She took the order like a pro. You know this place well, huh?”
“Know it? You kidding?”
Numan followed my lead, untying his sword and setting it beside his chair. Boris untied his blade and plunked it on the table.
“This place has changed a lot, though. Don’t you think so, Captain? Even the people all look different.”
“Time passes.”
“Yeah? I was hoping this spot would stay the same forever. Kinda sad.”
As we chatted, the tapstress brought out the food we’d ordered.
“Hey.”
“Yes?”
“I specifically ordered soup with no chunks.”
“No chunks in it.”
“What’re you talking about? Look at this. See?”
Boris held up the steaming soup bowl to the tapstress with a scowl.
“I don’t see anything...”
“Look closer.”
“No matter how I look...”
“Kyaa!”
She screamed as the hot, steaming soup dumped over her head.
I was already moving.
Snatching my sword from the corner, I vaulted over the table.
“Wh-what the?”
I grabbed a startled gambler by the hair as he jumped up and slammed his head into the wall.
The sailor’s skull cracked open, his body convulsing before sliding down the wall.
Glancing at that, I kicked a chair with all my strength.
Sailors leaping from their seats got smashed by it and tumbled across the floor.
Meanwhile, armed gamblers and sailors charged me.
Smash, bash, slash.
Pssshhh!
I dodged back from a fountain of spurting red blood, then heard choking gasps behind me.
Turning, I saw sailors clutching throats slit by blades, and Boris holding a bloodied dagger.
“Guess it wasn’t completely rusted after all?”
Boris grinned and sauntered back to his seat.
“Aaaah! My face!”
He then grabbed the tapstress by the hair—she was clutching her boiled-red face and screaming—and yanked her up.
“Next time, pay a little more attention to your customers’ orders.”
“...What?”
“I said no chunks.”
“What the hell are you on about, you crazy bas—glurk.”
Before she finished, Boris slit her throat.
“Wha—huh?”
Numan finally blurted out something dumb, his face frozen in shock as he half-stood with sword in hand.
“The Bread and Wine doesn’t sell bread or wine.”
“...?”
“And the owner’s not rotten enough to poison customer food.”
Seeing his questioning look, I calmly explained.
“Then why didn’t the others...?”
“They’re in on it.”
Gamblers whose pot never changed no matter how many rounds. Sailors who didn’t even glance at a beauty like Natasha.
“And drunks who don’t even smell like booze.”
At my words, the guy face-down on our table twitched.
But he didn’t lift his head.
“Not getting up? Even now? How about now?”
Boris poked the drunk’s back with his bloody dagger.
“M-mercy, sirs!”
The drunk finally broke, dropping to his knees and begging.
“First, where are the Thracia men who were here?”
“W-will you spare me if I tell?”
“Let’s hear it first.”
“The Thracians here went to A-Angelo Fortress... guk!”
The drunk stared at the dagger now buried in his chest.
“...Why?”
“Did I promise to spare you? I said I’d listen...”
“You son of a—glurk.”
Foaming blood, the drunk keeled over dead.
“You hear that, Captain? The Malta knights moved.”
“Got it.”
I nodded vaguely and sat back down.
Natasha appeared like she’d been waiting, picking unbloodied bread from a basket and handing it over.
It was rock-hard. At least a week old. Still good enough to soften in the soup.
“...Wasn’t it poisoned?”
“Don’t worry about the captain or Lady Natasha. These guys digest most poisons like it’s nothing.”
“What?”
Numan gawked at me at Boris’s deadpan remark.
“Weird, right? Natasha’s got the job for it, so she’s used to choking down weird shit regularly. But the captain? Total mystery.”
No mystery to it.
‘Good, eat up. That’s my disciple... Oh ho, pulling your hand from your throat? If you puke, I’ll scoop it up and shove it back down. You get queasy. Total waste of time.’
‘Trust me. Someday you’ll thank this wise master. Why stop eating? Heh. Monks wasting food? Divine punishment.’
‘You know how much I racked my brain calculating doses? Eat it all. This won’t kill you.’
Just the result of being tortured by some lunatic who believed swordsmen die by the blade.
“Soup good? How’s it compare to the old days?”
“About the same.”
“Damn. Should’ve kept one alive. You know how much I loved this place’s soup, Captain.”
Boris plopped down across from me, pouting.
“Yannick. Yannick.”
Natasha refilled my empty glass with wine, speaking casually as she passed.
“We’re surrounded.”
The inn door exploded inward the moment she finished.
Malta relief knights poured in, clad in black tunics emblazoned with white crosses.
“...!”
They froze at the sight of corpses strewn everywhere.
Gulp.
I downed the wine Natasha poured, wiped my mouth, and stood.
Clunk.
The lead knight panicked and thrust his sword at me.
He knows me.
Taking in his over-the-top reaction, I said,
“Take me to her.”
The relief knight flinched.
**
We headed for the massive fortress atop the hill—once home to holy, devoted relief knights, now a den of greedy pirates: Angelo Fortress.
“Just me?”
Nod, nod.
“Boris, look after the rest.”
“Hurry back. I can’t handle Lady Natasha if she goes berserk.”
“Got it. Don’t blab nonsense.”
“What do you take me for? Think I’m that loose-lipped?”
“......”
There, I parted from the group and was led deep into the fortress.
After a long trek through narrow, dim corridors, we reached our destination.
The leading knight pointed to a firmly shut door.
Go in, it said.
“Excuse me, then.”
I opened the door and stepped inside.
A fireplace, a bed, a lone table.
“...”
And a slender shadow gazing out the narrow window, ignoring the stark room.
Swish.
After a while, the figure slowly turned.
Backlit by the window, her face was hard to make out.
But I could clearly feel her glare.
“I warned you.”
Just as I’d expected.
“The day we met again, I’d tear your limbs off and feed you to the fishes.”
Her voice, after a long pause, was razor-sharp.
“But I’ll grant mercy. You can leave last words before becoming fish food.”
Fierce tone, like she’d devour me on the spot.
“What’s your final message?”
I let out a long sigh.
“...Monica.”
Calling her name softly, Monica instantly drew her blade and pressed it to my throat.
“How dare you...”
Her voice burned with rage beyond anything before.
“What right do you have...?”
The sword bit into my skin.
“To vanish from Malta without a word, then waltz back like nothing happened, expecting things to go back to how they were?”
A sharp sting, hot blood trickling down.
“Wake up. Yannick.”
Tall as most men, she leaned in close, growling.
“Do I still look like that naive princess to you?”
Hatred and fury swirled behind her jewel-like eyes.
“The foolish princess who trusted a vulgar man peddling profane jokes in God’s name? She’s gone.”
“Monica.”
“Show respect. Thracian. Look clearly at who stands before you.”
The blade dug deeper.
“I am the Grand Master of the Relief Knights, lord of twenty-seven islands and two hundred twenty-two ships of the grand fleet. Malta’s Iron Empress, Monica de Santa Maria. I’ll hear your last words.”
Monica pressed me again.
I think I knew what she wanted to hear from me.
But what came out was something else.
“Yannick Schrelgriff Mulnia, envoy of Thracia’s sovereign, His Majesty King Igor Trakieri, conveys his message to the Empress of Malta.”
**
“So the Iron Empress and the captain were close from way back?”
Boris nodded at Numan’s shocked question.
“Pretty close for a while, yeah.”
“What’s the story...?”
“Can’t say details. Think of it as mutual aid. We did something here, and the then-princess—now empress—reaped big benefits from it.”
Exaggerate a bit, and you could say she owed her throne to it.
“So the captain’s her benefactor?”
That’ll make things easier.
Boris’s face turned ambiguous at Numan’s words.
“If it were that simple, how nice. No starving or getting dragged here.”
Couldn’t even try the soup.
Boris glanced toward Natasha’s room, then grabbed Numan’s ear and whispered.
“What? The captain and the Iron Empress were that kind of close?”
Numan jumped from his seat in shock.
“Quiet! Lady Natasha hates this topic.”
“R-right, careful.”
“Not exactly that close, to be precise. Malta was under the Temple’s wing back then. Captain’s oddly knowledgeable about that stuff, so they bonded quick. You can see he’s pretty handsome, right?”
Numan nodded absentmindedly in agreement.
The young commander was indeed striking.
His aura stood out most.
“Captain played it subtle. She was the aggressive one. He didn’t push her away—needed her help, after all.”
“...Used her, huh.”
“Can’t deny it. Anyway, when that job wrapped, another blew up. We erased all traces and bailed from Malta.”
“So the empress...”
“Time to say proper goodbyes when we wiped every trace and fled? She chased us with her whole fleet, screaming bloody murder. Cold sweat for days.”
“Lord have mercy. Captain Yannick’s a real bastard.”
“Ain’t he, though?”
Boris shrugged.
“Figured with all we exchanged and time passed, she’d let it slide quietly.”
First loves stick forever, they say.
“Today? She’s been sharpening her blade for this moment all along.”
Well, plenty around here have blades out for the captain.