Chapter Eighty-Two: Meeting an Easterner

Far out in the North Sea, more than a day’s sail from land, a tiny boat not even three meters long had appeared?

The sailors on deck cried out in astonishment. A sea-borne windmill was no old-fashioned sailing ship; it was a magical vessel driven by a spell array, capable of covering in a single day at least seven or eight times the distance of a sailing ship. In other words, even a large sailing ship would need five or six days with a favorable wind to sight land here, and a little skiff less than three meters long had virtually no chance of making it back to shore from this place.

“Which unlucky soul got exiled?” Lynch clicked his tongue and took a great cleaver from Tor’s hands. “Slow down and take a look! If it’s an exiled pirate, let him keep drifting. If it’s some poor devil who met with a shipwreck, then, well, I’m in a good mood today.”

With a shrug, Lynch smiled. “If it really is a wretch who survived a shipwreck at sea, then we can let him ride our tailwind!”

Tor grinned and pulled a face, scrunching up the corner of his eye. “Young master, we’re whale hunters now. We do honest business. So if he’s a man in distress, by a sailor’s code, we should rescue him!”

The sailors on deck all laughed together and took up their harpoons in readiness.

At sea, anything strange could happen. If that little boat belonged to some unlucky castaway, so be it. But if it was a pirate exiled for breaking the rules, then one had to be careful. Pirates were already savage cutthroats; among pirates, those who could be exiled in a skiff for violating the code were cutthroats among cutthroats, and they were usually extremely formidable.

This brand-new magical whale-hunting ship, the sea-borne windmill, was the ultimate dream of countless pirates. With such a great ship, hardly any vessel on the seas could escape its pursuit; it was the most powerful treasure in the world for amassing wealth. So they had to be careful. If that fellow was an exiled pirate, if he seized control of this ship, the Black Tiger family would be utterly disgraced. After all, every sailor aboard was a retainer of the Black Tiger family, and they were also part-time pirates. If all of them were robbed by another man, how could the Black Tiger family show its face in the north ever again?

Deep within the hold, the magical furnace array gradually died out, and the great ship drifted onward on its own momentum. The strong iron ram at the bow smashed apart the broken floes. Ahead, several hundred meters away, there was indeed a little boat no more than three meters long. Yet what was strange was that half of the boat had already been sealed in drift ice, and it was being blown by the sea wind toward Durk.

Luck-O’-the-Sea Joe Allan, the captain of the sea-borne windmill, emerged from the command cabin and strode steadily over to Lynch’s side. Luck-O’-the-Sea Joe Allan was the Black Tiger family’s finest veteran captain, and also their luckiest one. In his youth, he had commanded three pirate ships and, within seven days in the North Sea, robbed seventeen cargo vessels in succession. Every one of them had been laden with spices worth more than gold, and so he earned the title of “Luck.”

Massive as a bear, with hair and beard already streaked with white, Joe Allan hefted a great axe and glanced into the distance. Frowning, he said, “Young master, be careful later! This whole thing is suspicious. No one would sail a cargo ship or passenger vessel into the North Sea in winter, so no brother making his living at sea would be exiled at a time like this. There’s something off about this boat!”

Lynch’s expression changed slightly. Yes, in winter at Durk, only whale hunters and inshore fishing boats would go out. All other ships would simply reroute to the southern ocean lanes; there was no way any other vessel would enter the North Sea at this time. This little boat was indeed odd, and they could not afford to be careless.

He raised the great sword and drew a circle over his head, then said coldly, “Tell the whale harpoons to prepare. If there’s anything strange, shoot him dead!”

A sharp clanging of copper bells came from within the hold, the signal that all six magical whale harpoons aboard the sea-borne windmill were fully ready.

The great ship slowly drew near the floe, which was seven or eight meters across. Half of the little boat’s hull was frozen into the ice. The visible cabin was empty, with nothing inside, and through the translucent ice one could see a dark mass frozen within that half of the boat.

“Wow, it’s a person!” Lynch cried out in alarm.

The words had barely left his mouth when the floe suddenly split with countless cracks. With a piercing crackling burst, the ice imprisoning the little boat collapsed, and the entire skiff was fully exposed to everyone’s eyes. At the bow, curled into a ball, was unmistakably an Oriental man wearing a precious blue fox-fur coat, with a head of jet-black hair hanging loose.

Everyone on deck drew a sharp breath together. An Oriental man—how had he come to sail into the North Sea on such a damned day? And how had he ended up sealed in that block of ice? Looking at him covered in ice crystals, perhaps he had long since frozen into a corpse.

Lynch let out a soft sigh. He tossed aside the great cleaver and shook his head. “What a poor soul. A few of you, go lift him up. That blue fox-fur coat is decent enough—strip it off, wash it clean, and send it to the camel shop; it could at least fetch a few thousand gold coins. Hmm, see whether he has any valuable jewelry. Anyone rich enough to wear a blue fox-fur coat won’t be stingy about adorning himself with a few big gemstones!”

Just moments earlier, Lynch’s gaze had swept over the Oriental man’s hair. On his head was a topknot, and atop it sat a hair binding crown of pure gold. Around the crown was set a ring of rubies red as blood, each one thumb-sized, luxurious and extravagant to the extreme!

“It seems I’ve bought enough indulgences these last two years for the gods to watch over me!” Lynch swallowed and issued another order. “Forget it. Let him come into this world clean, and leave it clean as well! His clothes must be high-quality silk. Strip off his undergarments and socks too; once they’re washed and cleaned, they can still fetch a few hundred gold coins at the camel shop. Those rich country bumpkins love silk from the East!”

As Lynch was here calculating how to make a fortune from the dead, the man curled up like a ball suddenly moved. Slowly, he rose to his feet and lifted his head, looking toward Lynch and the others some dozen meters away.

He was a young man whose height did not fall short of Lynch’s, extraordinarily robust and incomparably handsome. Because of the long freezing, his face was bluish, almost transparent with cold. His disheveled clothes made him look utterly disordered, yet nothing could conceal the arrogance that towered above the world, the wild and lawless haughtiness, the domineering air that overawed all beneath heaven.

Lynch and the others stood high on the bow, while the young man stood on the low skiff. Yet Lynch suddenly had the strange feeling that he himself was the one being looked down upon, that he was the one gazing up at the other.

Shaking his head hard, he threw off that odd sensation. Then, curling one corner of his mouth, he asked the Oriental man, “Hey, want to catch a ride?”

The man swayed slightly, and at once more than a dozen blurred afterimages flickered into view. When his figure appeared again, he was already standing before Lynch.

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Getting up to post a chapter—should I go back to sleep for a while, or eat lunch?