What do men dream of?
Roel couldn’t really speak on behalf of others, but to him, there were two greatest romances he had.
Whopping big cannons and huge ass warships!
Whenever he played military strategy games in his previous life, he had a tendency to blindly expand his army with as much firepower as possible, so that he could obliterate his enemies. There was an overwhelming rush of elation whenever he took it right to his enemies’ faces. He had never thought that he would get to experience it in person.
“Woohoo! We got ‘em!”
The deafening cheers from the crowd were like a matchstick that had set alight the dreams Roel carried buried in the depths of his heart from his previous life.
Just as I thought, all cannons need to be huge!
-Devout Cannon Cult Believer Roel
Infected by the contagious merry atmosphere, Roel joined in the crowd and cheered loudly too. Seeing this, Captain Jeff burst out in laughter. He was familiar with this response—every young man who had witnessed the concentrated firepower of the Golden Fleet would usually reveal such fervent excitement. In fact, there were even a few who would reverently stroke the thick cannon barrel at the ship’s bow.
The octopus-like sea monster had been vaporized under the concentrated firepower of the Golden Fleet, and this attack effectively changed the trajectory of the battle. Without the sea monster’s support, the remaining Scalemen were no longer able to threaten the Golden Fleet anymore. Left with no choice, they could only dive back into the sea in hurried retreat.
Seeing this, the crewmates all heaved deep sighs of relief. The joy of overcoming a dire situation made everyone lose control of their emotions; there were some who started laughing uncontrollably, and there were also some who broke down in tears. It all made for a ridiculous scene.
Roel was feeling quite agitated too, but he didn’t forget his own companion, who made sure to cover his back throughout the battle. So, he gathered whatever energy he had left and dragged himself toward the Control Room, where he saw Charlotte resting against the rudder.
“Charlotte, you really are a genius!”
In his feverish state, Roel rushed right up to the auburn-haired girl and gave her a tight hug. He was too excited to pay any heed to propriety, and his actions were driven entirely by instincts. Charlotte, on the other hand, was caught off guard from the sudden intimacy and became flustered.
“W-what are you doing? Let me go!”
Charlotte was exhausted from having expended her mana, but being wrapped up in Roel’s embrace caused her temperature to skyrocket once more. Her face quickly grew red, and she began hammering on Roel’s back. Unfortunately, her weak protest was hardly enough to wake Roel from his overexcited state. In fact, it wasn’t even enough to catch his notice at all.
Meanwhile, Roel had turned his attention to his System Interface.
【Evaluation: Average (56)】
Indeed, the kills made by my comrades also add to my evaluation!
Roel was excited to see how his evaluation rose to 56 points after a single fight. In his previous Witness State, he had to make a move himself in order to raise his evaluation. He wasn’t so privileged as to have an entire army on his side. It sure was great to have allies!
Thinking about it, it could be because this was a significant battle between humans and a foreign race, which was why he received such a huge reward for leading the counterattack.
“Y-you’re too close!”
“Ah, my apologies.”
A weak protest sounded from Charlotte, and Roel finally snapped out of his daze to free Charlotte from his arms. The sudden parting after such intimacy left an air of awkwardness between them. Blushing furiously, Charlotte crossed her arms and glared at him with slightly teary eyes.
“You insensitive man! Fool! Unbelievable!”
“I-I’m sorry. I got a little too excited after seeing your skills at firing the cannon…” replied Roel in embarrassment.
At the same time, a seed of doubt in his heart was swiftly growing. He couldn’t understand how Charlotte was able to learn how to pilot this humongous warship within such a short period of time.
However, he wasn’t given the chance to ponder on this as another crisis cropped up then.
“Oh, is that so… Did you think that I hadn’t noticed what you did? You must have been really worried that I would fail that you charged out all by yourself, hm?”
“Ah. Hahaha… Well, that is…”
Guilty as charged, Roel averted his eyes as he tried to laugh the matter off awkwardly, but that only made Charlotte’s glare even sharper.
However, when she thought about how Roel, shrouded in crimson lightning, led the ship’s crew on a charge straight into the heart of the Scalemen’s formations, she found a certain sensation rippling in her heart, leaving her discomposed. All this while, she had known Roel to be a scholarly academic, and this was the first time she was seeing him in a fight. For a moment there, she actually saw the shadow of a hero in him.
Despite the wealth of worldly experience she had accrued dealing with all sorts of people, she was still at an age where she would occasionally fantasize about heroes. There was simply a sense of reassurance from having someone to fall back on during times of trouble.
Aside from that, she found herself worrying about him too.
Why is he charging right into the frontline? What if he gets hurt? What if the high-pressure water arrows hit him? Isn’t it weird that an Origin Level 5 transcendent is leading the group whereas the Origin Level 3 Captain Jeff is behind him? That doesn’t make sense at all!
Charlotte wasn’t glad to see that her companion was in the limelight; it only made her feel perturbed. This was the first time she was experiencing such emotions. She had no idea why this was the case, but it sure was challenging the limits of her heart. She never wanted to be put through something like this a second time.
“I-I was worried that the vice-captain was too injured and couldn’t last long enough to impart the techniques to you. It’s just always good to have an additional layer of insurance, right? Hahaha.”
“A bare-faced lie. I can’t be bothered with you.”
Charlotte waved her hands irritably, and the ship began following the instructions relayed through the broadcast system to retreat from the battlefield. It was only after they made a successful retreat that this battle could be considered to have finally come to an end.
Under Jeff’s orders, the remaining crew quickly got back to their positions. Roel and Charlotte stood with one another watching as the shipmates hurried about their work. The uneasy feeling lurking in the depths of Roel’s heart also finally alleviated a little.
Grandar’s absence was, to be frank, a huge blow to Roel’s confidence. That ancient giant was his strongest means, a trump card he could play when the situation was dire. So, it was inevitable that losing Grandarwould leave him feeling a little unnerved. He wasn’t too sure of the reason behind this occurrence, but he had a feeling that it could be the interference of the other ancient powerhouse residing in this world—Peytra.
Peytra was likely to be a once powerful existence who had disappeared from the face of the world a long time ago. His guess was that Peytra didn’t fancy the idea of him bringing along a powerful bodyguard for this trial, so she blocked out Grandar’s existence from this world.
However, if that was really true, wouldn’t it mean that Peytra was actually even stronger than Grandar?
Roel gave the matter some thought, and eventually, he refuted the notion.
This fragment of history he was currently in wasn’t under the jurisdiction of Grandar, which meant that the giant likely had less influence here. Even if Peytra did manage to block Grandar out of this world, she did have the field advantage, so it wouldn’t be fair to use it as a basis of comparison.
Unable to come to a conclusion, Roel decided to shake those thoughts from his mind. He was still too weak to fathom the affairs of the ancient gods. For the time being at least, he was in a safe position, and that was enough to be thankful for.
Heaving a deep sigh of relief, Roel was just about to sit down and rest awhile when a silhouette suddenly flitted over through the wind and landed on the ship’s deck, right before him and Charlotte.
It was a beauty with auburn hair dressed in a fleet admiral’s uniform. She gave off a refreshingly cool impression, which left others with good vibes about her.
However, both Roel and Charlotte widened their eyes upon seeing her. This woman was a familiar face to them—they had seen her in the first vision they had. At the same time, all of the crewmates on deck quickly bowed deeply to her too.
“Paying respects to Your Majesty!”
…
Isabella was the reigning queen of the Sofya Kingdom, as well as the admiral of the Golden Fleet. In the present human world, she was an elusive, legendary figure.
The Sofya Kingdom was located far from where most of humankind was active at the time, leaving most people with the impression that it was a ‘remote, border country’. In fact, unless one were to travel by boat, it would take several years to travel on land from the Sofya Kingdom to the southern border of the Ascart Fiefdom. Given its geographical inaccessibility to the rest of humankind, it was inevitable that most people had formed a biased point of view against them.
On top of that, the conservative faction of the Austine Empire had a grudge with the Sofyas, who had chosen to break free of the Austine Empire. They labeled the Sofya Kingdom as a group of barbarians, spreading malicious rumors about them. In fact, they often intentionally excluded them from the annals of history, as if refuting their existence.
As a result, the deceived populace were oblivious to the fact that the Sofya Kingdom, who inherited the power of the high elves and the naval technologies of the Ancient Austine Empire, had already built a prosperous society on their own.
Isabella had always advocated the opening of the Sofya Kingdom, in hopes that it could find its place amongst humankind once more. For this ambition, she had once traveled throughout all the human countries, and it was in the midst of this journey that she fell in love.
Her attitude toward foreigners reflected her ideals too. She was usually respectful and welcoming toward foreigners in hopes that they would acknowledge the Sofya Kingdom, but there was just one thing that she couldn’t tolerate—the attempted espionage of the military secrets of the Golden Fleet and the Sofya Kingdom.
The auburn-haired woman looked to be in her twenties at the moment. She had a beautiful face and shapely facial features, and she commanded the same air of nobility as Charlotte too. However, unlike Charlotte, the eyes she directed toward Roel were completely cold.
A boy who possessed powerful fighting prowess and an army buff spell, and a girl who possessed the ability to control the ships of the Golden Fleet; these two extraordinary youths had suddenly appeared on one of their ships in the middle of the open sea.
There was no way Isabella could shrug this matter off as a coincidence. There was only one more possibility she could think of here: They were plotting to steal the ship.
She had already received a brief outline of the situation from those aboard SS Saint Paul earlier, which allowed her to formulate a perspective on the chain of events.
Most likely, the mysterious organization that had been eyeing the Golden Fleet from the shadows for a long time now saw that the SS Saint Paul was in a bad position, so they decided to send these two youths in to infiltrate the ship, take advantage of the chaos, and sneak away with the ship. Unfortunately, they hadn’t expected Jeff to go so far as to attempt to self-destruct with the ship. Realizing that their plans wouldn’t work out, the two youths were left with no choice but to step forward and tide the SS Saint Paul through its crisis for their own survival.
This speculation wasn’t entirely unfounded either. The evidence lay in the accent of the youths.
Both Roel and Charlotte spoke with a different accent from those of the Sofya Kingdom. On top of that, it was swiftly made apparent that they knew hardly anything about the Sofya Kingdom at all, which greatly increased her suspicions.
“Speak, who sent you here? The Saviors Council? The Fende Brotherhood? Or… the Saints Convocation?”
When Isabella mentioned the very last name, her voice suddenly sharpened with murderous intent. Roel had no doubt that regardless of whether he said the truth or fabricated falsehoods, this queen of the Sofya Kingdom still wouldn’t let him off. Even though the two of them had saved SS Saint Paul, there was no denying that their backgrounds were rather suspicious. The safe move for Isabella to take here was to eliminate them.
In this critical moment, Roel’s brain quickly whirred into action. He raised his hand to stop Charlotte, who was on the verge of blurting out something, before stepping forward himself. He placed his fist on his chest and bowed slightly.
“Greetings, Your Majesty. I am Roel Ascart. Allow me to relay the well wishes of the Ascart House to you in place of our patriarch, Winstor Ascart.”
Comments