When Gaia stepped into Solomon's captain's quarters, the sight inside made it hard for her to believe this was the room of a free captain.
The white marble floor was almost completely bare. Aside from the pile of shattered treasures from Mitchell stacked in one corner and a single bed, the enormous room held nothing else.
With not a single decorative object to break the emptiness, the magnificently designed ceiling looked almost ridiculous.
The place was so empty that even their footsteps produced hollow echoes.
Gaia fell into a daze.
What kind of captain's quarters has this sort of style?
By all common sense, a captain's quarters was the place a captain valued most. The furnishings and relics within it would usually carry precious meaning. They might come from a victorious battle, or from a successful expedition.
Yet Solomon's captain's quarters seemed to have rejected that tradition entirely, leaving it absurdly minimal.
That was almost impossible to comprehend, because in this age, ritual and symbolism mattered greatly, especially to captains whose pride and honor defined them.
Some captains might choose simpler decoration, yes, but no one should have a captain's quarters that looked as though the Blood Ravens had already visited it and taken everything not bolted down.
Under the weight of that shock, Gaia stared around the room more closely and discovered that it was not merely empty.
Judging from the dust marks along the walls, paintings had once hung there in large numbers.
The neatly arranged square marks on the marble floor had clearly been left by display cases equipped with protective field generators for preserving and exhibiting treasured objects.
And the expansion bolts still visible in the ceiling told of a great and solemn chandelier that had once hung there.
All of it was gone.
Gaia raised an eyebrow and looked at Solomon in astonishment, asking with unusual emotional force in her voice,
"Did you get robbed?"
Solomon spread his hands with a smile, stroked his mustache, and said in a playful tone,
"I simply prefer minimalism."
Normally, Gaia would not press too hard about a person's tastes or habits, but this time she simply could not hold it in.
"You like money so much, so why is your captain's quarters this... minimalist?"
On the surface, the question was ordinary, but Gaia immediately noticed something strange.
The moment she asked it, Solomon's emotions, usually as calm as still water, were like a placid lake struck by a falling stone. Countless tangled feelings surged up inside him.
She was startled.
Normally, apart from the times he lied and his inner emotions started flashing around like a disco ball, Solomon's inner world was calm and almost flat.
Many times he looked exaggerated and theatrical on the outside, while inwardly he was as still as a pond with no ripples at all.
But now, though his smile had not changed at all, a tidal wave of negative emotion was rising inside him.
Only after a long moment did that storm finally recede, and Solomon, once more composed, spread his hands dramatically and said,
"Oh, my friend, I think you've confused two different things. Liking money and liking to hoard money are not the same."
"I like money because I need large amounts of it to spend on my beloved ship, to make her faster and better, to fill her powerful hull with more crew."
"But those people who say they like money while stuffing piles of precious treasures into some private vault, in my view, aren't much different from rats obsessed with hoarding. Or perhaps they really are rats."
Gaia wanted to press further, but Solomon smiled and cut her off.
"Alright, we've said enough off-topic things about rats. Now let's talk about your real business."
Seeing the seriousness in Solomon's eyes beneath his usual smile, Gaia took a deep breath, pushed aside her doubts about him, and spoke with equal seriousness.
"After we arrive in Ultramar, I want our ship to go first to a planet called San Leor."
At that, Solomon's mustache twitched.
"Why?"
"Is there some valuable cargo there?"
"Or some treasure worth the risk?"
Gaia shook her head.
"It's only an agricultural world with a social structure that still tends toward the primitive."
The captain narrowed his eyes. His smile remained, but to Gaia it seemed that this usually playful man was more serious now than he had ever been before.
"Then why should I listen to you and take my ship to this planet called San Leor, a primitive agricultural world with no valuable cargo and no treasure?"
Gaia's eyes shifted slightly.
This was the key moment in the negotiation.
She needed to persuade Solomon. Only then could she use the Spear of Destiny as her way there, carry out her plan, and buy the half-dead Imperium of Man a little breathing room.
So how exactly was she supposed to persuade him?
Only now did she realize that she lacked a good entry point.
Because she did not really understand Solomon at all.
This man who looked unreliable and seemed to carry comedy around with him actually hid his real self perfectly.
He looked greedy, yet lived a simple life.
He looked ridiculous, yet handled matters with very clear logic.
He looked absent-minded, yet possessed insight far sharper than ordinary people.
Gaia looked him up and down carefully.
He was absolutely not some mediocre, ordinary man.
She could sense that false words would only backfire on him, and vague hints or half-truths would only let him catch tiny contradictions.
Gaia took another breath, then asked calmly,
"What do you think of the Imperium today?"
Solomon made a surprised expression, stroked his mustache, and asked in a teasing tone,
"You wouldn't happen to be trying to catch me saying something dangerous so the Ecclesiarchy and the Inquisition can come arrest me, would you?"
But when he saw the seriousness in Gaia's face, his smile faded. He let out a whistle, then said lightly,
"If you mean this current Imperium, full of persecution in the name of religion and purges in the Emperor's name, with bloated and paralyzed local administration and a rotten, senile high command, then my evaluation is this."
"It's dogshit."
Gaia's mouth twitched slightly.
She had not expected Solomon's honest opinion to be so direct, and for a moment even she felt uneasy.
Would some fanatical Inquisitor suddenly spawn behind them because of that sentence, sniff the heresy in the air, and immediately come investigate?
She coughed twice and continued.
"Then what I can tell you is this. The Imperium right now is still the better stage of things, because Goge Vandire has only just gathered both divine authority and administrative authority into his own hands."
"Power means corruption. Absolute power means absolute corruption. When an entire empire can only listen to one person's voice, even a tiny mistake by that one man will be magnified across humanity's vast territories until it becomes massive regional chaos."
"And when a completely unqualified mortal, namely Vandire, holds that kind of power, then what awaits the Imperium is disaster."
Gaia's blunt assessment made Solomon glance sharply at her.
But as he followed her line of thought, he discovered with surprise that her argument had considerable plausibility.
Seeing him fall into thought, Gaia continued,
"But Vandire's rule will not last forever. Power obtained by unlawful means can never be held securely."
"And the first to rise against him will inevitably be the Ecclesiarchy he himself purged."
"The Ecclesiarchy has many branches across the Imperium, and on San Leor there is one particularly strong sect."
"In order to solidify his rule, Vandire will need to seek more sources of support, and that place will become one of his targets."
At that point Gaia paused, then spoke the words that sent a jolt through Solomon's heart.
"I want to reach that branch before he does, make contact with them, and join the forces that will oppose him. I want to kill that bastard who twists the Emperor's will, and do whatever I can to change this decaying Imperium."
"In other words, what I intend to do is this."
"Enter Terra and purge the traitor at the Emperor's side!"
(End of Chapter)
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