The Undead Captain Takes No Living - Chapter 8

Chapter 8

I couldn’t make a sound.

It was as if something had blocked my throat.

Leon had grown terribly thin.

He used to always say his shoulders were broad, perfect for carrying the family business.

Now that old blue robe hung on him, hollow and loose.

Chains had been driven through his shoulder bones.

With every step he took, the chains dragged out a little black water.

My vision went dark.

“Leon.”

He heard me call him by name, and somehow he still smiled.

“Well, look at you. Finally grew a spine.”

My tears fell all at once.

“You’re still smiling?”

“What else should I do?”

He coughed.

“You’re ugly when you cry. It scares me.”

I wanted to curse him out.

But I couldn’t get a single word out.

The Red-clad Woman stood behind him, her fingers resting on the chains.

“A brother and sister reunited. How lovely.”

Cedric said coldly, “Let him go.”

The Red-clad Woman smiled. “What will you trade for him?”

I said at once, “Me.”

Leon’s expression changed.

“Shut up.”

It was the first time his face had darkened since seeing me.

“Ilya, if you dare trade yourself, I’ll die right now and show you.”

His shout stunned me.

When we were little, he’d been this fierce with me too.

When I secretly climbed onto the roof, he shouted from below.

When I went into the river to catch fish, he shouted from the bank.

When I had a fever and still wanted rock candy, he shouted while going out to buy it for me.

I sniffed.

“You’re not exactly doing great right now either.”

Leon choked for a moment.

“This is a strategic captivity.”

Gloria’s voice suddenly came from above the opera house.

“Are all of you from House Melowen this stubborn?”

I looked up.

Gloria was sprawled over a roof beam, holding a bundle of talisman ropes.

Behind her was Victor, tied up in a ridiculous tangle.

The rag that had been stuffed in Victor’s mouth was gone.

He looked awful.

“Could you hurry up with the reunion?”

The Red-clad Woman’s face turned cold.

“Who allowed you in here?”

Victor raised his hand and shot an arrow through one of the opera house lanterns.

The eye inside the lantern burst apart.

The faceless people in the audience screamed at the same time.

Gloria leaped down from the beam and flung the talisman ropes to me.

“Catch!”

I caught them and immediately cut through the red threads binding the back of my chair.

Cedric also broke free of his restraints.

He charged toward Leon.

The Red-clad Woman curled her fingers, and the chains tightened.

Leon let out a muffled grunt.

My heart clenched with him.

Victor said coldly, “Opera House Master, the Kingdom Navy is investigating smuggling in Ghost Port. Try resisting arrest.”

The Red-clad Woman looked as if she’d heard a joke.

“The Navy? Do you need me to read out how many living people your Navy sold to Ghost Port three years ago?”

Victor’s expression changed.

I looked at him.

His grip on the bow was very tight.

The Red-clad Woman kept smiling.

“Your father Auguste’s seal is still in my account room.”

Victor shot an arrow at her.

The arrow passed through the Red-clad Woman’s body and nailed itself into a pillar by the stage.

Her body scattered into a pile of red paper, then gathered again on the other side.

Cedric seized the chance to cut through one of the chains in Leon’s shoulder.

Black water sprayed out.

Leon dropped to his knees.

I rushed over to support him.

His first reaction was to push me away.

“Don’t touch me.”

I didn’t listen.

I grabbed his hand.

It was ice-cold.

But not the cold of a dead person.

He still had a little warmth left.

I cried even harder.

Leon sighed.

“Why are you still like this?”

“Like what?”

“Unable to understand human language.”

“You didn’t teach me well.”

He gave a faint laugh.

The next moment, he stuffed something into my palm.

It was a tiny Salt Crystal.

“Hold on to it.”

“What is this?”

“The last piece of Port-Sealing Salt in House Melowen.”

The moment the Red-clad Woman saw the Salt Crystal, her voice abruptly sharpened.

“Take it back!”

All the faceless audience members stood up.

Cedric shielded me from the front.

Victor flipped down from the stage, standing with him on either side to block the things surging toward us.

Gloria dragged Leon backward.

I clenched the Salt Crystal tightly.

The Salt Crystal burned hot in my palm.

Countless images that did not belong to me suddenly flooded into my mind.

I saw Father boiling salt in the backyard.

I saw Leon leaving in the middle of the night with a sack of salt on his back.

I saw Cedric standing at the bow of a ship, his chest pierced through by Ghost Port’s chains.

I also saw the bottom of the well seven years ago.

That day, after I cut open the iron chains, the water in the well suddenly surged upward.

I choked on the water and sank.

The little boy clearly couldn’t speak, but he desperately pushed me up.

I lived.

He sank.

I wasn’t the one who saved Cedric.

We each saved half of the other.

Later, he died three years ago.

And the half of my living breath I’d lost seven years ago was taken by the Ghost Ship along with him.

That was why he said I had died before.

I really had died halfway.

The Red-clad Woman lunged in front of me.

Her nails had already touched my face.

I raised the Soul-Crossing Blade.

This time, the blade did not glow red.

The Salt Crystal lit up instead.

White light exploded from my palm.

The entire opera house seemed to be overturned by a sea wind.

The faceless audience shattered into scraps of paper, piece by piece.

The Red-clad Woman screamed and retreated.

I heard Leon calling for me behind me.

I heard Cedric calling for me too.

Their voices overlapped.

But I didn’t look back.

Because within the white light, someone had taken hold of my hand.

It was a man I had never met.

He wore an old Kingdom Navy uniform, and his features looked very much like my father’s.

He said, “Lia, go to Harbor Heart.”

“There are accounts your father left behind there.”