Chapter 42: Chapter 38: Shipworm "Calamity Star
Time rewinds to five days ago.
Tarry Port.
This was a port born of the monsoon. Every time the month of storms arrived, the merchant ships plying the waters between the northern and southern ends of the Duchy would flock to this natural harbor to rest and resupply, like migratory birds returning to their nests.
At this moment, the Third Fleet, the pride of the Golden Sail Commerce Association, was moored quietly in its exclusive deep-water berthing area.
The flagship, the Strong Alcohol, rested majestically in the center. Its figurehead was a roaring lion, inscribed by Mages with the dual enchantments of "Wave-Breaking" and "Fortitude," ensuring the hull’s stability in even the most treacherous seas.
On the docks, the shouts of sailors, the clang of smithies, and the cries of vendors mingled together, composing the cacophonous symphony of the port.
No one noticed a dockworker in a plain, coarse linen tunic.
Unlike usual, he didn’t take his normal route to work today. He carried a burlap sack, and every step felt like walking on cotton, cold sweat soaking the coarse cloth on his back.
Because, hidden beneath his sack, was an inconspicuous earthenware jar.
The jar’s surface was coarse and unglazed. The only thing special about it was its seal: a thick layer of gray wax sealed the mouth of the jar tight.
The thought of the man in black who gave him the jar, and of his daughter tucked under the man’s arm, made the dockworker even more nervous.
’I have to succeed,’ he told himself. ’It’s not even that hard.’
As he passed the Third Fleet’s berths, just as he was about to "accidentally" slip, a drunken sailor stumbled toward him.
THUMP!
The two of them collided squarely.
"Don’t you have fucking eyes!" the sailor roared, shoving the dockworker in the chest. The man lost his balance and fell, and the earthenware jar clattered out of his sack, threatening to shatter on the flagstones.
This drew the gazes of several people nearby.
The dockworker was scared out of his wits. He practically scrambled on all fours and caught the jar just a moment before it hit the ground.
Perhaps the motion was too comical, as it drew a few mocking laughs.
"Haha, what a precious treasure, eh? Hiding some fine wine? Let me have a look," the drunk sailor slurred, burping as he taunted him.
The dockworker clutched the jar, his face flushing crimson, lips trembling too much to speak.
Just then, a foreman from the docks came over and cracked a whip across the drunk sailor’s back. "Get back to bed! Don’t cause trouble here!"
Then he kicked the dockworker. "You! What are you dawdling for? Get back to work!"
As if granted a pardon, the dockworker scrambled to the edge of a drainage channel, tossed the fateful jar into the water without a second glance, and then melted back into the crowd and ran without looking back.
Beneath the seawater, it was cold and dark.
The jar’s wax seal began to dissolve slowly in the corrosive seawater. Tiny particles, almost invisible to the naked eye, escaped from the cracks in the jar, mixed with the current, and drifted silently toward the massive ship hulls.
They were larvae—Magic Creatures modified by the Empire’s Alchemy and Biological Magic. They were shipworms that fed exclusively on high-grade magical timber.
Known as "Blightstar."
...
In Tarry Port’s most expensive seaside gallery, an exhibition titled "Azure Rhapsody" was underway.
Hector Este stood there. He wasn’t wearing the drab black formal suit he favored in Eternal Night Castle. Instead, he had changed into a tailored, cream-colored silk suit, a vibrant, deep-red rose adorning his chest. His face, pale from a lack of sunlight, looked like an exquisite classical sculpture under the gallery’s soft Magic Lamps.
He elegantly held a glass of champagne, surrounded by a coterie of noble ladies in gorgeous long gowns.
"Mr. Este, what are your thoughts on this painting, ’Daughter of the Storm’? The artist says he was depicting the angry daughter of the Sea God," a comely Countess asked, her eyes full of admiration.
Hector’s gaze fell upon the painting, which depicted a goddess struggling amidst gale-force winds and giant waves. He smiled faintly, a gentle and cultured smile, and offered his critique with practiced ease. "The technique is good, but the artist got one thing wrong. A true storm never roars."
"It merely changes the currents in silence, then quietly watches as the ships that fancy themselves masters of the waves are smashed to pieces on the wrong course."
He was talking about the painting, but he was also talking about Caroline—and his high-and-mighty older brother.
The ladies let out a series of admiring sighs, captivated by his unique insight.
Just then, an attendant in a waiter’s uniform slipped quietly behind him and whispered in a voice only the two of them could hear, "Master, news from Stone Bridge City."
Hector’s fingers, holding the champagne flute, tightened slightly. A thin layer of frost instantly condensed on the glass.
"Speak." His smile didn’t waver, and his voice remained steady.
"Caroline found a country herbalist and has temporarily suppressed the symptoms in the fish schools."
’There it is again. Another one of these "variations" crawling out of the gutter.’
’Just like Caroline herself. A woman who hasn’t awakened her bloodline, yet who repeatedly disrupts his precise plans with her strange intuition.’
This feeling reminded him of his childhood, of how no matter how perfectly he did his lessons or how well he practiced his Swordsmanship, his father’s gaze always fell upon that foolishly grinning heir.
’All because of "bloodline."’
He hated "accidents" most of all—people appearing where they shouldn’t be. Never mind that he himself was "the second son who shouldn’t exist."
"A trivial interlude," Hector murmured to himself, as if critiquing a boring painting. But beneath that gentle, cultured smile, a desire to crush everything beyond his control was surging within him.
He turned, raised his glass to the Countess, and offered a charming smile. "Ladies, if you’ll excuse me for a moment."
He strolled to the massive floor-to-ceiling window, as if admiring his greatest masterpiece. That quietly moored fleet, its serried masts as numerous as the pikes of an ancient legion, was a magnificent and imposing sight.
But in his eyes, they were already a collection of exquisitely crafted corpses. He would use their destruction to complete a "restoration of the proper order."
’Caroline, go ahead and celebrate your few fish. Celebrate that lucky country bumpkin you found. By all means, embrace these little "accidents" that make you so smug.’
His gaze pierced through the glass, his eyes filled with an obsession to crush every uncertainty.
’You’ll soon understand that your little bit of talent and luck is worthless before the true "rules." And I, Hector Este, am the new rule, tailor-made for "accidents" like you.’
He drained the champagne from his glass in one go.
