Voyage Of The Villainess

"First, the thievery in Duke Freda's treasury." Malaya started counting with her fingers. "Second, the stolen heirloom of the Armsha family, the stolen precious painting of the foundation of the empire. The blessed artifact of the Church of..."

"Enough, I have read it all. It seems to me that this is some sort of criminal record." Nicholas' smile grew colder as well. "What does this information have to do with me?"

'Ah. So he is still playing innocent.' 

"Yes, these were all historical criminal records that the enforcers are still not able to solve. However, I found something interesting, there is this certain poverty-stricken place that started to gain wealth at the same time these crimes were committed."

Nicholas' smile completely disappeared.

"I wonder what could happen if I told the authorities about this?"

"What do you want?" Nicholas sounded cold and empty.

Malaya caught sight of how Nicholas was moving towards his sleeves. 'Hah though it ended up worth it, I still played with your demands in that dungeon and even still need to pay for your services here. Yet you still wanted to get more? You are not the only one good at playing as well.'

"You do know that meeting with someone convicted of these crimes, could put me in a tight situation." Although a mask covered Malaya's face, Nicholas knew she was grinning. "But I could sweep everything clean if I receive more price to remove even the tiny specks of dust, right?"

A moment of uncomfortable and heavy silence filled the air.

"Haha..."

"Hahahaha!" Nicholas laughed harder which made the three look at him confused.

'Is he finally gone mad?' Malaya thought worriedly. 'That can't be, I still even get my ship.'

"You're quite unbelievable for a young noble lady."  Nicholas finally stopped laughing after some moment of time.

"I'm no longer a noble, Sir Nicholas," Malaya replied. 'Is everything alright now? Hah. Goodness, Though, I'm not the unbelievable one here. For Rein to get this information... He is the one who is truly amazing and quite scary at the same time.'

Rein just looked at Malaya who was staring at her.

'What?' He mouthed. Malaya just shrugged and return her gaze back to Nicholas who was calming himself from laughing too much.

'The greatest shipbuilder huh,'

Nicholas Grandez, the greatest shipbuilder in the empire, no, make that the best shipbuilder in the continent. In the future, he would rise to the position of the finest shipbuilder on the continent.

It was stated in the novel that Hyun Jae provided him with a blueprint of a contemporary ship during the war against the Demon Lord. From which he was able to construct it and it became the greatest ship to battle against the demon lord's army invasion in the waters around the Hacien.

Though, it was also said that he had a deep hatred for nobles and the novel didn't justify the reason for that. 'Iris, I do really wonder why you didn't write such important details like that and just focused more on the story of their romance and defeat of the demon king.'

'But I guess, it's pretty understandable since most readers wanted to read the most interesting parts only. Though this finds is surely interesting but that's only that. I don't want to deal with him after this.'

"Very well, Miss." Nicholas finally stopped laughing. "I was just jesting. Let's forget if we have some sort of misunderstanding earlier."

'Jesting my aunt.' Malaya scoffed inside her mind. 'You were clearly trying to get more money from me.'

"Let me now show you to her." Nicholas tapped his crane on the ground three times. The ground started shaking once again.

"What are you doing?" Malaya this time said with wariness.

"Rest assured, I will not pull any tricks now." And the huge boulder behind him started to form an entrance to a cave. After a few minutes, the shaking of the ground finally came to a halt.

"Follow after me." Nicholas once again walked ahead. As he stepped on the cave, torches began to light up one by one to the place Malaya and her group weren't certain of the end.

Both Rein and Dorris' faces held uncertainty. 

"Let's go now," Malaya said despite this. "He would not dare to hurt us or else he would be in trouble too." That words affirm that there isn't anything to stress over on the off chance that they will be going to follow Nicholas.

Though Malaya said that, she too was a bit wary. 'What a difficult person this one is? Even convincing him just to build this ship took me the effort to save those girls. And he is still trying to make things difficult for us.' Additional to her thoughts, Vivian and her brother's smiling faces flashed on Malaya's mind. 'But I guess those efforts still won't end in vain.'

---⚓⚓⚓---

"You. new recruit! Bring this one there!" One of the people with a strong build that managed the workers in the shipyard shouted loudly and clear in an authoritative manner

"Ah yes!" A scrawny young teenage boy with messy old greyed clothes hurried to the cart that contained some bulk of woods. But what was noticeable to him was both his arms and legs were covered with bandages. No, almost all of his body was covered with bandages except his ash-grey eyes.

Though the other workers look at him with pity due to his conditions, since he applied to work here, the young teen still needs to do the work equally to what the others do in the shipyard normally.

He started to push the cart when he suddenly felt a familiar sensation.

'This!' He stopped midway. "Sorry! But something important came!" He shouted and started to run desperately.

'This presence! This Lifa!" He hit on some workers that caused them to stumble on the ground. But instead of helping, the young teen just went on his way. His mind clouded with thoughts. 'It could only belong to her! Nesha!' 

"Hey!" The man that stumbled angrily shouted at him. But the teen seemed to not hear this as he dashed forward.

He even hit some bricks but it didn't stop him from running. And more angry shouts were heard.

But he was desperate to reach that source of Lifa.

Who was this Nesha? Who was this boy? And why did his eyes strangely fill with longing as he rushed without care to anything?