Chapter 1736 - 241 - The Pirate Queen (1)

I released my aura in every direction without giving myself time to reconsider it.

The pressure erupted from my body all at once, spreading outward with tremendous force and shaking the surroundings around me.

The air itself seemed to react to the sudden release of power.

The ship trembled beneath our feet as the pressure expanded outward.

I didn't even consciously think about attacking her.

I simply released my aura.

Then her body was suddenly lifted from the deck.

A second later, she was already flying off the ship.

***

After I had sent her flying, I immediately went after her and pulled her out of the water before she could sink any deeper. By the time I managed to get her back onto solid ground, she was completely unconscious, although fortunately, she was still breathing normally.

At least that was something I could be grateful for.

It didn't seem like I had injured her badly enough to actually kill her, which was more or less what I had intended from the beginning. I had been holding myself back throughout the fight, and while I wanted to defeat her, killing her had never been part of the plan.

After waiting for a little while, I finally saw her body twitch.

She suddenly coughed several times before water spilled out of her mouth.

"Cough, cough...!"

She continued coughing while trying to clear the water from her lungs. After taking a few moments to recover, she slowly pushed herself upright and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

She looked exhausted, but she was conscious again.

"Looks like I've been defeated," she said while taking a few deep breaths.

Her voice sounded surprisingly calm for someone who had just been knocked unconscious and dragged out of a body of water.

"Which honestly isn't all that surprising. The moment I felt your aura, I immediately knew that defeating you was going to be extremely difficult, if not completely impossible. You were also holding yourself back throughout most of the fight, weren't you?"

I stared at her for a moment.

Well, it seemed like she had understood the situation much earlier than I had expected.

She had sensed my strength before the battle properly started, figured out that the difference between us was enormous, and somehow still decided to fight me anyway.

That was either confidence or a complete disregard for self-preservation.

With her personality, it was probably a little bit of both.

She had also figured out that I wasn't fighting seriously, which meant she had been paying much closer attention than I initially thought.

"Well, now that you've defeated me, I suppose that means I'm your woman!"

I immediately froze.

For some reason, that statement shocked me even more than the actual fight had.

She looked completely serious, too.

There wasn't even the slightest hint that she was joking around.

"What?" she asked while looking at my expression. "Are you really that surprised?"

"More than surprised, I'm honestly baffled."

"Baffled?" she repeated while tilting her head slightly. "Why?"

She looked genuinely confused, almost as though I had just used some strange word that she had never heard before.

"I don't understand why you're so baffled by my response," she said. "I'm known for being fierce, aren't I? Because of that, I always intended to choose my husband in a way that would actually suit me. Naturally, I would choose someone who was capable of defeating me in battle. Isn't that reasonable?"

When she explained it like that, I suppose her reasoning did make some sense.

At least, it made sense according to her own standards.

Still, I couldn't help wondering whether I had somehow become a magnet for the most ridiculous romantic clichés imaginable.

Apparently, defeating a woman in battle was becoming one of my qualifications for marriage.

It had already happened with Trill, and then something similar happened with Meria.

At this point, I was starting to wonder whether I should stop winning fights against women altogether.

Considering how my life usually went, that probably wouldn't help either.

"Now then, shall we discuss what comes next?"

"Uh, what comes next?"

"Baby-making." she said.

The moment she said that, Shredica suddenly looked at me as though I had committed some terrible crime.

I blinked at her.

I honestly had no idea what I had done to deserve that look.

"I didn't do anything," I told her.

I wasn't even sure why I felt the need to defend myself when I hadn't actually said anything wrong, but apparently, that was where we were now.

I looked back at the Pirate Queen.

I still couldn't understand why she had suddenly made such a bold declaration after losing a single fight.

She clearly wasn't joking, either.

That was probably the part that confused me the most.

I would have been lying if I said I wasn't at least somewhat interested in her, though.

She was attractive, confident, and clearly knew what she wanted. Her chocolate-brown skin gave her a distinctive appearance, and judging by her complexion, she had obviously spent plenty of time under the sun.

Her physique was also difficult to ignore.

Still, none of that explained why she was suddenly so eager to move forward.

She had barely finished fighting me before deciding that I was apparently the person she wanted to be with.

That was moving considerably faster than I had expected.

"Why do you want to do this so quickly?" I asked her. "Wouldn't it make more sense for us to at least talk about it properly first?"

"I want children with you," she answered without hesitation.

She looked at me as though the answer should have been completely obvious from the beginning.

"Is that really so difficult to understand? I'm already getting older, and I don't have the luxury of assuming that I can simply wait forever. If I want to have a family, then I'd rather stop wasting time and actually pursue what I want."

She spoke with surprising seriousness.

Her earlier confidence was still there, but underneath it was something considerably more sincere.

This wasn't simply some impulsive decision made because she had lost a battle.

She genuinely wanted a family.

I wasn't entirely sure what I was supposed to say to that.

She stared at me for a few seconds before slowly licking her lips and giving me another confident smile.

"I have a feeling you're going to enjoy having me around."