Chapter 109: THIRD POV.

If he could keep the princess alive and guide this future hero, he could secure his own peaceful retirement without ever having to worry about the world burning down around him.

"I had an inkling your backgrounds weren’t simple. I just didn’t expect to have met the princess of Leones in person," Jacob said lightly with a calm smile, breaking his silence and looking down from the balcony.

Flounder’s expression creased outright at his words, a look of pure, unadulterated anger flaring up in his dark eyes.

He didn’t see Jacob’s smile as friendly; he saw it as the smirk of a predator who had just uncovered a hidden treasure.

He involuntarily stepped forward, his boots clicking hard against the wood, and with a swift, metallic ring, he ended up unsheathing the long, iron blade resting on his waist.

The metal glistened in the sunlight, pointing directly toward the balcony.

’What’s this idiot doing now,’ Jacob thought, his smile freezing for a fraction of a second as he looked at the weapon pointed at him.

He didn’t feel afraid, the lad was too weak to even scratch him, but he was deeply annoyed by the utter lack of common sense.

"Flounder! What are you doing?!" Rudwig blurted out in complete fright, his round face turning entirely white as he reached out his hands to try and grab the boy’s jacket.

The three maids shrieked in terror, scrambling backward toward the side of the ship as they saw the weapon come out.

"Forgive me, Sir Rudwig. But I’m afraid I can’t simply stand aside and watch this affront on her highness any longer," Flounder said, his voice shaking slightly from the sheer physical effort it took to hold the heavy steel blade up with his injured side.

His brows were furrowed tightly, his teeth clenched together as he stared up at Priscilla and Jacob with a look that belonged to a man standing on the edge of a cliff.

He looked completely ready to die right then and there if it meant protecting the little girl behind him.

’.....Affront?’ Jacob wondered, his mind completely blank for a moment as he tried to figure out when he’d ever done anything even remotely threatening to the child.

He had pulled her out of a sinking metal cage, brought her to a safe deck, given her companions medical cloth, promised them a free ride back to dry land, and spoken to them with a perfectly polite tone.

Not once had he raised his voice, drawn a weapon, or even made a single demand.

Yet, in the mind of this overly dramatic future protagonist, simply knowing their names and their secret political business was considered a massive problem and a threat to the royal bloodline.

It was clear the boy’s head was so full of classic knightly stories and paranoia that he couldn’t tell the difference between a helpful savior and a hidden enemy anymore.

Jacob’s thoughts on this being the protagonist solidified even more, because he felt only an idiot like this could be that very protagonist he despised so much.

In all the trashy books he had read back in his old life, the main characters always had this exact same trait.

They were always stubborn, always hot-headed, and always jumped to the worst conclusions without using their brains for even a single second.

They thought that pulling out a sword and shouting loudly made them look brave, when in reality, it just made them look completely foolish.

Here they were, completely at the mercy of two people who had just destroyed a whole pirate fleet, and this kid thought it was a great time to start a fight.

"Just come out with it! You’re planning on selling the princess to that traitorous fox, Astaris, aren’t you!" Flounder barked, his voice ringing out across the open deck.

His hand shook as he held the heavy iron blade, his knuckles turning white from the strain. He was breathing heavily, his chest moving up and down rapidly as he tried to look as threatening as possible.

In his mind, he had already worked out the whole story. To him, there was no way a random sailor out in the middle of the sea could know about the king’s hidden sickness unless they were directly working for the evil crown prince.

"Flounder!" Rudwig shouted once more, his round face turning a deep shade of red from pure panic and stress, but Flounder paid him no heed whatsoever. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

The boy didn’t even blink, his eyes locked firmly on Jacob and Priscilla up on the balcony. He was completely trapped in his own world of heroic duty and deep paranoia.

"It’s clearly the truth!" Flounder said, sticking to his notions with an absolute stubbornness that made Jacob want to roll his eyes.

He tightened his stance, moving his feet a little further apart on the wooden floorboards to balance himself despite the sharp pain shooting through his bandaged side.

"If not, how could he possibly know so much about her highness and the royal family? What’s to say he’s not some spy of the others sent to hunt us down after we escaped the harbor!" the boy continued to yell, convinced that he had just uncovered a massive, evil plot.

He thought he was being incredibly clever by pointing out the facts, completely unaware of how close he was to getting himself and everyone else on his side turned into fish bait.

’This idiot...’ Jacob gently massaged his forehead with his fingers, feeling a massive migraine coming on. His head throbbed behind his eyes as he listened to the boy’s wild accusations.

AN: Alright, I’ve removed the errors, sooty about that, didn’t think I’d end up readding a paragraph or two, will definitely make sure to keep a better eye out in the future. Hope you guys all enjoyed the Chapter though. I know I did because it was fun coming up with this, I’m sure you’d love to see how Jacob seals with flounder going on. So keep at it and I’ll gladly keep writing.