When Fang Zheng and the others set foot on solid ground again, they almost felt as if they had been reborn after escaping death.
"I thought I was going to die..."
Kuru shook her head. She had barely done anything along the way, yet she was already close to collapsing.
"To be honest, I really did think about how I was supposed to escape if we sank into the sea..."
Hearing Kuru speak, Fang Zheng said nothing. He merely turned and silently glanced at the battered ship behind them.
That was right. Battered beyond recognition.
The ship now looked nothing like it had when they set sail. Everything above the waterline was riddled with damage, while even the hull below the waterline had been nailed shut with planks. Two masts had snapped, and a cannonball had blasted a Great Hole in the stern. When they had arrived, the people at the Dock had even mistaken it for a ghost ship!
"I never expected one trip at sea to run into so much trouble."
Even Kurumi, who was usually calm and composed, looked utterly incredulous.
"Storms, pirates, giant whirlpools, waterspouts, merman settlements... What haven't we run into?"
"Sea monsters. Not running into any sea monsters means we got lucky."
Fang Zheng was no longer sure whether they had been lucky or not. After everything they had gone through, his standards for what counted as "good luck" had fallen quite low.
"Tell me... how did she manage to survive safely until now?"
Looking at Katie, who followed beside Kuru with a dazed expression, Kurumi seriously considered the question for once.
"I'm not kidding. Everything we ran into at sea before was enough to kill her ten times over."
"Because we were there."
Fang Zheng was not surprised. In fact, he knew exactly