"Make it stop!" Drakon roared, pressing his hands over his ears as if defending against a banshee's scream. "I have fought dragons louder than this potato! Why is it vibrating?!"
I ignored him. I ignored all of them. I was a siren of hunger, a beacon of starvation.
"WAAAAAHHH!"
"Shut up! All of you, shut your mouths!" Isabella's voice cut through the chaos like a whip. She looked frazzled, a stray lock of platinum hair falling over her eyes. She rocked me aggressively, which honestly, was making me slightly seasick, but I appreciated the effort. "I need to think! The child needs milk, not your useless screaming!"
Drakon lowered his hands, looking genuinely baffled. He pointed a scarred finger at Isabella's chest. The silk of her nightgown was stretched tight across her curves—curves that were, admittedly, quite generous.
"But..." Drakon frowned, doing some very incorrect mental math. "Look at them. They are huge. Surely there is a gallon stored in there? Just squeeze it out!"
The entire deck went silent.
Ren looked at the sky. Gorak covered his eyes. Malachi floated a few inches higher to get a better view (the creep).
Isabella went rigid. A dark aura, terrifyingly similar to the Captain's bloodlust, radiated from her. She didn't yell. She didn't scream. She simply stared at the Pirate King with the cold, dead eyes of a woman contemplating regicide.
"Captain," she said, her voice dropping to sub-zero temperatures. "If you finish that sentence, I will pour poison into your rum every night for the next ten years. You will never sleep again. Do you understand?"
Drakon blinked. "But—"
"I have not given birth!" Isabella hissed. "These are for decoration and intimidation! They are not faucets! I physically cannot—"
"Actually," a rasping voice interrupted.
Malachi, the skeletal Dark Mage, floated forward. He reached into the depths of his tattered robes and pulled out a small, glowing pink vial.
"I looted this from a High Priestess's ship last week," Malachi rasped. "The Elixir of Matriarchy. It instantly induces lactation for... biological nourishment."
Isabella stared at the suspicious glowing liquid. "You carry that around? Why?"
"Chimera experiments," Malachi shrugged. "Never mind that. Do you want the potato to live, or not?"
I let out another ear-piercing wail. "WAAAAHH!"
Isabella looked at me. She saw my red, tear-stained face. She saw my tiny hands clutching the air, desperate for comfort.
She looked at the potion. It bubbled ominously.
She looked back at Drakon, who was covering his ears again.
"Give it to me," she snapped.
She snatched the vial from Malachi's bony hand, uncorked it, and downed it in one gulp. She grimaced. "It tastes like strawberries and regret."
Almost instantly, a soft glow surrounded her. She gasped, placing a hand on her chest as the magic took effect.
"Turn around!" she barked at the men. "All of you! Face the sea! If anyone peeks, I will gouge their eyes out!"
The terrifying Pirate King, the Orc, the Swordsman, and the Dark Mage all spun around immediately, facing the ocean like naughty schoolboys.
Isabella sat down on a crate. She adjusted her silk gown, her movements gentle and trembling slightly. Then, she pulled me close.
"There, there, little Pearl," she whispered, her voice softening into a coo. "Auntie Bella is here."
She guided me.
And finally... heaven.
Warm milk. Real, magic-induced, nutrient-rich milk.
I latched on like my life depended on it (because it did). My tears dried up instantly. My heartbeat slowed. The world, once a loud and scary place, was now soft, warm, and smelled like expensive lavender perfume.
"Is it eating?" Drakon shouted from the railing, not turning around.
"She is dining," Isabella corrected softly, stroking my light blue hair. "Now shut up and let her finish."
As the sugar hit my bloodstream, my brain finally started working again. The panic of survival faded, replaced by the clarity of an adult mind.
I looked up at the woman holding me.
Platinum hair. Emerald eyes. The attitude of a queen who stepped in mud and decided to own the mud.
I knew who she was.
In The Tyrant of the Boundless Ocean, Isabella wasn't just a random crew member. She was a key character with a hilarious, tragic backstory.
Isabella von Ostralia. The Third Princess of the Empire. The fiancé of the Hero.
Three years ago, in the novel's timeline, Drakon had kidnapped her. He had sent a ransom note to the Emperor demanding 100,000 gold coins.
But the Emperor was a stingy, cheap man. He had replied: "She's my third daughter, not the first. 100,000 is too steep. How about 40,000 and a trade agreement?"
Isabella had been in the Captain's cabin when the letter arrived. She had read her father's haggling attempt.
Insulted that her own father put her on the clearance rack, she had snapped. She tore up the letter, looked Drakon in the eye, and said the legendary line:
"Keep the ship turned left. My father's secret treasury is that way. Let's rob him instead."
She never went home. She became the Leviathan's Navigator, the only person smart enough to keep Drakon from sailing off the edge of the world.
But...
I stopped sucking for a split second, a frown touching my lips.
In the novel, Isabella dies.
It happens in Chapter 400. During the Battle of the Red Tides, she takes a magical spear meant for Drakon. She dies in his arms, her last words being a joke about how he still owes her money. It was one of the few times Drakon cried. It was the moment he truly went insane and burned the world.
I looked at her face. She was wiping a drop of milk from my cheek with a silk handkerchief, looking down at me with a gaze that was no longer just annoyed—it was possessive. She had literally altered her body for me.
She's going to die. This soft, expensive pillow of a woman is going to die.
No.
I gripped her finger tighter.
I won't let that happen. Not because I care about the plot. Screw the plot. The plot is depressing.
I need her. Who else is going to feed me? Who else is going to teach me how to scam nobles?
Isabella is my survival ticket. She is my... well, she's my mom now.
And besides...
I looked past Isabella's shoulder at the deck of the Leviathan.
For a ship owned by the "King of Pirates," it was... weird.
There were piles of gold coins scattered in the corner like trash.
Drakon, now that the screaming had stopped, was drinking rum out of a jewel-encrusted goblet worth more than a modern-day Ferrari.
When he finished the rum, he frowned at the goblet. "Sticky," he grunted.
Then, he threw the solid gold goblet overboard into the ocean.
My eyes widened. I almost choked on the milk.
Did... did he just throw that away? Because he didn't want to wash it?
I watched Ren sharpening his sword with a diamond the size of a fist.
I watched Gorak peeling potatoes, throwing the peels into a bucket made of pure silver.
Oh my god.
Realization hit me like a brick.
I remembered the other detail about Drakon's crew.
They were the strongest pirates in the world. They raided the richest kingdoms. They had literal mountains of treasure.
But they were always "broke."
Why?
Because they had the financial literacy of a hamster.
They spent money on ridiculous things. They threw away treasure because it was heavy. They bought cursed items that exploded.
That's why they were always fighting. They had to keep raiding just to buy food because they wasted everything else.
These idiots, I thought, my eyelids growing heavy. They are sitting on a fortune, but they live like hobos.
A spark lit up in my tiny brain.
I don't care about the Hero. I don't care about saving the world.
I just want one thing.
Retirement.
I want to buy a tropical island. I want a villa with AC (or magic cooling). I want to sleep on a bed made of money. And I want to do it all by the time I turn eighteen.
I looked at Drakon. Then at Isabella. Then at the crew.
They didn't need a warrior. They didn't need a mage.
They needed an Accountant.
And lucky for them, before I died, I was the manager of a very busy retail store. I knew how to pinch pennies. I knew how to audit.
I finished the milk, letting out a satisfied burp that made Isabella giggle.
Don't worry, Auntie Bella, I thought, closing my eyes as the food coma set in. I'm going to fix this ship. I'm going to make us so rich that we can buy the Hero's army and pay them to go away.
"She's falling asleep," Isabella whispered.
"Good," Drakon grunted, finally turning around. He poked my stomach gently. "She's full. Now... what do we do with it?"
"We raise her, you oaf," Isabella said softly, walking towards the cabin. "And we start by buying a crib. A gold one. With velvet lining."
No! My mind screamed as I drifted off. Not gold! Wood is cheaper! Invest the difference in stocks!
But the sleep was too strong. My first day as the Pirate King's daughter was over.
The first step is to survive. Second step is to monetize everything.