Chapter 39

The impact of slamming against the sea surface nearly caused Diana’s consciousness to fade away.

Surging seawater.

Invading her eyes, her mouth, and her nose all at once.

Ah, so a second death could be so utterly anticlimactic… she didn’t even have the luxury of resigning herself to fate.

Right in the middle of sinking down into a dark world, she felt the sensation of her body being scooped up and pulled back to the surface.

A forceful strength that aggressively snatched her away as she was being lured into the depths of the ocean.

Held tightly in strong arms, Diana’s consciousness was swallowed by the abyss once and for all.

When Diana opened her heavy eyelids, a starry sky spread out before her eyes.

There was no ceiling, not even a building in sight.

Only unguarded, vast nature stretched endlessly around them.

From beside her, she heard the sound of sparks crackling and popping.

As she sluggishly raised her heavy body, the figure of a man warming himself by a campfire, Curtis, jumped into view.

“Ah—”

“You’re awake.”

Murmuring without even looking at Diana, Curtis was bare-chested, though he still wore his trousers.

Though she instinctively averted her eyes, she was stunned to realize that she, too, was dressed in little more than undergarments.

“It’s not like I took your clothes off with any ulterior motives. You were chilled to the bone, so wiping away the seawater and warming your body came first.”

With Curtis’s blunt words, Diana understood everything.

The attack by the kraken, and the one who had saved her when she fell from the ship—was this man.

“…Should I offer you my gratitude?”

“If you’re offering, I’ll take it.”

At Diana’s words, Curtis gave a small laugh.

Illuminated by the campfire was a rugged, muscular physique.

His skin, tanned like a true man of the sea, was clad in tight, toned muscle, not quite as honed as Alan the swordsman, but impressive nonetheless.

“Where is this?”

“Who knows. It doesn’t seem to be an island where people live.”

“Are you saying we’ve washed ashore on an uninhabited island…?”

The situation was desperate.

The means to return… there was no way to set out onto the open ocean once more, and there was neither water nor food.

“As long as I’m here, my men should be launching a full-scale search.”

“That’s true.”

Diana’s reply was brief.

Casting a glance her way, wondering if she was feeling discouraged, Curtis noticed that Diana’s eyes, staring fixedly at a single point, brimmed with a strong light.

“You come over here too and warm yourself by the fire. You must be freezing.”

“I’m fine.”

Even as she said that, Diana’s body, wrapped in wet undergarments, had been robbed of its warmth.

Slowly raising herself, she kept her distance from Curtis as she approached the fire.

At Diana’s cautious attitude, Curtis’s expression relaxed slightly.

“It’s not like I’m going to eat you up. If I wanted to ravish you, I would have done it long ago.”

“Even so, dressed like this…”

At Diana’s gesture of burying her face in her knees, Curtis lightly shrugged his shoulders.

“They’ll dry soon enough. Even so…”

At Curtis’s words, which sounded as though he had more to say, Diana raised her head.

The moment she directed her gaze, her eyes met the man’s emerald irises.

“If you’re going to be so blatantly on guard against me, it hurts. Though you might not think it, there are plenty of women who flock to me.”

“I have no intention of flocking.”

As Diana quickly averted her gaze, Curtis let out a silent chuckle.

“I thought you’d be terrified, but it seems you aren’t, which is a relief.”

To Curtis, a woman was something fragile, meant to be protected.

Though there were some strong and independent women among them, out on the sea, that strength was stripped away from everyone equally.

Worse yet, cast out into the vast open ocean and washed ashore alone with a man.

Under such circumstances, it would be no surprise for any woman—no, regardless of gender—to feel terrified and lose their composure.

And yet, what was this woman before him doing?

Without crying out to him or breaking down, she was simply warming herself quietly by the campfire.

As if to say that doing so was the absolute best course of action.

“You have quite the composed attitude, don’t you.”

“Oh, considering you yourself said your subordinates are out searching for us.”

The casual way she brushed it off still didn’t make her look frightened in the least.

“Do you really place that much faith in what I said?”

“Not in you…”

Curtis’s eyes didn’t miss the way Diana’s expression softened for a fraction of a second.

Not because of him, but because she believed in someone else; Diana’s words strongly implied as much.

Even without thinking, he knew who that someone was.

Diana’s husband, Grand Duke Alan Rutledge.

Though he had married into her family and now bore the surname Gazard, beyond his standing as a royal younger brother, Diana seemed completely devoted to Alan.

He certainly was an exceptional swordsman.

Watching him cross swords with the kraken made one understand that whether they liked it or not.

He had lunged valiantly at the kraken as it emerged from the sea to sink the ship, finally driving his sword so deeply into its brow that it proved to be a fatal wound.

Truly a hero.

Had it been an age of turmoil, he surely would have taken up a sword, galloped across the battlefields, and annexed nations one after another.

Yet Curtis, too, was a man of standing.

Seeing a woman like Diana trust only another man and lavish her affections solely on him made him feel a bubbling heat welling up from the very depths of his gut.

(Am I… jealous of that man?)

It was a sensation he had never felt before.

There were as many women throwing themselves at him as he could want. Even women of striking beauty.

Yet, for the person he had taken an interest in to look only at another man and pay him no mind whatsoever, such a situation was entirely new to Curtis.

“If you had been born in the Kingdom of Fieran…”

“Hm?”

The thought naturally slipped past Curtis’s lips.

He hurriedly covered his mouth, but it was already too late.

Diana raised her head and blinked her eyes.

“No, I was just thinking that if you had been born in the Kingdom of Fieran, I would have forcefully taken you into my employ.”

“That is a discussion of ‘what ifs.’ I believe that even if I were to be reborn, I would be born in the Kingdom of Rutledge.”

Curtis had no way of knowing that she had actually died once and was now living a second life.

“And you would marry that man once again?”

“…Yes. I pray that it would be so.”

A wish that had gone unfulfilled in her first life.

That desire was finally fulfilled by Diana in her second life.

Curtis could never know the true weight behind Diana’s words.

However, the sheer intensity of her feelings toward Alan was conveyed loud and clear.

Deep creases furrowed between Curtis’s brows, and his lips pulled tight into a firm line.

“Will you not even grant me a single chance?”

A sigh-laced voice slipped from Curtis’s lips.

Unable to gauge the meaning behind those words, Diana stared fixedly at Curtis.

For a moment, there was silence.

Only the sound of sparks crackling and popping from the fire tickled their ears.

The one who moved first was Curtis.

He reached out to a withered branch thrust into the ground near the campfire and tossed the clothes hanging upon it toward Diana.

“They’re dry now, put them on. It’s bad for my eyes.”

“Ah…”

Remembering that she was dressed in little more than undergarments, Diana’s cheeks flushed crimson.

While Diana busied herself hastily donning her clothes, Curtis lowered his gaze and murmured softly, turning his back to her.

“Do you believe in him… that much?”

Dressed once more in the same attire she wore before falling into the water, Diana looked straight up at Curtis.

“Yes, of course. Because he promised that if anything happened, he would come to my rescue.”

Her eyes held a brilliance as dazzling as the light itself.

It was half an hour later that Diana’s words became reality.

“Lord Alan!!”

“Diana—!”

As if blocking her vision from the sight of Diana throwing herself straight into her husband’s embrace, Curtis slowly closed his eyes.

The kraken nesting in the open ocean had been slain by Alan’s blade.

Though the warship had suffered no small amount of damage, it remained in a condition fully capable of navigation.

It was a battle victory worthy of celebration, but all the way back to the port town of Angus, Curtis’s expression never cleared.

What that meant… the person in question simply refused to acknowledge it.