North x Northwest

Headnote:

Hi Guys, this is a small notice of rectification. 

Based on what you read in the discovery and torture arc from vol 4, you know and probably assume that Ed was locked in the rudder control room from the start and that Courant smashed his head in with a doorstop.
While translating and editing this chapter, we discovered that the events turned out to be a bit different from what we expected.
Now we know that Ed was locked and attacked in his own room and that Courant used a paperweight to hit Ed’s head with.
After the attack, Ed was dragged to the rudder control room and Lil never noticed anything in Ed’s room before as she was so focused on finding that balsam.

We‘ll revise this in the earlier chapters! 

 – – – – –

Knowing she couldn’t check all areas alone, Lil turned around.
The cabin deck was much calmer than the upper deck.
Except for a couple of exchanged murmurs, it appeared that most of the men were already asleep.
Lil approached an eating man who looked like he was just done with his shift.

“Have you seen Courant?”

“…Huh? No.”

“How about during his shift?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Get up and find him.”

“…”

The sailor who was given an order alternately looked at his soup and Lil with a face of unfairness.
Lil added as she looked down at his half-empty bowl.

“After your meal.”

Only then did the sailor’s eyes widen and he started to eat the soup in a hurry.
Lil left him behind to scour the rest of the deck.
However, no one was able to give her the answer she was searching for.
They merely said they hadn’t seen the boy at all.
After going around aimlessly for some time, Lil finally reached the end of the deck. 

‘The officers’ quarters.’

The bulkhead was adorned with elegant territorial markings fitting the officers. 

Lil continued to walk.
When she knocked on the first cabin’s door, Jericho emerged, looking like he had just woken up.

“Ca… Captain? What brought you down here?”

Looking down at the back of Jericho’s hand, which had ceased scratching his stomach, Lil replied.

“Courant has gone missing; he isn’t in his hammock.
Find him.”

“Cou… Courant? Uh, uh… I just saw him not long ago…”

“How long ago was it? Hours?”

“It was probably around dawn…”

“What if he lost it again in the meantime? I told you to keep an eye on him, not just to take a peek now and then?!”

Jericho rejected it with a wave of his hand.

“Nah.
It seems that his sanity has come back, I even thought he was doing a good job.
In the beginning, I was thinking about appeasing him, but that didn’t seem to be needed anymore as he appeared to have gone back to his gentle disposition.
So, I only told him, ‘as long as you behave properly, the Captain will surely treat you more leniently soon.’ Then, he just smiled and walked away.”

“Isn’t that even more suspicious? How can the feelings that were intense enough to kill a person be cleared in just a few days?”

“Why? Do you think something has happened?”

“He’s gone.
It hasn’t been long since he’s caused trouble, but until now he’s not showing up.”

“Ok… okay? No, where the hell…”

Jericho tried to talk to Lil a bit more, but she resolutely passed his cabin.
Soon, Jericho was heard rushing out of his cabin.
Lil visited a few more cabins and summoned all the officers.

Eventually, their grumblings faded behind her back. 

‘Now, only one cabin remains.’

Without a single lamp, the darkness led to another door.
And behind that door was the sour smell of death.
No one had lit a lamp there, so the blackened space together with the evenly cracked grain of wood looked like a coffin lid holding a corpse.

Lil took her hat off her head as she pushed her thumb down to turn the doorknob.
It was only when she saw the inside of the cabin that she was taken back.
In fact, she didn’t think she could ever open this door again. 

‘Is this the feeling of someone who can’t merely pass by the tombstone of an acquaintance? Or, perhaps, the longing of a sick man wanting to be treated by a doctor…’

Lil stepped inside. 

The room was damp.
She was unsure if it was moisture from the rain or his blood.
Lil scanned the cabin.
The window was right in front of her, with a bed on the left and a desk on the right.
Once more, she turned her gaze to the left.
She walked over there, struck a match, and lit the bedside lantern. 

Inside the suddenly brightly lit room, her breath stopped.

She didn’t realise it when she came to get the balsam, but Ed’s whitish blanket was covered with dark blood stains.
The stains weren’t just on the bed and blankets.
The blood that had been spilt, flowed and swept was entwined in various forms.
It was cruelty that Lil couldn’t fathom so quickly.
She simply couldn’t grasp how brutal it must have been for Ed that his blood left such gruesome traces.
Her eyes hardened as she examined the floor.
A round paperweight was lying between the stains.
Lil only then realised what Courant had used to smash Ed’s head in.

In an instant, the fishy smell of blood hit her nostrils. 

‘All of this shows how desperate Ed must’ve been before he helplessly shut his eyes.’ 

A sob boiled over as Lil’s throat was being torn apart. 

‘…All the while, I had no idea… I can’t forgive myself for not knowing how horribly a person has been crushed while I was sitting in the Captain’s office, trying to hate him…’

Lil picked up some of the charcoal crumbs that had fallen to the floor and rolled it between her fingers.
She then took out the crumbling chair and sitting on it, staring at the empty bed right in front of her.

 – Bang! –

Lil looked up in surprise as the door kicked open and someone tumbled in.
Her eyes scanned the person from head to toe.
His clothes were mud-soaked, his hair messy, and the exposed skin was covered with wounds.
Their eyes met as the guy held his head wrapped between his forearms.
Lil recognized the messed-up face in an instant.

As soon as Courant saw Lil, he grabbed her trousers’ hem and clung to it.

“Captain! Cap…”

Seeing his swollen cheeks, chapped lips, sweat, and bloodstains, she could roughly estimate what had happened to him. 

‘You fool…’ 

Looking down at him coldly, Courant twitched his shoulders.
Eventually, Lil raised her eyes and glared at the man who had picked up the boy and thrown him through the door.
Julio stood briskly in the opening with dozens of sailors lined up behind him. 

‘Perhaps Courant made the first move.
Otherwise, this kind of situation wouldn’t have happened.’

Julio pointed his finger at Courant.

“Weren’t you looking for this guy?”

Lil quickly examined Courant’s condition again.
There were clear rope marks over his cheeks and on his wrists. 

‘Tying him up wouldn’t have been necessary for a mere interrogation.
In addition, they beat him up good… So, if they tied him up and kept him hidden, it was done to buy time to spread the information they just gathered… to sway public opinion… and looking at the confident Julio, he seems to have ample support behind him.’

“What did you do?”

“Nothing.
He actually came to see me first, he then told me something very interesting.”

“…”

She understood it without the need to hear the rest.
It was easy to guess just by looking at Courant, who couldn’t bear to meet her eye out of shame.
Lil’s throat chilled.
It felt like her head had been put on a guillotine and she was now waiting for the blade that could fall at any moment.

Julio roared loudly.

“I heard there was a rat on board?”

A sharp, piercing sensation sliced her spine.

Lil calmly examined the movements in front of her.
The entrance to the cabin was crowded with sailors as Julio walked in with his chest puffed out like a sail pushed out by a tailwind.
He was followed by a sailor who raised a lantern high, revealing the unconcealable scene of a tragedy.
The sound of water dripping from dozens of clothes soaked the floor as thunder in the distant sky sounded like a warning.
The conflict already ensued, so now there was nothing she could hide anymore.

“Did I hear that right? What was it again?”

“…”

Julio spoke again, while looking around the cabin.

“There was nothing wrong with what the kid said, right? What the hell? A suicide attempt? That’s what I heard at first.
But I’m sure he couldn’t have done all this by himself.”

Julio’s feet that were pacing the floor kicked the paperweight that had fallen, making the blood-stained object roll to the other side.
It reminded Lil of Ed’s forehead that had burst open and bled.
Trembling with belate rage, she clenched her fists.
However, she tried her best to ignore the dull sound of it rolling into the corner of the cabin as she simply couldn’t lose her temper here.

“Ed… he has been dealt with.
Didn’t Courant tell you that too? It was over before we even determined the charges.”

At the mention of his own name, Courant crawled behind her and hid.
Lil shook his hands off her boots and brushed her legs.

“That’s not the point, is it? Lil Schweiz…”

“Call me Captain.”

“The point is… Lil Schweiz here tried to conceal the fact that we had a spy on board.”

“I told you to call me Captain.”

“Lil Schweiz.”

“I never knew that Valtano was lazy enough to not teach his dog manners.”