After checking over the door, Silas made his way back to the table.
If the door couldn't be opened directly, then whatever lay here was likely the key to opening it.
On the table sat a chess set, the black and white squares scattered with pieces, as though a game had already been played halfway through. The white pieces faced Silas; the black pieces sat on the side nearer the door.
Silas didn't know much about chess, only the rules and how to recognize the pieces.
He saw black and white locked in a chaotic struggle, and white's position looked dire. Most of its pieces had already been captured, and its king, hemmed in by black's knights and rooks, had been driven into a corner in disgrace. A few more moves, and it risked checkmate.
Looks like I'm meant to win this brutal endgame before the door will open, Silas thought, the corner of his mouth twitching involuntarily.
But I barely know how to play this thing... And white's position is already about as dangerous as it gets.
Forget someone like me, a total novice; even a player with years of experience probably couldn't pull off a win here.
Well, let's just try it anyway.
He studied the board for a few seconds, then tentatively picked up the white king and moved it one square to the left.
"Clack!"
As if some unseen hand had seized the black pieces, they made a move of their own in response, closing in relentlessly on the white king.
Sure enough, this had something to do with the chessboard.
Silas kept playing, but his skill was simply too poor. Two or three moves later, he was checkmated. Black's knight knocked over his king, kicking it off the board in a show of triumph, declaring the game over.
A moment later, some strange force took hold, and the pieces scattered outside the board returned to it, while those already on the board reset to their original positions. Before long, the board looked exactly as it had at the very start.
It seems there's no opening this door without winning.
Silas quickly grasped the situation.
The trouble was, with his current level of skill, winning was next to impossible, and Roselle hadn't spread the game of chess anywhere in this world, so he had no chess master he could turn to for help.
I'll deal with it later. Maybe the Queen Mystic knows how to play, and could beat her own father.
Speaking of which, he wondered what she was up to right now. Was she out fighting Intis's official forces, or had she gone to attend the gathering of the Five Kings of the Seas?
"Whoosh!"
Just as Silas was thinking this over, a great mass of grey mist suddenly billowed up before his eyes, thick and heavy, blotting out his vision.
Deep within that grey mist, a blue-haired man of indistinct appearance knelt with his head bowed in prayer. He said: "Mr. Fool, please, save me!"
The Sonia Sea, Black Lake Island, at the heart of the black lake.
I've run into the Queen Mystic again... Last time I saw her, I was still just an adventurer. She's probably forgotten me by now.
So Anderson thought to himself.
At this moment, he was aboard the Black Emperor, flagship of Nast, the King of Five Seas.
The interior space of this ship seemed to have been warped somehow: the captain's quarters were far more vast and towering inside than they appeared from without.
Row upon row of black candlesticks hung down from the domed ceiling, forty-one on the left, forty on the right, and even the number of candles on each stand differed from the next.
The candlelight lit up the magnificent captain's chamber, and with it, the several sea kings gathered there.
In the most prominent position, seated upon a stone chair, was a tall and imposing figure. He wore a long black robe trimmed in silver, and upon his head sat a crown shaped like a spire.
His beard was not overly long, and his face was resolute and stern.
Beneath a faintly furrowed brow, above a high, prominent nose, his deep-set eyes gleamed with a majesty beyond compare, the kind that made anyone who looked upon him feel an involuntary urge to bow in submission.
This was none other than the living legend of the high seas, Nast Solomon, King of the Five Seas!
Perhaps it was a trick of the candlelight, but Anderson felt as though this king's frame seemed to keep growing larger, pressing down heavily upon his heart.
And seated at Nast's side, in a high-backed chair, was the very queen Anderson had been secretly observing all this while.
Bernadette had a flawless figure and a dignified face, her long chestnut hair falling loose behind her head.
She wore an Intis-style white blouse on top, its cuffs and collar trimmed with elaborate lace, over which she'd layered a fitted brown leather jacket.
Below, she wore blue riding trousers and a pair of black boots, with a rapier at her hip. Altogether she looked noble and sharp.
For some reason, Anderson felt a certain familiarity in this queen's brow and eyes, as though he'd seen someone like her before, back in Intis.
A friend? An acquaintance? Or perhaps someone he'd encountered at the Church of Knowledge?
Perhaps he'd been staring too long, because the queen suddenly lifted her eyes, that deep blue gaze landing directly on him.
Their eyes had already met, and it was too late for Anderson to look away without it seeming strange. He had no choice but to steel himself and nod in greeting.
Though he himself was merely a Sequence 5 Hunter, at this moment he represented his own captain, the "Scarlet King" Alexander Gascoigne, and he couldn't afford to embarrass himself in front of the other kings.
He had assumed the best outcome would simply be for the queen to ignore him entirely, but to his surprise, she seemed to give him the faintest nod before turning her gaze away.
Anderson let out a breath of relief.
The Queen Mystic's manner was actually rather gracious... probably out of respect for his captain.
Anderson looked toward the other side, where, in another high-backed chair, sat an affable-looking man dressed in the manner of a Loen gentleman.
The presence this man gave off fell far short of the two monarchs, closer, in fact, to Anderson's own.
Indeed, he was the first mate of the "King of Immortality" Agalito, here, like Anderson, to represent his captain at the gathering.
Heh. Your second mate, the "Slaughterer" Kircheis, he was the one our captain killed, and it was me who cleaned up the men he brought with him... Anderson thought, not without a trace of malice, as he gazed at this "Ruthless One" with a bounty of over ten thousand pounds on his head, staring him down as if in challenge.
Yet the mild-mannered middle-aged gentleman merely smiled back at him, showing not the slightest hint of hostility, only a cold indifference lurking deep in his eyes.
Right, almost forgot, these fellows are devils after all, the whole lot of them cold-blooded egoists. A dead comrade or two means nothing to them.
"Everyone is present."
Nast Solomon glanced around at those gathered. "Three kings, and two representatives, all in attendance... I hereby declare this gathering of the sea's monarchs officially underway."
"Click!"
The moment his words fell, some invisible rule began to take shape.
The lock on the captain's door let out a crisp click and sealed shut tight, with a force so great it seemed to cut this entire space off completely from the world outside.
Three kings?
Anderson felt a flicker of confusion. Weren't there only two present? Well... never mind, it didn't seem like anything worth dwelling on.
He quickly set aside this trivial matter and turned his attention back to listening to what Nast had to say.