Kaspar’s sudden scream made the charging pirates halt in their tracks, all of them staring at him in confusion.
Did the boss… step on a nail?
After a brief howl, Kaspar quickly fell silent.
“Boss?” Garon, who was closest, asked tentatively.
Right now his entire future depended on Kaspar. Among those present, he cared more about Kaspar’s condition than even the two pirate lieutenants did.
Kaspar’s arm twitched slightly, then he raised it with an oddly casual wave, signaling that he was fine.
Garon let out a sigh of relief. But the two gold-ranked lieutenants, upon seeing that stiff, unnatural gesture, both stepped back at the same time, raising their weapons toward Kaspar.
“What the hell is that thing?” one of them shouted, his voice tinged with horror.
“What’s wrong?” Garon still hadn’t caught on. Why were Blood Shark’s pirates suddenly turning on each other?
If they wanted to fight, shouldn’t they at least deal with the crew of the Windfeather first?Lin Jun, seeing that he hadn’t fooled the lieutenants, felt a twinge of disappointment as he controlled Scout Puji. He pulled the fungal tendrils out of Kaspar’s body, and with one clean swipe slit open Garon’s throat—he had hoped to take down another gold-rank, but this would do.
Just as Gerhard hadn’t expected Garon to betray him, Garon hadn’t expected to be attacked right in front of Kaspar—or rather, attacked by the stool Kaspar was sitting on.
Clutching his throat with one hand, Garon fumbled desperately at his belt with the other, trying to pull out a potion. If he could treat the wound quickly, he might survive… but the scout’s blade cut across his wrist before he could manage it.
Lin Jun ignored the dying fat man at his feet and turned his attention to the two gold-ranked pirates who stood before him in terror, yet fully prepared for battle.
Honestly, Lin Jun hadn’t wanted to intervene. Doing so meant exposure. Even if he later claimed that the creature was Dylan’s contracted beast, the lie would have flaws that wouldn’t hold up under scrutiny.
If the pirates were only here to seize goods and money, leaving the people and ship behind, Lin Jun would have let it slide.
But to take everyone as slaves!?
That went against the unspoken rules here. What was going on with these islands?
There was no way he could let Dylan experience life as a slave. He had no choice but to step in.
His plan had been to wait until the pirates and the Windfeather crew were fully engaged, so that the pirate captain’s attention would be elsewhere before he struck. But his disposable pawn had collapsed before the fight even began…
Useless trash!
Now Scout Puji faced two gold-ranks alone, and there might also be a wind mage aboard the Blood Shark. Lin Jun had to finish this quickly, before they organized a counterattack.
But there were still thirty-some pirates on deck. Though they were only bronze and silver ranks, their numbers were troublesome.
On his side, the only reliable fighter was Dylan. With his two skill-imbued weapons, he could maybe hold his own against half a gold-rank.
As for the sailors and passengers?
They looked at Scout Puji with as much fear as the pirates did.
Who wouldn’t be terrified when the thing before them was a man-killing stool?
Kaspar, who moments ago had everything under control, now lay sprawled on the deck, blood nearly drained from the wound in his lower body. The sight alone was enough to send chills down anyone’s spine.
There was no choice—Lin Jun had to push forward, hoping fear would at least cow the ordinary pirates.
Puji stepped forward with a wet squelch. Everyone except the two pirate lieutenants took a step back, sailors included.
Dylan raised his longsword, ready to back the scout immediately.
But just as Lin Jun was about to launch his attack, he suddenly froze.
Why had his Mana Sense stopped working?
Because there was no mycelial network here to provide vision, Lin Jun had outfitted Scout Puji with multiple sensing skills: light, airflow, sound, and mana.
All of them usually ran at once in combat, and he could process the information.
But now his mana vision suddenly blurred—as though it were being smothered by a surge of magic all around the Windfeather. Like… fog.
No.
It really was fog!
In the Light Sense, visibility had dropped sharply without him realizing it. Even the three moons in the sky were fading away, though not as noticeably as the magical disturbance—so much so that he had ignored it at first.
And the fog was thickening.
This was no ordinary mist. Ordinary fog didn’t carry such dense mana.
In the single minute Puji had paused, the moonlight had nearly vanished. Everyone else finally noticed the sudden, suffocating fog.
“Mist? Is this the Mist?”
No one knew who said it, but the words rippled through the crowd, sparking panic among both sailors and pirates.
“The Mist? Then we’re finished!” one pirate staggered, knocking over a barrel. His terror outstripped even what he’d felt at Kaspar’s death.
“That’s impossible! We’re nowhere near the boundary!”
“That stool that killed the boss—wasn’t that a Mist creature?”
“Hell with it, just get the ship moving, we’ve gotta leave!”
“What about the people on this ship?”
“Kaspar’s dead, who cares about them!”
Chaos broke out among the pirates. The two lieutenants exchanged glances, their resolve faltering.
The moons vanished entirely behind the dense fog, plunging the deck into darkness.
Then a light appeared. Gerhard, having caught his breath, lit the crystal in his hand.
“This is the Moving Mist,” he said grimly. “If you’re thinking of running now, it’s too late.”
“Bullshit, what do you know?” a pirate snapped.
Gerhard roared back:
“Twenty years ago—the Golden Griffon, west of Great Horn Island, I was there!
Eighty-two souls aboard, only three survived!
We are all in mortal danger now. If everyone acts on their own, we’ll meet the same fate!
Pirate, sailor, passenger—it doesn’t matter. Right now you listen to me!
If not, none of us will survive.
If you don’t believe me, then kill me here and now! Better to die quickly by the blade than slowly in the Mist!”
His last words were aimed squarely at the pirates.
They faltered. Though none trusted their recent enemy, none dared dismiss him outright.
Until an old pirate muttered: “Golden Griffon… I think I heard of that. It went down in the Mist. But wasn’t it because they crossed the boundary?”
“That’s a lie!” Gerhard snapped. “The captain and first mate of the Golden Griffon were famous figures in the isles. Do you think they couldn’t tell where the boundary was? No—it was the Moving Mist. Just like now, a Mist that strikes without warning, impossible to guard against. That’s what doomed the Golden Griffon!”
Even Dylan and Lin Jun found themselves half-believing him.
One of the pirate lieutenants clenched his jaw. “Fine! We’ll follow you for now. Tell us what to do. But I warn you—no tricks. If we make it through safely, we part ways. If you play us false, I’ll cut you down myself!”
“Suit yourself.” Gerhard pulled himself upright against the wall.
“What about that thing?” the second lieutenant demanded, pointing at Scout Puji.
Gerhard hesitated. He had no idea what this killing stool was. It didn’t match any creature he’d heard of in the Mist.
In the silence, Dylan scratched his head and stepped forward.
“Uh… that’s my contracted beast…”