Howling winds, towering waves, and thunder together formed the true face of the disaster.

On a sea choked with whirlpools and rogue waves, the Orlan Empire’s First Fleet was wiped out. Even the Tyrant, hailed as the heaviest ship ever built, was reduced to wreckage by the Devil’s might. That was Kain’s final memory before he sank into the pitch-black ocean.

A warm sea breeze gently brushed his eyelashes. The long-missed morning light fell across his pale cheek. After who knew how long in a deep slumber, after fighting back and forth across the line between life and death countless times, Kain finally managed to open his eyes. Under the protection of the Goddess of Orlan, he had returned to the real world.

His blurry vision gradually cleared. The intense pain in his head slowly faded, and the ability to think returned to his noble body. Kain collected himself and finally made out his surroundings. What greeted this poor soul, who had barely made it back from Hell, wasn’t a hopeful sunrise, but the dark mouth of a gun.

It was an elegant pistol. White lines were engraved across its pure-black body, forming countless patterns of wind and clouds. At the end of that weave of wind and clouds stood the profile of a goddess reaching out to catch a flower: an image of the Goddess of Orlan. Only the Empire’s most skilled sculptors could carve a design so exquisite and beautiful.

Kain recognized it. It was his gun. But the old companion that had seen him through his academy days and his naval career was now in someone else’s hands—in a slender, pale hand. Following the barrel, along that hand and arm, he looked up at the girl staring at him without expression.

“Bang.”

The faint sound of a gunshot bounced from her pale-pink lips, like a song played by the most beautiful instrument in the world—or like the soft singing of a nightingale imprisoned in the Imperial Palace.

There was no doubt about it: this was a prank. The most childish, most malicious kind.

Kain looked at the face that seemed brighter than the morning light, at the curve of her lips, and reached that conclusion easily. Then, enduring the ache in his body, he reached for the pistol. His hoarse voice came from a dry throat that hadn’t tasted water in a long time.

“That’s… mine…”

The nasty pirate showed no intention of returning the pistol to its rightful owner. She raised the barrel just enough to dodge Kain’s hand, then tucked it back into the leather holster—which, like the gun, had come from the young man.

Roy folded her arms across her chest and looked down at the Imperial Navy man. “It’s mine now. Consider it payment for saving your life.”

Kain silently withdrew his hand. He didn’t respond to the pirate’s matter-of-fact claim. Instead, he began thinking over everything that had happened, trying to recall anything useful from that chaotic, raging sea—or at least piece together what had led to the disaster.

Seeing that the young man wasn’t insisting on getting his pistol back, Roy finally had time to take a proper look at the newly awakened sailor.

After traveling from the dim West Coast to the East Coast, where the sun was rising, her silver hair had shed all its dullness. It had become brilliant and radiant. As far as she knew, that hair color was rare even in the Orlan Empire, inherited by only a few of the great families.

What a fine catch.

Roy silently congratulated herself on saving him. As she recalled the scraps of knowledge she had about the great and wealthy families of the Orlan Empire—rarer in her mind than oases in a desert—she weighed how much she might be able to sell him for.

As she studied him, Roy’s gaze passed over his sharply defined features and settled on his ocean-blue eyes. She couldn’t help losing herself in them for a moment. His silver hair, dazzling in the light and as imposing as a warship of the Orlan Empire, was at odds with those gentle blue eyes, which seemed capable of holding everything in the world.

While Roy watched the young man, Kain had finished sorting through his tangled, clue-less thoughts. He turned his gaze to the girl who claimed to have saved his life. When he saw her long, wave-like golden hair and those dark-gold eyes etched deep into his memory, he suddenly froze.

He forgot all about examining her. Her practical linen shirt and the Isk Scimitar at her waist—famous on both sides of the ocean—both marked her as a pirate, the kind the sailors of the Orlan Empire hated and despised most.

It was as if all he could see were those eyes: dark gold, like cooling magma.

Perhaps that look, as if he were staring at an enemy, made Roy feel uneasy. Or perhaps she thought the seawater had left the sailor a little unhinged. She instinctively took half a step back to keep a safe distance and asked, “Hey, did the reefs on the West Coast knock you stupid? Want some water?”

There was no answer.

“Yep. Definitely knocked stupid.”

Roy showed a rare flash of pity, looking at him as if he were a child with a severe intellectual disability. Then she turned to see whether she could spot the Mermaid drifting somewhere on the horizon. But before she could take more than a few steps, the call from behind made her stumble, nearly sending her sprawling into the white sand.

“Elizabeth…”

Roy turned around stiffly. Kain looked utterly determined, like a warrior about to march to his death. She swallowed and began weighing what mattered more: the ransom, or keeping the secret she’d hidden for over a decade from becoming a laughingstock.

How come everyone seemed to know about it once we got to this lousy island?

Roy thought about it in a fit of exasperation, then began to maliciously speculate. For all she knew, the only survivor among the thousands of sailors before her was the Devil in disguise—or a tool the Devil had sent specifically to humiliate her.

If that was the case, she might as well go all the way and just…

“Howard.”

“Huh?”

Roy pointed at herself with her index finger and asked in disbelief, “What did you call me?”

Kain braced himself against the dry stone wall and sat upright. He stared without blinking at the startled girl and repeated the name he’d just called her. “Elizabeth Howard.”

The sounds around them suddenly vanished, leaving only the rustle of palm leaves in the sea breeze. The two of them, one standing and one sitting, looked like a mural of God and the Son of God gazing at each other in a church—except that something about the scene felt strangely off amid all that harmony with nature.

“Pfft.”

Roy couldn’t hold back under the solemn yet awkward atmosphere, and burst out laughing. The naval officer merely furrowed his brow, seeming unable to understand what was funny about the name.

“Sorry about that.”

Roy finally managed to stop laughing. She took a few light breaths, then smiled at him and said, “You might have mistaken me for someone else. But what a coincidence—I really am called Elizabeth. I just don’t have the last name Howard.”

Roy placed her right hand lightly against her chest and bowed—the most common greeting among the nobles of the Orlan Empire. Then she lifted her face and gazed into those gentle, ocean-blue eyes. With utmost seriousness, she said, “My surname is Roy. The great… Captain Roy.”