Chapter 358. Death
"But if nothing had happened to the surface, then we would be able to return to the modern world. By then—"
"We'll talk about that when the time comes," Anna interrupted, putting a ruthless stop to Charles' beautiful thoughts. "I want your eyes healed before anything else. My heart aches to see you like this."
Charles then felt two palm-sized boxes in his hands. "What's in these boxes?"
"Open it, and you'll know once you've touched it."
Charles opened one of the boxes and put a finger inside. He felt something soft with many legs wrapping around his finger and then a prick.
"Is it a spider?" Charles asked.
"Have you forgotten how your paramour uses these as her eyes? Since she can do that, then you can do it as well. I went through a lot of trouble running over to Elizarles Shores to steal two of them for you. Speaking of Elizarles Shores, it is such a crappy name for an island," Anna replied.
Charles was then reminded of Elizabeth's black eye with a red pupil.
"Are they easy to use?"
"Not at all. A very complex ritual is needed to link them to the optic nerves, and you have to feed them when they get hungry. However, they're better than staying blind."
Charles closed the box upon hearing that and said, "I think we should wait for now. I'm not in a rush to recover my eyes, and someone is already trying to find a way for me to recover my sight."
"My, my, so my Lord Governor here has gotten powerful enough for so many people to fuss over him despite being blind. If I had known earlier, I wouldn't have come over," Anna said in a teasing tone and got close to Charles.
Charles reached out and hugged her slender waist. "Thank you. I'm happy that you came here. I guess my wife still cares about me."
Charles then lowered his head, but his lips were met with a soft palm.
"Stop, Sparkle is watching us. She's a fast learner, you know? If you let her see us kissing, I'm afraid she might go back to her true form and find a random unlucky fool outside to review what she had learned with," Anna said.
Charles lifted his head and looked left and right before saying, "Why is our daughter learning only nonsense? She still doesn't know how to express herself properly and can only repeat syllables."
"That's where you're wrong. As I said, she's a fast learner and has already grasped the language of the Subterranean Seascape. I think she knows intermediate Chinese now after peeking at my notes," Anna retorted.
Charles felt a complicated mix of emotions. Sparkle was less than a year old, but she was already so smart. What would happen once she grew up? How would she turn out by then?
As Charles fell into deep contemplation, Anna took advantage of the opportunity to slip out of Charles' embrace.
"I really have to go. If you're pent up, then find a random woman out there to vent on. I'm still pretty busy over there," Anna said.
"Busy? What are you even doing?" Charles asked.
Unfortunately, he heard no response even after waiting for quite a while. Anna had left without Charles noticing it.
Time passed slowly as Charles waited patiently for the Pope's visit. However, it seemed as if the Pope had completely forgotten about Charles' plight as Charles received no further visits since then.
Charles was starting to find it difficult to withstand the darkness. In the end, Charles decided to get by in the meantime with the spiders that Anna had brought over for him, but just as he was about to open the two boxes, he received a visitor.
"Captain, Mr. Laesto wants you to visit him." The visitor was James, and his voice sounded strangely deep today. Charles' heart skipped a beat, and he instantly realized that something was amiss.
"What happened? Did something happen to Doctor?" Charles hurriedly asked.
"You'll know when you get there," James replied. His head was drooping as he walked up to his Captain and guided him to the door.
The two soon arrived at their destination, and the hoarse, gurgling noises interspersed with the old man's desperate coughs pervading the room sounded especially piercing in Charles' ears.
Charles also heard the breathing of other people, including Lily's familiar sobs.
Charles' heart sank to the pits of his stomach, and he felt sick as he got closer and closer to the coughing noises. Moments later, a thin, emaciated hand grabbed Charles, squeezing it rather firmly in contrast to its appearance.
"What's going on with you, Doctor? Are you sick?"
"Come... cough, cough, cough! Come closer..."
Charles moved his ear over and listened quietly to an extremely weak voice that entered his ears. "Cough... nothing wrong, cough... I'm just a dying old man cough... it's great... cough. I'm sure... no one here... likes a cranky old fart."
Charles' face distorted, and he stood up abruptly before roaring, "Where's Audric?! Drag him here and have him immediately turn Doctor into a vampire!"
"Captain, I can't..." Audric's voice echoed to the left of Charles, and his muffled voice made it clear that he was still covered in his signature, protective clothes as he explained, "I'm still not strong enough to convert anyone, and even if I am, Doctor isn't strong enough to withstand the conversion ritual."
"James! Go out there and find relics capable of prolonging life. We're going to try that one more time!" Charles roared, but the emaciated hand holding his hand yanked him back before his words could finish echoing in the room.
Charles immediately leaned his ear closer to Laesto's lips.
"I'm a doctor, Charles. I know my own body... cough, cough. It's... useless. I've already used every single... medicine to squeeze the final... vestiges of life out of this body..."
Charles' face distorted in extreme anguish.
Just then, the tremor in Laesto's voice vanished, and he sounded unusually calm as he said, "You were right, Charles. Transplanting the special abilities of relics into humans can come in pretty handy."
Charles realized something just then, but it was too late for regrets. Laesto had been completely normal, and Charles had failed to notice any abnormalities until today.
Laesto panted heavily, clearly exhausted. He let go of Charles' hand and popped a pitch-black capsule into his mouth. His pallid face instantly recovered some rosiness. He grabbed Charles' hand again and continued speaking, this time, with no pauses.
"Charles, there's a little guy who can knead and pinch steel as if it were mud. He has been producing a variety of new alloys that even the Albion Isles had failed to discover during their heydays.
"And that is the same as the spark you've mentioned—the spark that had led humanity to discover fire. With enough time, we'll be able to discover the appropriate ratios necessary to produce certain alloys.
"In time, our ships will eventually become even faster and lighter. Our turbines will become even more powerful as well.
"And he's just one person. I've collected over a hundred relics, and once we've transplanted the special abilities of those relics into people, Hope Island will go through earthshaking changes.
"You need to appoint the most trustworthy person to replace me once I'm gone."
Charles looked up, and even though he could not see Laesto, he stared intently at the latter and responded, "Do you have any last wishes? Name it, and I'll make it happen."
"I'm ninety-eight this year, and I'm very satisfied with how my life has turned out. I have no last wishes. If I must name one, then I want you to do your best to protect this island. I've grown fond of it, you see."
Laesto's tone of voice changed, taking in a tone of schadenfreude as he said, "Ah, right, Charles. Let me tell you something I'm sure you still don't know. You might resent me once you hear this, but actually, I—"
Laesto's words abruptly ceased, and his grip on Charles' hand loosened as his hand went limp.
This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺