Sea Monster Stew Chapter 68

“Don’t leave the captain’s quarters. No matter what you hear, don’t look outside, and don’t let anyone in. Understood?”

 

Biche tried to sit up, but Kisa shook his head and firmly pressed down on her shoulder.

“Stay put.”

“…You’ll come back safely, right?”

For a brief moment, a whirlwind of emotions passed through his eyes. But he soon nodded with a cold smile.

“I won’t die. And I have no intention of losing you again.”

After giving Biche’s lips one last brief kiss, he snatched up his left hand, which had been pushed into the corner of the bed, and hurriedly ran out of the room.

The moment he left, the pirate ship shook violently with a massive explosion. 

 

Biche screamed and tumbled off the bed onto the floor.

 

From the deck, the sounds of men’s fierce shouts, massive collisions, heavy footsteps, and the pounding of the deck being struck all mingled together.

Biche grabbed the bedpost and barely managed to pull herself up. 

 

She curled her body, tense with a fear that gripped her entire being.

‘It seems Hildert’s men are here too.’

Just the thought that Hildert was nearby shook her reason. 

 

An extreme fear painfully tightened around her heart.

 

As time passed, the noise outside grew increasingly violent. 

 

From somewhere, Kisa’s sharp, forceful commands rang out. 

 

Not even a hint of fear could be detected in his voice.

 

Instead, it carried an aura that overwhelmed all the chaos and terror.

Biche wiped the sweat from her brow and desperately waited for the commotion to subside. 

 

But no matter how long she waited, the desperate screams and explosions didn’t stop.

Then, once again, the entire ship shook violently. 

 

A premonition that everything was about to collapse made Biche jerk her head up. 

 

At that moment, the captain’s quarters door was flung open from the outside.

“Miss!”

An unfamiliar man, breathing raggedly, staggered into the room. 

 

Biche’s eyes widened as she saw the man, who had a large wound in his side.

“Who… A-are you okay?”

 

“Lord Kisa… said you must evacuate to the hold immediately…”

The man, gasping for breath, fell to his knees as if collapsing.

“Hurry… There’s no time. This ship will soon be in the Empire’s hands…”

 

He leaned on a longsword and barely managed to stand. 

 

Just then, the ship shook again, and Biche lost her balance and fell once more. 

 

The man, clutching his bleeding side, struggled over to her.

“Excuse me. There’s truly no time…”

“H-hey, you!”

He swiftly scooped her up, throwing her over his shoulder, and then ran out into the smoke-filled corridor. 

 

Outside was no different from a battlefield.

“Reload the cannons! Don’t let them get away!”

 

Kisa’s fierce shout came from somewhere. 

 

‘Don’t let them get away…? Did that mean the enemies were fleeing?’ 

 

Just as Biche lifted her head in puzzlement, a triumphant cheer erupted from the deck.

“Victory is ours!”

That booming cry was unmistakably Moose’s. 

 

Startled, Biche looked at the man. 

 

He had already removed his hand from his side wound and was now running swiftly down the corridor.

“You! You lied about Kisa sending you, didn’t you?!”

“Ah, caught me.”

A chill ran down her spine the moment she saw the man’s sneering face. 

 

For some unknown reason, Biche felt she knew who had sent this man.

 

Hildert. It was clear he had sent this spy to the captain’s quarters.

“Kisa!”

“Stay still.”

The man hastily covered her mouth as she screamed desperately. 

 

She struggled with all her might, but it was impossible to break free from the man’s strong arms. 

 

Overwhelmed with extreme fear, Biche wept, then impulsively opened her mouth and bit down hard on the man’s hand.

She bit down so fiercely that with a short, dull sound, her teeth met bone.

“Argh!”

The man screamed and threw her off. 

 

Biche spat out the blood that had flooded her mouth and barely managed to get up. 

 

But the man was faster. He had already grabbed a fistful of her hair tightly with his bleeding hand.

“You damned half-breed!”

 

So, this man was indeed Hildert’s spy. How else would he know that Biche was a mixed-blood?

“Fine. It’s not like the Master would care if a half-breed like you got hurt…”

Just as he sneered and pulled out a sharp dagger, an icy wind blew from the far end of the corridor. 

 

It was a strong gust that should have been impossible deep inside the enclosed ship.

 

Biche and the man simultaneously turned their heads towards the source of the wind. 

 

*Clatter*

 

The man’s dagger fell helplessly to the floor.

“M-Master…”

 

The man, trembling uncontrollably, released Biche’s hair. 

 

Biche, forgetting even to rub her throbbing scalp, stared blankly down the corridor.

There, pooled in an ominous darkness, stood a beautiful man, hands clasped behind his back.

 

His face held a transcendent detachment from the world, his skin glowed pale, and his two eyes burned crimson.

 

It was Hildert. He was tilting his head slightly, staring intently at Biche. 

 

But something was strange. 

 

His body was blurry, like morning mist, and his feet floated about a hand’s breadth above the floor.

 

“…I’m sure I told them to bring you to me without a single hair harmed.”

Hildert stared piercingly at Biche’s disheveled hair and muttered.

“Utterly useless.”

 

The moment he quietly raised his arm and flicked his fingers. 

 

*Splat*

 

With a loud sound, hot blood splattered all over Biche’s face. 

 

An unidentifiable bloody object fell at her feet with a sickening thud.

Biche blinked blankly and wiped her cheek. 

 

It was smeared with white flesh and blood. 

 

She shifted her trembling gaze to the man’s corpse lying at her feet.

The man’s burst head looked just like a severed piece of meat. 

 

The objects scattered at her feet were his brain and skull fragments.

Perhaps it was because she had once fainted upon seeing Kisa’s severed left hand. 

 

This time, Biche’s eyes might have been wide with terror, but she didn’t lose consciousness.

 

In truth, she felt on the verge of passing out, but she couldn’t bring herself to close her eyes.

 

She was afraid Hildert would drag her away if she fell unconscious.

“’This makes sending a spy pointless…”

Hildert slowly bent one knee, bringing himself eye-level with Biche.

“I can’t entrust you to someone who doesn’t prioritize your safety above all.”

He stared fixedly at Biche’s deathly pale face, then loosely lifted the corner of his mouth.

“So. Did you have fun running away?”

“Wh-why are you here…?”

 

“The Karabas Pirate Archipelago wasn’t enough, and now the wedding venue… This is the second time you’ve run away from me.”

His large hand slowly approached Biche’s left chest. 

 

The moment Biche flinched and pulled her body back, Hildert slowly opened his palm in front of her chest.

“I could have killed you at any time.”

Her mouth fell open the moment she saw the red heart that smoothly appeared on his palm. 

Biche stared blankly at the faintly pulsating heart and rubbed her own chest. 

 

She couldn’t feel a heartbeat.

“This, don’t tell me…?”

“It’s your heart.”

Hildeurt chuckled softly and gently clenched the hand holding the heart. Instantly, a pain shot through Biche’s chest, and she gasped for air.

 

“Ugh…!”

“’Every time I wanted to kill you, I summoned your heart, but I couldn’t bring myself to crush it.”

He whispered low into the ear of the woman now bent double.

“That would have been too quick and comfortable a death for the price of betraying me. Don’t you agree?”

His gaze slowly drifted down to the nape of Biche’s neck, where she was gasping for breath. 

 

A chilly coldness settled in his red eyes as he found the mark Kisa had left there.

“I heard that Kisa took you from my privateer ship.”

 

“Ugh… Gasp…”

 

“It suddenly occurred to me. I wondered if the gray-haired man they said seduced you was actually that Kisa…”

 

Hildert stretched his other hand towards her neck and muttered.

“And then I suddenly remembered someone. That enigmatic husband, the one who killed himself upon learning the stew he’d eaten was made from a filthy sea creature.”

 

“*Hic*… N-no…”

“I wonder, will Kisa end his own life like that enigmatic husband? Or will he take yours?”

His hand passed straight through Biche’s pale neck. 

 

He scanned the mark Kisa had left on her nape with his eyes and let out a soft chuckle.

 

“He probably can’t forgive himself for having taken a sea creature he so despises, nor can he forgive you.”

“No, Kisa would…”

“Kisa? Do you really think he would still want you if he knew your true nature?”

Hildert clicked his tongue briefly and straightened up. 

 

The heart he had been clutching in his hand had vanished. 

 

Biche felt the pounding of her heart and struggled to exhale a labored breath.