188 I die, you die, let’s die together
It may not be anymore. No, no.
My fingers, desperately scraping at the water, had lost their strength, and my broken leg no longer felt numb. My whole body is just heavy.
ok, stop now No more struggling…
The happiest time in my life at the age of 16 was the three years I spent on a ship. But that too is over. Really tired. The water-soaked skin became heavy.
Water rushes in through the open mouth. The air escaped and rose bubbling upwards. It seems that the body is crushed by the water.
The sea water is bitter and salty as if you are thirsty. Gulk gulk gulk gulk gulk gulk gulk gulk gulk gulk gulk gulk gulk gulk gulk gulk gulk gulk gulk, eating the water and spitting it out again, the toothed mouse slowly sank into the water.
Suddenly, the tired eyes brightened slightly. When I strained my eyes, a faint light came in. Something sparkles through the black water.
‘…Spirit…?’
Oh, that’s good. I heard that if a sailor dies by drowning, he will be trapped in the cold sea. There is only one way to get out of there, and the spirits come to meet you.
‘…thank you.’
The light stretched out and wrapped around his body. Pushing the heavy water, the body is dragged by the spirit. Up, up, the toothy mouse is led by a spirit into the kingdom of God.
I thought so.
***
[master! master! Jumbo picked up people!]
Maybe I heard something strange.
I looked up and saw Jumbo flying with something on his back.
It lifts its long nose and holds it tightly.
“…Jumbo.”
What have you been picking up?
It might be a corpse if you see it limp and not moving. It got kind of terrible.
[It was in the sea! Jumbo found it, so it’s Jumbo. huh? Is this jumbo? huh? huh? master. Jumbo please.]
shouted Jumbo spinning overhead.
[Jumbo, can I play with you when I’m bored? Can I play?]
“Put it down here first. People are not things, Jumbo.”
[But Jumbo found it. Jumbo found it. Master, Jumbo wants to be with this person. I want to take you.]
Jumbo was flying in circles, bobbing up and down, but the person riding on his back did not budge. What if it’s a corpse? I was very worried that Jumbo might have brought in a human body.
ah!
Rudy opened his mouth the moment Jumbo took form to come down.
“Dragon, don’t let Jumbo run into our boat.”
The hidden dragon’s tail suddenly appeared and wrapped around Jumbo’s body.
[Queuck!]
Jumbo screams and shakes his nose. Because of that, the body of the person sitting on top of it flowed to the side.
The dragon received the human body with both hands, as that was the purpose from the beginning.
With Jumbo wrapped around its tail, the dragon slowly descended.
[No need to worry. Stay alive. It’s a male kid.]
The dragon leaned forward in the air and held out an arm.
A nearby soldier ran over and took the person.
was still a child I must have been in my mid-teens. However, the body is smaller than the age that can be guessed from the face.
The child was dry, as if made of thin twigs glued together. One ankle is bent in a strange shape.
“My God! Call the surgeon.”
After giving orders to the soldiers, Rudy held out his hand toward the child. The dragon said it was alive, but the child’s skin had a blue aura all over it.
Are you really alive?
Rudy put his hand around the limp child’s neck. cold. When I put my finger on it for a moment, I felt a faint pulse. thank god.
But I will die like this. Even though the season is summer, it seems that I have been in the sea for too long.
An army doctor came and checked the child’s condition.
“Will you survive?”
The military doctor lowered his head and spoke softly.
“Sorry, Your Majesty. I don’t know yet. I’m too dry to see if I’ve eaten anything.”
“…”
“But this child is a sailor. He is stronger than a common land man. He will survive.”
As if to supplement the words of the military surgeon, the captain next to him spoke.
“Because a sailor’s life is tough.”
Rudy’s gaze moved to the child’s leg.
There were marks on the broken child’s ankles that looked like chains.
Rudy looked at it and said in a low voice.
“Take good care of it.”
“Yes, Your Majesty. Don’t worry. Sailors value those who are rescued from the sea. If you’re lucky enough to be found on a ship in the open sea, you’re a person with the protection of a spirit who can survive on any ship.”
The Surgeon saw Jumbo and Dragon floating in the air.
“How much more, isn’t it the child brought by the Spirit?”
It was the moment the military surgeon said so.
The child’s closed eyelids twitched and his mouth moved. A foreign language Rudy had never heard flowed from his blue lips.
“…Spirit…sama…”
***
The warm energy touches the heavy skin.
Is it God’s country? Did you finally get there?
A bright light spilled over the eyelids of the toothy mouse thinking so.
Something kept whispering to him.
[Boy kid, wake up. The master wants your life…Little boy, wake up…Don’t die in front of the master…The death of a child eats away at the owner’s heart…Rise up, child.]
Voices were constantly flowing through my head. I don’t know if it’s really a voice. But it felt like he was saying that.
whisper to him over and over again Wake up, live, he said.
Along with the sound, a little tingle flowed through her body. body warmed up It feels like floating around.
The toothed mouse strained its eyes. A voice keeps telling me to wake up. There was no doubt that it was the spirit’s voice. If it was the spirit’s order, I thought I should follow it.
When he opened his eyes, a beautiful man was looking at him. He had hair the same color as the deep night sea.
this is the person
I knew it the moment I saw it.
The owner that the voice in my head spoke faintly was this man. Maybe this dark-haired man is also a spirit. The pouring light bounced off the black hair surface.
“…Spirit…sama…”
After saying that, I really feel like a spirit. There would be no water left in the body that had not eaten water for several days. Still, tears welled up.
“…Spirit…”
When I said that again, the black-haired spirit smiled. Tears rolled down, and through my blurred vision, I saw the Spirit reaching out. The Spirit gently stroked her wet hair.
“You worked hard. There’s nothing to worry about now.”
It was his native language. Why is Spirit-sama speaking in the language of a human country? I thought about it as my head slowly turned, and after a while I realized that there was someone else looking at him besides the black-haired spirit.
Uh, isn’t this the land of the spirits? Didn’t you enter the kingdom of God?
It was only after thinking that that he realized that he was on a boat. It was only then that I felt the familiar rocking of the ship.
‘Then the black-haired spirit.’
I woke up. he is the emperor of the kingdom This is the Imperial Ship. He sailed to a distant continent and was enslaved by Arubaso, who was about to invade the empire. But I jumped into the sea, and maybe I came here with the help of a spirit.
The emperor got up and the soldiers grabbed him to take him away.
no. no. have to say
If the spirit brought him here, he must mean to say what he knows.
He must have been alive for the sake of the Emperor who commanded the creatures of light, which he had heard rumors about.
“…run…run away. Emperor, run away. There are cannons…lots of cannons on the gun deck…lots of gunpowder…every barrel…”
The face of the emperor, who was looking elsewhere, turned to the toothed mouse.
The power went into the hand that couldn’t even lift a finger. The Tooth Mouse raised its arm. You shouldn’t just go. I have to tell the Emperor.
Please hear me out. please run away There are cannons and gunpowder on that ship. It’s full.
Thoughts went round and round in my head. And at some point, my mouth exploded.
“…We have to run away. There are big cannons at each port. There are barrels full of gunpowder in the middle of the gun deck… There are over a hundred barrels, but there are more gunpowder under the ship… Gunpowder is also on the lower gun deck. There is…it explodes with a bang. If you light it, it burns tremendously.
While speaking in one breath, the emperor came near and took his hand.
“Yes, I see. Thank you.”
The emperor speaks softly in the language of the rats.
Is it a friendly voice that I haven’t heard in a while? Tears suddenly poured out.
all dead
The strict but fair captain, the carpenter who always smiled cheerfully, and the captain who only had a stern face died. All the seniors who bullied him died.
Some were thrown into the sea as soon as they boarded the ship, while others died while working.
It was sunk into the water without a small stick to stick it in for the spirit to find.
No matter how vicious they are, they tie a stick to the body of the corpse to greet the spirit, but they threw it into the sea without even that.
In this way, bodies and souls that have fallen into the water will not be found by the spirits and will be trapped in the sea forever.
If there are no things from the ground, the spirits can’t find people. None of them will be able to get out from under the cold sea.
[When you get on the boat, everyone is a family.]
The words of the senior who said that broke and floated like sea water in my head.
The Tooth Mouse cried and cried.
“…There is a string in the captain’s quarters. There is a long line under the ship that goes to the gunpowder chamber, and if you light it, the string will burn straight into the powder chamber and the ship will explode. Run away.”
Tooth mice don’t know what they’re talking about. I could understand simple words such as come, go, die, etc., but I couldn’t understand the other Arubaso words at all.
But the boatswain, who was working as a slave, was a smart man. I was able to listen to them and learn to understand them.
Before his death, the captain overheard the words of Arubaso’s captain and helmsman, who thought that the savages would not understand them.
“That ship is said to be a weapon that will die with the enemy. They said that when the last moment comes, it will kill all the enemies. It was made that way from the beginning.”
An even prettier smile appeared on the emperor’s face, which had been smiling softly. It looks completely different from the sun, but I thought it was like the sun.
“Seriously, if I hadn’t listened to you, I would have been in trouble. Thank you. But stop resting now. If you talk too much, you’ll put a strain on your body.”
The emperor’s hand covered the toothed mouse’s eyes.
I was suddenly tired. I was so tired that I couldn’t understand how I had kept my eyes open until now.
eyes are heavy Her entire body was so heavy that she did not know how her lips, fingers, and even breathing were possible.
The emperor’s voice entered my ears like a lullaby. Ai, precious, I know a few words, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. The emperor was saying something in the imperial language.
***
“This child is our benefactor. Treat him with respect. Never kill him.”
At Rudy’s words, the surgeon lowered his head.
“Anyway, they’re vicious guys.”
Levin muttered beside him.
“I think it’s a trap because there are a lot of hand-to-hand combat in naval battles. Is it that the enemy will die with them when they board the ship?
Levin tilted his head.
“But is gunpowder that powerful? Enough that the ship sinks before the enemy has time to escape? I’ve heard that they use it to shoot cannons and guns, but I don’t know what it is.”
A cold smile crept across Rudy’s face.
Levin, who did not know what gunpowder was, could not have predicted anything more than that. However, if a ship with hundreds or thousands of barrels of gunpowder explodes, that is not enough.
“If the child says it, the moment that ship explodes, all nearby ships will be involved. That child is truly a lifesaver.”
“…”
Levin looked at Rudy quietly. Shrug your shoulders and mumble.
“Sometimes, it seems that His Majesty sees through a principle that we do not know. I know that His Majesty made demonic creatures, but there are times when I wonder if they are really messengers of God.”
Levin’s voice fell.
“Really…I sometimes think that Your Majesty is the Son of God.”
No, let’s put another doubt there first. Being reincarnated, having precognitive dreams, witch’s abilities, things like that.
Seeing Levin, who looked serious unlike usual, Rudy smirked.
“Levin, you know best that I am an ordinary human being, having spent my childhood with you.”
Levin looked at Rudy with a little astonishment.
“I’m thinking this because I saw Your Majesty when he was young.”
“…”
why?
I tried really hard to look normal. Was all that effort really in vain?
The captain, who was watching the exchange between the two, laughed silently.
