Chapter 18

“M-Mr. Hewitt, what is the meaning of this? Why…”

“Good day to you, Mr. Hewitt.”

“Ah, good day to you! Thanks to you, we were able to find Mr. White.”

“Not at all! Think nothing of it! We were only doing our best for our neighbors!”

“…”

“…”

White stared blankly at the sight of Hewitt cheerfully exchanging greetings with a Spanish man, then looked around the ship. It was the galleon, all right. He had been lying unconscious in a hammock below the mainmast, and on that mast… was a coat of arms he had never seen in his life. On a shield entwined with grapevines was depicted an angel holding high a transparent shield and… a strange saw of some kind.

‘Why a saw… and not a sword?’

“In any case, Mr. White, it is a pleasure to see you again after three years! Who would have thought we would meet again like th—”

“…Don’t tell me you’ve sided with the Spanish?”

“…Uh, pardon?”

“M-my daughter? Is my daughter alive?”

“Do not worry. Mrs. Dare is also now serving the great one up clo—”

“KYAAAAAAAK!”

“Wh-what is the matter?”

“Silence, you traitor! How could you join forces with the very men who killed my daughter….”

“Dad!”

“…?”

There, Eleanor came running from a corner of the deck.

“Mr. White! You’re alive!”

“Ah, ahahaha! We’ll pretend we didn’t hear you call our employer a catamite!”

“…???”

The men of Sir Raleigh’s retinue, whom he thought had been captured by the Spanish, also came running from the other side.

“Mr. White! Welcome aboard the Nautilus!”

“…?????”

The man who appeared to be the Spanish commander also joined in, smiling warmly. Now convinced that this must be Heaven, John White pinched his own cheek, only to realize he wasn’t even tied up.

“What… is all this?”

“…”

“…”

“…”

Everyone exchanged troubled glances, as if finding it difficult to explain. Eleanor stepped forward and spoke.

“D…ad? I’m not sure if you’ll be able to believe what I’m about to tell you.”

“Oh, my daughter! Just knowing you are alive brings me joy! What could you possibly say that I wouldn’t believe?”

“…Then, you won’t think I’m a witch or anything of the sort?”

“A witch? What nonsense! Now, tell me anything. Your father will listen to it all!”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“Uh… Mrs. Dare?”

“Yes?”

“He probably won’t believe it, so let’s just show him first.”

“Show him what… ah, do you mean the ‘Holy Site’ and the ‘Holy Relics’?”

“Yes. ‘He’ already gave us permission, just in case of this.”

“Well… that’s true. Then let’s go to the island and talk more, Dad!”

“…?”

John White still had no idea what was going on. Soon, the galleon reached a port, and White was led along a clean, well-paved road to a place unknown.

***

Seeing her father for the first time in so long, Eleanor suddenly felt like a child again.

“Dad, look!”

BANG! BANG! BANG!

“Good heavens…! I shot at a transparent wall, and it deflected the bullets!”

“Ooooooh…!”

 

“Dad, look!”

FLASH! FLASH!

“Th-this cannot be…! A tremendous light is coming from his hand!”

“Ooooooooh…!”

***

“Dad, look!”

Nom, nom, nom, nom.

“I-it’s impossible…! How can a grape have no seeds!”

“Ooooooooooh…!”

***

“Dad, look!”

WHIIIIIRRRRR!

“A tree is being cut like butter? It would be more believable if a carriage door opened and closed on its own!”

“Ooooooooooooooh…!”

And so, with Sir Nemo’s permission, Eleanor showed off for her father, mimicking Sir Nemo and operating the simple electronic devices.

“S-see? These are all the tools of an angel! He saved us and founded this colony!”

“Oh, ooh… it is astonishing.”

She loved seeing the look of surprise on her father’s face. She loved smiling excitedly, like a child fawning over a parent she hadn’t seen in three years.

“It is, isn’t it? I was so surprised at first, too!”

“Yes. It is truly magnificent. Befitting the creations of Heaven. …However.”

White, though trembling with wonder, raised a finger toward the western fields. As Eleanor followed his finger with her gaze, she saw a familiar machine. The powerful machine that had slaughtered their enemies, uprooted trees, and moved enormous amounts of earth.

“That… that cart-like thing with an arm. How does it move?”

“Ah! That’s called an ‘excavator’!”

Eleanor puffed out her chest with pride.

“It’s a complicated thing that only Sir Nemo can operate!”

“I-is that so? If it is not too much trouble, could I see it move? I am very curious.”

At her father’s words, filled with an explorer’s curiosity, Eleanor hesitated. She didn’t want to bother Sir Nemo, but… for her father, whom she had just been reunited with from the brink of death after so many years, she wanted to do anything.

“…Then, shall I go and ask Sir Nemo if he would be willing to drive it for us?”

“Yes. I would like to meet this… Sir Nemo, as well.”

Slightly nervous, Eleanor led the way. She wanted to show her father just how incredible Sir Nemo was, how great his power was. She knew, as a daughter, that a strange disbelief was mixed in with White’s exclamations of amazement. Of course, anyone who was suddenly told that an angel had appeared and saved his daughter would feel such disbelief. He hadn’t witnessed the moment of the miracle himself. It was perfectly understandable. He only felt gratitude toward the benefactor who had saved his daughter and granddaughter; whether he was truly an angel was a separate matter.

And so, the faithful daughter and the skeptical father walked to Nemo’s green-roofed manor and rang the doorbell. Ding-dong.

But for some reason, there was no answer today.

“…Huh? Sir Nemo? Sir Nemo! That’s strange. I’m sure I saw him inside.”

“Perhaps he has gone out?”

“No. I’m sure this door was…”

Creeeeak.

When Eleanor casually pulled on the front door, it opened with a creaking sound. Naturally, Eleanor was startled. It was not polite to enter someone else’s house without permission, especially the house of a holy angel.

She was just about to quickly close the door when…

-“…to hell…”

“…What?”

Just now, she had heard a word she thought she would never hear in this holy place. She had heard the word ‘hell.’

Soon, a terrible sound, as if scratching the air, echoed through the crack in the door. At the strange voice, the strange sound, Eleanor’s entire body froze in terror. A cold wind blew, and the front door slowly swung open. In that instant, the father and daughter’s eyes went wide.

-“Aaaah… aaaah…!”

From beyond the dark corridor, a terrible devil’s hymn could be heard.

And.

“Hah, shi…!”

Sir Nemo’s voice.

It was half a groan, his breath coming in ragged gasps.

‘N-no way, have devils come to harm Sir Nemo…?’

The moment that thought struck her, Eleanor threw caution to the wind, clenched her fists, and ran into Nemo’s house. Sir Nemo was in danger!

“D-daughter!”

“Dad! You stay there!”

“What kind of father sends his daughter alone into such a place!”

As the two of them ventured deeper into the manor, the terrible sound echoing all around them became clearer.

-“Hey Satan, payin’ my dues…”

-“I’m on my way to the promised land, woo…”

Someone was spewing a story with terrifyingly chilling content. And then, finally.

-“I’m on the highway to hell!”

“No!”

Sir Nemo’s scream could be heard!

Startled, Eleanor finally threw open the door at the end of the corridor and entered the living room, with John White following close behind.

“Kuaaaak!”

“Kyargh! Kiriririk!”

There, they saw a horrific sight. Sir Nemo, seated in a chair, was holding a black object, his bloodshot eyes fixed on what was in front of him. As if possessed. And from all around, the terrible song of damnation they had just heard blared. That alone was a frightening enough sight to make them collapse, but that was not the end of it. The real thing was yet to come.

As Eleanor Dare and John White cautiously… followed Nemo’s gaze.

There was a picture frame. And the picture inside it was constantly moving. It was as if it was depicting a scene from someone’s point of view. A clicking sound came from Sir Nemo’s hands, and with each click, the scenery moved, so it was easy to tell that this was what Sir Nemo was seeing.

In that picture frame, Sir Nemo was… Sir Nemo was…

…endlessly cutting down and killing devils that had risen from Hell, with a saw.

And every time he killed a devil, words like “Hah… shit, shit…” flowed from the mouth of the always-gentle Sir Nemo. His eyes were glazed with the excitement of slaughter. The corners of his mouth were turned up in a cold sneer at the corpses. This was a completely different Sir Nemo from the one Eleanor knew!

After a long time, as the devils swarmed Sir Nemo, he fell. The scenery in the picture frame went black, and a single word appeared.

-‘DOOM[1].’

The two of them, their faces pale, couldn’t even scream as they backed out of Nemo’s house. Sir Nemo, pouring all his energy into slaughtering the demons, didn’t even seem to notice their presence.

And so, covered in a cold sweat, they left the garden and looked at each other in silence.

“Daughter…”

“I-it was nothing! Sir Nemo… must have been doing something else that we can’t understand!”

“Yes. He was… killing devils.”

John White looked at his daughter and spoke with unfocused eyes.

“H-he was… destroying devils… H-he really… was… an angel…”

“…”

“…”

Thump!

White’s eyes were filled with fear, awe, and tears.

“Lord! My God, what was that sight…!”

“…”

“…D-daughter, I must go back to see Virginia. A-after seeing a vision of Hell, I am too terrified…”

It was an event that could shake a faith he had held for decades. John White, still unable to recover his composure, whispered.

“You… should rest too.”

“…Yes.”

Eleanor, staggering to her feet, watched her father leave, then stood there, frozen like a stone statue.

And then.

“…Eleanor?”

“Kya, kyaaaaaaak!”

She screamed at the sound of Nemo’s voice coming from behind her.

***

“Uh… you seem to have been very surprised. My apologies. I will make my presence known next time.”

“N-n-no. I-i-it’s, it’s fine…”

“…”

“…”

What’s with this atmosphere?

“U-um… my father wanted to see the excavator earlier, so I rang the doorbell, but there was no answer…”

“Ah, my apologies. I was just… enjoying a small hobby of mine.”

“…A small, hobby?”

“Yes. It’s small, but it’s quite challenging. A task, of sorts.”

Because I haven’t cleared all the achievements yet.

“…Is that task enjoyable?”

“Pardon? Of course, it’s a hobby. Why would I do it if it wasn’t enjoyable? Of course, it can be tiring and painful at times, but, well, everything is like that.”

“…”

“…”

…Seriously, what is it? Why are you looking at me with such a meaningful expression?

Unable to bear the awkward, strange atmosphere, I changed the subject.

“So, what happens now? Have you made contact with England?”

Finally, the awkward, stiff expression on Eleanor’s face softened a little.

“Ah, no. I have met my father, but it seems the others thought we were Spanish and just fled.”

“Oh… I see.”

“B-b-but, now that I have contacted my father, everything will be all right! A report on our colony will be made, and now that we have a galleon, we can somehow contact the homeland… but…”

“What is it?”

“…”

Suddenly, the look on Eleanor’s face as she looked at me turned serious again. For some reason, I thought I knew why she looked so grave.

“Um… what do we do?”

“What do you mean?”

“…About you, Sir Nemo. How do we report this to England?”

“…”

I thought about the methods of executing ‘heretics’ in this era, which were described in the game catalog, and fell silent.

How do you report it?

…Good question.

And so, I became lost in thought, and Eleanor did as well.

However… there was one strange thing.

“Hrm, hmmm… hmmm…!”

For some reason, Eleanor seemed even more serious about it than I was.

***

One and a half months. That was the time it took for the Hopewell and the Moonlight, the ships that had carried John White, to arrive at the port city of Plymouth, in Devon, England. From there, they rushed to London to deliver the news to their employer and patron.

“…The colony has been destroyed? And White is missing?”

The foremost favorite of Queen Elizabeth, a devoted smoker, explorer, poet, soldier, and Protestant… Sir Walter Raleigh.

He lightly raised an eyebrow and spoke to the trembling captains before him. They were so afraid of being in the presence of such a powerful man that they couldn’t even raise their heads as they spoke.

“…That is so. The Virginia Roanoke Island colony was mostly burnt, and filled with Spanish graffiti. It was clear to anyone that it had been destroyed by the Spanish fleet.”

“That we were unable to rescue Mr. White was… an unavoidable misfortune. A Spanish warship was patrolling the immediate vicinity…”

“So, you are telling me that you lost your passenger to a Spanish attack, and I have lost my colony. And you have returned without even thinking to investigate whether my colonists had moved to another location and established a new settlement, whether that settlement had succeeded. Like rats with their tails on fire.”

“…”

“…”

“Hooooo…”

“S-since the colony has been destroyed, in place of the promised duty-free trading rights, some other compensation…”

“Get out.”

“…Yes, understood.”

As the captains left the library of the opulent Durham House[2], Raleigh’s friend and house guest, Thomas Harriot[3], slowly approached and offered him a tobacco leaf. Sir Raleigh put it in his mouth and nervously tried to light it, but when it wouldn’t catch, he threw the tobacco and flint down in frustration and slammed his head on the desk.

THUMP!

“…Please, Thomas. Tell me you have good news.”

“You know very well, I tell you good news as soon as I have it.”

“…And?”

“The moneylenders of the Steelyard[4] have refused to invest.”

“Damn it! What reason do they give?”

Thomas frowned slightly at Sir Raleigh’s curse, then raised a notebook in a refined manner and recited the notes he had taken.

“First… they cite the failure of the Irish colony as the primary reason. It seems they see a low probability of the colony turning a profit, with the Catholic peasants being less than docile.”

“Tell them that’s nonsense. I can pay back that kind of loss with just a few privateering expeditions. There must be another reason. I’m right, aren’t I? Right, Thomas?”

“…Yes.”

“I knew it! So, what’s the reason?”

As Sir Raleigh raised his head, Thomas met his gaze and spoke.

“Information about the Virginia colony has leaked. Everyone knows about Mr. White’s failure.”

“Damn it all…!”

BANG! BANG! Sir Raleigh pounded his desk repeatedly.

“Some rat must have been let loose. Who was it? Walsingham? Or the Earl of Essex? Of course, it must be Walsingham, that bastard!”

“It does not matter who it was. You have no shortage of people who dislike you, my lord.”

“…”

“In any case, with the ‘rumor’ that Virginia, your only remaining investment, has also failed… they say no further loans are possible.”

“…”

“What will you do? You are running out of gifts to give Her Majesty the Queen…”

“Shh, be quiet for a moment.”

Raleigh silenced Thomas Harriot and discreetly took a letter from his desk drawer. It was a letter from the queen.

-‘My beloved, is your life not in want? Is your fortune sufficient to maintain your beauty and your dignity?’

“Ah… my queen.”

Smooch.

Sir Raleigh folded the letter and put it away, thinking.

‘…She still hasn’t found out I’m cheating on her.’

Love is a good thing; more love is an even better thing. But the more you love, the more money you spend. Beth had wanted a jewel recently, and buying it for her had put a small hole in his purse. On top of that, his vast 40,000-acre colony in Ireland had become a money-eating monster that was strangling him.

If this continued… he would be bankrupt.

If he went bankrupt at this point, he would have to perform in the queen’s bed once more to squeeze money out of her. And when financial calculations enter into love, many things are ruined. If the delicate balance of their emotional push-and-pull were to be broken, his rival for the same bed, the Earl of Essex, Robert Devereux, would not leave him be. He would whisper to the queen, ‘The vulgar Walter Raleigh does not truly love Your Majesty. Withdraw your favor from him and be with me forever…’ Then, having lost the queen’s support, he would be even more financially fucked, fucked, fucked…!

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

“May I offer an opinion?”

“Speak, Thomas.”

“Banging your head against the desk will only result in more medical bills and desk repair costs.”

“…Grrrr, I’m going to die.”

If only that damned Virginia colony hadn’t failed, he wouldn’t be in this financial and political pinch…

Wait.

Walter Raleigh, who had been slumped over listlessly, swallowed hard.

“…Tell me, Thomas.”

“What is it?”

“Did the Virginia colony fail?”

“When a colony is burnt to the ground and its inhabitants are missing, it is generally considered a failure.”

“That’s it.”

Raleigh shot his head up and exclaimed.

“Missing, you say? That means we don’t know if it failed or succeeded yet.”

“That… is an irrational judgment.”

“No, no. Think about it. For example, what if some of the colonists, fleeing from a threat, found a safe place and… happened to meet an angel? And the angel helped them develop the colony! Who’s to say?”

“…”

“…It was just an example. In any case, the important thing is that no one knows yet whether the Virginia colony has succeeded or not.”

Thump.

Sir Raleigh, having regained his former dignity and majesty, spoke to Harriot.

“Therefore, we must investigate properly.”

“Wasn’t that… why we sent Mr. John White? And now, that same John White is also missing.”

“That is because we entrusted it to unreliable men. If we entrust it to an explorer who is very reliable, brave, and dedicated to his duties, who will see his employer’s demands through to the end, then the matter will become much clearer.”

“Do you… know such an explorer?”

“Me!”

“…”

“…”

“Prepare for a voyage at once. We will soon be crossing the Atlantic.”

“Oh, my God.”

“It is for the sake of soothing the soul of the poor John White.”

And so, Sir Raleigh began to assemble a fleet to save his Virginia colony.

At that very moment, the ‘poor John White’…

***

“G-g-good heavens! G-grapes, grapes can be this delicious!”

…was soothing his recent shock by tasting his first-ever Black Sapphire tanghulu.

It was a gift from Sir Nemo.