Captain – Chapter 5 – The Awakening Naval Officer

Fierce winds, massive waves, and thunder together formed the true image of that disaster.

On the sea surface filled with whirlpools and rogue waves, the Auran Empire’s First Naval Fleet was completely annihilated. Even the Tyrant, reputed to be the heaviest ship in history, turned to wreckage under the devil’s power. This was Caine’s last memory before sinking into the pitch-black ocean.

The warm sea breeze gently caressed his eyelashes. The long-absent morning light shone on that pale face. After an unknown period of sleep, after struggling back and forth across the boundary between life and death countless times, Caine finally opened his eyes with difficulty, returning to the real world under the protection of the Auran Goddess.

His blurry vision gradually became clear. The intense pain in his head was slowly subsiding. The ability to think returned to this noble body. Caine gathered his thoughts and finally could see the scene clearly. Yet what greeted this poor soul who had barely returned from hell was not the hopeful morning sun, but the dark muzzle of a gun.

It was an exquisite short pistol. Snow-white lines were engraved on the pure black gun body, depicting countless patterns of wind and clouds. At the end where wind and clouds intertwined was the silhouette of a goddess reaching out to accept a flower—the image of the Auran Goddess. Only the most skilled engravers in the Empire could carve such an exquisitely beautiful pattern.

Caine recognized it. It was his gun. However, this old companion that had accompanied him through his academy days and naval career was now gripped in someone else’s hand—a fair and delicate hand. So he followed the muzzle, along that hand and arm, to look at the expressionless young woman staring at him.

“Bang.”

A slight gun sound imitation sprung from her light pink lips, like the most beautiful instrument playing music, or like the nightingale locked in the imperial palace softly singing.

Without a doubt, this was a prank, and moreover, the most childish and malicious prank.

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Caine looked at that face, seemingly more radiant than the dawn, saw the upward curve at the corner of her mouth, and easily came to this conclusion. Then, enduring the soreness in his body, he reached out to grab the short pistol, his hoarse voice emerging from his parched throat that hadn’t drunk water for a long time.

“This is… mine…”

The malicious pirate certainly had no intention of returning the pistol to its original owner. She slightly raised the muzzle, evading Caine’s hand, and then slipped it back into the leather holster also taken from the young man.

Roy crossed her arms over her chest, looking down at this imperial naval officer: “It’s mine now, consider it payment for saving you.”

Caine silently withdrew his hand, offering no response to the pirate’s matter-of-fact words. Instead, he began to contemplate everything that had happened, trying to recall some useful information from that chaotic and violent sea, or to make sense of that disaster.

Seeing that the young man had no intention of persisting in getting back his pistol, Roy finally had time to properly observe this newly awakened naval officer.

That silver hair, having moved from the dim western coast to the eastern coast facing the morning sun, shed all its dullness and became brilliant and dazzling. To her knowledge, this hair color was extremely rare even in the Auran Empire, inherited only by a very few great families.

Indeed a valuable find.

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Roy deeply affirmed her decision to save him in her heart, recalling her rare knowledge of the noble families of the Auran Empire like oases in a desert, while considering what good price she could sell him for.

During her contemplation, Roy’s gaze passed over that distinctly defined face, seeing those ocean-blue eyes, and she couldn’t help but be slightly entranced. Although that silver hair gleaming in the light was so dazzling, like the imposing presence of an Auran Empire warship, these blue eyes were so gentle they seemed capable of containing everything in the world—it was an extremely contradictory feeling.

While Roy was observing the young man, Caine had also finished his tangled and clueless thoughts, turning his attention to this young woman who claimed to be his savior. Looking at that wave-like golden hair and those dark golden pupils deeply etched in his memory, he suddenly froze.

His original purpose of scrutiny was completely forgotten, even though both her neat coarse linen shirt and the Isk curved blade fastened at Roy’s waist indicated she was a pirate—the most detested and hostile entity to Auran Empire naval officers.

In his eyes, there seemed to be only those pupils, dark golden pupils like cooling magma.

Perhaps unnerved by this stare as if facing an enemy, or believing this naval officer had been soaked in seawater too long, causing mental abnormality, Roy instinctively stepped back half a pace, maintaining a safe distance from him, and asked: “Hey, did you get hit on the head by the western coast’s reefs? Do you want some water?”

No response.

“Indeed, he’s become stupid.”

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Roy expressed her rare compassion with a look one might give a simpleton child, then turned to see if there was any sign of the Mermaid floating far on the horizon. But before she could walk a few steps, she was startled by a call from behind, almost stumbling straight into a pile of white sand.

“Elizabeth…”

Roy turned around somewhat stiffly, looking at Caine whose gaze was extremely determined, like a warrior about to face death the next moment. She couldn’t help but swallow, starting to consider whether the ransom was more important, or keeping her secret of over a decade from becoming a laughingstock.

How is it that since coming to this wretched island, everyone seems to know about this?

Roy thought somewhat frantically, then maliciously speculated that this sole survivor among thousands of naval personnel might be the devil’s incarnation, or a tool specifically used by the devil to humiliate her.

If so, might as well…

“Howard.”

“Huh?”

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Roy pointed her index finger at herself, incredulously asking him: “What did you call me?”

Caine propped himself up against the dry rock wall to sit straight, staring unblinkingly at the surprised young woman, repeating his previous address: “Elizabeth Howard.”

The sound in the scene suddenly disappeared, leaving only the rustling of palm leaves in the sea breeze. The two people, one standing and one sitting, were like a mural of God and the Holy Son gazing at each other in a church, but with an inexplicable strangeness amid that natural harmony.

“Pfft.”

Unable to bear that serious yet awkward atmosphere, Roy burst into laughter. The naval commander slightly furrowed his brows, seemingly unaware of what was amusing about this name.

“I’m sorry.”

Roy finally managed to stop laughing, breathing lightly a few times, then looked at him with a smile and said: “You might have mistaken me for someone else, but it’s quite a coincidence. I am indeed called Elizabeth, but my surname isn’t Howard.”

With her right hand gently placed on her chest, Roy bowed slightly in the most common gesture among Auran Empire nobles, then looked up, gazing into those gentle ocean-blue eyes, and said very seriously: “My surname is Roy, the great… Captain Roy.”