Voyage

Across the vast sea, the water stretched as far as the eye could see. A merchant ship sailed toward the distance.

Its sails billowed in the wind, while its prow cut through the current, sending ripples across the water.

"So tired."

On the deck, a young man sat there, rolling his shoulders with exhaustion written across his face.

"Marcel, you're tired after unloading so little cargo?"

Beside him stood a middle-aged man leaning against the railing, a bottle of liquor in hand. He looked at the boy with a smile.

"Uncle Joezer."

When Marcel saw him, he sighed and said, "I never expected it to be this tiring."

"This is what your father had been doing all along." Joezer raised the bottle and took a drink, his expression somewhat wistful. "Now that he's gone, you're the only man in the family. You have to hold this family together."

Hearing that, Marcel's gaze turned resolute. He clenched his fists and said, "I'll do my work properly."

"You're a good lad." Joezer rubbed Marcel's head.

"Then I'll train with the sword and kill all those pirates to avenge my father." Marcel's eyes brimmed with hatred.

Half a month ago, a merchant vessel from the trading company had been robbed by a pirate crew. To establish their authority, the pirates had killed two people, one of whom was Marcel's father.

Without his father, Marcel's family had lost its only source of income.

He also had a younger brother and sister. His brother was still in swaddling clothes and needed their mother's care.

Originally, his mother had planned to have him look after his brother, but her health was poor. So sixteen-year-old Marcel decisively boarded the merchant ship as a Stevedore to help support the family.

Though it was exhausting, as a man, he had to shoulder this responsibility.

The people aboard the ship also took good care of him. His efficiency was the lowest, but whenever he went to sea with the ship, each cargo job was paid as one work shift.

A Stevedore earned four thousand Belly per shift. One voyage could visit ten villages and handle cargo ten times, earning at least forty thousand Belly.

Two voyages a month meant eighty thousand Belly in pay.

Eighty thousand Belly, used frugally, was basically enough to cover a family's expenses.

As long as he worked for two or three years and became familiar with shipboard duties, he could serve not only as a Stevedore, but also as a helmsman, sailor, lookout, bookkeeper, and more.

He could even catch some fish along the way to bring back and sell or eat.

Marcel was full of hope for the future, and he believed in his own future.

Marcel turned to Uncle Joezer and said with a smile, "Uncle Joezer, can I have a sip of rum?"

"You want to drink? You're too young. Rum isn't something you can drink yet." Joezer said with a smile.

Marcel said unhappily, "Uncle Joezer, I'm already working. I can drink now."

"Then have a little."

After thinking it over, Joezer handed the bottle to Marcel.

Marcel took the bottle, put it to his lips, and gulped down a mouthful.

Cough, cough, cough.

Marcel broke into a violent coughing fit, and his face instantly turned red.

"Hahahaha!"

Joezer laughed heartily. Once Marcel stopped coughing, he said, "You drank too much. Rum isn't like beer; it's much stronger. Since it's your first time drinking, don't drink so much."

Marcel nodded, handed the bottle back to Joezer, and shook his head, feeling dazed.

His tolerance still needed practice.

What man who sailed the seas couldn't drink?

Marcel thought as he rubbed his flushed face. At that moment, a voice rang out from the distance. "There's a fish below us, swimming alongside our ship."

"Kafur, it's just a fish. What kind of fish haven't we seen? What's there to make such a fuss about?" Joezer shouted into the distance.

"This fish is huge."

In the distance, a burly man lay over the railing on the other side of the ship, staring into the water.

"What kind of fish? Why not catch it with a net? The merchant ship has some empty space now. We can catch it and sell it."

An old man shouted from afar.

"Old Jon, you couldn't catch this one."

Kafur said with a smile as he looked at the fish. "This thing is nearly twenty meters long. It's too big."

"That big?"

Joezer and Marcel both ran to the railing and looked down.

In the shadows beneath the water, a massive fish followed the ship.

The fish was around twenty meters long, entirely black, with a huge head and a thick body.

Its head bore a protruding ram, and its first dorsal fin stood high like a sickle. There was even another ram in front of the dorsal fin.

"So big."

Marcel could not help asking, "Uncle Joezer, what kind of fish is this?"

Joezer studied it for a while before saying, "I've never seen one either. It looks rather strange."

"Why is it following us?" Marcel asked curiously.

Joezer shrugged. "Maybe it's using the ship to hide itself. Maybe the ship is stirring up the currents and driving fish toward it to feed on. Or maybe it simply finds it amusing. Any of those are possible."

"I see."

Marcel nodded and looked into the sea. Then he suddenly put his fingers to his lips and let out a whistle.

"Hm?"

Beneath the sea, Xia Qiu heard the sharp whistle and raised his head.

Naturally, that fish was Xia Qiu. He had followed the fish and left Naruto Village.

He had killed a Marine Colonel. The Marines would definitely come to hunt him in these waters, so Xia Qiu chose to leave.

The ocean was vast. As long as he left these waters, the Marines would have no way to track him. Once they searched this sea area without finding anything, they would not remember him at all.

That was why Xia Qiu had chosen to leave, though he still needed to consider both his destination and method of departure.

He could not blindly pick a direction. After all, the East China Sea had sea beasts and Sea Kings. Even near the coast, there was the Lord of the Coast.

He needed to find the next island. The waters around most islands were not very deep. Around shoals, most waters were less than thirty meters deep, with only a few areas reaching one hundred meters.

Of course, some island shoals gave way to cliffs or vertical straits, reaching depths of several hundred meters.

A harbor with a depth of more than fifteen meters was considered a deep-water port. Such a port could accommodate container ships of up to 8,000 TEU.

Where the water was shallow, large fish rarely ventured there, especially fish over thirty meters long.

The limit of his combat strength was roughly enough to handle fish between thirty and forty meters long. That would still be dangerous, but he could win.

Therefore, Xia Qiu needed to find the next island while avoiding Sea Kings and sea beasts as much as possible. The best method was to travel alongside ships.

Naruto Village had many merchant ships and cargo vessels traveling between islands. They could lead him to the next island.

Xia Qiu had not chosen the massive cargo ships. The vessels that came here each week to transport salt would be fully loaded with it and sail to companies and factories that processed salt.

Most of those companies and factories were located in towns or countries—that was, relatively large islands.

There was no need for him to go to large islands. More and stronger pirates gathered there, and Marines would also be stationed there. The Marine branch base was located in a town, after all. A Marine branch base in one town probably oversaw around twenty villages.

So Xia Qiu set his sights on smaller islands, which meant finding merchant ships that traveled to them.

Like this merchant ship. It was enormous, yet even after unloading part of its cargo, its draft remained deep.

A merchant ship like this definitely would not be transporting daily necessities solely for trade with a single village.

It would therefore continue to the next island in need of goods to trade there, and that island would not be too large.

Moreover, such a huge merchant ship would certainly take precautions against Sea Kings and sea beasts. Most of its routes should avoid Sea King habitats.

That would ensure basic safety.

Xia Qiu did not respond to the shouting aboard the ship. He slowed down and lagged a little behind before leisurely following the merchant ship onward.

I only just finished writing this. I was rewriting the outline today; the previous outline was a little boring and too narrow, and the further the growth arc and timeline went, the more problems they had.

Today, I changed the later plot and added some ideas and content. It should be better now.