“H-Hewet, what do you mean? Why…”
“Hello, Mr. Hewet?”
“Ah, hello? Thanks to you, we found Mr. White.”
“Not at all! Why mention such a thing? We merely did our best for a neighbor!”
“···.”
“···.”
White watched as Hewet exchanged friendly greetings with a Spanish man, then looked around with a blank expression.
It was indeed the galleon.
He had been lying unconscious in a hammock beneath the mast, and on the mast… was painted a coat of arms he had never before seen in his life.
Upon the shield wrapped in grapevines was depicted an angel holding a transparent shield and… some kind of bizarre saw? raised high.
‘Why a saw and not a sword…?’
“Anyway, Mr. White, I’m truly delighted to see you again after three years! Who would have thought we’d meet again like thi—”
“…Don’t tell me you’ve sided with Spain?”
“Uh… yes?”
“M-My daughter? Is my daughter alive?”
“Do not worry. Mrs. Dare is now also serving the great one from nearby…”
“Kuaaaack!”
“Wh-Why do you shout?”
“Shut your mouth, you bastard! How could you join hands with those who killed my daughter….”
“Dad!”
“…?”
There, Eleanor came running from the corner of the deck.
“Mr. White! You’re alive!”
“Ah, ahahaha! We shall pretend we didn’t hear you call our employer a sodomite!”
“…???”
The subordinates of Sir Raleigh, who were thought to have been captured by the Spanish army, also came running from over there.
“Mr. White! Welcome aboard the Nautilus!”
“…?????”
The man who appeared to be the commander of the Spaniards also smiled pleasantly and subtly joined in.
John White, slowly becoming convinced that this place might be heaven, pinched his own cheek and realized he wasn’t even bound.
“What… is this?”
“···.”
“···.”
“···.”
Everyone wore troubled expressions, glancing at one another as if finding it difficult to explain. Among them, Eleanor stepped forward and spoke.
“Ah… Dad? I don’t know if you’ll be able to believe what I’m about to say.”
“Ohh, my daughter! I am overjoyed simply to know you are alive, so what is it you wish to say?”
“…Then, you won’t think of me as a witch, will you?”
“A witch? Nonsense! Come, speak of anything. This father shall listen to all you have to say!”
“···.”
“···.”
“···.”
“Tha… Mrs. Dare?”
“Yes?”
“You likely will not believe it, so let us start by showing him first.”
“Show him what… Ah, do you mean the ‘Sanctuary’ and the ‘Holy Relics’?”
“Yes. Didn’t ‘He’ give permission precisely for such an occasion?”
“Well… yes. Then let us go to the island and talk more, Dad!”
“…?”
John White still had no idea what was happening.
Soon the galleon arrived at a harbor, and White headed somewhere along a cleanly paved road.
***
Seeing her father after so long, Eleanor suddenly felt herself becoming childish.
“Dad, look!”
Bang! Bang! Bang!
“Good heavens…! Shooting at a transparent wall, and the bullets bounce off!”
“Oooo…!”
***
“Dad, look!”
Flash! Flash!
“H-How can this be…! An enormous light suddenly shining from your hand!”
“Oooooo…!”
***
“Dad, look!”
Munch, munch, munch, munch, munch.
“I-Impossible…! How can grapes have no seeds!”
“Ooooooo…!”
***
“Dad, look!”
Whiiiiir!
“A tree being cut like butter? I-I would sooner believe a carriage door opening and closing on its own!”
“Ooooooooo…!”
Thus, as permitted by Lord Nemo, Eleanor mimicked him and operated simple electronic devices, showing off to her father.
“Ah, do you understand? These are all the angel’s tools! He saved us and established this colony!”
“Oh, ooh… marvelous.”
It was good to see her father’s surprised face. It was also wonderful to smile excitedly like a spoiled child before her father, whom she had not seen for three years.
“Right? I was incredibly surprised at first as well!”
“Yes. Truly amazing. Truly worthy of being the products of heaven.
…However.”
White raised a finger toward the western field, his body trembling in awe. When Eleanor followed his finger with her gaze, she saw the familiar machine.
A powerful machine that slaughtered enemies, uprooted tree roots, and dug out tremendous amounts of dirt.
“That… that wagon with arms, how does it move?”
“Ah! That is called an ‘excavator’!”
Eleanor spoke rather boastfully.
“It is a complex object that only Lord Nemo can operate!”
“I-Is that so? If it is not too rude, might I see it move? I am terribly curious.”
At her father’s words, filled with an explorer’s curiosity, Eleanor pondered briefly.
She did not wish to trouble Lord Nemo, but… for her father, whom she had met again at the crossroads of life and death after several years, she wished to do anything for him.
“…Then, shall I go and ask if Lord Nemo might drive it for us?”
“Yes. I too… wish to meet this person called Nemo.”
Eleanor walked ahead, slightly nervous. She wanted her father to know what a great person Lord Nemo was, and how tremendous his powers were.
Only as his daughter could she tell. In White’s eyes, which had been pouring out admiration, there lingered a strange disbelief.
Anyone would feel such disbelief upon hearing that an angel had suddenly appeared and saved his daughter.
He had not witnessed the miracle with his own eyes. It was perfectly understandable.
He merely bore goodwill toward the benefactor who had saved his daughter and granddaughter. Whether that man was truly an angel was a separate question.
Thus the pious daughter and the suspicious father walked straight to Nemo’s green-roofed mansion and pressed the doorbell. Ding-dong.
But today, there was no answer.
“…Huh? Lord Nemo? Lord Nemo!
Strange. I clearly saw him inside.”
“Might he have gone out in the meantime?”
“No. This door definitely…”
Squeeeak.
When Eleanor casually pulled the front door, it opened with a creak.
Naturally, she was startled. Entering someone else’s house—moreover, a holy angel’s house—uninvited was improper.
Just as she hurriedly tried to close the door again.
—“…To hell…”
“…What?”
She had just heard a word she thought could never be uttered in this holy place.
She heard the word ‘hell’.
Soon, a terrible sound scraped through the gap in the door like claws against air. At that unfamiliar voice, that unfamiliar sound, Eleanor’s entire body froze in terror for an instant.
In the meantime, the front door slowly opened from a chill wind blowing through. Then, the father and daughter’s eyes went wide.
—“Aah… Aaaack…!”
From beyond the dark hallway, a terrible demon’s hymn resounded.
And.
“D-Die…!”
Lord Nemo’s voice.
A voice half-mixed with groans, short of breath.
‘C-Could it be demons are trying to harm Lord Nemo…?’
The moment that thought reached her, Eleanor rushed into Nemo’s house without a second thought. Lord Nemo was in danger!
“D-Daughter!”
“Dad! Dad, stay there!”
“What father would send his daughter alone into such a place!”
As the two entered deep into the mansion, the terrible sounds echoing all around became even clearer.
—“Satan… I have paid the price.”
—“…Mother, look upon me. I am going to the promised land.”
Someone was madly spewing out words of blood-curdling content. And finally.
—“I am… standing on the road to hell!”
“No!”
Lord Nemo’s scream rang out!
Startled, Eleanor opened the hallway door and entered the living room, and John White followed.
“Kuaaaack!”
“Kyaaargh! Kiriririk!”
There, the two witnessed a terrible sight.
Lord Nemo sat in a chair, staring straight ahead with bloodshot eyes, holding a black object. As if possessed by something.
And all around, the terrible cursed song they had just heard echoed.
It was a horrifying sight enough to make one collapse on its own, but that was not the end.
The true sight still remained.
Eleanor Dare and John White carefully… turned their heads, following Nemo’s gaze.
There was a frame.
The picture inside was moving incessantly.
It was as if depicting a scene seen from someone’s perspective.
Whenever a clicking sound came from Lord Nemo’s hands, the scenery moved, so it was easy to tell that this was what Lord Nemo was seeing.
Inside that frame, Lord Nemo was… Lord Nemo was…
Ceaselessly cutting down and killing demons risen from hell with a saw.
And each time he killed the demons, from Lord Nemo’s always-gentle mouth flowed words like, “Ha… fuck, fuck…”
Those eyes were soaked with excitement for slaughter. His curled lips sent a cold sneer toward the corpses.
He was far, far too different from the Lord Nemo that Eleanor had known!
After quite some time, when the demons rushed at Lord Nemo, he fell. Soon the scenery in the frame darkened to black, and only one word was revealed.
—‘DOOM.’
The two, their faces deathly pale, could not even scream and backed out of Nemo’s house.
Perhaps because Lord Nemo was pouring all his energy into slaughtering devils, he did not notice their presence at all.
Thus, sweating cold sweat, they exited the garden and looked at one another in silence.
“Daughter…”
“Ah, it’s nothing! Lord Nemo… must have been doing something else that is difficult for us to understand!”
“Yes. Demons… he was killing them.”
John White spoke to his daughter with unfocused eyes.
“He… was… killing demons… He… truly… is… an angel…”
“···.”
“···.”
Thud!
In White’s eyes lingered fear, awe, and tears.
“Lord! Good heavens, what in the world was that sight…!”
“···.”
“…D-Daughter, I must go back to see Virginia. H-Having seen the sight of hell, it is too terrible…”
It was an incident that could shake his decades-old faith to its core. John White whispered, still unable to recover his strength.
“You too… must rest.”
“…Yes.”
Eleanor stood unsteadily and remained there like a stone statue, watching her father leave.
And.
“…Eleanor?”
“Kyaaaack!”
She screamed at Nemo’s voice coming from behind her not long after.
***
“Uh… you seem to have been quite surprised. My apologies. I shall make my presence known next time.”
“Ah, ah, it’s fine. I-It’s o-okay…”
“···.”
“···.”
What the hell. Why is the atmosphere like this.
“Um… Earlier, my father said he wished to see the excavator, so we rang the doorbell, but there was no answer…”
“Ah, I’m sorry. I was… uh… enjoying a small hobby during that time.”
“…A small, hobby?”
“Yes. It is a small thing, but rather challenging. Like homework, you could say.”
Because I haven’t finished all the achievements yet.
“…Is that task enjoyable?”
“Yes? It is a hobby, so of course. Why would I do it if it were not enjoyable? Though it can be tiring and painful at times, well, such is everything.”
“···.”
“···.”
…What the hell. Why are you looking at me like that.
I couldn’t stand this awkward, strange atmosphere and changed the subject.
“So what happens now? Have you made contact with mainland England?”
Only now did Eleanor’s awkward, rigid expression ease slightly.
“Ah, no. I have reunited with my father, but it seems the others simply fled, thinking we were the Spanish army.”
“Oh… dear.”
“B-but, still, we’ve made contact with Father, so everything will work out now! Reports about our colony will continue, and now that we have the galleon, we should be able to contact the homeland somehow··· though···”
“What is it?”
“···.”
All of a sudden, Eleanor’s face grew serious again as she looked at me. Somehow, I felt like I knew why she was making that expression.
“Um··· what should we do?”
“What do you mean?”
“···How are we supposed to report about Lord Nemo to England?”
“···.”
I found myself recalling what had been written in the game catalog about how “heretics” were executed in this era, and closed my mouth.
How were we supposed to report it?
···Good question.
And so I sank into thought, and Eleanor did as well.
However··· there was one strange thing.
“H-hmmm··· hmm···!”
For some reason, Eleanor looked even more serious than I did.
***
A month and a half.
That was how long it took the Hopewell and the Moonlight, which had departed with John White aboard, to arrive at Plymouth, the port city of Devon, England.
From there, they hurried on to London and delivered the news to their employer and patron.
“···The colony was destroyed? And White has gone missing besides?”
To Queen Elizabeth’s foremost favorite and tobacco lover, explorer, poet, soldier, Protestant···
Sir Walter Raleigh.
He raised one eyebrow lightly and spoke to the captains trembling before him. Perhaps frightened to be standing before a man of such power, they could not even lift their heads as they answered.
“···Yes, the colony on Roanoke Island in Virginia was almost entirely burned, and it was covered in Spanish graffiti. It was clear at a glance that it had been destroyed by the Spanish fleet··· sir.”
“That we were unable to rescue Mr. White was, well, something closer to an unavoidable misfortune. A Spanish warship was patrolling right nearby···.”
“So, what you are saying is that you lost your passenger to a Spanish attack, and I lost my colony.
And you returned without even thinking to investigate whether the subjects of my colony had migrated elsewhere and founded a new settlement, or whether that colony had succeeded. Like rats with their tails on fire.”
“···.”
“···.”
“Hooooo···.”
“Since, well, the colony was in ruins, instead of the tariff-free trade rights you promised, some other compensation···”
“Get out.”
“···Yes, understood.”
Once the captains left the study of the luxurious Durham House, Raleigh’s friend and guest, Thomas Harriot, slowly approached and offered him a leaf of tobacco.
Sir Raleigh put it in his mouth and struck the flint irritably, but when the tobacco failed to light properly, he hurled both the tobacco and the flint away in irritation and slammed his head onto the desk.
Thud!
“···Please, Thomas. Tell me you’ve brought good news.”
“You know me well enough, don’t you? If I had good news, I would have told you in advance.”
“···So?”
“The bankers of the Steelyard—the Hanseatic League’s base in London—refused to invest.”
“Damn it! What reason did they give?”
Thomas frowned slightly at Sir Raleigh’s curse, then, with refined composure, lifted his notebook and read aloud what he had written down beforehand.
“First··· they cited the failure of the Irish colony as the primary reason. It seems they see little chance that the Catholic peasants will become obedient and allow the colony to turn a profit.”
“Tell them not to spout nonsense. If I lead a privateering fleet a few times, I can make up for losses like that easily. There must be some other reason.
I’m right, aren’t I? Aren’t I, Thomas?”
“···Yes.”
“I knew it! Then what is the reason?”
When Sir Raleigh raised his head, Thomas met his eyes directly and spoke.
“Information about the Virginia colony has leaked. Everyone seems to know about Mr. John White’s failure.”
“Damn it···!”
Bang! Bang! Sir Raleigh struck the desk again and again as he spoke.
“Some bastard must have set loose a rat. Who was it? Walsingham? Or the Earl of Essex? Of course it was Walsingham, that son of a bitch!”
“It doesn’t matter who it was. There are far too many people who dislike you, sir.”
“···.”
“In any case, with ‘rumors’ that Virginia, your only investment prospect, has also failed··· they say a loan is now impossible.”
“···.”
“What do you intend to do? The gifts for Her Majesty are beginning to run out as well···.”
“Shh, be quiet a moment.”
Raleigh silenced Thomas Harriot, then quietly took a letter from the desk drawer. It was a letter the Queen had sent him.
—‘My beloved, are you not living in want? Is your fortune sufficient to maintain your beauty and your dignity?’
“Ah··· my Queen.”
Kiss.
Then Sir Raleigh folded the Queen’s letter again and put it away as he thought.
‘···She hasn’t found out I’m having an affair yet.’
Love was a good thing; more love was an even better thing.
But the more love one had, the more places there were for money to go. Recently, Beth had wanted a certain jewel, and the one he had steeled himself to buy for her had punched a small hole in his purse.
On top of that, his vast forty-thousand-acre colony in Ireland had become a money-guzzling hippopotamus, tightening its jaws around his throat.
At this rate···
Bankruptcy.
If he went bankrupt at this point, he would have to exert himself in the Queen’s bed again and squeeze money out of her. And once financial calculation entered into love, many things tended to fall apart.
If the delicate balance of emotional push and pull with the Queen were broken like that, his rival who shared the same bed, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, would never leave him be.
He would whisper to the Queen, “The vulgar Walter Raleigh does not truly love Your Majesty. Withdraw the favor you have bestowed upon him, and be with me forever···.” Then, having lost the Queen’s support, he would be financially even more fucked, fucked, fucked···!
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
“May I offer one opinion?”
“Speak, Thomas.”
“If you keep pounding the desk with your head, I suspect only your medical expenses and the desk repair costs will increase.”
“···Grrr, this is killing me.”
If only that damned Virginia colony had not failed, he would not be so pressed financially and politically···
Wait.
Walter Raleigh, who had been hanging limply with no strength, swallowed.
“···I say, Thomas.”
“What is it?”
“Has the Virginia colony failed?”
“If the colony has burned down and its residents are missing, one would normally call that a failure.”
“That’s exactly it.”
Raleigh snapped his head up and cried out.
“Missing, you say? That means we still don’t know whether it failed or succeeded.”
“That is··· an irrational judgment.”
“No. No. Think about it.
For example, who is to say that some of the settlers, while fleeing the threat and making their way to safety··· might not have encountered an angel? And then the angel helped them develop the colony!”
“···.”
“···It’s only an example.
In any case, what matters is that no one yet knows whether the Virginia colony succeeded or not.”
He sprang to his feet.
Sir Raleigh, having regained his earlier poise and dignity, spoke to Harriot.
“Therefore, we must confirm it properly.”
“Was that not··· why you sent Mr. John White? And now that same Mr. John White has gone missing as well.”
“That is because I entrusted the task to unreliable men. If I entrust it to an explorer who is supremely reliable, brave, faithful to his duties, and will see his employer’s demands through to the end, then it will become much more certain.”
“Do you know··· such an explorer?”
“Me!”
“···.”
“···.”
“Begin preparations for departure at once. We shall soon cross the Atlantic.”
“Oh, my God.”
“This is for the sake of comforting the soul of poor John White.”
And so Sir Raleigh began assembling a fleet to save his Virginia colony.
At that very moment, “poor John White” was···
***
“M-m-my God! G-grapes, grapes can become this delicious!”
Tasting black sapphire tanghulu for the first time in my life, I soothed the shock I had just suffered.
It was a gift from Lord Nemo.