Chapter 11.2

A distant ship horn sounded. Watching the sailors prepare to dock, Brienne sighed, as if frustrated.

“…Still, I feel nervous. Am I just being foolish? What if we don’t find him? I’m worried there might be ships we don’t know about.”

A ship they didn’t know about.

Certainly, as Brienne said, there could be more if they were military vessels. But even Bannon wouldn’t be able to use Imperial-owned military ships as he pleased.

Herace read the worry in Brienne’s eyes and raised his hand to comfort her.

“Don’t worry too much. Even if we don’t find Derrick Harrington on this ship, the investigation will continue. That’s why the knights were sent.”

“…You’re right.”

Brienne nodded, reassured, and watched the ship come to a complete stop. The knights waited until all the passengers had disembarked before entering to check the interior.

Brienne and Herace didn’t just stand by and watch, either.

“Aaron, please check the first floor with the knights. I’ll go down to the lower deck.”

“Yes, be careful!”

While each of them searched their assigned areas, Brienne reached the door leading to the engine room. Herace, who had been looking elsewhere, hurriedly followed her.

“Brienne, let me go down first.”

Herace scanned the dark entrance and summoned a light at his fingertips. Brienne didn’t refuse his kindness, and a faint smile appeared on her lips.

“Thank you. Then I’ll follow behind you.”

It was a situation they had become used to after so many times, but honestly, it would be a lie to say she wasn’t nervous.

Brienne’s heart was torn between wishing Melosi Bailey’s words were true and hoping they were false.

If, as suspected, someone was locked up on the ship, it was a truly terrible thing. Even if Derrick had treated her badly and even kidnapped her, it was too much to be happy about his misfortune.

Locking someone up in a place like this was something no person should do to another.

Having reached the last step, Herace turned to Brienne, who had stopped.

“The floor seems safe. But compared to other ships, the corridor is unusually narrow.”

“You’re right. The ships we’ve checked so far weren’t like this.”

Brienne looked at the corridor, which felt cramped with just Herace in it. It seemed difficult to move together.

“Should I go alone? It looks hard to move together like this.”

“No, I’m fine. Let’s go together.”

“Then… Thank you.”

Brienne didn’t argue further and came down the stairs to follow him. Herace then took Brienne’s hand and drew her to his side.

“Don’t let go of me, and hold on tightly, just like now.”

“It’s so narrow. I’m fine, but Herace…”

“As long as I’m with you, Brienne, it’s fine.”

At his firm answer, Brienne blinked. Seeing Herace’s hunched shoulders, she couldn’t help but smile.

“All right. Then you hold tight too, Herace.”

Their footsteps echoed with hollow sounds as they walked further inside. The narrow corridor floor seemed to be made of metal.

Brienne thought the sound was a bit like rain and suddenly remembered the time she had set out with him in the rain to find her father.

He had said it wasn’t a ploy, hadn’t he?

Looking at her hand holding tightly to Herace’s arm, a faint smile appeared on Brienne’s face.

Until now, she had been too tense to even make small talk, but now that she thought the investigation would end with this ship, she felt relieved. It was all thanks to Herace.

Herace asked,

“Why are you looking at me like that? You didn’t look happy just a moment ago, but now you seem cheerful.”

“Oh, I just remembered walking like this before. That time in Ford Earldom, in the rain.”

She didn’t know if knee-deep rainwater could be called a rainy path. Brienne added quietly, and her light laughter echoed down the corridor toward the engine room.

Herace, recalling the memory she mentioned, also smiled.

“Now that I think about it… I tried so hard to act calm that day.”

“What?”

“When you almost fell off the horse and clung to me, I even thought, jokingly, that maybe you were the one making a move on me.”

Brienne looked at Herace, dumbfounded.

“Herace… That was really an accident. I thought you were going to leave me on the horse and go! Do you know how scared I was?”

“I just thought it was safer for you to stay on the horse. And if I had let you down as you wished, our first hug would never have happened.”

He still insisted that was their first hug. Brienne glanced at Herace’s profile and sighed.

“That wasn’t our first hug. The one I’m thinking of was another day. When I became your temporary doctor and treated you, we ended up sleeping together, embraced on the same bed.”

“That’s also an unforgettable memory.”

Herace subtly let go of Brienne’s hand and gripped it tightly again, stopping his steps.

“Now that you mention it—yes. We’ve hugged, kissed, and even slept together in the same bed. So now, what’s left for us is…”

“What?”

Brienne was flustered by Herace’s teasing tone.

What’s left…?

There was only one answer.

She had vaguely thought about it, but hearing it directly from him made her blush even more. It was embarrassing.

“Her-Herace… How can you say things like that so shamelessly? Just think about those things, don’t say them out loud…”

Since they were alone in the dark, her thoughts naturally drifted that way. Brienne’s face turned red in an instant as she shook her head and pulled her hand away from him.

But Herace only tilted his head in confusion.

“Brienne, what did you think I was talking about?”

“…Pardon?”

“I was just talking about engagement or marriage.”

Herace laughed softly and looked down at Brienne. In the darkness, his deep gray eyes glinted playfully.

“It seems you were thinking something improper. Trying to get away from me with such a red face.”

“…”

Oh no.

Brienne realized she had gotten ahead of herself and her face turned even redder. She stared at Herace for a moment, then quickly turned away and cupped her cheeks. She didn’t have the courage to face him right now.

“Wh-why do you say things like that…!”

“Is it my fault?”

Brienne could hear his amused laughter behind her. She didn’t need to look to know what kind of eyes he was using to look at her.

“If you call me a pervert again, I really won’t let it slide.”

“And if you don’t let it slide?”

“I’ll get angry. I’ll avoid you for a week.”

“Oh, that’s pretty specific. Just imagining it breaks my heart.”

“Don’t laugh. I’m serious right now….”

Brienne rubbed her slightly cooled cheek with the back of her hand and turned around again.

Thud!

A loud sound echoed from inside the corridor. Herace’s smile vanished instantly as he turned his gaze toward the sound. Then again—

Thud! Thud!

Something was banging from inside.

“…What’s that noise?”

Brienne, stiff with fear, grabbed his hand again.

* * *

“U-ugh….”

Unable to fight back the rising nausea, Derrick crawled on his knees to the corner of the storeroom. He buried his face in a rusty bucket and vomited, his face pale and bloodless.

After some time, Derrick lifted his head, tears falling as he wiped his mouth on the knee of his trousers. He couldn’t clean his dirty face with his hands, as they were tied behind his back.

How many days had passed?

No, had it been weeks?

With no clock in sight, his sense of time had dulled. The only way to keep track of days was the man who brought him soup once a day.

Even that, he couldn’t get used to, as he had to vomit everything up because of the relentless seasickness.

Derrick swallowed the sound of his sobs and looked down at his hands tied behind his back. Ever since he arrived here, not only were his hands bound, but the ceiling was so low that he couldn’t even straighten his back.

Staring blankly at the air, Derrick recalled that hellish day when he accidentally stepped into Duke Bannon’s carriage.

When the knight’s blade was pointed at him, he was sure he was dead. The sword was horribly cold, and just as painful. But why did he open his eyes again?

At first, he was simply glad to be alive. In the moment when he thought he was certainly going to die, all he wanted was desperately to survive.

But from the moment he opened his eyes until now, he had been trapped in this nauseating place, unable to do anything. Eating like a dog, vomiting, curling up in the corner to sleep—nothing more.

At this point, he even wondered if it would have been better to become a corpse back then.

“Please….”

He wished someone would realize he was here.

Derrick blinked his dulling eyes and coughed painfully.

The engine noise that had filled the entire storeroom gradually quieted, suggesting the ship had docked somewhere again.

He should get some sleep, at least at times like this.

Barely pulling himself away from the bucket, Derrick managed to lie down in the corner of the storeroom. It was as his consciousness was fading that he heard someone’s voice near his ear.

“Wh-why do you say things like that…!”

A woman’s voice came from somewhere.