"Wait a moment."
The bartender's attitude eased considerably, and he quickly gathered together what Silas had asked for. Luna leapt from his arms onto the bar, sniffed at the fish, and began eating slowly.
"Any news worth mentioning lately?"
Silas asked idly, running a finger along the glass of lemonade.
"News, hm..."
Having finished setting things out, the bartender went back to lazily wiping a glass. "These past few weeks there's been quite a stir on the Southern Continent.
Word is it's got something to do with some cult stirring people up. The colonial governments of Loen, Feysac, and Intis have all been putting it down, and they've even brought in reinforcements from the north."
The Rose School of Thought still hasn't settled down, then.
Silas thought to himself, then asked another question. "Anything else?"
"There is."
The bartender suddenly wore an odd little smile. "You've heard of Vice Admiral Ailment Trissy, right? That beautiful, terrifying pirate.
She and her fleet were ambushed at sea by Blood Reverends, ended up captured, and the whole fleet was sold off on Symeem Island in the Rorsted Archipelago."
I know that all too well.
Silas said nothing, since from the look on the bartender's face there was clearly more to come.
"Once word got out, no telling how many men out on the water felt sorry for her. They said the Blood Reverends were truly ruthless, willing to send such a stunning woman to the gallows.
At first, the governor of Symeem Island meant to have Trissy escorted to Backlund for trial, but the Intis embassy rushed someone over to intervene, and bought her out with a compensation bounty."
"Intis?"
"That's right. Word is it was the Soren family who arranged it."
The bartender's eyes turned suggestive. "Probably some young master of the family took a liking to Trissy, and wants to tame that arrogant captain into his own little woman..."
A young noble lord?
Or maybe it's a noble lady...
Silas muttered inwardly.
Elaine and Trissy: the taker and the one taken, warden and prisoner trading places, something like that...
Still, the Soren family surely wouldn't spend that kind of fortune in gold pounds just to indulge one of Elaine's personal whims. Perhaps they had their own reasons for wanting to reach out to the Demoness Sect.
He lingered in the bar a while longer, and once Luna finished her fish, he scooped her up and walked out, leaving the town behind.
At the edge of Midway Island, the sea wind howled.
Silas made his way to a large jutting rock, the spot they'd agreed to meet. Luna, to escape the wind, had already burrowed back into his robe.
"Swish, swish!"
Emerald pea vines dropped down one after another, weaving themselves into a lush, dense forest. The forest stretched upward, coiling and crisscrossing, forming staircase after staircase climbing toward the sky.
Glimmering pea pods dotted the vines, lending the forest a soft glow that made it look dreamlike and hazy.
Silas picked one of the staircases, and stepping onto pea-vine steps that looked fragile but were in fact quite sturdy, climbed upward step by step.
He couldn't say how long it took, but eventually he reached a broad platform shaped like a palace.
Around its edges, walls of living plants held back the wind off the Raging Sea [狂暴海], and at the very center of the palace, seated on a throne woven of vines, Queen Mystic Bernadette sat quietly watching him.
This ruler of the seas wore an Intis-style white shirt and a deep black jacket, a slender rapier at her waist, looking every bit the dashing sea captain.
"Your Majesty, it's been a long time."
Silas greeted her.
Bernadette's eyes, blue and deep, regarded him as she said softly, "It has."
"Meow~"
Luna poked her head out of Silas's robe and cried out toward the queen.
She smiled faintly at the cat and gestured to an invisible servant nearby, who at once floated over bearing an exquisite tray and set the food before the black cat.
"You've been quite active lately. Gotten up to plenty of big things."
Bernadette glanced at the black cat, then turned her gaze back to Silas. "So, how's playing the 'Black Knight' going? Smoothly, I hope?"
"Smoothly enough, I suppose."
Silas answered. "Though it is Sequence 4, after all. Fully digesting it isn't so easy."
The last time the two of them had met was in front of the Ruins of the Battle of Gods.
Since then, Silas had gone on to raid Toscat Island and Blue Mountain Island, killing the Psychology Alchemists's demigod councilor "Gluttony," and Qonas Kilgor, deputy director of Loen's Ninth Bureau of Military Intelligence, as well as capturing a pirate general. He had indeed accomplished a great deal.
Of course, what Queen Mystic valued most was still the task he was about to undertake.
"I've pinned down the approximate location of the Black King."
Silas held out his hand, revealing the floating black iron key, which still pointed west.
"Based on the map I've drawn, it should be cruising in a loop somewhere in the waters between Aroka Island and Resurrection Island in the Fog Sea [迷霧海]."
"The Fog Sea..."
Bernadette's gaze grew distant for a moment, as though she were recalling something from the past.
After a moment of silence, she said, "That fits with some things I already know."
So my direction of investigation isn't wrong, then?
Silas thought to himself, then spoke again.
"I'm planning to rest first at Seiros Island, on the edge of the Raging Sea, and then follow the key's guidance in search of the Black King. If things go well, it shouldn't take too long to find it."
He thought for a moment, then asked, "Your Majesty, will you be coming with me?"
With a Sequence 3 at his side, his margin of safety would rise considerably.
Unfortunately, Queen Mystic slowly shook her head.
"I know how he operates," Bernadette said. "If you're not the one he's chosen, he'll find all sorts of ways to stop you. If I go with you, it would only make it harder for you to find it."
No wonder she was Roselle's own daughter. She understood her father's ways all too well.
Silas nodded. "All right then. I'll go on my own."
"Mm. I hope you find it soon."
The queen said, her tone even.
The two fell silent for a moment.
Silas suddenly felt his robe grow heavier, and looking down, he found that Luna had finished the food the queen had given her, leapt up from the ground, caught hold of his robe, and climbed back onto his shoulder.
Her deep blue eyes reflected the glow within the palace.
Silas reached up to stroke the cat, and after a moment's thought, asked, "Do you happen to know the Sequence 3 potion formula for the Secrets Suppliant pathway?"
...
Bernadette's eyes flickered. "The Aurora Order has a demigod, the 'Rose Saint,' who holds Sequence 3.
But his whereabouts are unknown, and there are even rumors he died long ago. Aside from that, I haven't heard anything more."
A Sequence 3 Beyonder could already hold key positions within all sorts of organizations, which meant intelligence on the corresponding potion was hard to come by... Though he hadn't gotten anything useful from the queen, Silas wasn't too disappointed.
After all, he'd never expected to get his hands on the formula right away.
Besides, the Hermit had also promised him that good news might be on its way.