177 – PTSD
With a gesture, Sean Westland and the other three young pirates were brought forward. Rather than hiding them, Evan chuckled at the fact that they had been detained.
“Hey, you’re surprisingly cooperative. It’s quite perplexing.”
“You can take them. There won’t be any more incidents like this now.”
“You’re trustworthy.”
Harold gave a faint smile in response to Evan’s words and asked him.
“But why did the captain want only these four to be captured?”
“Miss Scarlet insisted on it.”
“Is that so…”
Harold nodded his head.
After putting his trembling hand in his pocket, he pulled out a vial and handed it to Evan.
“If she uses this, the condition of the mechanic girl should improve slightly.”
“An antidote?”
“Yes. I know the Captain said it’s not necessary, but she’s done a lot, that girl. It’s our gratitude for now.”
“I’ll let her know,” Evan said, taking the antidote.
Harold felt an obligation to look after those who had come out of the pirate island. Trembling with a sense of betrayal, Harold watched the young men reflect on themselves. Among them was Harold’s own son. However, he turned away and closed the warehouse door, no longer looking back.
Turning around, he addressed the remaining pirates inside the warehouse.
“Never again, there must never be such incidents again. If something like this happens again, I’ll have your lives in my hands.”
The warehouse fell silent.
As Harold walked away, Aisha glided down on a machine and spoke to him.
“Harold, I have a question.”
“Don’t ask.”
Aisha shrugged and asked anyway. “I’m curious. Why did you buy that potion from the royal police when you’re so afraid of Viktor Dumfelt?”
Harold glared at Aisha.
“….”
“What do you mean?”
“You bought it, the potion related to memory. From the royal police.”
“How do you know that?”
“The girl Sean brought had taken that potion. Why on earth did you do that?”
“Because of that potion, the one I sold to the royal police, I managed to save my son’s life by giving up one of his eyes.”
“….”
“Yes, it was my son who was the problem. But now he won’t be the problem again. Whether the Navy kills him or saves him, he’s no longer under my jurisdiction.”
Harold spoke as he continued walking. Aisha ran up again, blocking Harold’s path, and asked.
“If you want to know more about that potion, do you have to go back to the island?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“That girl wants to know.”
“Don’t bring up the topic of that potion any longer. And don’t even think about going near that mechanic girl again.”
“I don’t want to.”
“…Are you saying this because that girl saved your brother?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
As Aisha spoke honestly, Harold’s expression shifted, and as if telling her not to talk further, he quickly walked away.
Even as he left, Harold couldn’t completely erase the thought that he had made a grave mistake. If it were anyone else, they might have been dismissed, but Aisha wasn’t just anyone.
“She’s the one who would even kill her own father if she made a mistake.”
Harold thought as he walked faster, unable to shake off the realisation.
♔♔♔
After that day, Scarlett couldn’t shake off her fear for a while. Despite strengthening the security around her, the emotional shock had been too strong. The fact that she had been suddenly taken from her own home was horrifying. Every sound from the windows made her jump in fear, causing her body to tremble.
She had covered herself with a blanket over her long skirt that reached her ankles and huddled on the first-floor sofa. Andrei couldn’t stand it any longer and spoke up.
“Could you please go out? It’s hard to see you like this.”
Scarlett gave him a disapproving look and brushed off Andrei’s comment.
“I’m not feeling well. Can’t you empathise a bit? Don’t you have any emotions, Andrei?”
“They don’t use emotionally unstable people as spies,” he snorted.
“…I guess that’s true.”
Scarlett retorted and rested her head against the back of the sofa. After a while, she weakly got up and said, “I need to work.”
As she tried to head upstairs, Andrei blocked her way.
“Stop working.”
“When am I supposed to work then?”
“You should work moderately. Since that day, you’ve been working nonstop without even sleeping.”
“I like working.”
“Continuously working for someone who was kidnapped can also be psychologically problematic.”
“But… If I’m not working, I keep thinking about that time.”
In response to her words, Andrei spoke with a pained expression.
“If that’s the case, why not spend some time with Earl Crimson or something?”
“Isaac is also busy.”
Scarlett buried her face in her knees again and continued speaking.
“It’s frustrating. Why is he so busy like this?”
I fell in love with this book when it was still ongoing and read it during COVID, anticipating each chapter’s release. I’ve been translating this book since 2020! I put a lot of time and effort over the years, hours on end manually translating and typing, and comparing with the original book so that my nuances are right, so that my translations are good (five years coming for TIDK).
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