The Undead Captain Takes No Living - Chapter 4

Chapter 4

My first reaction wasn’t fear.

It was anger.

Strange, really.

Hearing that Leon might have made it ashore, I should have been happy. At the very least, I should have been relieved.

Instead, all I felt was heat rushing straight to my head.

“So my brother isn’t dead, he isn’t missing, and he even worked on your ship?”

The Captain looked at me.

“Yes.”

“And all of you knew.”

Gloria shrank her neck in.

The Captain gave the same answer.

“Yes.”

I slapped the bronze tag against his chest.

“Then why didn’t you say so earlier?”

The tag hit the front of his coat with a dull thud.

He didn’t dodge.

He didn’t get angry either.

“Because you would have jumped into the sea.”

That shut me up.

Because I honestly couldn’t argue with that.

If he had told me at the dock that Leon might have become an undead crewman, I probably really would have jumped.

Not to die.

To climb aboard faster.

Gloria said quietly, “Your brother got on board the same way back then.”

I turned to look at her.

She immediately shut her mouth.

I asked, “Back then?”

Gloria glanced at the Captain.

He didn’t stop her.

Only then did she slowly say, “Three years ago, when Ghost Port first split open, seventy-two people died on the pier overnight. Leon came aboard carrying a sack of salt and said he could patch the port.”

I froze.

“Salt?”

“Doesn’t House Melowen sell salted fish?”

“Yes.”

The way Gloria looked at me suddenly turned a little complicated.

“Your family’s salt isn’t ordinary salt.”

I remembered how, when I was little, Father always kept the salt jar locked away.

Leon and I stole from it once, and Father dragged us around by the ears and scolded us for half the night.

Back then, I thought it was because salt was expensive.

Now that I thought about it, no matter how expensive ordinary salt was, there was no reason to hide it behind the ancestral tablets.

The Captain took the bronze tag back from my hand.

His fingertip brushed mine.

It was very cold.

I curled my fingers instinctively.

He saw it. His hand paused in midair.

Then he passed the bronze tag to Gloria.

“Keep it safe.”

Gloria took it and asked in a low voice, “Are we going to Ghost Port?”

“Yes.”

I immediately said, “I’m going too.”

The Captain looked at me.

“You stay on the ship.”

“No.”

“Ghost Port doesn’t accept the living.”

“Your ship doesn’t accept the living either.”

He fell silent.

I pointed at myself.

“Look. Didn’t I get on anyway?”

Beside us, Gloria let out a snort of laughter.

The Captain swept a faint glance at her.

Gloria instantly covered her mouth.

The Captain said, “Ghost Port is different from the ship.”

“Different how?”

“The ship has me.”

He said it very calmly.

Like it was the most ordinary fact in the world.

But I paused.

Gloria stopped laughing too.

The lamp in the corridor flickered.

He seemed to realize that his words sounded a little wrong and lowered his eyes.

“I mean, I can keep the ship’s rules suppressed.”

I made a sound of understanding.

“I didn’t say anything else.”

He went silent again.

I was starting to realize this man really didn’t take teasing well.

Or rather, he had gone too long without speaking properly to the living. He couldn’t even catch an ordinary joke.

The hull suddenly lurched violently.

A horn sounded from the deck.

Gloria’s expression changed.

“The Navy.”

I ran after them onto the deck.

Beyond the fog, a row of golden flames lit up.

A dozen warships broke through the mist, the kingdom Navy’s eagle banners hanging from their bows.

On the foremost ship stood a man in a white cloak.

He raised the longbow in his hand.

Blue fire burned at the arrowhead.

Gloria cursed.

“Victor again.”

I asked, “Who?”

The Captain stood at my side, his voice very low.

“A Navy rear admiral.”

“He specializes in killing the undead.”

Victor’s voice came through the fog.

“Ghost Ship, heed my order. Hand over the living person.”

My heart tightened.

He meant me.

The next moment, the blue-flamed arrow tore through the air.

The Captain raised his hand, and black fog gathered in his palm, forming a shield.

The arrow struck the shield and exploded into a burst of cold flame.

The force drove me backward.

Without turning around, the Captain caught my wrist with perfect accuracy.

“Stand firm.”

I looked down at his hand.

He quickly let go.

As if afraid I would mind.

Victor spoke again.

“Ilya, your brother Leon is a traitor to the kingdom and a fugitive.”

When my name came out of his mouth, every undead on the deck turned to look at me.

Victor drew his bow to its fullest.

“Come back with me, and I guarantee you won’t die.”

I was just about to speak.

The Captain suddenly stepped in front of me.

His cloak was lifted by the sea wind, revealing another bronze tag at his waist.

A name was carved on it too.

Cedric.

Victor sneered.

“Captain Lu, you can protect her for one night. Can you protect her for the rest of her life?”

Cedric didn’t answer.

He only turned his head slightly and asked me, “Do you want to leave?”

I froze.

He was really asking.

It wasn’t a test. It wasn’t a threat.

It was as if, as long as I said yes, he would steer the ship over and hand me to the people trying to capture me.

I looked at the firelight on the bow of the Navy ship.

Then I looked at the length of old Red Cord around his wrist.

Seven years ago, the little mute boy at the bottom of the well hadn’t asked me to save him.

But I had saved him anyway.

Now he was handing the choice back to me.

I tightened my grip on my small knife.

“I’m not leaving.”

Cedric looked at me.

Only briefly.

But I felt as though he had let out a breath of relief.

Victor’s third arrow shot toward us.

This time, the arrow wasn’t aimed at the ship.

It was aimed at me.

Cedric drew his blade.

A flash of steel split the blue fire apart.

Sparks fell onto the deck and burned a line of words into the planks.

Leon is in Ghost Port.

The Navy knows.