PBP 13

chapter 13

Nereus took the child without a second thought. At a glance, the child had an air of nobility about them, and ordinarily, if someone realized a child like that had been abandoned, they would pretend not to notice. After all, there was always the risk of being entangled with some aristocratic family, and no one wanted that kind of trouble.

However, Nereus was the captain of the Caelum Pirates, and he did not care in the slightest about such social scrutiny or consequences.

“So basically, as long as it doesn’t break Caelum’s rules, he just does whatever he wants.”

There were no rules in Caelum specifically concerning children. Still, looking back now, the people of Caelum had always been unusually soft when it came to kids.

“Is it because of me?”

No—rather than that, they had been kind to children from the start, which was why they couldn’t just leave me behind when I was alone.

“But then… why did they abandon the child in the first place?”

I didn’t know much about aristocratic disputes or politics. Even when I was in the navy, I’d been told I didn’t need to concern myself with such things, and unless you were very high-ranking, you were too busy focusing on your own duties anyway.

Still, there was no way the locals didn’t know that the orchard in this area was tacitly managed by pirates. They knew, but it cost more effort to deal with pirate remnants, and hiring manpower cheaply was easier, so they left it alone.

“And besides, who knows which pirate group it’s connected to?”

From the start, Caelum was a group that hardly suited the name “pirates”—a bunch of foolish idiots, really. At most, people whispered rumors that the nearby orchard belonged to “pirates,” but they probably didn’t know it specifically belonged to Caelum.

“If someone had known Caelum well, they wouldn’t have abandoned a child here.”

If it had been another pirate crew, they would have realized the child was of noble birth and, wanting no involvement, either drowned them in the middle of the sea or sold them to a slave auction.

In other words, it was reasonable to assume that the child had been left there with the hope that they wouldn’t survive.

I didn’t know what kind of adult circumstances were involved, but the thought that a child had been caught up in it left a bitter taste in my mouth.

“Is Nereus planning to bring that kid into our crew?”

Acting without caring about butterfly effects or consequences, I couldn’t begin to predict what kind of impact finding this child would have on us.

“Well… it’s not like the crew will be wiped out or anything.”

That would be the worst-case scenario. I nodded.
No—my head was made to nod.

“Huh?”

My head grew heavy, my eyelids slowly closing and then opening even more slowly. It felt like my consciousness was sinking into a dark swamp.

I heard laughter beside me.

“What? Are you tired?”

“…That can’t be right.”

What had I even done to be tired already? I’d barely moved. As I protested indignantly, Nereus laughed again.

“You must be tired. If you sleep well, we’ll be at the lodging when you wake up.”

“N—No….”

“Why?”

Why? Why do you think?

“I need to buy caco leaves….”

I had to make medicine. I’d secured the most important reference material, but without caco leaves, I couldn’t see quick results.

If you crush caco leaves, extract the juice, and refine it, it becomes an excellent catalyst. The problem was that they were rare and expensive.

“I definitely saw a big merchant ship when we got off the boat.”

The harbor had been swarming with merchant vessels. That meant there might be a ship that had brought in caco leaves.

At an infuriating price of 180 Wetten per leaf, they usually got bought out entirely by the two major medical associations before ever reaching the stalls, so even managing to buy leftovers counted as a success.

I belonged to the superior of the two—the Witar Medical Association—and I was also in the navy, so when I needed caco leaves, I could usually use a little…

“But now, I’m neither navy nor anything.”

Not Witar, not even the inferior West Medical Association—I was a nobody among nobodies, a six-year-old kid, and on top of that, affiliated with pirates.

This was no time to be relaxing; I needed to hurry and get even a small amount of remaining caco leaves. But my body felt unbearably heavy.

“Damn it… why didn’t Dad even give me time to ask the rest of the family….”

I should have said something on the ship. I hadn’t expected Nereus to bring me here so quickly. That was my mistake. I shouldn’t have underestimated his decisiveness.

“Mmm, okay, okay. How much do you want?”

“…As much as we can buy….”

What was our ship’s financial situation like right now? It didn’t seem that bad, but it was hard to gauge exactly. A pirate’s notoriety wasn’t measured by how much money they had, but by the weight of their crimes.

“Just as much as we can afford….”

So I figured even a little would be fine. Of course, to make even a small proper bottle of catalyst, you’d need around twenty leaves—but I wasn’t making a full catalyst right now, so fewer would do.

“So just a little.”

It would be nice if we could get even a little. With that thought, my consciousness faded away.

I had a very strange dream.

In the dream, I was in the middle of my training as a navy officer when Nereus suddenly appeared. In the dream, I regarded him as an enemy, but Nereus just smiled casually and said,

“So this is all that needs to disappear?”

Then he drew his sword and, in an instant, sliced the building clean in half.

Boom—! With a tremendous crash, the First Naval Division collapsed.

“You crazy bastard—!!”

At the same moment, I woke up. After gasping for breath, my vision finally focused on my surroundings.

“Ah.”

Isaac, Nancy, and Clara were staring at me, frozen stiff.

“L-Lara? Where did you learn words like that?”

Isaac stammered, which was rare for him.

“C-Captain? You mean the captain, right?”

Clara, too, looked deathly pale—also rare.

“If you think about it, didn’t she learn it from all of us? None of us exactly speak politely all the time.”

“….”

As Nancy—who was the only one looking calm—made a perfectly reasonable point, Isaac and Clara exchanged glances with stiff expressions.

“Why?”

Then the two of them nodded and left the room, leaving just Nancy and me behind.

“W-What was that about?”

“Mmm, nothing. Our daughter doesn’t need to worry about it~ More importantly, shall we go check what Lara asked for? They said it’s stored in the warehouse.”

“What I asked for?”

“Yeah, the caco leaves. Gerard went out with the vice-captain to buy them.”

When I reacted to the words “caco leaves,” Nancy beamed and scooped me up effortlessly.

“It feels like not just Nereus, but everyone’s getting used to carrying me.”

Hoping that was just my imagination, I headed toward the warehouse where the caco leaves were stored. But a warehouse? Did they really need such a big space for them?

“Oh, because they’re medicinal ingredients?”

Medicinal herbs were medical supplies—meaning they were items Ethan primarily managed. Even if I used some, checking the remaining amount, recording it, and reporting to Nereus or Gilbert would ultimately be Ethan’s job, as the ship’s doctor.

“Thinking about it that way, it makes sense.”

So that’s why they were stored in the medical warehouse. I nodded in understanding—only to gape like a complete idiot at the sight beyond the opened door.

“W-What is this?”

“Hm? Caco leaves. What our Lara wanted.”

No, I know that! I know!

“Why are there so many?!”

What greeted us was—an extravaganza of caco leaves, piles upon piles of them. It was caco leaves incarnate.

“With this much, how much catalyst could you even make?!”

More importantly, was our ship’s finances really okay? I swallowed hard as I stared at the heap.

“W-Wasn’t this expensive? With this amount, didn’t we need to mortgage the ship to a bank or something?”

Though, of course, who would accept an unnamed pirate ship as collateral?

“What?”

Apparently my sincere concern was funny, because Nancy blinked, then burst out laughing.

“Ahh—! The captain really should’ve heard this! Lara, does our ship really look that poor to you?”

“B-But still….”

This quantity would’ve cost even Witar a fortune to procure. Was my worry really that funny?

“About a quarter of this was just thrown in as a bonus, so don’t worry. I guess it wasn’t selling well.”

“Huh?”

“Well, the vice-captain said it’s something only people on Odlo Island eat anyway. Who would buy an ingredient people elsewhere don’t really eat? You should’ve seen how his attitude changed the moment the captain said it was for our Lara.”

“…Huh?”

“Hm? What’s wrong?”

“You mean Vice-Captain Gilbert said that?”

“Yeah.”

That couldn’t be right.

“Oh, you know, the vice-captain likes Lara more than he lets on. If you react like that in front of him later, you might hurt his feelings.”

That kind of reaction would be rare enough to be interesting, admittedly.

Nancy seemed to think the part I was questioning was “Gilbert’s sudden change in attitude,” but what shocked me was something else.

“He said people don’t really eat it elsewhere?”

Caco leaves were a specialty that only grew on Odlo Island. In a world of countless island nations, each island tended to have unique climates and environments, and plants that grew only on specific islands often failed when cultivated inland.

Because of the medicinal properties of caco leaves, Witar had tried countless times to grow them in greenhouses—but all attempts failed, which was why I remembered this so clearly.

“Caco leaves aren’t food—they’re medicine.”

“…….”

And then my head started spinning. Food ingredient. Odlo Island. Cheap price. And suddenly—like a bolt of lightning—realization struck.

“Ah!”

The medicinal effects of caco leaves wouldn’t be discovered until later. The disease caused by the White Sun would later be named “White Root,” and the early treatments for it were not very effective.

As a result, emergency remedies centered around that foul-tasting liquor called Blessing of Fruit sold like hotcakes, and Blessing of Fruit became more symbolically prominent than caco leaves.

The effectiveness of caco leaves was discovered a month later, and not long after caco leaves began to be exported, war broke out on Odlo Island.

I’d learned in history class that the sudden accumulation of wealth from exporting caco leaves made the people of Odlo Island lazy and extravagant, leading them to act high-handedly in trade, which became the trigger.

Because of that, caco leaves became extremely rare, and Odlo Island’s currency lost value. It was deeply ironic that caco leaves—worth their weight in gold—ultimately brought tragedy to Odlo Island.

“In any case, that means caco leaves are dirt cheap right now.”

A catalyst made from caco leaves, if properly sealed, could easily last more than five years. In other words, what I had now was the equivalent of picking up a massive black pearl in the middle of the sea.

This was insane. With just this, I could do all the research I’d wanted to pursue my entire life. Back in the navy, personal research for selfish reasons was forbidden. Even if an idea came to mind, you had to first get it notarized by the medical association, report it to your superiors, and only then could you proceed.

“But now?”

“I’m just a pirate now—so I don’t need to worry about that kind of scrutiny, right?”

This was a jackpot among jackpots.