Sea Monster Stew Chapter 53

 

‘Uh, well, you see… We found her collapsed on the beach by chance…’

‘Lie to me one more time and I’ll throw you into the sea.’

 

‘I’m sorry. She’s a woman entrusted to us by Admiral Kisa.’

 

She remembered the day she woke up in the middle of that stormy sea. 

 

She had overheard a conversation between a woman named ‘Camilla’ and a young man in the infirmary.

Camilla had insisted that Admiral Kisa had entrusted Biche to that ship. 

 

Biche tilted her head, staring intently at Kisa’s portrait in the article.

This person entrusted me to that ship? What does that even mean? It’s not like we had any particular connection.

‘The only “connection” was… we happened to pass each other in the hallway, I was startled by that vicious face and fainted… that was it.’

 

As she read further into the article, she learned an unexpected fact. 

 

The appearance of ‘Live-Skinner Kisa’ known to the world was the giant’s hide he used to conceal his true form.

The article detailed how the real Kisa had hidden this beautiful face inside that vicious hide.

 

‘So the face that made me faint was a fake? But why does this one feel so… familiar…’

Biche stared blankly at the portrait of Kisa’s real face. It was strange. He was clearly a stranger. 

 

Yet the man’s face in the portrait felt oddly familiar. Looking at him made her chest churn unpleasantly.

‘Weird. Clearly… I’ve never seen him before…’

 

Biche glared at Kisa’s portrait, then roughly crumpled the newspaper and threw it aside. 

 

Only her shallow breaths remained on the table.

 

* * *

 

The salty sea breeze seeped over the prison island’s walls. 

 

The faint voices and clanging of bars from beyond the iron door deepened the sense of isolation.

Kisa lay stretched out on the solitary cell’s steel bed, staring at the stone ceiling. 

 

Suddenly finding his own state ridiculous, he let out a soft, derisive laugh.

 

The heavy magic-suppressing manacles on his wrists, his shortly cropped hair, the prisoner number branded on the back of his neck—he certainly looked the part of a solitary confinement inmate. 

 

Who would see him as an Admiral of the Crocus pirate fleet that once ruled the seas?

Though he looked like a sorry sight, his physical strength still overflowed. 

 

In fact, it was so full to bursting it was hard for even him to control, which was the problem.

 

“Hey, Live-Skinner Kisa. Get up.”

As usual, two guards opened his cell door this morning. 

 

Kisa, wearing only his prisoner’s pants as always, was dragged out into the damp corridor. 

 

The manacles painfully squeezed his wrist bones, but he walked with a nonchalant expression.

“You’re lasting longer than I thought,” one guard taunted, following behind him. “I bet my money on you not lasting a month. Pretty boys like you tend to become targets.”

“Who knows? Maybe I’m already handing them out to the other prisoners,” the other replied.

 

Kisa listened to the guards’ sneering conversation, clenching his jaw. Long-suppressed anger surged up uncontrollably.

He knew they were saying it deliberately to provoke him. 

 

In the past, he would have laughed it off and brushed it aside smoothly, but as his imprisonment dragged on, he had no patience left.

Only anger moved him now.

 

“Answer me. What the hell do you get up to every night?” a guard asked, pressing the blunt end of his club against Kisa’s bare back.

Kisa glanced back at them over his shoulder. “The guards seem awfully interested in a mere prisoner’s nightlife.”

“This bastard’s mouth still runs even when he’s starved skinny,” the guard laughed, shoving Kisa forward hard with his club. 

 

“You’ll be the first to die because of that fucking tongue of yours.”

“Maybe so,” Kisa said, turning his body fully towards the guards, a slight smirk on his lips. “Since I’ll be thrown out as a spectacle in the square and won’t get a clean death anyway, I might as well run my mouth now while I can.”

“Shut up. You think you’re still some high-and-mighty Admiral?” one guard snapped, stepping close to Kisa.

 

He shoved the club against Kisa’s chest with a thud and let out a vile laugh. 

 

“You filthy pirate scum… You’ll soon end up like your captain, chopped to pieces and fed to the sharks.”

 

At the mention of Captain Hawk, the bitter smirk vanished from Kisa’s lips without a trace. 

 

He kicked the shin of the guard shoving him, forcing the man to his knees in an instant. 

 

Then, using the long chain between his manacles, he swiftly wrapped it around the guard’s neck and choked him.

“Ghk…!”

“You son of a bitch!” the other guard yelled, swinging his club.

 

Kisa easily dodged the blow, then lunged forward and bit the man’s ear. 

 

A crunching sound of flesh being chewed echoed, and the metallic taste of blood filled his mouth.

“AAAH!”

“Kill him, Kisa!”

“Choke that rat bastard!”

Inmates watching from behind the bars filled the corridor with shouts.

 

Amid the heat and cheers, Kisa gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on the guard’s neck.

 

At that moment, the iron door at the end of the passage slammed open, and more guards rushed in. 

 

Kisa glared at the oncoming guards and spat out the ear he was biting. 

 

Even then, he didn’t stop choking the other guard.

“You crazy bastard, let go now!”

 

“Damn it, my… my ear…!”

The guard whose ear was torn off scrambled to pick it up and fled down the corridor. 

 

Relentless kicks and a hail of blows from clubs rained down on Kisa’s shoulders and back.

 

“You insane bastard!”

The guards, swept up in rage and fear, beat Kisa en masse. 

 

The guard Kisa was choking with his manacles had already passed out and slumped to the floor.

Kisa didn’t cover his bleeding head. Instead, he wiped the blood from his mouth with his forearm and took the beating limply.

 

“Haha…”

His sudden, hollow laugh echoed through the corridor. 

 

The guards looked at Kisa, grinning through bloody lips, unable to hide their confusion.

 

“Is this guy completely insane…?”

 

They dragged his limp body away and threw him back into the solitary cell. 

 

The familiar silence returned with the clang of the iron door shutting.

Kisa’s shoulders shook as he laughed again. 

 

The dry, hollow sound of his laughter spread through the cell.

 

Just as he was laughing himself hoarse, a bright light suddenly flashed through his mind. 

 

The smiling face of a woman, laughing radiantly under the bright sun. Kisa’s laughter gradually subsided.

“Arco…”

Not daring to imagine how she was living now, Kisa quietly faded into the darkness.

 

‘Now that things have come to this… shall I escape and go kidnap her?’

Like a true pirate, and cruelly. Forget about a noble lady’s brilliant future. Why not drag her back into the hell that surrounds him once more?

As his thoughts reached that point, a direction finally appeared in his life, which had been aimless since losing his Godfather.

Kisa reached out a bloodied hand and clutched at the emptiness. He wanted to grasp her longed-for warmth once more.

“Yeah. A pirate should live like a pirate…”

Kisa slowly opened his eyes. Outside the firmly shut iron door, he could hear the guards changing shifts.

‘First, I need to make contact with the surviving Admirals. I especially need the help of Admiral Moose, whose magical skills far surpass mine. Maybe I can wait for the guards to let their guard down and send a signal to my old comrades.’

 

But before his planning could even finish, his conscience weighed heavily on his shoulders. 

 

Biche was someone who should never be dragged into his world.

 

A precious person who should live in the warm embrace of family. Everything about her was incompatible with the likes of a pirate.

‘Arco is different from someone like me. She’s cleaner, brighter… and should live in a safe place.’

 

But even so, he still wanted to keep her by his side. 

 

Desire and conscience clashed incessantly.

 

Amid his warring thoughts, he closed his eyes again and pressed his hot eyelids hard with his forearm.

 

“Why do these remnant bastards keep getting more and more vicious?” the faint sound of guards grumbling came from beyond the iron door.

“They’re guys who’ll soon be dragged to the execution grounds. It’s their last desperate struggle.”

“There’s some crazy woman causing trouble in the women’s prison block too. Was her name Mus or Muth…?”

“It’s ‘Moose.’ Admiral Moose, from Whecoca.”

Like the woodpeckers they were, they were busy drumming on his eardrums with their inane chatter the moment they had a spare second.

‘Chatting away peacefully even while your comrade’s ear got torn off? You useless bastards.’

 

He clicked his tongue briefly and was about to try to sleep when a familiar name unexpectedly struck his eardrum.

“The reason they’re making their last stand is probably because of Hildert.”