A beautiful lady?
Audrey instead caught onto another key point in that sentence. While checking the injuries on the back of Klein, who was disguised as Helen, she examined her appearance and figure.
At times she was secretly surprised, and at times she frowned slightly. After giving the wounds a simple bandaging, Audrey suggested that Klein go to a clinic for a more thorough examination while asking how he had ended up in trouble so late at night.
Klein's thoughts raced as he said that he had jumped off a pirate ship and had been carried by the current until he drifted onto this beach.
The justice-minded Audrey immediately asked which pirate crew it was. Upon hearing that it was once again the pirate crew of Vice Admiral Ailment Tracy committing evil deeds, her dislike for this Vice Admiral Ailment, whom she had never met, deepened even further.
"Thank you both for your kind concern. I'm already fine now, so there's no need to trouble yourselves any further."
Klein wanted to find an excuse to leave, but Hastur smiled and said, "It's the middle of the night, and this place isn't safe either. We should escort you to a nearby clinic."
Audrey also felt that this was the more appropriate way to handle things. It was just that Mr. Hastur had never been particularly fond of troublesome matters. Wasn't he being a little too enthusiastic tonight?
Could it be that Mr. Hastur preferred girls of this type?
Audrey secretly glanced at Hastur again and discovered that his eyes were filled with amusement as he stared continuously at the unfortunate young lady before him.
"There's no need to go to so much trouble. I know the way around here." Klein hurriedly declined. With Hastur's gaze resting on him, he constantly felt as if needles were pricking his back.
"Didn't you say you drifted here with the current?"
"..." Unable to refuse any further, Klein could ultimately only accept Hastur's proposal and let the two of them escort him to the clinic.
Along the way, Audrey and Klein talked about quite a few topics, and Klein also took the opportunity to figure out why Hastur was here.
They had come out to have fun. As for why they were taking a walk on the beach in the middle of the night, that was probably some special romantic interest unique to young couples.
For someone who had always been single, this question was somewhat beyond the scope of his knowledge.
But the more they chatted, the more Klein felt that something was wrong. Why did this Miss Audrey before him seem so similar to Miss Justice?
Her manner of speech and temperament, her appearance and figure, and her Leonese accent, it was practically as if she and Miss Justice had been cast from the same mold.
It couldn't possibly be that coincidental, right? Klein's scalp tingled, and he couldn't help shivering. Seeing this, Audrey thought he had caught a chill because his clothes were damp.
Should I probe her with a question?
After thinking for a while, Klein ultimately abandoned the idea. There would be plenty of time in the future to investigate who Miss Justice really was. But if Miss Justice realized that he was Mr. Fool...
Mr. Fool is a "big" girl!
Such explosive news would definitely shake the entire Tarot Club. Every Tarot Club member would look at him with curious, complicated, and shocked gazes.
After arriving at a nearby clinic, Klein once again thanked Hastur and Audrey for their help, eagerly wanting them to leave.
Audrey also felt that they shouldn't stay any longer, but Hastur showed no intention of leaving. Instead, he smiled and said, "Miss Helen really resembles someone I know."
This was the second time tonight that Hastur had said this. Klein could no longer pretend that he hadn't heard it. He was already certain that his identity as a man disguised as a woman had been exposed.
The only thing worth celebrating was that the person standing before him who had discovered his cross-dressing identity wasn't Leonard. Otherwise, he truly wouldn't have the face to meet anyone in the future.
"Mr. Hastur, you mustn't harbor any improper thoughts toward a girl in distress."
Audrey reminded him again, inexplicably feeling a little jealous.
Although she felt that she was prettier than the unfortunate Miss Helen before her, the weak yet stubborn look in Miss Helen's eyes truly made people feel sorry for her.
"Perhaps I mistook you for someone else, Mr. Klein, uh... I misspoke. Miss Helen, we'll be leaving first."
Hastur chuckled and apologized, then led Audrey out of the clinic.
Before Klein even had time to breathe a sigh of relief, he heard the clear conversation between Hastur and Audrey, who hadn't yet gone far.
"Does that Mr. Klein really look that much like Miss Helen?"
"Mm. It isn't really a question of whether they look alike. I suspect they might be the same person."
"But isn't that Mr. Klein a man? How could he turn into Miss Helen?"
"In the mystical world, anything is possible."
"Wait, Mr. Hastur, don't tell me you're saying that the Mr. Klein you know is a Beyonder of the Witch pathway?"
"Well, I'm really not too sure about that..." Klein could no longer clearly hear the rest of their conversation, but he didn't need to.
After taking several deep breaths, he finally suppressed the chaotic emotions in his heart. In the end, he told himself inwardly, "This is what it means to act as a Faceless. I am always acting, rather than completely becoming another person."
"Shame and panic are emotions that must be overcome when acting as a Faceless. I must always be prepared to have my identity exposed."
A sweet smile once again appeared on Klein's tense face as he completely regarded himself as Helen.
If he encountered Hastur again, he would face him with a calmer state of mind. At the very least, he wouldn't feel ashamed or afraid of being exposed because of it. Instead, he would remain calm and composed.
Who says men can't wear women's clothing?
At the same moment Klein came to this realization, his Faceless potion was completely digested. He could now prepare to advance to Sequence 5, Marionettist.
Klein's feelings became even more complicated. All he could do was hope that next time, he would also get the chance to personally catch Hastur in an equally socially devastating situation.
After leaving the clinic, Klein found an unoccupied house and traded the expensive dress he was wearing for a set of ordinary men's clothing. He then changed his appearance into that of Gehrman Sparrow.
Fortunately, this time, Mr. Hastur didn't suddenly appear in front of him again.
...
After returning to the Hope and seeing Audrey looking somewhat unhappy, Hastur deliberately said, "No wonder Emperor Roselle praised the beauty of Witches so highly. Beyonders of the Witch pathway really do possess a different kind of charm."
Audrey said seriously with a stern expression, "Mr. Hastur, Witches usually represent pain and torment. Falling in love with one of them would be a disaster."
"Mm, I will firmly heed Miss Audrey's warning! I definitely won't become infatuated with the charm of Witches!"
Hastur answered with complete seriousness, immediately causing Audrey's face to turn red. She glared slightly at Hastur, then led Susie, who had been waiting nearby, back to their room.
Hastur went to take a bath. Soaking in the comfortable warm water, he leaned his head back, unable to stop the corners of his lips from curling upward.
Whenever he thought about how Klein, disguised as Helen tonight, had run into both him and Audrey, such an utterly socially devastating scene must have caused the shame in Klein's heart to nearly explode.
Originally, he had also considered directly exposing Klein's identity on the spot and then asking him, "Mr. Klein, is that you?"
After thinking about it, however, he decided to leave Klein with his final shred of dignity. After all, if he stripped away every last bit of his cover, Klein might simply give up all pretenses, which would make things less interesting.
The only regrettable thing was that Audrey didn't know that the beautiful Miss Helen who had appeared before her tonight was actually the mysterious, unfathomable, and unviewable Mr. Fool.
"Come to think of it, I was also helping Klein complete his acting as a Faceless."
...
On the sea, the Dawn sailed beneath the first rays of morning sunlight and arrived in the waters surrounding the mysterious island where Roselle was rumored to have stored his treasure.
Bernadette walked out of the captain's cabin and came to the bow, gazing into the distance at the island where her father was buried.
The pointed tip of a black mausoleum protruded above the dense forest, nearly as tall as the mountains on the island.
There was no doubt that this was the final mausoleum left behind after her father's failed attempt to switch to the Black Emperor pathway.
As long as this mausoleum still existed, there remained a sliver of hope that he could revive and return.
Bernadette stared at it in a daze for a long time before ordering the fleet to spread out and surround the entire island, forbidding any ships from approaching and preventing anyone from landing on the island.
She herself had no intention of going ashore. Instead, she intended to intercept everyone who tried to land.
The members under her command who held more radical ideas ultimately chose to submit beneath the prestige she had accumulated over the years.
However, the news still leaked out. Before long, pirate crews searching other waters rushed over after hearing the news, demanding that Bernadette end the blockade and allow them to land on the island together so they could split the treasure left behind by Emperor Roselle.
Bernadette didn't waste words with them. She simply drew a boundary that no one was allowed to cross. Anyone who crossed it would be mercilessly destroyed.
At first, relatively few forces arrived, and Bernadette could still deal with them calmly, relying on her overwhelming strength to intimidate them. But as time passed, more and more pirate crews gathered. Her strength alone was no longer enough to completely guard the entire island, so she could only resort to killing, slaughtering enough pirates that none of the pirate crews dared advance.
It wasn't until members of the Church of Storms appeared and stood on the same side as Bernadette that the pressure on her greatly decreased.
To better handle the situation surrounding the island, the Church of Storms and the Church of the Evernight Goddess each dispatched an archbishop to discuss countermeasures with Bernadette.
This outcome directly caused Bernadette, the Queen Mystic, to be struck from the pirates' ranks and no longer regarded as one of the Pirate Kings. Even her title of Queen Mystic was mocked as meaning "Servant of Storms."
Several more days passed, and the Hope carrying Hastur and Audrey also arrived in the waters surrounding the island.
Standing at the bow and looking through a telescope, they saw the distinctive flags of various pirate crews filling their field of vision.
Xio was so excited that she practically howled. With so many pirates gathered here, there were naturally plenty of famous pirates who appeared on wanted posters as well.
Their bounties ranged from several hundred pounds to tens of thousands of pounds. Even the flagship of the Undying King Agalito, had appeared!
This was a Pirate King, someone far more valuable than a Pirate Admiral. The total bounty exceeded hundreds of thousands of pounds!
Hehehe, Undying King, hundreds of thousands of pounds, hehehe...
"All right. If you keep howling like that, even Susie will think you're too noisy."
Fors patted Xio on the head, signaling for her to calm down.