The letter was written on thick, cream-colored vellum, carrying the scent of expensive ink and the lingering smell of cigars from her father's study.
She drew out the paper and unfolded it.
Her father's handwriting was as forceful as ever, each letter seeming to have been carved with a sword.
The letter was short, without a single word of reproach. Every line expressed a father's "care" for his daughter.
He hinted that her conquests in commerce over the past few years had seriously "disturbed" the "peace" of certain old friends.
He said the Golden Sail Merchant Guild's crisis might be an "opportunity" for her to stop.
Finally, he suggested that Caroline abandon the "vulgar" business of running a merchant guild and go to the Royal Capital to place herself under the patronage of a duchess.
With her looks and intelligence, learning to become a proper lady-in-waiting and securing a respectable marriage for herself was the right path.
At the end of the letter, he added a pointed remark.
"After all, you are only one of the bloodless, Caroline. Your worth does not lie in conquering the seas."
"Slap."
The paper slipped from her fingertips and fluttered onto the cold floor.
Caroline stood motionless before the window, her back to her father's butler.
Her body was rigid, like a sword that might snap at any moment.
But only she knew how tightly she was biting her lip. A trickle of blood ran from the corner of her mouth, bringing a sharp sting.
Yet even that was merely her final struggle.
Her vision went black, and Caroline's world spun as it plunged into the abyss.
Caroline seemed to be back on the deck of the Strong Spirits, but the ship was sinking.
Crimson seawater rose over her ankles. She desperately tried to plug the enormous hole in the hull with her hands, but the sturdy keelwood turned to quicksand beneath her touch.
In the distance, her father and Hector stood side by side on a solid reef, champagne glasses raised. With the eyes of men admiring a painting, they silently watched her and her ship disappear beneath the blood-red sea.
Consciousness slowly returned. The first things she felt were the softness of the mattress and the warmth of the cashmere blanket covering her.
Caroline opened her eyes. The intricate plaster moldings on the ceiling were indistinct in the dim light. The rain outside seemed to have stopped, leaving only a dull gray.
She pushed herself upright, her long silver hair falling in disarray over her shoulders. Her black riding clothes were creased as well.
Several people stood in the room.
Senior steward Freeman, chief alchemist Valerius, and several of her most loyal captains. Their faces were filled with undisguised worry, like lambs about to be led to the altar.
Veylin was there too.
He still wore the cloak that enveloped him completely, standing beside the window and silently looking outside, utterly out of place.
"You..."
Caroline's voice was slightly hoarse. She cleared her throat, and a bitter smile appeared on her pale face.
"You all know, don't you? About my father's letter."
No one answered. Their silence was answer enough.
"Perhaps he's right."
She threw off the blanket and stepped barefoot onto the floor. Its cold touch cleared her head.
"I'm tired, Freeman. I've fought this world. I've won, and I've lost. Now I don't want to fight anymore."
She looked at the subordinates who had followed her for years, the pieces of "gold" she had found one by one in ship holds, warehouses, and offices. Her eyes held a weariness and vulnerability they had never seen before.
"Go. Tell Hector. Tell those vultures that the Golden Sail Merchant Guild concedes defeat. Save whatever you can. At least you'll still have a way to survive."
"My lady!"
All color drained from Freeman's face, and he nearly fell to his knees.
Despair permeated the room, as though the final judgment had already been pronounced.
Just then, a calm voice broke the deathly silence.
"I hadn't expected you to be such an edgy teenage girl."
Veylin turned and strolled out of the shadows.
He walked up to Caroline and, under everyone's astonished gazes, gave the others an order in an almost insolent tone.
"Now, I need to discuss the precise terms of surrender with the vice president in private. Since this concerns how much severance pay you'll receive, please wait outside."
He spoke as though it were perfectly natural. For a moment, Freeman and the others had no idea how to react and could only look instinctively at Caroline.
A flicker of confusion passed through Caroline's eyes, but when she caught the subtle look Valerius gave her, she nodded slightly.
As though granted a reprieve, yet still full of misgivings, everyone was led out by the chief alchemist, who thoughtfully closed the door behind them.
Only the two of them remained.
"You..."
Caroline was about to demand an explanation, but Veylin gestured for her to be quiet.
He took a palm-sized glass jar from inside his cloak and placed it on the table before Caroline.
The jar held a clear liquid in which several dead "Calamity" shipworms floated limply. Their once-tough white bodies were now grotesquely swollen, like sacks of rice stuffed until they burst.
Time turned back three days.
The alchemy laboratory at the Golden Sail Merchant Guild's headquarters.
It was less a laboratory than an enormous warehouse. The air held a complex mixture of smells from hundreds of herbs, minerals, and alchemical reagents.
Veylin stood before a workbench, ignoring the bottles and jars around him.
His eyes were fixed solely on the shipworm secured to the workbench, still struggling faintly.
Wearing gloves made of tanned lizard hide, he carefully cut open the shipworm's shell with a precision silver scalpel.
The system unfolded before his eyes.
["Calamity" shipworm (alchemical organism)] [Level: tier-two magical beast] [Bloodline: Abyss Devourer (bronze rank) 54%, Deep-Sea Worm (black iron rank) 18%, alchemical construct 28%] [Abilities: magic gnawing, high fire resistance, high poison resistance, moderate magic resistance, rapid reproduction, dormant mimicry] [Overall assessment: an organism created through alchemical magic, possessing extremely specialized survival abilities. However, after multiple generations, it will regress to ordinary levels, with no possibility of evolution.]
"Hiss... this really is tricky."
No wonder everyone else's efforts had accomplished so little. This was an artificial organism someone had specifically developed.
It seemed killing the shipworms outright would be difficult.
What other options were there?
Veylin recalled what he knew about shipworms from his previous life.
Suddenly, his eyes lit up. No matter how much it changed, its fundamentals remained the same. As long as it was still a shipworm, it would share that trait!
Veylin placed a drop of mucus extracted from the shipworm's digestive tract onto a crystal slide, and his view instantly magnified.
Countless tiny points of light swam through his field of vision.
"Killing you directly costs too much and accomplishes too little."
"In that case, let's try a different approach. All I need to do is add a little 'seasoning' to your food and let you... gorge yourselves to death. How does that sound?"