The Reincarnated Princess Flounders

There was a dull thud, and Klaus stopped moving.

I couldn’t comprehend what had happened, but I had a terrible feeling about it. I called Klaus’s name again and again, as though I were trying to reassure myself. My restless heart screamed at me to sprint over to him, and my body obeyed. At practically the exact moment that I reached the top of the stairs, Klaus collapsed to his knees.

I saw the arrow sticking out of his back, and my eyes grew wide.

I called his name again, unable to believe what I was seeing. “Kl...aus.” But my voice came out as a horrible, almost unintelligible croak.

I clutched at my chest. It felt like I was suffocating, like I was gasping for air. I could hear the awful sound of my breath escaping my mouth, and I could barely see anything through the veil of tears that had welled up in my eyes, unbidden.

Klaus didn’t stir from his crouched position. I did see a slight twitch in his hands, which were pressed onto the floor.

His body swayed. I’d been frozen to the spot, but my reflexes made me run over to him. I tried to catch him, but I couldn’t support his weight and fell onto my backside. He was more or less crushing me because of the vast difference in our sizes, but I nonetheless wrapped my arms around his waist in a desperate bid to hold him upright.

Just then, I felt something slimy and wet touch my palm, and the smell of iron that entered my nose told me what that slime was. It was different from the half-dried blood of his enemies that was splattered in patches across his clothes and hair. No, the lukewarm liquid was his lifeblood, and it had come from within his body.

“Klaus?” I called again. I had lost track of how many times I’d said it. Even so, he didn’t answer. He wouldn’t answer me.

His eyelids were firmly shut, and his face was contorted with agony. It was so pale that I shuddered to look at it.

“Klaus...” I called again. “Klaus!!!” I yelled, as if trying to drown out my own fear. I was in pieces.

Somebody grabbed my shoulder. “Mary!” The man placed his hands on my cheeks and swiveled my head, locking eyes with me. “Calm down,” he said admonishingly.

“W-Wolf...”

He breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing me react to his voice. “That’s right,” he said. He then peered toward Klaus, who was resting on my lap. Wolf observed Klaus for a while, then he wrinkled his nose.

He cast his eyes across the deck, spotted something, raced over to it, and then picked it up—a wooden bucket with an arrow protruding from it. He wrenched the arrow out and brought his nose to the arrowhead. Then, as though testing it, he licked it with the tip of his tongue. His brows furrowed deeply. Wolf spat onto the deck and ran back over to us.

“Mary, I want you to gag your brother,” he said.

“Huh...?” He looked serious, but I couldn’t understand what he was asking. My brain was completely failing to function.

My mind was utterly blank, so Bianca responded instead. “Will this do?” She pulled his jaw down to open his mouth and then stuffed a cloth inside. “Leave the rest to us, Mary,” she said in a tone that one would use to address a child. She then swapped places with me.

“I’m pulling the arrow out,” declared Wolf.

“That’ll make the bleeding worse. Shouldn’t we leave it there to plug the hole?” Bianca asked.

With his hand on the arrow, Wolf spoke in a low tone of voice. “It’s poisoned.”

I repeated that word in my blank mind.

Poisoned.

I knew it. I’d heard it before. But my brain refused to register the meaning. It felt like the soft part of myself inside my heart was screaming, Don’t listen! Don’t process that word!

Wolf clenched his fingers around the arrow and yanked it out with one quick tug. Fresh blood spurted from the wound, and a muffled scream erupted from Klaus.

“Somebody get my stuff from my room!” Wolf shouted to everyone around. “I need some water, cold and boiled, and clean towels!”

The sailors that were still on their feet in spite of their wounds listened to his instructions and took off.

“Hold him still!” Wolf instructed Bianca. He then brought his face near Klaus’s wound. It seemed like he was sucking blood from the split flesh where the arrow had been, and Klaus’s body writhed violently from the pain of that sensation. Wolf spat Klaus’s blood from his mouth onto the deck and then repeated the same action.

There were no longer any living pirates on deck. Piles of lifeless corpses were stacked high, and beyond them, the sky had turned red. For a moment, I thought that dawn had arrived, but morning was still quite some time away.

So why’s the sky red? I thought. I turned my gaze in that direction, and there, I saw the burning ship. Afloat in the black water of the nighttime sea, the galley was ablaze. I could hear feral screams as burning people dove into the water. The sight unfurled before my eyes in slow motion, and I wouldn’t be wrong to call the scene a hellscape.

And yet, all that I could manage to do was gawk up at the sky. I couldn’t even muster a scream.

A lone bird soared through the night sky, which was currently illuminated by the columns of flames. The bird was as black as smoke, and it blended with the darkness, vanishing from sight.

A soft sob reached my ears.

While everyone else was running to and fro, one other person was planted on the floor and unable to move, just as I was. It was a girl, weeping and hugging herself, her nails clawing into her arms—Flora.

“I-It’s m-my...my fault that he...” She mumbled half sentences through fits of sniffling while staring at the spot where Klaus was lying on the floor. “I’m sor— I’m sorry...” Flora wasn’t looking just at Klaus; she turned her eyes to me as well. Her apology was probably intended for the both of us.

She claimed that it was her fault, and I was neither strong enough nor kind enough to disagree. If I agree with her, will this lump in my heart go away? Will it make me feel better to paint her as the villain and exclaim that it’s her fault? I stared at Klaus’s pale face.

“Mary!” Somebody called my name, but I was too exhausted to reply.

I slowly, silently turned my head to follow the voice. Wolf was staring at me sternly. Is he gonna lose faith in me again? Or is he gonna get mad this time?

Let him. Whatever he does... Whatever anyone does... I don’t care anymore.

I didn’t know how he perceived me as I sat there with a hollow look in my eyes, but he responded with a wincing look of pity. Wolf stood up and walked over, kneeling down in front of me. I saw the sincere look in his eyes as he gazed into mine.

“He means a lot to you,” Wolf said, “and I promised to protect him... I failed. I’m sorry.” He lowered his head.

That took me by surprise, and I blinked several times.

“But,” he continued, “I will not let him die. I swear on the name Wolf K. Lucker.”

“He won’t die?” I whispered, my voice feeble.

“That’s right.” Wolf smiled. “I’ll keep my promise this time.” There were tears in his eyes.

Wolf won’t let him die, I told myself. He won’t die. Klaus won’t...die. I felt like the numbness that had ensnared my body was fading away, bit by bit.

I dropped my gaze to Klaus, and my trembling fingers reached toward his hand. “Klaus...” I squeezed his hand in mine, but he didn’t squeeze back. Even so, his skin definitely still possessed a warmth that proved his blood was still flowing.

“This your stuff, mister?!” a sailor asked.

“That’s it. Thanks!” Wolf grabbed his things from the sailor and spread them out across the deck. “I could use some light to see what I’m doing.”

“Hey!” the sailor called. “Bring a torch!”

Wolf’s belongings turned out to be a vast collection of little parcels, a small scalpel-like knife, and some metal objects I didn’t recognize. There were also small bottles filled with liquid, a few bowls, something like a mortar and pestle, and various other things.

“Pirates from Flanmer’s southern seas... They’d probably use a mixture of fish and plants in their poisons. Going by the taste and smell...” Wolf kept muttering to himself with a serious look in his eyes as he picked up various packages.

He selected several of the parcels without hesitation, unwrapped them, and removed their contents. Some contained dried leaves or roots from plants and others contained powders. He took the contents from several of the packages, applied a binding agent, and then kneaded them together. He was obviously experienced—that was evident from the smooth way his hands worked.

“The water’s boiled!” a sailor announced as he approached us carrying a bucket. It was Paul. Blood was seeping through the bandages tied around his arm and his thigh, but he wasn’t acting like he was in pain. His face harbored a desperate look.

Why is he going to such lengths? I thought, but I couldn’t manage to ask that out loud. I simply stared up at him.

Paul noticed my gaze and crouched down so that his eyes were level with mine. His large hands ruffled my hair. “Don’t cry, miss. It’s all right. We’re all gonna do our best to save your brother.”

“Wh-Why...?”

“Hmm?”

“Why are you trying to save him?” I asked.

Paul goggled at me. Despite appearing taken aback, he asked, “What else would I do?” From the look on his face, it seemed like he thought nothing could be more obvious. “You’ve been a godsend to us—you should know that. Now’s the time for us to pay you back.”

“Huh?”

“Plus, your brother saved our backsides more than once when he was fighting... And that’s no easy task, considering all the mayhem back there. Everyone aboard this ship owes you a debt that can never be repaid.” Paul then pointed to the top of the stairs and said, “Look, see?”

Mia had clambered up the stairs, and she was panting as she bounded toward us. “Excuse me! I’ve brought some clean towels!”

Jan also arrived with more hot water. His brows furrowed when he saw my face. “You don’t look so good, miss... You must be freezing. Hey, someone get her a blanket!”

I raised my head and saw that everyone that could stand was darting here, there, and everywhere. Several times, I’d catch people looking at me and Klaus with concern, and each time that I met their eyes, they’d offer me words of encouragement.

It was difficult to breathe. My eyes were on fire and my nose felt like it was burning. I could feel tears coming, although I didn’t know where from... I’d cried so much already that I was surprised I had any left to spill.

But this time, it’s different... These aren’t tears of sadness. I roughly wiped the fresh moisture away from my eyes with the back of my hand. This isn’t the time to be crying. It’s not the time to foist all the responsibility onto others either. Nothing will improve as long as I’m averting my eyes and neglecting what I need to do.

Don’t stop. Move. Claw and scrape as much as you can. That’s always been my motto.

“I’ll help, Wolf,” I declared.

“Mary... You don’t—”

“I’m okay now,” I said, rolling up my sleeves.

Wolf’s eyes widened in utter shock, and he looked up at me, frozen. However, that only lasted a few seconds. He quickly recovered his composed expression and gave me instructions. “Cool the boiling water down a little and clean the wound.”

“Okay!”

Following his instructions, I transferred the boiling water into a tray to lower its temperature. Once it had cooled down enough that it wouldn’t burn Klaus, I cleaned and rinsed his wound. When I did so, there was no reaction from him, so he must’ve passed out. Blood was still seeping from the injury, which worried me, but that also probably aided in removing the poison from his body. The choice to use warmer water was probably intended to inactivate the poison as well.

After washing the wound, I continued to follow Wolf’s instructions on how to proceed with Klaus’s treatment. I cut open his clothes with a knife and exposed his torso, then wiped the blood away. The brand-new cloth I was holding turned deep red in the blink of an eye. The thought that this massive amount of blood belonged to Klaus... It almost left me paralyzed. But I shook my head to dispel the fear and kept on with my job.

After rubbing the medicine that Wolf had mixed up into Klaus’s wound, I moved on to the task of stopping his bleeding. I applied pressure to the injury with my hands, but then I realized that I didn’t have any bandages. I scanned the deck with my eyes and found one a small distance away.

I opened my mouth to ask Bianca to retrieve the bandage for me, but I paused for a moment. This was because I’d noticed the person behind Bianca.

“Flora,” I called.

“Huh?” She looked as helpless as a lost child as her eyes wobbled slowly to look at me. She’d been sitting on the deck this whole time, trembling. Through the tears in her eyes, she stared at me.

“Could you bring me that bandage?” I requested.

“Me?” she asked after a pause.

“Yes. Give me a hand.” She just sat there, dumbfounded, so I continued explaining. “I want to save Klaus... Please.”

She appeared shocked for a moment, but then said, “Okay.” Flora wiped away the tears that’d streaked across her face and then reached for the bandage. Although she was unsteady on her feet, she tottered her way over to us.

Sorry about earlier, I apologized in my head. I was weak, and because of that, I tried to pin all the blame on you. I tried to twist the truth to suit my needs so that I could protect myself from emotional damage, even though I bear a share of the responsibility.

After dragging Klaus abroad and mixing him up in my own selfish plans, I don’t deserve to weep here like I’m the victim.

“After you’ve closed the wound, make sure he stays warm,” Wolf instructed.

“Understood,” I replied.

To warm Klaus up, I dipped some towels into hot water before placing them on his body. Wolf kept an eye on our progress, even though he was busy mixing up batches of medicine. Each time I finished one task, he’d poke his head over at just the right time to tell me what to do next.

And so, I carried on, wiping the sweat from my brow with the back of my hand. After doing this, I noticed a dark-brown liquid sticking to my wet fingers. At first, I thought that the liquid was blood, but the smell was different. However, I was too busy to investigate what it was, and the mystery substance vanished into the back of my mind.