Maelstrom - Chapter 5

Zelia was just the same as ever after so long. Still quiet, still beautiful.

Barbara stood on the deck blankly watching the children clustered together around the harbor, peering down into the transparent sea and bursting into cheerful laughter, when Ernest approached her.

“Are you going to wait here?”

“You’re not even going to ask me to come with you?”

Ernest showed an uncomfortable smile at Barbara answering his question with another question.

Even if she pretended otherwise, she had a stubborn streak.

“Looks like you really want to strip away every last one of my secrets.”

“You can’t carelessly leak navy information to outsiders.”

Even when Barbara mocked him using the very same words he’d said a few days ago, Ernest’s expression didn’t change in the slightest.

Barbara gave a small scoff at that face and turned her head away.

She knew that without the navy’s intelligence network, she’d never find those hateful bastards. All she knew was the distinctive markings of their flag. She didn’t know the pirate crew’s name or their main area of activity, so there was no denying how desperately she needed the navy’s information.

That was precisely why she’d asked him to help with her revenge.

“I’ll be back soon, so don’t sulk, my love.”

He lifted Barbara’s long wavy hair and kissed her gently as though soothing her.

“Then hurry up and go before I leave you behind.”

“I can chase you to the ends of the earth, but I’m good at listening to what you say.”

Ernest stared at Barbara’s stiff expression for a moment before turning away.

After stepping off the Angelos and immediately entering the narrow winding alleyways, Ernest headed for an old antique shop.

“Welcome…! Y-Your Excellency! You didn’t even tell me you were coming…!”

The moment the clear ringing of the doorbell sounded, Diego, who had turned toward the entrance, jumped in shock and hurried over to Ernest.

Ernest slowly looked around the shabby antique shop before glancing at Diego, who trailed off nervously in front of him.

“It’s still filthy. Why don’t you clean once in a while?”

The shop he was visiting again after so long was disgustingly dirty. Dust lay thick over the items, and spiderwebs stretched everywhere like nets.

“That’s part of an antique shop’s charm….”

“I can see exactly why your gut keeps getting bigger by the day.”

Blaming Diego’s laziness for doing nothing but eating, Ernest walked deeper into the shop. Just as Barbara had guessed, Ernest did have an informant in Zelia.

That informant was Diego, waddling along with his protruding belly. He could’ve gone to the navy lighthouse instead, but Ernest usually came to Zelia. Not because the lighthouse agents were incompetent, but because when it came to pirates, Diego was one step ahead of them.

Naturally so. Diego was the kind of man who had even shoved his own son into the middle of those bastards to gather information on them.

All to wipe out every last pirate who had killed his wife.

Though only the smaller fry, of course.

“It’s fortunate. We just got some excellent tea in.”

Deep inside the shop, the cramped space barely large enough to fit a small table was packed full of the information Diego had gathered.

Ernest briefly looked over the papers scattered everywhere before accepting the teacup Diego handed him.

“Are you setting out again?”

“Not this time.”

“Then…?”

Ernest leisurely took a sip of tea. Diego claimed it was good tea, and the fragrance spreading through his mouth was indeed decent. Though it still couldn’t compare to the cold tea he drank with Barbara every morning.

“Someone asked me to help with revenge.”

“So the target of that revenge is pirates.”

Diego could still vividly remember the sight from years ago, when he had rushed all the way to naval headquarters clutching a thick stack of papers, his face red as he shouted for them to let him meet Admiral Farrell. The sight of him clinging to Ernest’s pant leg and crying as he begged him to capture those vicious bastards who had abandoned their humanity in exchange for pirate information had struck Ernest deeply enough that their connection had continued to this day.

Because Ernest understood hatred toward pirates better than anyone, he would never turn away from Barbara’s feelings.

“I don’t know the pirates’ name. I only know a few distinctive traits. Is that enough to identify them?”

“If you know the flag, it’s possible.”

“What about appearances?”

“Well, honestly, they all look pretty much the same….”

“I can imagine.”

Those filthy faces were all equally grimy.

Unless there was an enormous bounty on their heads, the reality was that nobody could tell who was who.

“I heard their symbol is two long sword hilts crossing each other.”

“Just a moment.”

Diego lifted a small box from the floor and pulled out a palm-sized notebook.

He carefully examined the pages one by one before finally seeming to find what he was looking for, then lifted his head to look at Ernest.

“I think it’s the Skeleton Pirates.”

“What terrible naming sense.”

Clicking his tongue at the painfully cliché pirate crew name, Ernest asked, “So you don’t know where they are now?”

Diego’s son, who had joined a major pirate crew famous enough for anyone to recognize by name, settled on Thalassa Island after Ernest dismantled the organization. From there, he gathered pirate information and sent it back to his father.

Every trivial detail. Like which merchant company some pirate crew had robbed this time, where they had come from, and so on.

And all of that information flowed directly into Ernest’s hands.

“I don’t know. But I hear they stop by Thalassa Island regularly, so if you want to find them, it’d be best to go there.”

“Hmm.”

Thalassa Island… the island known as Pirate Island, a place belonging solely to pirates.

Ernest tapped the table lightly as if deep in thought.

There was a reason he knowingly allowed Thalassa Island to continue existing. The reason a lowborn mercenary like him had been able to rise all the way to the position of admiral was because of pirates.

It was only possible because he had slaughtered pirates using his own trait of “immortality.” At the time, the navy’s strength had been weak, and they had pulled the sudden hero who appeared into their ranks. It was a strategy to maintain their position as rulers of the sea.

But if all the pirates disappeared in that situation, what would happen? There would no longer be any place left for him.

No matter how much they had brought him to their side, his origins were different from the other admirals, who had all been nobles.

“Your face is already well known, Your Excellency, so it would be better if you disguised yourself. Ah, unless you’re planning to wipe them all out this time….”

“No. It’d be better to hide myself.”

Well, considering marriage with Barbara, retiring after cleaning up the seas this time wouldn’t be such a bad idea either. But this had its own kind of fun too.

Marriage with Barbara….

If a pure white veil fluttered in the sea breeze while Barbara walked toward him in a wedding dress….

Fuck!

Just imagining it made his cock spring upright while the slit of his urethra twitched.

“Your Excellency, may I ask who it is that wants revenge?”

Ernest, who had been imagining his wedding with Barbara while covering his twitching lips with one hand, straightened his posture at Diego’s question.

With the most serious expression he had ever worn, he began describing Barbara.

“She’s a beautiful woman.”

“E-Excuse me? A-A woman….”

“You’ve never seen a woman like her before. She’s truly dazzling.”

“Ah…. So Your Excellency has finally found a match….”

“Listen, Diego. Whenever that rose-colored hair of hers flutters like this, this seductive scent drifts from it, and it drives people insane. And that delicate little face of hers. I was genuinely shocked the first time I saw her. I mean, it was like a doll had come walking around on its own!”

The calm expression on his face instantly flushed red as excited words started pouring out.

“Oh, so there really was someone like that….”

Ernest didn’t even listen to Diego’s response and kept rambling like rapid fire.

“I’d heard so many times people saying that she’s insanely beautiful despite having a personality like a rabid dog, but I never expected it to be that extreme. Well, actually, I’d already been interested in her before we first met. You know how difficult it is for a woman to run such a massive trading company alone….”

Diego, who had never once seen the admiral talk this long or this much before, listened with interest at first, but eventually, as Ernest showed no signs of stopping, he could no longer even respond and simply stared blankly like a mute fool.

Since meeting the admiral, this was the first time Diego had ever spent such a long stretch of time with him. The endless bragging about his woman finally stopped only because Ernest seemed to suddenly remember something he’d forgotten.

“Come to think of it, there’s one more bastard. Since I’m heading to Thalassa anyway, it’d probably be better to ask your son about him.”

“My son definitely knows more than I do.”

“That’s fortunate.”

Ernest gave a rough nod before immediately rising from his seat without hesitation.

“You’re leaving already?”

“I have to. She’ll be waiting for me.”

Receiving Diego’s excessive send-off, Ernest headed toward where the Angelos was docked, like a dog wagging its tail.