Chapter 315

Kariosa and the Knight Officers had strange expressions on their faces.

“Are you starting to understand, little by little?”

“It’s not a bad thing.”

“However, something seems… off. You were strict when I saw you in the capital.”

I shrugged my shoulders, as if to ask what the problem was.

“Kariosa. Although there is an unexpectedly big issue, the important thing right now is not the heterogeneous races.”

She glanced down at the Blue Robe Priestess for a moment before nodding.

“Yes. You’re right. What’s urgent now is stabilizing this island.”

“The Imperial Court will take care of the heterogeneous race issue. Just focus on the Eastern Continent.”

“Are you saying you want to take this mermaid?”

I pondered for a moment.

The Blue Robe Priestess looked up at me with fierce eyes.

She was extremely beautiful, and her exotic appearance and colorful tail incited a sense of possession.

Before my return, Jeilliris had caught the mermaid king in a net and had enjoyed raising the mermaid princess in a saltwater tank in the Imperial Palace.

“If you’re willing to give her up, I’d gratefully accept. But…”

The Blue Robe Priestess was not an Infiltrator.

Her goal was likely to create a massive maritime power by intertwining pirates, the Eastern Continent, mermaids, and Undersea People.

Had she succeeded, it would have posed a significant threat, but her plans shattered before they even began.

If similar events had occurred before my return, I would have died at the hands of Kariosa, who was waging a two-front war back then.

This meant she probably hadn’t become a formidable threat in the eastern sea.

I already had my own solutions for the heterogeneous race issue and, thanks to my fierce battles in the past, I had a deep understanding of their tactics, magic, weapons, and fortifications.

I didn’t need new information about mermaids.

If I took the Blue Robe Priestess, it would be meaningful for pure possession, bargaining chips, Jeilliris’ plaything, and studies on sea magic like currents.

However, sea magic would probably be more useful in Kariosa’s hands than mine, and the current Jeilliris wasn’t a war lord consumed by evil like before.

“I don’t see any particular use for me.”

Kariosa nodded.

“Then I’ll raise her. If I build a palace on this island, I ought to keep a tank next to the throne.”

The Blue Robe Priestess glared at Kariosa.

An angry voice dripped from her lips.

“…Do you think the sea belongs to you?”

Perhaps magic to modulate her voice was cast on her robe, but without it, even her furious voice was beautiful.

“You’ll sink soon enough. Your unsinkable flagship will sink like a leaf in a storm! We will return for sure. When that time comes, I’ll drag all of you land dwellers into the abyss…!”

Arins gasped and bowed his head, and the eastern knights narrowed their eyes.

Kariosa answered without a moment’s hesitation.

“Of course, it belongs to me.”

“!”

“In our family, there are two progenitors. My mother Summerlin was the true master of the sea, and my father Asenorta was someone who had the guts to venture into the sea teeming with monsters to tempt her.”

“How incredibly shameless.”

“Shameless?”

A cruel smirk danced at the corners of her mouth.

“I proved my worth with a sword at the age of 13. I am Kariosa, the White Shark of the East, a descendant of Summerlin. No one else can claim to be the master of the sea.”

Kariosa rose from her seat and approached the Blue Robe Priestess.

Step. Step. Step. Step.

With each step, the sound of military boots echoed.

A sadistic smile stretched across her lips.

I sensed what was about to happen next, and Lady Trentia coughed lightly, while the Eastern knights lowered their eyes.

Kariosa grabbed the Blue Robe Priestess by her hair and locked eyes with her.

“Ugh.”

The mermaid let out a moan, and Kariosa wiped her fingers across the mermaid’s lips.

Thud, thud.

Blood, which had dried from spitting it out, oozed out.

The Blue Robe Priestess trembled her tail, and Kariosa discreetly licked her finger.

“I was curious about what mermaid blood smells like.”

“Oh, don’t come any closer.”

“I’ll find out properly today.”

“Monster, how can you think my people will just stand by?”

“Your people? Yes, I like your people. It would be lonely with only one. I should create a large tank and raise them in groups. It wouldn’t be bad to make the audience chamber’s floor a glass tank.”

“You insane—”

“You’re the insane one. If you were in your right mind, you wouldn’t have challenged me.”

The colorful-scaled fish tail flapped, and Kariosa’s mouth gaped open, while the Blue Robe Priestess shivered with her body.

I didn’t say a word.

“Haha.”

Lady Trentia asked.

“Your Highness, is it okay to watch this?”

“Who would punish the king?”

“That’s true.”

It was the end of a long day.

* * *

The rain did not cease, and the wind did not calm.

Rumors spread faster than this bad weather, and within three days, they reached as far as the northern edge of the Nayt Archipelago.

“Kariosa has taken the allied port!”

“Hundreds of landing ships and escort ships are coming from Kethusian.”

“I’ve heard that Lord Aquila is dead. A blood royal from the capital boiled him to death!”

“There seems to be infighting among the surviving pirates.”

“This storm was raised by Kariosa to prevent anyone from leaving Nayt Archipelago. It’ll kill everyone if we stay here.”

“We need to leave immediately. The storm is going to intensify.”

“Where can we go? Everyone here is a refugee from the Eastern Continent! We might die if we go back!”

“Pack your things quickly. You’ll definitely die if you stay here!”

Mixed-blood nobility, the White Shark, the Daughter of the Storm.

Kariosa was a powerful High Noble and a source of fear among pirates and Eastern immigrants.

“Kariosa will kill us all!”

Daeran Lang, the village head from the pioneering village in the East, thought the same.

“Pack up immediately.”

“Where are you planning to go, elder?”

“I’m heading to the closest port first.”

Daeran Lang headed to the nearest port with the people from the pioneering village.

“There used to be so many ships; surely a single raft remains.”

As he expected, many ships remained at the port.

The problem was that far more people had gathered than there were ships.

“Let’s go somewhere else!”

Someone shouted.

Daeran Lang nodded, and at that moment, a woman from a nearby group screamed.

“It’s the same everywhere! We’ve come all the way down from the north and it’s still like this!”

The pioneering villagers stiffened their faces, looking at the raging sea, the boats, and the people surrounding them.

“Line up! Line!”

“We’ve been waiting since yesterday!”

“Same here. We’re filled with sick people.”

“Does anyone have any fever-reducing herbs? My child’s forehead is burning up.”

“The ships are coming back!”

“They said they can’t go out! The waves are too severe; they’ll capsize!”

“Are we just supposed to die here?”

“I risked my life to get here!”

Daeran Lang fought the urge to sit down and looked around.

‘We can’t give up.’

He saw it as an opportunity to change his life.

He knew that the White Shark Kariosa wanted this island.

He was aware that the Empire was eyeing the Three Isles and that disputes existed with the Eastern kingdoms.

Still, he thought it impossible to break through with 100,000 pirates and the fortifications completed at the port.

They had already built city walls, created villages, and even started farming; he couldn’t imagine what the Empire’s High Nobles could do.

However, that White Shark rose above the ground by changing the weather.

‘There has to be a way, there must be.’

At that moment, a group of people came running from the west.

They, too, looked disheveled, like drowned rats, and looked desperate.

“More, more are coming!”

“Ah….”

“Uh, huh?”

The difference was that they were wearing armor and armed with harpoons and swords.

“Get out of the way! We are pirates!”

“Get off the ships! Get off! We go first!”

“We’re alive! Damn! Raise the square sail and row as hard as you can. First, let’s get out of this hellish island.”

They were the remnants of pirates who had fled the allied port.

Swinging their hooks and swords, they cut through the crowds and dragged people trying to board the ships.

“Get out of the way!”

“If you don’t want to die, get lost!”

“This is our boat from now on!”

Daeran Lang saw another village head protesting to one of the pirates.

They weren’t close, but they had met once or twice.

“Isn’t this a bit too much?”

“Huh?”

What happened next felt like it was in slow motion.

The pirate quickly drew his sword and slashed the village head’s neck, causing him to fall to the ground, bleeding.

“Ahhh!”

“Village head!”

“The pirates killed a person!”

“These bastards! They said they would protect us!”

The pioneering villagers had essentially led rough lives, having nowhere to go.

Many of them were fugitives, and it was a basic skill for men of this era to know at least some swordsmanship.

The villagers raised their large scythes for harvesting crops, pitchforks, hatchets for splitting wood, and steel flails.

“This is a complete deception!”

Thud!

An axe struck the pirate’s head, and the pirate collapsed.

“Jack is dead!”

“I’ll kill these bastards!”

“Do these sea maggots dare to resist?”

The pirates drew their weapons in earnest, and the pioneering villagers swung their weapons back.

Screams erupted from all directions under the rain-soaked sky.

“Village head.”

“…Let’s go back to the village.”

Daeran Lang squeezed his eyes shut.

Tears mixed with rainwater flowed down his face.

* * *

Kariosa stayed at the mansion for a few days, organizing her army while I listened to Laurelai’s nagging in front of the fireplace.

“I told you clearly not to use the power of the old ones. Now the soul has completely changed color—.”

“That’s enough. Kariosa, I have something to say.”

The nagging was getting tiresome, but now was the right time to bring up Tarti.

It was an embarrassing and shameless request to say I needed to ask for help, begging for my life and offering to use them in the Imperial fleet.

I had no idea what to say.

Kariosa raised her eyebrows as if things were going well.

“That’s good. I have something to say too.”

“Go ahead, you’ll speak first.”

“I found the village of the noble clan from the Eastern Continent that killed my knight and trainee. I’m thinking of going there to wipe them out. Will you come with me?”

I grimaced.

What the hell.

Kariosa moved like a storm, as her nickname suggested.

“Bring them along.”

I had secured Tarti and Sayah Yan tightly and rode at the forefront on a horse mixed with seahorse blood.

Whoosh—!

On a day still filled with rain and wind.

Dozens of Eastern knights and 300 elite soldiers, more than ten battle mages followed behind us.

Tarti was loaded onto a cart drawn by oxen, and the more Kariosa pushed forward, the more he struggled.

“Ugh, ugh!”

Yet the magic tool bit and chains allowed him neither a word nor a gesture.

“We’ve arrived.”

Kariosa stretched out her hand and pointed at the village below.

Tarti’s village was near a small port on the western side of the island.

Villagers and dozens of warships in Eastern style were visible.

“They built a village right on the west to make it easier to raid and return. Damn sea maggots.”

Kariosa walked beside the cart and looked at Tarti.

“Look carefully, this is what you’ve done to me for the past several decades. It’s also what you’ve done to my family for hundreds of years.”

“Ugh, ugh!”

“I will never allow my shore to burn again. Prepare for the attack.”

The battle mages dismounted and prepared their potions.

I pondered what to say to stop Kariosa.

“…….”

Tarti twisted his body, and Sayah Yan looked at me with desperate eyes.

“……!”

At that moment, a group of humans rushed out from the village.

Thud-thud-thud.

They seemed to be men of higher status dressed in red silks.

Kariosa narrowed her eyes.

“Are they trying to escape?”

But they ran toward us and immediately bent their heads in the mud.

“Your Highness!”

Thud!

The one at the front was a warrior whom I had captured alongside Lady Trentia during the port skirmish.

“You?”

“What in the world is going on? You said you would spare us!”

Ah, this tactless bastard.

Who would reveal the bribe given in court?

I felt like hiding in a rat hole.

Kariosa looked at me with flashing gray eyes.

“Valenciaunos? What does that mean?”

Her sharp teeth glistened.

I felt cold sweat running down my back.

“That is…”

The prostrated warrior and Sayah Yan looked at me with desperate eyes, and Kariosa raised her eyebrows.

I glared at the prostrate warrior and ignited a flame.

Whoosh!

The flames leaped up in an instant, and the warrior rolled on the ground.

“Gaaaah!”

It was only slightly hotter than coffee, so he would get burned but wouldn’t die.

“How dare you try to insult me! You filthy wretch inventing lies to save your miserable life. You vile scum! Kariosa, I have a request.”

“A request?”

I glared at the Eastern warrior rolling in front of me, trying my best to appear angry.

“Hand these over to me. I’d like to use them as the Imperial Punishment Corps to make them work until they die. They would be perfect for use when we land on the Southern Continent, teeming with Infiltrators.”

Tarti and Sayah Yan widened their eyes, Lady Trentia glanced back at me, and Kariosa fell silent.

“Hah…”

After a moment, she grinned, a very, very feral smile.

“Yeah. Let them burn to the soul fighting the Infiltrators. That would be a fitting end for these sea maggots.”

It was a laugh that seemed to read my heart.