Chapter 441

Chapter 441: Another Possibility

Tyrian walked into the meeting room.

There was no soft music for high society and no grand, luxurious ballroom. This was only a reception room under the Harbor Administration. The hosts were a few representatives from the navy. Tyrian even recognized a few faces.

He had dealt with them in recent years.

Lister rose to greet the “Pirate Lord” walking into the room.

“I am sorry. Our conditions are limited right now,” the Chief Commander said as he held out his hand, his tone carrying an apology. “In this rush, this is the best reception we could prepare.”

Tyrian did not take the offered hand at once. He first lifted his head and looked around the room. A few representatives in Frostholm navy uniforms stood behind Lister. Their faces were still fairly calm, but the other attendants were clearly not so relaxed. Some secretly watched the Undying who had come in with Tyrian. Others tried to act composed and turned their eyes away. Yet they all had two things in common: besides tension, there was a tiredness in their eyes that could not be hidden.

Tyrian smiled, then reached out and shook Lister’s hand.

“This is fine. If you had really set up a grand banquet for me at a time like this, and even found a few people to play fiddles in the corner, then there would be no point in us talking at all.”

Feeling the strength in the hand of this “iron Vice Admiral,” Lister’s expression twitched slightly. He pulled his hand back and said in a slightly awkward tone: “You do have some prejudice against us, but you also know the truth. We only stand on different sides. As soldiers, the Frostholm navy today will still defend our city-state as firmly as you once did.”

“Yes, I know. And I have already seen it with my own eyes. Otherwise, I would never have accepted your invitation, General,” Tyrian said with a small smile. His gaze swept across the badge on Lister’s chest, and he paused slightly on the word “General.” Then he shook his head, walked toward the center of the room, and spoke again: “Let’s end the small talk here. You and I both know what time it is. We can talk about this city, talk about the future or, if you have the courage, we can talk about my father.”

“Your father…” Lister sat down on the sofa. When he heard Tyrian’s last words, his body clearly stiffened. In the next second, the scene that all Frostholm people would remember for life rose again in his mind.

From the Boundless Sea came the reflection of giants. Two eyes like twin Suns opened in the clouds. The mirror world city-state, torn and peeled away from this one, burned into ash in the giants’ hands.

A shudder rose from the depths of his soul. Lister forced himself to stop the memory and looked at the Pirate Lord sitting across from him, still shaken.

“So that really was your father? That being who returned from Subspace…” He started speaking with a pause on every word. It felt as if simply talking about it, simply naming it, might draw some nameless gaze down on him. “At the last moment, it was really his hand that saved us… but that form of his has never appeared in any…”

“It will show up in the records from now on,” Tyrian said with a shrug. “Congratulations, General Lister. Frostholm will be the first city-state to witness and record this.”

He paused, then asked with real interest: “I’m curious. What is the mood in the city now, especially among people like you? How do you see what happened?”

“Tension and fear still fill the city. I must admit, this night has been very hard for everyone. The disaster is over, but it ended in a way most people cannot understand and that chills them to the bone. Many are guessing what the being that came down on the sea at the end really was, but I think… if they truly knew, the panic might be even worse,” Lister said, and he let out a sigh. “Even at City Hall, it was only after we sorted a great many records and clues that we dared to guess that it was your father. Don’t blame us for being slow. That scene was too shocking. Anyone would hesitate for a long time.”

“I can understand,” Tyrian sighed, his expression a bit strange. “He did not tell me in advance either. I was just as scared as you when it happened.”

Lister looked at the Pirate Lord in front of him. A strange feeling stirred in his heart. It was an uncontrollable curiosity mixed with the instinctive fear people felt when facing the unknown. He could not help imagining how this “son of Duncan” spoke to that terrifying father of his. How had father and son decided to help Frostholm? How did that shadow from Subspace view the world today?

“I would like to ask,” the General who had risen through a battlefield promotion finally could not hold back. “Your father… has he really, as the rumors say, found his humanity again?”

Tyrian looked genuinely surprised. “In what way does he not seem human?”

At once, Lister thought of the giant figure standing in the sky, and of the city-state burning to ash and being ground to dust in the giants’ hands. He opened his mouth, holding back a stomach full of rude words, but did not dare let even one of them out.

After a long struggle, the Frostholm General only forced out one stiff line: “I believe he does now have the heart of a human.”

Tyrian laughed. “And I believe that came straight from your heart.”

Then the Pirate Lord of the Frost Sea picked up a wine glass from the low table and solemnly raised it toward Lister. “Let us drink to this mutual trust.”

Lister: “…”

The Frostholm General raised his glass, clinked it against Tyrian’s with a stiff smile, took a small sip, and set it down. “Then may I ask what you and your father plan to do next?”

Tyrian looked completely at ease. “I don’t know.”

Lister’s eyes flew wide. “You don’t know?”

“He has not told me yet,” Tyrian spread his hands. There was a joy in his eyes that he could not hide. After matching wits with the Frostholm navy for half a century, it was this “friendly talk” that pleased him most. “I came here only because of Father’s order. When I joined the battle afterward, it was only to protect the city that Her Majesty Queen Ray Nora once protected. I never thought about what comes next. That depends on Father’s mood.”

Lister spoke without thinking: “Then how can we contact your father?”

Tyrian lifted his eyelids with a half-smile. “You really want to contact him? Then I can teach you a ritual…”

“That won’t be necessary,” Lister felt his back go cold at once and quickly waved his hand. “I was only speaking without thinking.”

“When you are talking about ‘him,’ it is better not to speak without thinking. You never know when ‘he’ might actually turn his gaze toward you,” Tyrian said. His expression then shifted in a subtle way, as if he had remembered something not very pleasant. He quickly shook his head, looked back at Lister, and changed to a lighter tone. “Relax, young man. I was only making a joke. You are all wound up too tight. This is the first time in fifty years that the Sea Mist Fleet has ‘come home.’ Shouldn’t we have an easy mood, like a family reunion?”

Young man…

The corner of Lister’s mouth twitched, but he quickly swallowed his awkwardness. His face grew serious. “General Tyrian, then I will be frank. To put it plainly… Frostholm is in trouble.”

“I know. We just solved it.”

“No, I am not talking about the Visions invasion. That invasion was not trouble. It was a disaster. Now the disaster is over, but the trouble that follows it will come one after another. Order in Frostholm is on the verge of collapse. Even if we make it through this night in peace, we still have to deal with public security, supplies, sea safety, and a whole pile of other problems…”

“And what does that have to do with me?” Tyrian leaned back on the sofa and calmly fixed his gaze on Lister’s eyes. “I am a Rebel. I don’t know anything about that.”

The rest of what Lister had been about to say was cut off by Tyrian’s blunt answer.

After a few seconds of awkward silence, he quickly pulled himself together again and opened his mouth as if to speak.

But a steady knock at the door suddenly cut him off.

The reception room door opened. A refined man walked in, wearing a well-tailored suit, hair combed back without a strand out of place, and a pair of gold-rimmed glasses on his nose.

“I hope I am not intruding,” the man with the gold-rimmed glasses said with a gentle smile. He bowed politely to the host and guest in the room, then walked straight toward the table. “May I join you?”

“Oh, Mr. Confidential Secretary,” Tyrian looked at the young man for a moment, then suddenly remembered him and smiled. “I recognize your glasses… and your hairstyle.”

Lister turned toward the Confidential Secretary and asked quickly: “Is there news from City Hall?”

The Confidential Secretary nodded and answered softly: “From City Hall.”

Tyrian spoke up from the side: “Let me say this first. I am not interested in the resolutions from your City Hall. We are Rebels…”

He did not finish. The well-dressed Confidential Secretary suddenly turned his face toward Tyrian. As he set a document down on the low table, he looked straight into Tyrian’s eyes and said: “Then what if there is another possibility?”

He paused, pushed the document over, and spoke in a quiet voice:

“Governor Tyrian has arrived in his loyal Frostholm.”