North x Northwest

Lil quietly opened the door and checked for people outside the cabin. As the pirates were still gathered on the upper deck, there was no one coming or going on their side of the ship. Just as in the navy, when punishment was given, all crew members were gathered on the upper deck to witness. Lil considered the execution form of the western pirates to be of a similar kind.

It was advantageous for those who wanted to move into the shadows.

Lil swept back her hair that had been falling in front of her face for the umpteenth time. She wanted to tie her hair, to prevent it from happening again. She searched in between the hammocks, which were stretched like a dense jungle and eventually found a string-like object she could tie her locks with. After, she raised her head towards the wooden ceiling, listening to the turmoil on deck. No voices were heard, only the thumping sound of several feet was vibrating through the ship. Lil squatted on one side of the cabin and carefully opened one of the gunports. This allowed her to check outside the hull. A couple of small boats were roaming the surface of the water, seeing pirates armed with guns, she concluded they were probably in the middle of a search operation.

She quietly closed the port and looked around.

‘Since there are gun ports, I assume this deck was originally for the cannons. However, it’s currently used as a living space, my guess is that this is a captured merchant ship, converted into a battleship. If so, the water tank could be in the bottom deck storage or on the main deck… It would be better if I could find some around here, instead of having to go down.’

Lil moved as stealthy as possible, wary of the possibility that someone might be sleeping in the dense hammocks. She approached a table and shoved the slices of bread spread out on a plate in her mouth. It has been less than a day since the ship set out to sail, so the bread’s texture wasn’t bad yet. Funny thing was, no matter how long she lived on a ship and especially as a captain, she never had to eat the scraps from a discarded plate before. But this was obviously not the time to complain about it.

‘I only have one body, so I need to restore my stamina.’

Whenever Lil caught her eyes on a piece of leftover meat, she picked it up and ate it while keeping an eye out for a bucket of water.

‘If they have celebrated so extravagantly that they would leave behind unsalted meat, a bucket of water would definitely be there.’

In the meantime, her busy hands quickly picked up a hat, a sword, various daggers, and a wide vest that hung around like laundry. With her body exposed, it was difficult to hide the fact that she was a woman. Her face was now somehow covered with the hat, but her chest, which stood out the most, was clearly not.

‘It would be great to have some sort of bandage to put the pressure on, but there would be no such thing as linen-like fabric on a sloppy pirate ship like this one.’

Eventually, she cut a sack that was full of equipment into strips and tied her chest.

‘Ed might be out of his mind right now, and it seems he didn’t notice because we had a brawl as soon as we climbed out of the water, but it would be dangerous to stay close to him in this state.’

She paused, wondering if he already knew. She was sceptical for a moment, but then Lil shook her head.

‘If he had noticed, he wouldn’t have called me Captain. It would have been a normal reaction to ask who I was the moment I came up to the stern and met him. But he didn’t… Cesar is the only person who has seen the necklace coming on and off, so it’s difficult to guess the reaction of others. That madam in the dressing room looked like me as she had just seen someone similar…’

Lil could not readily answer how Ed saw her with such a scant precedent. Also, it wasn’t realistic to compare Ed with Cesar.

‘Cesar knows me so well that he’s not surprised by my sudden shifts, but what about Ed?’

She pondered over her own question.

‘It’s hard to guess. Let’s assume Ed noticed and pretends that he doesn’t know that the man in front of him became a woman. The only way for Ed to threaten me naturally as if nothing is amiss, is if he knows about the existence of the necklace… No way…’

Lil suddenly realised something. Because of Ed’s lack of response she never thought about taking a close look at herself.

‘It’s uncomfortable to not know for sure, but if it’s just Ed, I can deal with it for a day or two. He’ll be removed the moment we return to the Bell Rock anyway, so it’s okay to forget about it for a while.’

She roamed all over the wide deck, but couldn’t find a single drop of water anywhere. Lil walked down the stairs to the deck below, one by one she passed the empty buckets. When she was about to take another flight of stairs, she pressed her hat further down in case there was a sentry. As expected, as soon as she stepped on the stairs, she heard a husky voice.

“What’s going on up there? Hey! Why are you so quiet? What…”

It was an old sentry who apparently wasn’t invited to the execution. As Lil went down a little more, a face with a pathetic straight head was looking up at her. He was guarding one of the doors and as soon as he saw her, he couldn’t hide his delight and started making a fuss.

“What happened? Did we rip them all to death?”

Lil lowered her voice.

“Yes. Didn’t you hear their screams as they were dragged to hell?”

“I can’t hear anything from here! Sheesh!”

“Such a shame.”

Lil deliberately walked in front of him. Fortunately, the lowest deck was submerged below the water surface. So even if there was a window, it could not be opened and they had no way of checking the situation outside. The sentry began muttering harsh swear words, seemingly dissatisfied with the number of people left.

“Damn it, those bastards. If I knew that we would be drinking so much, I would have changed my shift… Uh, uh… You!”

Lil quickly thrust her fist into her opponent’s chin. The opponent who was hit unexpectedly jerked backwards. Lil pulled his gun from his waist and rummaged through his vest to find his key. After the tiring process of gagging the guy and hiding his body, she stood in front of the door again. A musty smell emitted from the storage room after opening the door.

‘These guys don’t seem to be good at fumigation either.’

Lil, who kept a lantern in front of her, breathed through her mouth and scanned the stacked storage barrels. It wasn’t difficult for her to find the water storage. No matter how baseless pirates are, their essential cargo containing the first necessities is strictly separated from the rest. Lil took a small bucket of water and simply washed her face. The remaining water was poured over her body to remove all the leftover salt. Then, as she was about to leave the cabin with a full bucket of water, another storage crate caught her attention and she checked the label.

[Erimyan]

‘I was wondering why the pirates were in Marchand, turns out it was to loot Erimyan. Are they going on a long voyage? …No, who cares, this ship’s destination has nothing to do with me.’

She immediately climbed to the cabin deck and hurried back to where Ed was. Seeing him still lying like a dead body, she felt unbearably irritated.

“Hey, wake up!”

She knelt next to him and slapped him on the cheek. There was no reaction. Lil carefully studied his face and noticed some salt crystals forming on his lips. She nearly forgot, but his face, which had been indiscriminately beaten by the bald pirate, was covered with bruises and scratches. Frowning her brows, she wet her hands in the water and washed his face briefly. Still, she did not forget to prompt him.

“Get up.”

But his unconscious face only drooped to the side. Lil grabbed his chin just above his neck, squeezed his cheeks and wiggled his head left to right.

“Wake up, you weakling. You’re acting, aren’t you?”

She tugged and pinched every part of his body she touched. Then, as if having thought of something, she lifted her head and picked up the axe that wasn’t far away. She gently placed a foot on his left wrist and placed the axe’s blade on his shoulder.

“Should I cut off your arm instead?”

She looked closely at his still expressionless face. Lil, who was sceptical, swung the axe with all her might.

– Crack. –

The blade was embedded in the floor just above his shoulder. But looking at his motionless body and clear skin, it seemed that he truly had lost his consciousness.

Swallowing up her irritation, Lil opened Ed’s mouth and poured some water in.

“Hey, you better drink this up.”contemporary romance

Lil was lost in thought, looking at the stream of water flowing down Ed’s chin and neck. It was not her first time seeing a dehydrated patient, so she knew very well what to do next. She knew it so well that it kept her from doing anything. The words that she heard before ran through her head.

{ “A patient who cannot drink voluntarily can be given water by mouth.” }

‘Damn it! Mouth! Mouth! Mouth!’

Whenever the word ‘mouth’ came to mind, Lil punched him in the chest. Her eyes glared fiercely at his bluish lips.

‘I’ll rip that mouth some day.’

Lil carefully filled her mouth with water. Then, she grabbed Ed’s nose and chin tightly, and brought her lips to his mouth…

– Pwak. –

As her lips opened, water poured out. Lil, who spit out the water, gazed blankly at the stream of water flowing down Ed’s chin.

“Damn it.”

Since then, she tried various tricks. She gave small bits of water, she pressed her lips and spit it out as a small pressured stream and even let it all loose in one go. But it was all a failure.

“You’re useless even in death.”

– – – – –

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