Chapter 34
Elisa quietly shook her head.
Her crimson hair fluttered gently in the sea breeze.
Whenever it swayed, her long, fair neck was briefly revealed.
“No, I have already received more than enough.”
“Then is it Shulid’s culture that you dislike?”
“I’ve heard that in Sepia, only one wife is officially recognized, while all the other women are merely called ‘concubines’ and treated differently from the wife.”
“If you wish, I can also promise never to take any concubines.”
“That won’t be necessary either.”
“Then what is the reason?”
“If it is neither the conditions nor the culture, I simply cannot understand why you insist on choosing Sepia over Shulid.”
“Shulid has nothing that I love.”
“Are you about to bring up Adrian Oberon again?”
The expression on Schultz Tugrahan’s face was now closer to weariness.
That was only natural.
He had long since seen through the falsehood between Elisa and Adrian.
How he alone had noticed what no one else had was beyond Elisa’s understanding.
She believed it was a warrior’s instinct.
Or perhaps it was simply the instinct of a desert predator that never released the prey it had marked.
However, Elisa had not been about to talk about Adrian Oberon.
Continuing to force an argument through authority after it had already stopped working until the other party finally yielded—that was the sort of thing a politician like the Queen would do.
But Elisa was a soldier.
A failed strategy was simply a failed strategy.
Before long, the two of them had left the quiet shoreline and approached the commercial district.
The noisy bargaining of merchants settled into their ears.
Schultz Tugrahan wrinkled his nose, apparently unfamiliar with the fishy smell drifting from the old fishing nets hanging from the ships.
Some people stole glances at the pair, whose expensive clothing clearly distinguished them from the merchants and fishermen.
Others were far too busy with their own work to notice them at all as they hurried through the narrow streets.
To Elisa, it was the most familiar scenery imaginable.
The evening sunset gradually spread over everyone there.
It was Elisa herself who had deliberately led Schultz Tugrahan here.
There was no place more effective than this for persuading him—even more effective than Adrian Oberon.
Just as Elisa was about to speak, someone called out to her loudly from the distance while running toward them.
“Admiral! Why aren’t you with the other naval officers today… Ah!”
Several sailors and merchants recognized Elisa and greeted her from afar.
However, the moment they noticed Schultz Tugrahan—who looked nothing like a citizen of Sepia—they instinctively flinched.
His massive frame seemed nearly twice the size of an ordinary Sepian.
His skin was darkened by the desert sun.
Even through his clothing, the black tattoo-like markings covering his neck and arms resembled ominous curses.
Although they found Schultz Tugrahan unfamiliar and intimidating, they could not simply leave the admiral who protected their safety.
Awkwardly, they approached.
“A-Admiral, are you on patrol?”
“You fool, the Admiral isn’t even wearing a uniform today!”
“It doesn’t look like she’s on patrol!”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“Don’t bother her.”
“Move along.”
“It’s alright.”
“Nothing unusual has happened today, has it?”
“Of course not.”
“It’s been years since pirates last raided Holden.”
“It’s all thanks to you, Admiral.”
As Elisa casually returned their greetings, she suddenly felt someone’s gaze and turned her head.
Schultz Tugrahan was looking at her with unfamiliar eyes.
Elisa’s intuition had been correct.
At this moment, she felt she could persuade Schultz Tugrahan completely.
After all, every corner touched by the footsteps of these people had been built through her own hands.
No one knew the southern villages of Roserica better than Admiral Elisa Shooter.
Whether in the past or the present, that remained true.
“I remember exactly what Roserica was like before I joined the navy.”
“I remember what the villages along this coast were like.”
“…”
“The royal family’s support for the navy was inadequate.”
“The military academy’s elite graduates avoided joining it.”
“In time, the Sepian Navy lost its pride.”
“The southern sea of Sepia became little more than prey for pirates.”
“And it was the people who had built their lives here who suffered the consequences.”
Whenever pirates came, the villages were reduced to seas of fire.
The people had done nothing wrong.
Unable to endure any longer, many abandoned the homes they loved and fled in the middle of the night.
Others, younger and braver, set sail themselves.
They declared that if the navy would not protect them, they would defend their own families and neighbors.
Several weeks later, several long, narrow trees had seemingly grown overnight upon Holden’s white beach.
When people approached, they realized those trees were actually severed heads mounted upon poles.
Several days later, a young boy disappeared.
His mother ran across the beach in tears, screaming that she could not lose her youngest son as well.
The boy had been the younger brother of one of the men whose head had been displayed on the shore.
Every day, he hated the useless Sepian Navy, who did nothing except drink rum, and Duke Roserica, who had done nothing while people died, even more than he hated the pirates.
He shouted that it was the navy and the soldiers of Sepia, who had done nothing, that had killed his brother.
He declared that he would become a pirate himself and destroy those responsible for his brother’s death before sailing away.
No one ever learned whether that boy truly became a pirate.
Nor whether his small, fragile wooden boat simply sank into the sea before he ever encountered one.
The same tragedies repeated themselves year after year.
Only the names of the refugees, the missing, and the dead changed.
The navy remained incompetent.
Duke Roserica remained uninterested in anything that did not strengthen his own power.
That was, until Elisa became Admiral of the Navy.
This time, Schultz Tugrahan found himself unable to respond.
Until this moment, while trying to take Elisa away from Adrian Oberon, Schultz Tugrahan had believed she would continue repeating, like a parrot, how deeply she loved the young Duke Oberon.
Nothing more than tedious words.
Instead, Schultz Tugrahan’s predictable expectations were completely overturned.
Elisa Shooter was neither predictable nor boring.
“I witnessed this place transform from little more than a purse for pirates, endlessly plundered, into the greatest maritime trade district in Sepia.”
“…”
“I walked beside the people who rebuilt this city after watching the little food they had managed to gather disappear and burn to ashes in a single day beneath pirate attacks.”
“I witnessed every step of that journey through the eyes of people who had long since lost hope.”
Schultz Tugrahan merely looked at Elisa with deep blue eyes resembling the unfathomable sea.
He still said nothing.
“I cannot abandon this sea merely for the position of Queen of Shulid.”
Merely.
She never actually spoke the word aloud, but her tone carried it all the same.
At that moment, Schultz Tugrahan understood more clearly than ever that Elisa truly was the sort of person who could say such words.
Standing beneath the setting sun, Elisa’s eyes burned even hotter than the evening sky itself.
No conviction could have been firmer.
People often said that the hottest core of a blazing flame was not red, but golden.
The sea.
The navy.
The peace of Roserica.
All of them had been born through Elisa Shooter’s own hands.
For someone who had never truly possessed anything in her life, they were the very first things she had ever claimed as her own.
Those things belonged entirely to Elisa.
No one could ever take them away.
Not the Queen of Sepia.
Not her father, Duke Roserica.
Not even Adrian Oberon.
Therefore, Schultz Tugrahan could do nothing either.
Only now did he finally understand.
She had been telling the truth.
The one Elisa Shooter loved had never been merely a man.
After remaining silent for a long time, he looked over the coastal town Elisa had built with his own eyes.
At the same time, he dreamed of one day constructing a trade district in Shulid equal to this one.
Since he could not take Elisa Shooter with him, that responsibility now belonged entirely to him.
Schultz Tugrahan slowly opened his mouth.
“So from the very beginning…”
“The rejection of my proposal was your own decision.”
From the very beginning, Adrian Oberon had never truly been part of what existed between Schultz Tugrahan and Admiral Shooter.
Neither Adrian Oberon, nor Queen Anne Marie, whose political skill rivaled that of an old fox, nor Schultz Tugrahan himself, who had desired her more than anyone else, had ever realized that.
Without answering, Elisa lowered her head.
The response to the first proposal had actually been the joint work of the Queen and Duke Roserica, completely disregarding Elisa’s own wishes.
Even so, had Elisa answered personally, the outcome would never have changed.
“I shall keep my promise…”
“I’m beginning to regret swearing in the name of Shulid.”
“But I won’t make you uncomfortable any longer.”
“And of course, if Admiral Shooter wishes it, I won’t trouble your fiancé anymore either.”
“I trust the promise made by the King in the name of Shulid.”
“Then let us return.”
“I understand your answer now.”
Schultz Tugrahan turned to leave.
Just then, Elisa’s somewhat urgent voice stopped him.
“There is still one more promise you made to me, isn’t there?”
Schultz Tugrahan slowly turned back toward Elisa.
“Didn’t you promise to tell me why the capital of Shulid was moved?”
“…”
“I want to hear that story.”
Elisa Shooter’s round eyes curved into crescents.
As her small crimson lips formed a gentle smile and parted slightly, her neat white teeth became visible.
Behind her stretched the sea, swallowing the setting sun.
It was dazzling.
For the first time, Schultz Tugrahan found himself reluctant to let Elisa Shooter go.
Not Admiral Shooter.
Elisa Shooter.
Not the Admiral of Sepia’s Navy.
But the woman standing before him with crimson hair fluttering in the wind, carrying within herself flames burning even hotter than the setting sun over the sea.
He wished she would hear his story.
“It’s nothing more than a pitiful tale.”
“Even so… do you still wish to hear it?”
☆▪︎▪︎▪︎☆
