King of the Sea (1)

And so the captain and crew of the Dead Man's March joined the duchy — more precisely, they came under the banner of the Maritime Affairs Bureau, a department soon to be established.

Groll was, just as I had suspected, the man who had stolen the wife of the Sirakos king's brother. If even a person's heart could be hauled off like plunder, then he truly had been a pirate of remarkable caliber.

His final bounty, I was told, had stood at 6.8 million bhat — the largest in the history of the Sirakos Kingdom. Even across the whole Empire, I doubted I'd ever seen a wanted man with a price on his head half that steep.

That astronomical figure, it seemed, had the royal family's pride riding on it. To ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the king's brother, Mariella simply had to have been abducted. Nothing less would do.

A royal who'd lost a battle of love to a mere pirate — how was the man supposed to hold his head up again?

Romance of the century aside, Groll was every bit as formidable a captain as he was a lover. Until he laundered his identity and slipped into Miren Port, he had spent fourteen years roaming the western ocean like his own backyard.

All while dodging the Sirakos navy — reputed to be the strongest in the world — and picking off merchant vessels as he went.

He had apparently kept his own iron rules along the way: never touch civilian merchantmen, only noble ones, and avoid killing whenever possible. That un-criminal streak of romance, I suspected, was exactly what had made Mariella fall for him.

And—— it goes without saying, Groll wore a mask. He was, after all, about to trade with the very kingdom that had spent years hunting him.

With captain and crew thus secured, though, we were still a long way from maritime trade. People alone wouldn't cut it; several prerequisites remained.

"We are receiving complaints from among the sailor trainees."

"Why?"

"They say they don't care to take orders from some country bumpkin of dubious origins." Opils reported, looking rather troubled.

The Dead Man's March's original crew hadn't been enough, so Groll had planted himself in the Maritime Affairs Bureau and was drilling fresh sailors.

But the fact that he was the great pirate who had once ruled the western seas was classified top secret. To everyone else, he was just a coastal nobody who'd gotten lucky in life.

"Then tell anyone like that to walk out."

It would cost me nothing.

A ship is a structure isolated upon the sea. For trouble to break out in the middle of the boundless ocean meant death, plain and simple. So when Groll had said, Aboard my ship, I outrank you, Your Grace, I understood exactly what he meant. Anyone who couldn't stomach that could march out on his own two feet — I'd consider it a favor.

While Groll trained the crew, I turned to the matter of building ships. Ordinary vessels would not do. If we intended to prey on royal ships as privateers, ours had to be the finest on the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠continent.

But did the duchy possess shipwrights of that caliber? I had already consulted Uncle Ruka on the question. As director of the Armaments Bureau and a Master-tier Awoken craftsman, he would know precisely what the duchy was and wasn't capable of.

"None."

Uncle Ruka answered flatly.

"Shipbuilding is a colossal industry that spans everything down to master smithing. Your family has no history of nurturing it — it's land that never had a sea in the first place."

Exactly as I'd expected. You only had to look at how some old record had blithely stamped the word "port" on a place that was anything but.

I had two alternatives in mind. The first was buying ships from the Sirakos Kingdom.

Sirakos led the world not only in shipping but in shipbuilding. Buying from them would guarantee quality — at a steep premium. They knew perfectly well that I was on bad terms with the imperial family, and they would charge accordingly.

The second method was……

"The envoy has arrived, Your Grace."

"Show him in."

"Yes, my lord."

The door clicked open, and a red-scaled lizardman stepped into the ducal residence. He bowed to me with practiced grace.

"I am called Grotar, O one who keeps company with the sacred being."

The "sacred being" he spoke of was Ruby. "Companion of Ruby" seemed to be the very limit of what their tongue could express. It wasn't as if they could come out and say, O one who raises our god as a house pet.

"I am Iden Esterji. Please, just call me Iden."

"Thank you, Lord Iden."

"I hear you are close to King Zaktar."

"Yes. The king and I hatched from the same spawning pool."

The lizardman concept of kinship still baffled me. Judging by how devotedly they raised their children, their family bonds seemed much like ours — and yet they weighed which spawning pool one had come from above nearly everything else.

"How do you find our city? Any discomfort in your lodgings?"

"We live quite comfortably. The weather is terribly cold and dry, but the lodging and the food please us."

I had summoned the architects and described the house where I'd stayed in the lizardmen's country. Working from my advice, they had done their utmost to recreate that peculiarly stuffy, damp lizardman dwelling.

"When I visited your kingdom, I saw a wide river."

Rivers existed in the Subterranean World too. Perhaps because air grows humid near water, lizardman cities always hugged a water source.

"And yet there were ships floating on that water. How does a ship move without wind?"

That was what puzzled me. Hardly any wind worth the name ever blew down in the depths, which was presumably why lizardman ships carried no sails — yet neither did anyone seem to be rowing below decks.

"I'm no craftsman, so I couldn't say how it works. I only know it's a device built by skilled artisans using a mana core."

"Much like the staff they gave me, then?"

"Exactly so."

The lizardmen, it seemed, excelled at amplifying the energy of mana cores. Why else would Uncle Ruka have packed up and left for the Subterranean World to study their technology?

"I'm thinking of building a few ships. Would it be possible to borrow your artisans for a time?"

That sounded too much like a thief's scheme, so I added, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠"Tell the sacred being to visit the Zaktar Kingdom now and then — in his capacity as a companion."

"Gladly."

Grotar bared his fangs in a grin. It meant he was pleased.

"The king has commanded that we cooperate with whatever you request, Lord Iden. If there is anything you desire, it will be done as you wish."

Grotar had spoken true. Before long, the Zaktar Kingdom sent shipwrights.

Moreover, the additional delegation included sailors — the bravest, most adventurous souls in all of lizardman society.

"We came up because we wanted to see what the sea looks like."

The lizardmen had once been a people of the surface. In those days, they too had known the sea. But two hundred years on, they knew it only from old texts. According to their records, the sea was "an utterly enormous amount of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠very salty water gathered in one place."

Well — not an inaccurate description, as such things go.

The lizardman sailors taught us how to handle a ship that had no sails, and we taught them about the sea in return.

Work on the ships themselves got underway as well. If we had one advantage, it was that Esterzy territory was the Empire's finest source of raw timber.

Timber quality mattered enormously. Above all, Blacksteel Wood — said to grow only along the Demonic Realm's border — was hard enough to rival Coldsteel.

Plenty of adventurers, in fact, favored gear made from the stuff. Wooden swords. Wooden armor.

"Spare no expense on the materials."

I made the rounds of the shipyard, encouraging the laborers.

"There's nowhere to sell it to anyway."

The imperial family's blockade of our export routes cut both ways: they, too, were barred from our specialties — Blacksteel Wood and Oradium. Whatever pain we suffered, they suffered in equal measure.

"I've never in my life seen a ship shaped like this." The more the hull's outline took shape, the more troubled Groll looked.

"It is a bit unusual, isn't it?"

"This is beyond unusual. No mast, no sails. By my standards, a ship without sails is no ship at all."

Human ships moved by the power of the wind.

Wind alone was never quite enough to drive a vessel, so hulls were typically streamlined to slice through the current.

A lizardman ship, however, drew its power from within. It needed no sails and had no reason to be streamlined. Which was why theirs looked like nothing so much as great round fortresses adrift on the water.

"You don't care for it, I take it?"

Groll's brow knotted fiercely.

"The performance I like. She's sturdy, and you can mount plenty of cannon. But ask me to go a-pirating in a thing shaped like that? I couldn't do it."

"Don't worry. That one's a warship."

Groll was steadily recovering his old piratical self. Vigor flowed from him; his voice brimmed with strength. He even seemed to have grown younger. His claim that he would die if he couldn't sail had been utterly sincere.

Miren Port, too, was beginning to look the part of a harbor. Laborers, construction engineers, restaurateurs and innkeepers — crowds of every kind had gathered, breathing new-city vitality into the place.

This was the part I found hardest to bear.

"Oh my — this must be the place!"

"It is! Right on this very spot! His Grace the Duke—!"

The guide's voice rang out, bright and carrying. The crowd gazed up at his lips, eyes sparkling.

"He melted the glacier — oh so sweetly — like spring snow in the sunlight!"

"Whoaaaa!"

The pilgrims pressed their hands together in awe. Before the altar stood a wooden sign, and upon it were written these words:

The spot where I had unfurled my barrier arts had become the region's premier attraction. Pilgrims were streaming in from every corner of the duchy, drawn by the rumors.

For the record: I never delivered any line so excruciating, nor did I ever melt a glacier like spring snow. The sea off Miren Port was simply the kind that froze when the days turned cold and thawed when they warmed — that was all.

The most absurd rumor of all, of course, was that I was the "Avatar of Solitas." Had I truly been the incarnation of a god, would I ever have suffered from severed-meridian syndrome? Would I have been an incomplete human, my head stuffed with a past life's memories?

"It seems tourism may outearn trade before trade even begins."

Lucian chuckled, clearly amused. He had only just finished his duties as envoy and come along to see Miren Port with me.

"We haven't even started trading yet," I shot back.

"And this tourism of ours only shuffles coin around inside the duchy. Moving money from a vassal's pocket into mine doesn't make the duchy any richer."

"Still, your popularity has only risen, hasn't it, Lord Iden?"

"Popularity can't be eaten, Lucian."

"It can be converted into food — provided you handle the negotiations with the Sirakos Kingdom well."

The final prerequisite for maritime trade was a trade agreement with the Sirakos Kingdom. Only then could we break through the imperial "Esterzy Blockade."

That was precisely why I had dragged a very busy man all the way out here.

My position differed from nine years ago, when I had followed my father to the imperial capital. As the man answerable for his subjects' lives, I had to produce results — whatever it took. To secure the best outcome possible, I had appointed Lucian as my private advisor.

"Have you ever been to Sirakos?"

"No. Not even once."

"The King of Sirakos is a seasoned and exacting man. The very fact that he has kept his land from being swallowed by the Empire proves he's no ordinary ruler."

Lucian glanced back at me with an easy smile.

"Of course, you're no ordinary man yourself, Lord Iden — so I daresay it will be a fine meeting."

"Then all I can do is hope he makes the right judgment," I said, watching the warships taking shape in the dry docks. "…Because if he does, there will be no need to ever use those."