Masera didn’t leave my side throughout the entire wedding reception. It seemed to be for the purpose of appearing affectionate.
I couldn’t help but feel frustrated, as I wanted to chat comfortably with the other women.
And at the reception, it’s customary to ask the bride to dance, but there were an unusually large number of requests.
“If I dance with you, who is blessed by the goddess of fortune, my investment will be a huge success!”
Rather than genuine popularity, it felt more like I was a lucky pig bringing good fortune.
And Masera broke his own rule of ‘being cold at the reception‘ and absolutely didn’t allow it.
“That greedy bastard… trying to monopolize all the luck…”
He didn’t care whether the men asking her to dance sent him resentful glances or not.
So, he stuck to me like glue until the end of the reception.
‘He’s like a singleminded soldier locked on a target.’
But with only a touch of principle.
I, who wanted to make friends, also looked at him with resentment.
* * *
Our honeymoon destination was the capital of Medea, and thanks to Dowager Duchess Rukanosa’s influence, we were invited as honored guests to the royal palace.
Before leaving, I held Eugene’s hand, who had been looking gloomy throughout the wedding, and gave him a kind expression.
“Are you sad that your favorite uncle is getting married?”
“It’s not that.”
Unlike before, when he hated being touched, Eugene didn’t shake off my hand.
“I’ll buy you a present. Let’s spend a lot of time together when I get back.”
“I don’t want to.”
“You say you don’t want everything, just like Brigadier General.”
Eugene, who had been looking at me like a sulky cat, hesitated and pulled his hand away.
“I didn’t say I didn’t want you to buy me a present…”
“What do you want?”
“A train.”
Masera, who was standing next to us listening to our conversation, tilted his head.
“That’ll cost hundreds of millions.”
He’s so expressionless that I had no idea if he was joking, or actually thought I might buy Eugene a real train.
Anyway, we traveled a long time by train and then boarded a cruise ship.
It was my first time traveling abroad, so I was quite excited, but Masera, who had traveled to various countries in the past due to the war, seemed a bit bored.
I said to Masera, who was sitting in the cruise ship cabin reading a newspaper,
“If we’re lucky, we might see a huge humpback whale.”
“They’ve probably all left due to the long naval battles.”
“You never know. Besides, there’s a party on the deck with oysters and wine, aren’t you going? Fresh oysters are so delicious.”
He stared at me with an annoyed expression as I tried to drag him out onto the deck.
“You can just go alone.”
“I can’t. I’ll be lonely.”
I was a persistent person, and knowing that he would be constantly bothered if he refused, he got up from his seat with a tired expression.
“If there are no whales, I’m come right back. After that, I hope you’ll leave me alone for the rest of the honeymoon.”
“How about, if a whale appears, you have to do whatever I say during the honeymoon.”
I dragged the man, who had reluctantly gotten up, onto the deck.
People in first-class, dressed in fancy clothes, were enjoying oysters and wine while looking at the sea.
But the sea was calm and quiet, as if empty.
“It’s so sad that the ecosystem was destroyed by war. So many marine creatures died from torpedoes and shelling. When I think about the lives that have been extinguished due to human selfishness…”
I heard a woman say.
I covered my mouth and nodded in agreement with a sad face.
“It makes me feel so introspective. Humans are horrible…”
“In the future, when we reach modern warfare with advanced weapons of destruction, we will face even greater tragedies.”
Hearing those words, I was reminded of the gray world I lived in my previous life, which had lost its greenness and vitality.
Because the land was polluted by human wars, squirrels, deer, foxes, trees, grass, and even the moss on the rocks died.
“Sister, did the cute dolphins die too?”
A black-haired girl, who was looking at the sea, tugged at my sleeve and asked.
“They’ve moved to other locations. Because, whales and dolphins can warm to each other.”
Masera, who didn’t seem very interested in the topic of conversation, surprisingly gave a human-like answer.
“When will they come back?”
“Around the time you become an adult.”
“Hmph. What is the whale’s signal? I want to send a signal to the whales to come back.”
“Ultrasound emission. You can’t do it.”
Seeing the child make a sad face at Masera’s firm words, I quickly lowered myself and patted her back.
“You can shout ‘Come back!‘ to the sea. A dolphin friend who comes to check if it’s safe will hear you and tell his friends.”
At my words, the child’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Really?”
“No. There’s no such th…”
I pinched Masera’s hand, who was determined to destroy the child’s innocence. And I picked up the child.
“Shall we shout, ‘Whales, come back!‘?”
“Whales, come back! Scarlett is waiting!”
The child, whose name seemed to be Scarlett, clenched her small fists and shouted with all her heart.
“They’ve probably already abandoned their homeland.”
A gentleman, who seemed to have the same dry emotions as Masera, laughed and put a cigar in his mouth.
“Can’t the Esatain also return to their homeland? Like the whales whose habitats have been destroyed.”
He was a racist. It was then, as he looked down at my silver-white hair and sighed.
“I hope you go back to your homeland and eat your specialty, sausage. Oh, could you possibly be leaving your homeland because your country committed war crimes?”
Masera surprisingly took my side.
Strictly speaking, rather than taking my side, it seemed like he knew the other person was from a country that committed war crimes and was publicly shaming him.
The gentleman was startled and flustered, feeling the cold gazes around him.
“What makes you so sure that I’m from a country that committed war crimes…”
“You’re covered in products from that country from head to toe, and you expect me not to know?”
“Ha, justice belongs to the victor, they say. How many countries haven’t started a war?”
Masera glared at the grumbling gentleman with a chilling look.
“Then you should have won.”
The people around him also glared at the gentleman with hostile eyes.
“You look like a member of a ruthless massacre group! Get lost!”
“It’s bad luck to be on the same ship as you! Should we just drown you in the sea!”
Eventually, the gentleman, unable to withstand the threats of the people, left the scene as if running away.
“It seems today is not your lucky day. It seems there are no whales, so I’ll go back now.”
Masera tried to return to the cabin with his cold face.
At that moment, the child who was holding my hand tightly pointed to the other side of the sea.
“Sister, look at that. A colorful rainbow.”
Below the rainbow that appeared in the sea, water was being sprayed like a fountain.
Woo-oong-
Soon, a mysterious cry echoed, and high waves crashed on the calm sea. The huge body of a whale rose above the sea and slowly fell back into the sea in a parabola.
Screech-
The whale’s cry spread widely. Soon, with the sound of a splash, the cruise ship shook slightly due to the waves caused by the whale.
People screamed with a mixture of admiration and surprise at the incredible scene that they might never see in their lives.
The whale disappeared into the sea with a splash of water that sparkled like colorful jewels.
“Is that a humpback whale? It’s a species that’s rarely seen here. It must have escaped here by chance because its habitat was destroyed! What incredible luck…!”
Someone who happened to be next to me explained about the whale.
“Humpback whales are kind whales. They also save other creatures. There’s also a story that they saved sailors from a ship that sank due to bombing.”
Hearing those words, I poked Masera, who was looking at the sea with a strange expression.
“See, I told you we might see it if we’re lucky. We even saw a kind, lucky whale. Hurry up and shout, ‘Thank you, lucky whale!’”
Masera, who had been expressionless all along, slightly curved his lips and made a face that said, ‘I lost.‘
“From now on, I will call you the Princess of Fortune.”
Ugh!
* * *
Masera, who lost the bet because the lucky whale appeared, had to follow Cynthia on her cruise ship exploration.
What she mainly did was eat.
“Do you like eating that much?”
“Of course. Eating delicious things makes me happy.”
The casino, which we saw on the way, was overflowing with people who had come with the lucky whale buff, but Cynthia said, ‘If you use your luck in a place like that, you have to pay the price.’
“The fireworks will start soon. It will make a good memory for your trip.”
Cynthia, who heard the crew’s announcement, worried about being a bother.
But she looked at Masera with a face that had lost its smile.
“Brigadier General, let’s go back to the room now.”
“Aren’t you going to watch the fireworks? I thought you’d be the first to run there.”
“I want to go back and rest. It’s a first-class room, so… the soundproofing must be good, right?”
What does she mean?
Masera, who was pondering Cynthia’s words, looked embarrassed.
It was because he belatedly realized that unlike the train cabin, which had two rooms, the cruise ship cabin only had one.
“You want to rest too, right, Brigadier General?”
“I want to watch the fireworks to make good memories.”
He blurted out words he didn’t even mean because he was flustered, but she shook her head and pulled on his sleeve.
“Just stay with me.”
Cynthia made a pitiful rabbit-like expression.
