Captain – Chapter 554 – Devil

Under the eager gazes of the pirates, Anderson held a meal tray in one hand while shielding it from the rain with the other, walking toward the wooden door of the captain’s cabin that had been tightly closed for a day and night.

The ship’s doctor was obviously unaccustomed to such servile tasks, especially in front of so many people, making his gait somewhat unnatural and causing his eye to twitch constantly.

He couldn’t help thinking silently: Don’t you people have anything better to do?

Though this was indeed important business.

Due to the omnipresent burning gazes and speculation about what might await him in that room, these mere dozen steps made Anderson feel as if he were walking a path of penance.

Only when he stopped before the wooden door did this feeling of being watched from behind somewhat recede.

Taking a deep breath, the ship’s doctor looked at the wooden door, a bitter smile appearing at the corner of his mouth as he wondered what awaited him inside—a mountain of knives and sea of fire, or a…

Young woman overcome with grief?

Moreover, those bastards had not only dragged him onto this pirate ship but couldn’t even come up with a better excuse than delivering food—anyone could see through that, couldn’t they?

To dispel the melancholy in his heart, the ship’s doctor’s thoughts wandered without direction, but despite his musings, his actions showed no hesitation as he gently knocked on the wooden door.

“Enter.”

After a moment, the captain’s response came from behind the door.

Calm and direct, revealing neither deliberate indifference nor deep sorrow.

The ship’s doctor didn’t think much of this, pushing open the door and shutting the wind and rain outside. As he turned around, he said with forced lightness: “I say, Captain, you’ve been back for almost a day now, but you haven’t had a drop of food or water.”

“No matter what, you still need to take care of your body…”

As if not expecting to see such a scene, Anderson’s concerned words came to an abrupt halt the moment he saw the young woman. He stared in slight bewilderment at that desk.

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Looking at the young woman behind it, dressed in a shirt with neat appearance, looking at her serious expression and the sea charts and surveying tools before her, he couldn’t react for a moment.

“Why did you stop talking?”

Only when Roy spoke did the ship’s doctor come to his senses, smiling awkwardly: “I, I thought you were…”

“Thought I was curled up in a corner, weeping uncontrollably like a violated maiden?”

Hearing the captain’s teasing, Anderson was surprised, but seeing that she didn’t need heart-to-heart talks and wouldn’t unreasonably take her anger out on him, he felt much more relaxed.

At least for now, it seemed she hadn’t been crushed by that shadow.

“Yes, I was even wondering if bringing you food might be delivering myself into the tiger’s mouth.”

Speaking thus, the ship’s doctor approached the table and set down the meal tray. Before he could say anything more, as soon as he raised his eyes, he saw the clear traces of tears still remaining on the young woman’s face.

Calmness might be a precursor to an approaching storm, or it might be…

The death of the heart after the storm had settled.

“I do need to release emotions occasionally. Don’t worry, I’ll clean up before going out.”

Knowing what this young master was shocked about, the captain still didn’t raise her head, merely candidly acknowledging it, her dark golden pupils reflecting that mystical sea chart.

However, the ship’s doctor, whose attention was drawn to the tear tracks, didn’t notice that the light and shadows on that sea chart were changing at a terrifying speed—not only did directions shift instantly, but even the local flow of time seemed to be invisibly rewritten.

And the young woman who occasionally glanced at the sea chart seemed able to capture all its changes completely.

Not missing a single detail, perfectly accurate.

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Even more astonishing was that the quill pen in her hand moved without pause, falling onto that slightly wrinkled parchment and leaving extremely complex lines.

Lines that changed with time.

All of this seemed to confirm a certain fact.

Not knowing what to say about this topic, Anderson stood quietly by the table for a long time, but thinking of the anxious people waiting outside the door, he couldn’t help asking softly.

“Captain, everyone is very worried about you.”

And hoping you can lead us away from here, away from this grim land of death.

Knowing the ship’s doctor’s implied meaning and the reason for his appearance, the young woman acknowledged with a sound, saying: “I understand. You can go back. Tell them that once I finish drawing the sea chart, I’ll begin arranging subsequent matters. It won’t take more than half a day at most.”

Getting this assurance, Anderson’s mood settled somewhat, but unexpectedly for the captain, he didn’t leave immediately, nor did he glance at the sea chart she was drawing.

Instead, he stared directly at her with inexplicable emotions.

“Is there anything else?”

Only when Roy looked up in puzzlement, meeting his gaze, did Anderson seem to confirm something.

He frowned slightly and said: “I don’t know if it’s an illusion, but I always feel… you’ve changed.”

“Oh, then tell me what I’ve changed.”

Not expecting him to say such words, the young woman lowered her head again to continue her work, asking with great interest.

“I can’t quite explain it, but if I had to, I’d have to talk about temperament.”

As the future head of the Anderson family, though still young, he had already encountered countless important figures in that power-supremacist circle, and had even seen the unnamed emperor with real power in the Federation through Sand Fox’s connections.

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Not to mention that his father was already a figure standing at the pinnacle of world power.

Therefore, the ship’s doctor was confident he wasn’t mistaken—he distinctly “smelled” an aura of… a superior on the young woman, just like his father, like that head of the Shelley family. No, he should say she was still somewhat different from them.

That was her dignity and composure that, though not displayed, quietly emanated—it was natural, born with noble bloodline, making people involuntarily feel…

Fear. Yes, that was fear.

His pupils slightly fluctuating, Anderson silently confirmed this, because this feeling was identical to what he had experienced when witnessing that giant serpent emerge into the world, only slightly less intense.

What exactly had happened to her during this time?

“I feel you’re somewhat unfamiliar, increasingly like a power holder such as my father.”

Hearing the ship’s doctor’s somewhat grave explanation, Roy didn’t mock him as she had in the past, but suddenly said “oh” in realization, speaking a seemingly disconnected sentence.

“Sorry, I’m not very skilled at this yet.”

As the young woman finished speaking, Anderson, who had been watching her, saw his furrowed brow gradually relax, because from this moment the sense of fear lingering in his heart disappeared.

The person before him suddenly returned to being ordinary, as if falling from a mountain peak back to the mortal world.

“What?”

He was completely confused, asking instinctively.

But he never received the young woman’s explanation, as she drove him out using “don’t disturb my work” and the waiting crowd outside as excuses.

As the wooden door closed, no more voices remained in the room, only the rustling sound of pen on paper.

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Not knowing how much time had flowed in this quiet environment, Roy set down her quill pen, gently rubbed her temples, extinguished that chart of unknown waters, then rolled up the navigation chart she had drawn and rose to walk around the wooden table.

Without touching the main course the ship’s doctor had brought, the young woman only drained the cup of rum on the meal tray, then set the glass back down and inserted the pistol from the table back into her waist.

In that vault of heaven, she had once fired it, shattering the devil’s heart—though it was only an illusion. She had thought it would sink to the ocean floor, never to be recovered.

But according to Ben, this pistol had accompanied her from the old wooden boat back to the Mermaid.

Only… its original owner had not been able to return.

Thinking of this, Roy lowered her eyelids slightly, not wanting to dwell further or be drowned again by tidal waves of sorrow. She lightly tapped the table, awakening the raven on the nearby perch.

“Let’s go, Alfie.”

The raven woke at the sound, flapping its wings to land on the table, looking up at her and calling out.

“Clothes, Captain.”

Hearing this, Roy was momentarily stunned, then smiled faintly, going to the coat rack to examine that luxurious captain’s uniform without hesitating too long.

Donning the outer coat and pressing the tricorn hat that had witnessed her legend onto her head, she seemed to become a completely different person. With a whistle, the raven flew to her shoulder.

Her composed and powerful steps, along with her faintly brilliant pupils, all indicated…

The Golden-Eyed Devil had returned from her great dream.

Or rather…

The Devil.