Chapter 1761 - 244 - Battle of the Great Ocean, Part 1 (5)

I already knew for a fact that Eris was alive and that she was now on the side of the Republic, but I had never expected her to willingly serve them like this.

It was possible that Eris had been manipulated somehow.

From what I had heard, she was now some sort of cyborg, and her injuries had apparently been so severe that she should have been dead after whatever happened to her. The fact that she had survived at all was already strange enough, but the Republic apparently had the technology to replace or reinforce parts of her body with mechanical components and made her a cyborg.

I could not help wondering whether they had done something to her mind as well.

If her body had been rebuilt into a cyborg, then perhaps they had also altered her brain or installed some kind of system that affected her thoughts and behavior. Maybe someone had programmed her to obey the Republic, or perhaps they had done something even more complicated that I did not understand yet. I was only guessing at this point, but the possibility that Eris was not acting entirely of her own free will was difficult to ignore.

There was also the matter of the Republic hiring Seras for this war, which was an entirely different problem on its own. I had to wonder what kind of deal they had offered the Bandit Queen to convince her to get involved in something like this. Seras was not some random mercenary who could be bought with a sack of coins and a few promises, so whatever the Republic had offered her must have been valuable enough to make the arrangement worthwhile.

"Tsk, I didn't expect Seras to be here," Madeline said, sounding more annoyed than surprised. "Well, since this opportunity has presented itself, I might as well take advantage of it and fight her, so I can finally get my revenge on her."

Madeline took another hit from her cigarette, letting the tip glow brightly for a moment before she slowly blew the smoke out of her mouth. She looked almost pleased with the idea.

"Seems like both of you have quite a history," I said.

"The woman blew me off and managed to get one over on me, and I almost lost an arm because of it," she said. "Well, it is thanks to her that I managed to get to where I am now, though. She is the reason I have been constantly pushing myself along this path, and without having that goal of becoming stronger so that one day I could finally defeat her, I probably would not have made it this far."

That sounded like Madeline had basically turned Seras into her personal goal, and honestly, I could understand how something like that could happen. Getting beaten by someone who was clearly stronger than you could leave a pretty deep impression, especially when the defeat was serious enough to almost cost you a body part.

Still, I did not think I would ever want to live like that myself.

If you made one person your entire reason for becoming stronger, then what happened after you finally defeated them? You would spend years chasing them, training specifically because of them, thinking about them whenever you pushed yourself harder, and then one day you would finally accomplish what you had been working toward all that time.

After that, what would you even do?

Personally, I would rather have several goals instead of putting everything into one basket. Depending on a single objective seemed like a terrible idea, because if that objective disappeared, your entire sense of direction could disappear along with it. Madeline seemed to have avoided that problem, though, because judging from what she had been saying lately, she already had another goal in mind.

And well, that is, she wanted to become a mother.

Considering everything that had happened earlier, I suppose she had already made that particular goal pretty obvious.

Wait a moment.

If becoming stronger had been her goal even before she eventually became the Pirate Queen, then how long ago had Seras actually defeated her? I did not think Madeline could have gone from being defeated by Seras to becoming the Pirate Queen in only five years. That seemed far too short for someone to build the reputation, strength, influence, and crew necessary to reach a position like that.

Ten years seemed somewhat more reasonable, although even that still did not completely make sense to me. She might have already spent years training before her encounter with Seras, which meant that perhaps the defeat had simply given her an even greater reason to continue improving herself. Still, I doubted that someone could suddenly become overwhelmingly stronger within such a short amount of time.

She was human, after all.

Humans had relatively short lifespans compared to some of the other races in this world, and although talent could certainly make a difference, there were still limits to how much someone could accomplish in a handful of years. Becoming stronger was not something that happened simply because you wanted it badly enough. Training took time, experience took time, and actually learning how to survive against stronger opponents took even longer.

Because of that, I eventually decided that asking her directly would be easier than continuing to guess.

"When did this happen?" I asked her. "I mean, when did you get defeated by Seras?"

She took another slow drag from her cigarette, holding the smoke in her mouth for a moment before finally letting it escape. She casually shaped the smoke into several circles, watching them drift upward before gradually disappearing into the air.

"About twenty years ago, I think," she said, sounding slightly uncertain about the exact number.

So she had probably been somewhere around her late twenties or early thirties back then. It also made her current strength considerably easier to understand.

"Although, it might be a little too late for me to take a shot at that bitch," Madeline said, taking another drag from her cigarette. "That bitch never grows old, I swear. She still looks like she did back then, and honestly, that is starting to piss me off."

She paused for a moment.

"But I might be able to make a comeback against her," she said, looking directly at me with a confident grin. "Especially with you with me."