Captain – Chapter 6 – Captain Richi

Although those ocean-blue eyes gave people such a gentle feeling, like the sea goddess the pirates believed in, able to accommodate all the evil deeds and debauchery that the secular world could not tolerate, when their owner heard that surname slowly articulated from the captain’s mouth, that gentleness disappeared, replaced by the sharpness and danger of a hawk.

Caine narrowed his eyes at her, his body leaning slightly forward—the harbinger of a lion about to pounce on its prey.

Although he was extremely weak at this moment, where not just Roy, but even a scrawny hyena could take his life, he still maintained this hostile posture.

This was the common reaction of all Auran Empire naval commanders upon hearing the name Roy, because that name was too jarring, too terrifying. During the rise of that captain with devil-like dark golden pupils, countless Auran Empire warships had become the accumulated bones beneath the Mermaid.

Golden-Eyed Roy was the acknowledged archenemy of the Auran Empire Navy.

“Hey, hey, hey, why put on such an expression? I know you’d love to skin me alive, extract my bones, and throw me into the sea to feed the sharks, but the current situation is that I saved you, and whether you can survive still depends on my mood.” Roy straightened up, also narrowing her eyes, smiling like a fox.

Caine was silent for a moment, then leaned back against the stone wall and asked in a raspy voice: “Do you have water?”

“How impolite.”

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Roy’s eye twitched as she glanced at the calm sea surface. Not seeing the Mermaid, she walked back to the naval officer with some worry in her heart, sat down unceremoniously, untied the water flask from her waist, and handed it to this fallen commander: “Drink sparingly, I only collected this much fresh water in a day.”

Caine took the flask without a word and tilted his head back to gulp down the water. Although the pirate captain had told him to be economical, she did not stop his ghoul-like behavior, merely propping her face with her hand, resting on her crossed legs, silently gazing at the sparkling sea.

The water in the flask was eventually finished.

Roy took back the flask, gently shook it a few times, then sighed helplessly and placed it casually on the ground beside her. During this process, the young man quietly observed her face, as if trying to find some secrets from that dusty but fair complexion.

“I never imagined that the famous Captain Roy would be a woman. Are you… of age?” Although Caine was still somewhat dehydrated after drinking the water, having floated in seawater for who knows how long, his extremely hoarse voice had recovered considerably.

Hearing the naval officer initiating conversation, Roy was initially pleased that his brain hadn’t been damaged, but upon hearing his words, that slight happiness instantly transformed into a tempestuous storm. She gave the young man beside her a cold glance: “I was already helping to move cargo at sea when I was twelve. At that time, you were probably still holding your parents’ hands watching dance performances, weren’t you?”

Seeing that the young man was not moved by her mockery and still quietly waiting for an answer, Roy turned her head slightly away, her voice faint: “I’m eighteen this year, an adult.”

The age of majority in the Pronora Federation in the western part of the continent is sixteen, while in the Auran Empire it is eighteen. So by either standard, the captain before him was an unquestionable adult. Of course, for pirates, whether one is an adult or not doesn’t make much difference—they all risk their lives to make a living.

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“As for being a woman… you can just think that your navy is incompetent, chasing me for three whole years without knowing the true gender of this captain.”

Regarding the gender issue, the captain was somewhat vague, clearly unwilling to discuss it further. Caine didn’t ask again, but followed her occasionally leaping gaze to look far at the sea, which was the same color as his eyes: “What are you waiting for, your pirate ship?”

“It’s the Mermaid, the Mermaid that crushed seventeen of your Auran warships.”

Roy clearly hadn’t escaped the irritation caused by the young man’s unreasonable questions, her words still sharp, “Once on the ship, you’ll be my captive, and at that time, your family will pay a hefty ransom to redeem you.”

Caine shook his head noncommittally, continuing from her words: “In my view, they might never come.”

Having her inner worry exposed by the young man, Roy’s eyebrows immediately raised, giving him a displeased glare: “Don’t say such inauspicious things. Do you think I’m as stupid as you all? I had already informed them to stay far away early on, foreseeing that ships getting too close to such a ghostly place would not be a good thing.”

“Fine, then may I ask our wise Captain Roy, how long have you been waiting here in vain?” Caine’s expression remained unchanged, as calm as an old man who had weathered many storms.

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“Including the time it took to drag you from the western beach, exactly two days.” Roy’s voice lowered considerably, the previous tempestuous air having disappeared somewhere.

So I was unconscious for two days, Caine thought, looking at her somewhat dim eyes and confirming this fact. He then carefully considered his words and expressed his deduction in an extremely calm, even cold manner: “You know, sometimes not returning… doesn’t necessarily mean they can’t return.”

This statement articulated a cruel fact: that the Mermaid, renowned throughout the Eastern Seas, might not have been destroyed by incomparable storms and huge waves, but possibly due to some changes in the hearts of those on board, steering in a completely opposite direction.

This was undoubtedly like stabbing the captain’s heart, but the current situation was that the two of them were stranded on a solitary island. If they forever embraced that ethereal hope, perhaps they would die faster. This was why Caine pierced the thin veil shrouding Roy’s heart.

“Rest assured, even if they don’t come back, I won’t sit idly waiting for death like some adolescent young lady crying and shouting. As for you, your physical condition is not optimistic. If you can’t replenish fluids and nutrients quickly, you might not even make it through tonight.”

Roy quickly returned to her usual state, that smile reappearing on her face. It was well known that this beautiful face and the seemingly ever-present charming smile at the corner of her lips were her unbeatable trump cards in navigating aristocratic social circles.

She stood up, patted her pants, and walked a couple of steps toward the sea. The next moment, her eyes brightened slightly. With the help of her exceptional hearing, honed through countless sword fights and life-and-death situations, she noticed the faint sound of flapping wings amidst the continuous sound of waves.

Soon, a small black dot flew rapidly from the sea surface, like a gust of wind, reaching them in the blink of an eye. It hooked its sharp claws onto the captain’s shoulder, yet was extremely careful not to pierce the layer of coarse linen, nor to cause the slightest pain to its master, even knowing that the captain, accustomed to bloodshed, wouldn’t mind this at all.

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“Look, my messenger has arrived, which means the Mermaid should be coming soon too.” Roy gently patted the little visitor’s head, boasting to the weakened naval officer, but her smile quickly disappeared again, because she noticed the traces of blood beneath the little one’s disheveled feathers.

It was a gray-black raven. Its feathers, which should have been glossy, had one sticking up here and another missing there. Beneath the feathers, a faint smell of blood emerged, even carrying a hint of decay. Those eyes, which once shone like crystals, were now filled with terror and panic.

“What’s wrong, Alfie?”

Alfie was the name of this raven. Roy had acquired it from a pet market in the Southern Islands three years ago. Compared to its kind, its intelligence and spirituality were exceptionally outstanding, even able to articulate some complete sentences, expressing the captain’s orders very clearly. That’s why it was brought onto the Mermaid by Roy, becoming a specialized delivery messenger.

Alfie obviously hadn’t recovered from its terror, only nestling close to Roy’s face while calling out in alarm: “Captain… Captain… Captain…”

Just as Roy was finding it somewhat grating and was about to remove this little creature from her shoulder, the raven, for the only time, added two more words to its cry, causing her to instinctively pause her action.

“Captain Richi!”