Captain – Chapter 418 – Shadow by the Island

The deity’s promise reassured Roy and the others considerably. After she finished speaking, having completed all explanations and instructions, she said nothing more, merely nodded slightly to them before turning to leave.

She walked toward the sea, and as if sensing her arrival, the waves rushing onto the beach and the aurora hanging at the horizon’s edge grew gentler.

Watching that gradually receding figure, seeing her step onto the sea’s surface without sinking, instead being embraced and lifted by gentle waves, Roy came to her senses and realized that the deity actually didn’t need so-called divinity.

This world embraced her, cherished her, would grieve for her suffering and grow angry at her displeasure. That being the case, why worry about magical power?

Whether it was the Dark Calendar, ancient times, or the golden age of the Southern Islands created by Captain Edward that lasted for hundreds of years, ultimately what was recorded and depicted were stories of mortals.

They despaired, they rose up, they grieved, they sang, they built mighty cities, moved mountains, and wrote countless legends.

This is what history is.

Deities shouldn’t concern themselves with such things, and as mortals, they had even less reason to worry needlessly. As it was then, so it would be in the future.

Having heard the Lady’s final words about her beloved, experiencing the separation between deity and human, the captain finally understood the meaning of “our world” in the “old pirate’s” words.

The life of mortal spirits is too short compared to eternity, passing in an instant. Deities won’t care, but that period of time is everything to mortals.

It is the meaning of existence, the meaning of moving forward, it is everything.

The moment of parting was at hand. In the eyes of the captain and the others, as soon as the Lady walked into the sea, a faint, thin mist arose around her, enshrouding her figure as if she might disappear at any moment.

“My Lady, where do you plan to settle in the future?”

After a moment’s hesitation, the captain stepped forward, crushing the approaching waves, and called loudly to that increasingly blurred figure.

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“Since I’ve escaped confinement, before leaving, I should naturally go everywhere in the world, walking and seeing as much as possible. How could there be talk of settling down?”

Though the Lady had walked far away, her voice still seemed close at hand.

Due to the devil’s methods, for hundreds of years she had been sealed on this island, unable to take a single step away. Now, with her power completely dispersed and her divinity gone, she would no longer be constrained by him.

Although this “escape” wasn’t a fortunate event, at least she could finally leave this place and go to the world she hadn’t seen or personally experienced for so long.

Thus, she wouldn’t stay in one place.

“Then if I have matters in the future and wish to seek your guidance and help, what should I do? Where can I find you?”

With the Lady’s figure no longer visible in the thin mist, Roy could only put her hands beside her face and shout louder, as if venting to the sea.

“When the time comes to meet, we shall meet.”

The gentle words floated down from the sky, their origin unknown, and at the moment they fell, the mist suddenly dispersed.

From then on, the aurora in the sky disappeared, and the kaleidoscopic starry sky overhead seemed to have been hit by a stone, suddenly becoming chaotic.

The deity symbolizing the rules had departed, so the laws of nature returned. Like the end of an era, it made one sigh with emotion.

Roy watched as the familiar starscape appeared, and after a long while, she withdrew her gaze, breathing out lightly as if relieved of a burden, then turned to smile at the two women.

“Well then, ladies, shall we go too?”

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Vivian and the Siren had no objections, so the small wooden boat set off again.

The wooden oar pushed away the waves, carrying the small boat away, quickly distancing itself from the island until even the coastal scenery became difficult to see.

The Mermaid and the Taranhof drew nearer, and the warm light cast from the two warships onto the sea gradually covered the entire small wooden boat.

At this moment, Roy, who had been looking up at the Mermaid, suddenly felt a chill around her neck and instinctively reached up to touch it.

Then, she felt the pendant.

The captain blinked, looking bewildered. Although she knew what had caused her to shiver, she didn’t know why it had grown cold.

It should be noted that since receiving the Lady’s guidance and putting on this pendant, she had unconsciously forgotten about it because its texture was so smooth and warm, and the temperature it transmitted was no different from her body temperature.

Could it be due to the lower temperature outside after leaving the cabin?

Roy pondered troubledly, but quickly rejected this guess, because she had been away from that place for a long time, and the outside temperature wasn’t low. Regardless of what material the pendant was made of, it shouldn’t be so icy cold.

So what… was the reason?

As she was thinking, the captain suddenly sensed something, her eyes widening slightly, and the complex thoughts in her mind seemed to freeze and halt.

Her hands gradually stopped rowing, and she placed the oar carelessly aside. Then, under Vivian and the Siren’s strange gazes, she stood up straight.

Roy looked toward the island in the distance, staring at a frost-snow-white reef not far from it, her expression both surprised and focused.

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On the snow-white reef, she finally saw what the Lady had mentioned…

The ghost attached to the pendant.

Though the distance was great, perhaps due to the “token” she wore, that hazy, phantasmal figure was clearly reflected in the captain’s dark golden pupils.

It was a very frail young girl.

She wore a thin, pure white dress, with blue-silver long hair hanging down like soft seaweed, scattered over her thin shoulders.

For some unknown reason, although in the captain’s vague perception the girl’s age should be similar to hers, her body was too fragile and small—standing in one place, she probably wouldn’t reach Roy’s neck.

Coincidentally close to the height of the pendant at this moment.

Therefore, although the young girl’s face showed no childishness, she still looked like a little girl.

At this moment, the ghost mentioned by the Lady was silently sitting on the reef, her body turned sideways to the small boat, her hands placed lightly at her sides.

Under the starlight, a very faint cold light surrounded the girl, like the fluorescence emanating from jade, not as terrifying as described in horror stories, only adding to her sense of solitude.

Though there was no sea breeze, her thin dress still danced lightly.

From beginning to end, the ghost never turned her face to look at the small boat, as if completely unaware of the captain’s gaze.

She only kept looking in an unknown direction.

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Recalling what the Lady had said, Roy knew that the direction the ghost was looking must be related to her obsession and that legendary warship.

But now was not the time.

Thinking silently, although strong curiosity and a desire to investigate surged in Roy’s heart, she also understood that at this moment, what she needed to do most was not to pursue that warship, but to leave the icy sea.

To take her already very exhausted crew back to familiar waters.

But… you could at least look at me once, give some acknowledgment, right?

Looking at the ghost’s unusually pale profile highlighted by the cold light, the captain pursed her lips and reluctantly withdrew her gaze with some dissatisfaction.

Seeing Roy sit down again and turn around to row, the Blood Craver and the sea creature, who had been observing her, looked at each other in bewilderment.

The wooden boat continued forward, disappearing into the bright, flickering lights of the warships.

Shortly after, the two warships anchored at the island’s waters raised their anchors and unfurled their sails, disturbing the calm sea surface as they sailed back toward the direction they had come from.

And it was only at this moment that the young girl sitting on the reef finally turned around to look in the direction the warships were leaving, her eyes as blue as the sky.

The next moment, a light wind suddenly arose over the sea, and when it blew over the snow-white reef, the ghostly figure was already gone.

As if she had never existed.