The Restoration of Rome: In the Name of Augustus

Lyon stood with cargo boxes under his feet, leaning against the ship's railing, staring blankly at the dark blue sea.

Just then, a small black dot appeared in his blurry vision.

The black dot struggled to rise and fall in the waves, gradually growing larger...

Finally, he saw clearly that it was a dilapidated small boat, on which lay a figure, soaking wet, with hair plastered to his forehead like seaweed, and a face as pale as a ghost.

The figure was so familiar that Lyon's heart skipped a beat, but it was quickly overwhelmed by an even greater sense of absurdity.

"I'm going crazy... I'm starting to hallucinate..." he muttered to himself, even shaking his head with a bitter smile.

However, the "hallucination" raised its head, waved its arms excitedly at him, and with all its might, shouted out a name he knew all too well:

"Your Highness! Is that you? It's me, Yage!"

"Father?!" Leon exclaimed with delight. "I thought you..."

Accord wiped the fine sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, straightened his back, and recounted his ordeal with smug satisfaction, as if he were a soldier returning from the front lines receiving a medal: "Heh, didn't expect that, did you? I won the revival round. Damn it, that fat bastard elbowed me unconscious, and I accidentally fell into the sea. But it's nothing serious. Luckily, I know a little about swimming, so I hitched a ride on a passing merchant ship. I'm so glad to see your purple robe now! Merchants dare not approach your pirate den, so I spent a fortune to buy this piece of junk to come find you..."

His gaze swept over Leon with delight, finally settling on Leon's face: "By the way, why isn't Leon with you—wait, you—"

Accord stared blankly at the familiar face draped in the purple robe, and it took him a while to react before he scolded in a low voice, "You little rascal, why aren't you wearing your own clothes? What are you doing wearing someone else's purple robe? Where's Alexius? Give the clothes back to him!"

The pirates had already spotted the Jacob from the top of the mast. They drew their scimitars, brandished their spears, and nocked their arrows, forming a line to approach the ship's side.

Zahir, standing behind Leon, stepped forward with a frown, his hand on the hilt of his knife: "Who are you?"

Under the pirates' vigilant arrows and scimitars, the Jacob's small boat drew closer.

Without the pirates pulling him along, he scrambled onto the ship with a clumsy yet nimble gait. Then, before everyone's eyes, he first nonchalantly spat out a few mouthfuls of seawater, glanced at Leon and the pirates, and then suddenly spread his arms wide, shouting in a dramatic and emotionally charged tone:

"Your Highness! My little prince! Thank God you are still safe and sound!"

He suddenly lunged at Leon's shoulder and whispered quickly and almost imperceptibly in a tiny, buzzing voice, "Acting, you're good at it, but your uncle is even better..."

Zahir roughly ripped the soaking wet, smothered Accord from Lyon's purple robe, raised his scimitar to Accord's neck, the gleaming blade reflecting a blinding light: "I'm asking you a question, who are you? What's your relationship with the prince?"

Jacob's gaze immediately turned to him, and he carefully made the sign of the cross on his chest with his right hand. The movement was smooth and standard, instantly restoring the solemnity of a clergyman.

He said in fluent Arabic:

"May God grant you peace, generous captain. I am Jacob, the godfather and court tutor of this noble prince."

Then, pointing to the blade against his neck, he said in a tone neither humble nor arrogant, "Reverend Captain, speaking under a knife is the way of beasts. We are all descendants of Ibrahim, guided by the scriptures, aren't we?"

Zahir moved the blade slightly away and gently patted Jacob's shoulder with the back of the blade, signaling him to continue.

Accord cleared his throat and continued his "sermon" in Arabic, which Lyon, who was watching in a daze, couldn't understand at all: "God has indeed commanded you to entrust all things entrusted to you to the rightful recipient, and I am an important 'trustee'—I know the path to great wealth."

He paused, allowing Zahir a moment to process his words, before continuing, “What do you gain by killing an unarmed priest? A corpse and a fleeting moment of pleasure. But spare me, and you will receive the keys to the treasuries of Constantinople and Konya. I can, as an envoy, ensure the successful delivery of the ransom and mediate between the secular worlds of two religions. Treating those who uphold the scriptures well will be rewarded by the Lord. Is it wise to greet a persuader with sword?”

"For the sake of my Lord... and the God you believe in, what threat can an unarmed charlatan who only cares about the safety of his students pose to you and your valiant followers? I'm just here to ensure that my 'investment'... oh no, my students can return home safely—that's all."

Zahir sheathed his blade, his eyes revealing a curiosity and astonishment far exceeding what he had shown Leon before. He exclaimed to his trusted aides, "See that? That's real skill! His tongue's sharper than a scimitar; a single scripture can be worth a hundred thousand soldiers. What could those priests we kidnapped before do besides weep and curse us to hell?"

He waved his hand: "Someone, prepare seats for the priest and His Highness!"

Lyon wasn't the only one stunned; even the Muslim pirates who could understand Arabic were momentarily speechless as Jacob spouted a string of "God's words." They ignored their leader's orders, their scimitars and spears still pointed at Jacob, maintaining a deadly distance and angle.

Zahir kicked them hard in the backside: "Show some respect! This is a truly learned man; his brain is worth more than all your wallets combined!"

As the sun set, the pirates dispersed like the tide. Gamblers at the gambling tables, old sailors on the masts, and burly men fighting and squabbling all gathered at the cargo boxes below the masts.

They took out rock-hard biscuits, black bread mixed with sawdust, and strips of salty, rotten cured meat and salted fish, and dumped them all onto a small wooden box covered with linen. Then they took off the wine pouches they relied on for survival from their waists—this was their dinner for the day.

Accord and Lyon were respectfully invited into Zahir's main cabin.

Inside the cabin, the walls were covered not only with nautical charts, but also with several torn, unidentified flags and a Venetian scimitar with ornate decorations.

Most striking is the gilded head of a goddess statue, cut from the ship's head, its empty eyes staring into the room.

In the middle were dark wooden tables and chairs for the banquet, unusually covered with rough earthenware bowls, smooth silver plates, gold bowls, and glasses, as well as various wines and foods.

The aroma of the food almost made the Accord, which had been starving all day, faint on the spot.

"I like this exquisite feast of a hundred families—I won't ask why it's a hundred families, although it may not necessarily be just a hundred families, haha..." Accord bowed modestly. "Generous captain, you are the host and we are the guests. Please take a seat."

Lyon looked at the unfamiliar Accord as if it were a monster. Where did this guy learn all these manners? Normally, he despised formalities the most and couldn't resist the smell of alcohol. How could he change his stupid personality after playing a revival match?

Zahir smiled and nodded as he walked to the head of the table.

He became even more curious about the cultivator in front of him.

The priests he had met were all sanctimonious, utterly pedantic, spouting righteousness and morality, hostile to heretics, and parasites of the secular world who oppressed the monarchy. Jacob was like an anomaly, or rather, a rare animal.

He was happy to offer sufficient, even excessive, respect, and to observe this hard-won sample.

Once the host and guests were seated, there were no formalities. Zahir tore off the best pieces of meat with his hands and threw them onto Lyon and Accord's plates, gesturing for them to eat. He then picked up a piece of bread, dipped it in the meat gravy, and ate with gusto.

Then he raised the mead and said to Jacob, “Father, I know that the scriptures you follow do not allow believers to get drunk, but wine is a gift from heaven—whether Allah or God. If you drink it in moderation, I’m sure your God will not blame you.”

Accord also raised his glass, his eyes practically gleaming with malice—Leon beside him silently rubbed his forehead, his nature hard to change, he knew it all too well, it was an extreme, pure thirst for alcohol.

"Wine and meat pass through the intestines, but Christ remains in the heart." Jacob downed his drink in one gulp, his tongue greedily licking the rim of the glass, making a satisfying swallowing sound. "Why should faith and devotion to the Lord be confined to shallow actions? Justification comes through faith; where is not heaven if Christ is in your heart?"

Leon was completely bewildered—this guy had been spouting these heretical ideas ever since he heard Leon spout nonsense when he was a kid, and if he let anything slip, Leon would be burned at the stake too, kurva!

Zahir, seated at the head of the table, was taken aback at first, then his eyes lit up with an even stronger interest than before, and he leaned forward as if he had discovered a treasure.

"Wait!" Zahir slammed down his glass, the mead swirling violently within. "What did you just say? 'Justification by faith'? No need to care about those bullshit rules?" His face, already contorted with surprise, relaxed into a loud laugh: "Hahaha! Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant!"

"I always thought that only those of us who make a living at sea, abandoned by Allah and God, would dare to think like this! I never imagined that someone like you, dressed in black robes, could utter such... insightful words!"

His tone was filled with the eagerness of finding kindred spirits: "If your bishops and popes heard you say that, they'd probably tie you to the stake themselves, wouldn't they? Jacob, I'm growing to like you more and more! You're not a priest at all, you're a pirate in black robes! A bandit of ideas!"

Zahir slammed his fist on the table, making the dishes rattle: "Come on! To you, 'the robber of ideas,' and to us who are not bound by rules, let's have another drink!"

They were like long-lost twin brothers, tears streaming down their faces, embracing and hugging each other.

At that moment, Zahir suddenly stood up, put one foot on the chair, raised the wine glass in his hand high above his head, and splashed the mead onto the sleeve of his expensive silk robe.

"Listen up, my brother!" he yelled at the Accord. "We have an old, worn-out tune back home called 'The Caravan to Damascus'! It's too docile! I'll rewrite it for you!"

Then, in his hoarse voice, in a tone somewhere between chanting and roaring, he roared out the impromptu lyrics:

"The fleet is heading towards Alexandria—hey!"

There's a purple-robed emperor locked up in the captain's cabin—hey!

There was a blasphemous priest sitting next to me—hey!

His reasoning is greater than the Pope's!

Yage listened with great interest, immediately throwing off his cumbersome monk's robe, wobbling onto his stool, and improvising the next part in his booming voice honed from preaching.

He cleverly altered the solemn melody of a Gregorian chant:

"We drink at sea—Hallelujah!"

To befriend pagans—Hallelujah!

The Bible and the Quran were thrown into the sea—Hallelujah!

At this moment, only fine wine is the true god!

Zahir grabbed Accord's shoulder, his breath reeking of alcohol in his face: "Brother, to be honest, that black robe of yours... it's in the way! Here, wear mine!"

As he spoke, he began to unfasten his leather armor. And Ya Ge, surprisingly, also began to remove his monk's robes.

"Fine! Then you'll have to wear mine!" Jacob laughed. "Let me see how a pirate gives his final confession!"

The two, like naive children or chieftains making some kind of ancient covenant, began to awkwardly exchange clothes.

Zahir's massive body squeezed into Yage's monk's robe, the sleeves being far too short, revealing his hairy arms and hideous tattoos.

The Accord, encased in Zahir's leather armor, looked like a fox that had stolen a hunter's clothes, feeling empty, yet deliberately mimicking Zahir's crab-like gait.

Leon curled up in the chair, trying to hide himself in the shadows as much as possible. He watched the two people in front of him exchanging clothes, putting their arms around each other, and singing blasphemous lyrics in a hymn-like tone, and his stomach churned.

This is so fucking weird, so fucking surreal, you know?

It didn't feel like attending a banquet; it felt more like being unwittingly dragged into a mental hospital.

Zahir's wildness was expected, but Accord... his uncle, who had taught him and accompanied him since childhood and represented a certain stability and helplessness in his heart, was now like a monkey that had broken free of all its chains, burning with the resentment that had been building up for many years.

He felt a strong sense of detachment, as if his soul had floated to the top of the cabin, coldly watching the absurd drama unfolding below.

However, this sense of detachment was quickly pierced by sharper emotions.

When Accord uttered those shocking words about "justification by faith" and "rules are bullshit," Lyon felt as if his heart was being gripped by an icy hand.

These words... sound so familiar.

Yes, in the dead of night, when he was tired of pretending or when he and Accord were sneaking a bite in the kitchen, he did indeed tell Accord these ideas from another world as shocking "stories" and "theories".

He carried a sense of superiority as a time traveler, like God sowing seeds, simply wanting to see how these ideas would react in the soil of the Middle Ages.

He never imagined that these seeds, nourished by years of suppressed bitterness and alcohol, would grow so twisted and lush in a heart as seemingly barren as Accord's, a heart riddled with cracks.

He wanted to rush up and cover Yage's mouth, pulling him back into the "safe" and cautious monk persona.

But he couldn't. He could only sit there, his nails digging deep into his palms, playing the role of a terrified little prince, silently worrying about his only family member here, who was also an ally he had "implicated."

Soon, the two drunkards slumped to the ground, their backs against the messy dining table.

Zahir pointed to the gilded figurehead goddess in the corner and said indistinctly:

"Look... she... she used to command a proud warship, and now... now she can only watch me drink."

Jacob followed his finger and chuckled foolishly, "We are all...we are all goddesses who were stolen, Zahir. Thrown from one ship we didn't know onto another."

These words stunned Zahir, and a strange light flashed in his cloudy eyes.

He suddenly grabbed Accord's arm with a frighteningly strong force:

"Tell me, brother," his voice suddenly lowered, taking on an unprecedented seriousness, "if...if God and Allah were right outside the door right now, do you think they would burn you, the heretic, first, or chop me, the infidel, first?"

Accord didn't break free. He met Zahir's gaze and revealed a pure, happy, even somewhat naive smile:

"They'll sit down, have a drink first. Then they'll realize... we were right."

Zahir stared intently at him. A few seconds later, he released his grip, threw his head back, and burst into a deafening laugh, his laughter even tinged with a barely perceptible sob.

He stopped talking, and just patted the Accord's back hard, again and again...