Through the gap in the darkness, split into an upper and lower half, I could see Lorenzo. Kneeling in front of the chest, Lorenzo instinctively kept his head low. But if I could see Lorenzo, then the skeleton could see him, too.
‘It saw him!’
Lorenzo was picking the chest’s lock. He was laying hands on the very thing that had made the skeleton try to kill me until now.
‘No!’
Lorenzo instead pressed his face close to the chest and moved the wire. The skeleton immediately charged toward him. I had to stop it somehow.
Screeech!
I had moved far from the ruins to lure the skeleton away. In contrast, the skeleton was closer to the ruins—and to Lorenzo. Since it was faster than me, getting between them was virtually impossible.
‘Something!’
I pulled a small bottle from my clothes and threw it.
Crash!
The bottle shattered at the skeleton’s feet. Sharp glass fragments scattered, but they disappeared into the darkness spread beneath us and could no longer be seen. A skeleton made of nothing but bones would step on them without concern. The skeleton was about to ignore the obstacle and keep heading for Lorenzo when.
Splash!
It slipped. The bottle I had thrown was filled with oil. I had received it free when I bought the cutlasses.
‘It worked!’
But it bought only a moment. The skeleton had fallen clumsily, yet it continued sliding forward.
“Please, damn it, just open!”
Then, with a click, the chest opened. Lorenzo lowered his head to look inside, then leaned halfway into the chest as though he were trying to take something from it. The skeleton screamed without a sound and kicked off the ground.
Slice!
The moment Lorenzo raised himself again, the skeleton’s dagger cut across his neck. A thin line appeared on Lorenzo’s throat. The line was only a shallow wound, but.
‘It opens!’
If the skeleton twisted its wrist and turned the dagger, that line would open. I had seen it happen several times, so I aimed the pistol at the skeleton’s wrist. But faster than that, the skeleton twisted its wrist.
Click!
The sound of something opening. Just as I thought it was over.
Whoosh!
Salkenia suddenly scattered the light she had gathered in her hand. The light of the moon and stars she had stolen from the night sky filled the cavity in an instant, brightly illuminating it.
“Huh?”
The skeleton had clearly turned the dagger, but Lorenzo’s neck was unharmed. Before I had time to understand how, Lorenzo came to his senses and threw something into the air.
‘What is that?’
The light filling the cavity was too bright for me to make out what it was. I could only vaguely tell that it was a small, fist-sized figurine.
“Captain!”
The skeleton leaped toward it as though aghast. Without time to confirm what it was properly, I raised and aimed my pistol.
‘Skeleton sailors move through Salkenia’s power, so they cannot leave Salkenia’s vicinity. Then what is this skeleton moving around?’
The skeleton had not tried to leave this cavity. It might simply have avoided it because it was dark and dangerous, but it was also possible that, like the skeleton sailors, it had a limited range in which it could move. If that hypothesis was correct.
‘What must not be coveted. The thing the skeleton suddenly appeared to protect after I approached the ruins.’
The object inside that chest was what enabled the skeleton to move.
‘Its power source!’
I fired at it as it flew through the light.
Bang!
With a flash from the muzzle, it shattered into pieces.
Rattle.
The weeping skeleton’s body collapsed.
***
“How is it? Is it still crying?”
[I cannot hear anything.]
I approached the collapsed skeleton. Only after hearing from Salkenia that she could hear nothing did I feel relieved. I considered crushing it, but now that it had already been disabled, there seemed to be no need.
“Lorenzo, are you all right?”
“Yes. I’m all right.”
Lorenzo touched his neck with a dazed expression. He had been terrified that his head might fall off just like that.
‘It’s a relief, but how?’
The ability of the Relic the skeleton carried was simple. It opened what it cut. Its activation was turning the dagger as though turning a key. But the last turn had not worked on Lorenzo. I picked up the Relic that had fallen near the skeleton.
[Key That Opens the Night.]
“Huh? This is a key? Not a dagger?”
[That is correct.]
“……But how do you know that, Salkenia?”
[The moment you held it, Captain, I remembered.]
“Did your memories return?”
Could this possibly be Salkenia’s head? I hoped so, but Salkenia denied it.
[Only information about the Relic returned to me. It seems that I knew of this long ago.]
“Either way, that means it’s connected to you.”
Now that I heard Salkenia say it, it did look somewhat like a key. Though no matter how I looked at it, it was much closer to a blade.
“If you know information about the Relic, do you know anything besides its name? Its ability, for example?”
[As you saw, Captain, the Key That Opens the Night has an ability called ‘Open Night,’ because it opens the night. It can open the traces left by the Key where it touches.]
“Why didn’t it work at the end?”
[The darker it is, the stronger the Key’s ability becomes. Conversely, it cannot open anything in light.]
The only illumination in the cavity had been moonlight, and the skeleton opened the stone pillar. But when I withdrew the light to hide, it opened the darkness itself. Salkenia released the light, flooding the surroundings in an instant, so it could not cut anything. Was that why it was called the Key That Opens the Night?
“……Did you know?”
I had not breathed even after the darkness was cut away. I had done that to make space for Lorenzo to hide within the darkness that had not been cut away and remained below. But Salkenia had released the light of her own accord, without any order from me.
[I remembered the information about the Key That Opens the Night at the moment you acquired it. At that time, I merely felt that I should do it. I am sorry.]
“No. You did well.”
Salkenia had known about the Key before she lost her memories. In other words, she had acted unconsciously. It had saved Lorenzo’s life, so she deserved praise.
“Then do you know anything about this Relic’s curse?”
[Only information about the Relic’s name and ability exists in Salkenia’s memories.]
“Is that so? You don’t know everything, then.”
It did not matter if she did not know about the curse. No matter what it was, I intended to keep this.
“It’s good that I got a Relic, but in the end, your head wasn’t here.”
[That is unfortunate.]
When I turned around, Lorenzo was crouching and examining something.
“Lorenzo, what are you doing?”
Lorenzo was looking down at fragments of stone. They had been part of the object I had shot and shattered, the weeping skeleton’s power source. They were broken beyond recognition, but they were clearly made of stone.
“That wasn’t your head, was it, Salkenia?”
Salkenia’s head was presumed to be the head of a figurehead. In other words, it could have been made of stone. But this thing, which I had glimpsed between the light, was at most the size of a fist.
[It was not my head, so you may rest assured.]
“Phew.”
What a relief. I had thought I might have destroyed what I was looking for with my own hands.
“Then what was this?”
Salkenia had sensed a familiar presence inside the chest. That meant it was an object related to her. On top of that, it had been the power source that made the skeleton move, which made it even more suspicious.
“Lorenzo, did you see what this was?”
“No. It was dark inside the chest, so I threw it away the moment I grabbed it. Then the light was too bright to see anything.”
We had no choice but to break it, but now that it was broken, there was no way to know what it had been. I looked down at the unrelated stone fragments.
“But it seems this was made of greenstone.”
“Greenstone?”
“Yes. If you tilt a broken surface like this and hold it to the moonlight, it glows green, right?”
As Lorenzo slowly tilted the broken face of a stone fragment, it truly shone a faint olive color.
“You’re right. How did you know?”
“Some kinds of greenstone are expensive, depending on their size and color.”
“I see.”
It seemed to be treated as a kind of gem. Since Lorenzo was obsessed with money, he could not help knowing about it.
“But it’s hard to find in the blue sea. It’s a stone that comes only from certain areas of the green sea.”
“Which specific areas?”
“I don’t know that much. There’s probably a mine where greenstone is found in large quantities, though?”
As a test, I picked up a piece of greenstone, but Salkenia did not say anything. Unlike when I held the Key That Opens the Night, it seemed that no memories had returned.
“You can have all of that.”
“What? Really? It’s broken, but even this much greenstone should fetch a fair amount of money. And I already got my day’s pay.”
“Didn’t you say you lost it all? Besides, you give capable subordinates a bonus.”
Salkenia’s aura had been contained in that greenstone. It had been an aura strong enough to move a skeleton. If we went to a greenstone mine in the green sea, we might find some sort of clue. It would have been impossible without Lorenzo.
“……A bonus? Something like that existed?”
As Lorenzo picked up the greenstone, he muttered with a stunned expression.
***
Lorenzo and I searched farther inside, but we found nothing special. By the time we crossed the cliffside path within the Unknown again and emerged from the crevice, the sun was rising.
“Ughhh. I’m dying of sleepiness.”
I stretched. I had not thought we had been inside very long, but I had not expected us to spend the whole night there. It felt even stranger because my sense of time had grown faint within the Unknown.
“Yaaawn.”
As the fatigue finally hit him, Lorenzo yawned, too. Rubbing his half-open eyes, he looked up at me.
“Is the work over?”
“Yeah. It’s over. Good work.”
“Then you’re not Captain anymore. You’re Mr. Howell now, right?”
“I suppose so.”
Lorenzo glanced at me from the corner of his eye. Was he anxious that I might demand the greenstone back?
“It’s all right. I’m not taking it away.”
“No, that’s not it. Um, why did you bring that with you?”
“This? I’m going to use it as one of my sailors.”
I had brought the weeping skeleton in a sack. I had originally intended to crush it, but Salkenia said that once we returned to the ship, she could make the skeleton one of her sailors, so I changed my mind. Lorenzo tilted his head as though he did not understand.
“……You know you say a lot of really strange things, right?”
“I know. So what did you really want to ask?”
What Lorenzo had wanted to ask was probably not why I had brought the skeleton. He had evaded the point too strongly.
“Th-that skeleton is going to be one of your sailors, but you won’t hire me?”
“That’s not something I can decide easily.”
“Why not? I found the route well, and I opened the chest well, too.”
“If it were up to my feelings, I’d like to hire you.”
“Really? Then.”
“But there’s something I need to tell you first.”
Lorenzo’s abilities were outstanding. His being a child did not bother me at all. But the problem was on my side.
“My ship is a ghost ship. And I’m wanted in Semeln on murder charges.”
“……What?”
“You saw me talking to my ship, right? I was talking because my ship was draped over my back in the form of a ghost. And all my sailors are skeletons. Like the one in this sack.”
Lorenzo stared at me as though at a loss for words.
“And I intend to leave the blue sea. If necessary, I’ll go to seas farther away. If you want to sail safe seas—well, there are no safe seas—so if you want to earn a steady living while sailing relatively safe waters, you should not board my ship.”
Even so, I would keep moving forward to keep the promise I had made to Salkenia. But Lorenzo did not need to walk this dangerous path. He was capable, and he was still young.
“Well, Lorenzo. Even so, do you want to be my navigator?”
Lorenzo’s golden eyes wavered.