Captain – Chapter 79 – Bivis Green

“Oh heavens, Stephen III’s crown—how many Pronora gold coins would this be worth?”

Roy stared at the single-pointed golden crown on the skeleton’s head, unconsciously swallowing as she fought against a surreal dizziness. Carefully, she reached toward it.

If she could obtain this long-lost imperial crown, the current Emperor of the Auran Empire would certainly pay a hefty price to recover it. After all, it had been passed down since the empire’s founding and carried immense symbolic value.

But just as the captain’s slender fingers were about to touch the golden crown, she suddenly felt a jolt through her body—something had grabbed her ankle.

It must be an illusion. Definitely an illusion. Get the crown first, get it…

The cold sensation around her ankle felt unmistakably real. Roy took several deep breaths, struggling to shift her gaze from the crown. Somewhat stiffly, she turned her head to look at the floor behind her.

With this glance, Roy realized her sense of touch hadn’t been wrong—”something” had indeed grabbed her ankle.

This “something” was an extremely emaciated humanoid form. Its skin was wrinkled and withered like dead tree bark, clinging tightly to the bones beneath. Its upturned face featured deeply sunken eye sockets containing protruding, bloodshot brown eyes. The dry, cracked lips kept opening and closing, continuously emitting raspy “huh huh” sounds.

If an ordinary person had suddenly found such a creature—neither human nor ghost—grabbing their ankle, they would likely have screamed and collapsed, frightened out of their wits.

But the problem was that what it had grabbed was the most notorious devil of the Eastern Seas.

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Roy stared expressionlessly at the creature, then kicked that hideously ugly face. The tremendous force dislocated both the “thing’s” hands as it was sent flying seven or eight meters.

At this moment, the raven, having noticed the disturbance, swooped down fiercely, its sharp beak jabbing directly at the eyes of the figure who was struggling to get up while continuously moaning.

“Oh, oh, oh, you damned… beast, get away… get away!”

The “thing” shielded its eyes with its arms while cursing in a dry, raspy voice. Its white robe, which extended all the way to the neck, was pierced by the raven’s sharp beak. The rag-like skin was even more vulnerable, and soon both arms were covered with thick, paste-like blood.

“My good girl is no beast.”

With a “clang,” the Isk curved sword was unsheathed. The silvery blade reflected the light from the crystal lamps as the captain dragged the sword forward step by step, her face showing nothing but coldness.

Seeming to understand what was about to happen, the “thing” blocked its eyes with one hand while raising the other toward Roy. However, due to the dislocated wrist, the hand hung limply toward the ground: “No, no, madam… Captain, I mean no harm.”

“No harm? Then why suddenly grab my ankle?”

Roy cared nothing for his explanation. She stood in front of the withered humanoid figure, her voice cold as northern ice.

“I… I haven’t moved or… spoken for so long that when I discovered you, I could only inch over bit by bit, unable to make even the slightest sound. I didn’t mean to offend you, so please, don’t torment me further.”

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As the man spoke more, his speech gradually became more fluent. And when he begged Roy, he asked her not to torture him anymore rather than not to kill him. This sparked a certain suspicion in the girl’s mind.

“Alfie.”

Hearing the captain’s call, the raven ceased its attack on the suddenly appeared “monster” and fluttered back to Roy’s shoulder, its gaze still vigilant.

Wiping the paste-like blood from her pet’s beak with her sleeve, Roy looked down at this trembling figure who had lowered his arms and demanded unequivocally: “State your name and your position on this ship.”

The man, still in shock, looked at the girl, especially when he saw those dark golden pupils. A flicker of fear, barely perceptible, flashed in his eyes. However, he concealed it well enough that the captain didn’t notice: “Bivis Green. I am a natural scientist.”

“A scientist… really?” Roy’s tone was full of doubt.

She couldn’t believe that a scientist could have survived Annisdora’s curse and become… such a strange existence.

“Absolutely true, Captain. I am willing to swear on my family name. If there is a single falsehood in my words…”

“Alright, alright, I get it.”

Hearing the pretentious rhetoric that pedantic scholars were so fond of using, Roy interrupted impatiently: “How did you know I’m a captain?”

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“If I said it was fate, would you believe me?”

Seeing the fawning look in those brown eyes, Roy was silent for a moment before saying: “This captain never believes in fate.”

“But what if I said… it was Captain Edward’s arrangement?” Bivis looked at those dark golden pupils, questioning in a probing tone.

This mention didn’t help matters; in fact, Roy’s eyebrows immediately shot up as she pointed her curved sword directly at him, the tip less than three centimeters from the scholar’s nose.

“Were you sent by him?”

Realizing he had touched on a sensitive topic for the girl before him, the scholar trembled all over, hastily explaining: “No, no, how could that be? I’m just like you, a poor soul cursed by that bastard—just an… unfortunate wretch, Captain.”

Hearing this, Roy blinked and smoothly sheathed her curved sword, then extended her hand to the scholar, her expression friendly: “You should have said so earlier. So you’re a fellow sufferer.”

Looking at the captain whose demeanor had suddenly changed, Bivis placed his wrist in her hand, his eyes still full of fear and suspicion.

Pulling up the scholar who had been reduced to skin and bones, Roy began to reset his dislocated wrists.

Hearing the scholar’s cries of pain, the captain’s vigilance diminished somewhat. Someone who would cry out from such pain probably would have been frail even at his prime—hardly a threat at all.

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She had been worrying about some earth-shattering possibility—clearly overthinking things.

“There, scholar, your hands are as good as new. Now tell me, how did that devil direct you, and how did you know my identity?”

Seeing the scholar sweating profusely from pain, Roy added with a smile: “If you dare to conceal even the slightest detail, or if your answer fails to satisfy me, I swear on my family name that I will completely sever both your hands.”

The scholar looked at the captain with a pale face, then tremblingly extended his hands toward her.

“What’s this? You would rather lose your hands than tell me anything?”

Seeing this, Roy’s eyes showed a hint of surprise. She truly hadn’t expected this scholar, who seemed so afraid of pain, to make such a fearless choice. It defied all logic.

“No, no, Captain.”

Hearing these words, the scholar instinctively began to withdraw his hands, but halfway through, unable to suppress the yearning in his heart, he extended them closer to Roy again, his face full of ingratiating expression.

“Since you want to hear the story, perhaps… you could first give me some water to drink?”