Fishing Net

Roy was startled by the scaled arm.

Without giving anything away, he moved a little closer, intending to brush aside the celery leaves in the basket and see what it was.

But the moment he moved the celery leaves, Roy's hand suddenly stopped, and he forced himself to turn around.

Because under the Divine Light, he had already seen what was behind the shelf... It was the person he least wanted to see, though perhaps he could not even be called a person.

The naga assassin he had seen that morning was actually hiding in the deepest corner between the two rows of shelves.

Roy was truly afraid that he would suddenly leap out and stab him in the back.

But he did not seem to move at all. Even his eyes had not shifted. If not for the faint rise and fall of the gills behind his cheeks, Roy might have thought he was not breathing at all.

He was like a salted fish leaning against the shelf...

Had he disguised himself as a salted fish? He was like the foolish emperor in The Emperor's New Clothes, clearly exposed to the light yet utterly unaware of it.

And he was firmly convinced that no one else could see him either...

Roy casually moved the ball of light away, trying his best to look normal. When he looked over, it was as though he had only seen a shelf full of vegetables...

As the light in Roy's hand slowly moved away, the shelves and the Gana assassin merged back into the darkness.

Without the Divine Light illuminating that spot, the naga assassin truly could not be seen...

Only after turning around did Roy realize that the naga assassin did have some means of concealment.

But under the Glimmer Illumination Spell, he had nowhere to hide. Yet he did not know that, and Roy pretended not to see him...

At that moment, Roy felt his heart pounding so hard it was about to burst out of his throat.

He had no desire to eliminate a potential threat for the sailors aboard the ship, so he calmly walked back.

Jasper was still standing where he was, pondering what excuse he could use to move the storeroom down to the lower Oar Room. When he saw Roy approaching with a ball of light, his eyes immediately widened, and he shouted:

"Hey, Roy, over here! Don't let it get away..."

Roy felt that if Jasper went to an opera house, he would definitely become an excellent actor.

The emotions he showed while shouting at empty air were incredibly full and convincing.

When Roy turned around, Jasper had already darted past him. Roy followed closely behind, carrying the Divine Light...

The storeroom door was opened, making a dull sound.

The naga assassin swiftly concealed himself in the shadowed corner behind the shelf.

Then two people entered from outside. Soon, he realized he had seen wrong—they were an elf and a human.

And he had seen that young human that morning. He was the young man who had escaped by accident.

It seemed he had not been wrong to target him. The naga assassin stared fixedly at Roy. Sure enough, he was a member of this ship, and the weakest one at that.

He had known all along that Roy was no good. He should have been more ruthless when he attacked that morning...

Watching Roy whisper with his companion, the naga assassin considered the fact that there were two of them... It was not convenient for him to make a move.

Once he was discovered, his infiltration plan would be ruined...

Besides, there were two sailors guarding the door. He could clearly sense the smell of blood on them, and that made him afraid to act rashly while hiding in the storeroom.

Then he saw Roy approaching with a lamp, only for him to suddenly turn away just as he was about to reach him.

If Roy had taken one more step, then even with the naga assassin hidden in the dark corner, Roy would inevitably have stepped on his coiled tail fin.

At that point, there would be no hiding it. The Gana assassin had prepared to drive his dagger straight into Roy's chest.

To him, at a time like this... killing one was still a profit! But Roy, only one step away from the naga assassin, suddenly turned around and walked back...

His elf companion was rather baffling too. When he first entered, he had looked like a complete fool.

Yet now, he suddenly began running through the cramped storeroom, shouting for no apparent reason.

The naga assassin thought those two had discovered him, but he soon realized that was not the case at all...

Inside the storeroom, Roy and Jasper ran out one after the other. Just as they were about to reach the door, Jasper suddenly stopped, held up his magic book, and recited a short prayer.

At once, a beam of holy light descended from the ceiling, shining like a cone of light onto the wooden floor.

The second mate guarding the storeroom door turned around and glanced inside. He saw the beam radiating a holy aura, but did not see the ghost caught within it.

At that moment, Jasper dropped to one knee, pressed one hand against the floor, and asked Roy, "How did it get down there?"

Roy also drew back the ball of light and walked over to Jasper's side. "What do we do now?" he asked casually.

"Chase it. Is there a staircase here?" Jasper asked decisively.

The second mate's massive body nearly blocked the storeroom entrance completely as he bent down and stuck his bald head inside...

"Did you run into some trouble?"

Jasper pointed at the beam of light that had not fully faded and said to the second mate:

"We just saw a wraith, but it had developed intelligence. The moment it saw us, it fled at high speed and escaped below deck..."

The second mate gave the two of them a suspicious look before saying, "Follow me!"

He stepped aside from the storeroom entrance and stood in the narrow corridor.

The Sailor following the second mate moved in front of them, once again sandwiching the two between them...

Roy guessed that he did not want a fight to smash all the vegetables in the storeroom to pieces, which was why he agreed to Jasper's suggestion and allowed them to pursue the wraith below.

As the group passed the kitchen, the Head Chef, who had been directing his subordinates inside, even came out specially and blocked the corridor to question the second mate without the slightest politeness.

Roy could not understand what they were saying, but he found it strange that the second mate, despite being so huge and powerful, was extremely polite before the Head Chef.

Perhaps the Head Chef was in a good mood after hearing that the wraith had fled, because he praised the second mate quite enthusiastically...

The stairs leading below deck were in the center of the first floor of the Ship Building.

They extended downward at an angle from there and did not take up much space in the kitchen.

The stairs here were rather old and worn. Besides the scratches, the walls bore signs of corrosion, the paint was peeling badly, and there was even some mold.

The walls on both sides were likewise covered in marks. It was impossible to tell what kind of paint had once been applied. Everything was blackened, and the spots people often touched were coated with a layer of grimy sludge.

At the bottom of the stairs were the sailors' cabins, packed tightly together one after another.

The corridor was somewhat dim, with no lamps on the walls.

Roy entered holding a ball of light and saw that, aside from some clutter, several stinking shoes were strewn across the corridor, making it almost impossible to find somewhere to step.

The second mate stepped over the clutter as if he saw nothing, walking down the corridor until a turn appeared ahead.

Pushing open this door led to the Oar Room on the left side of the crew quarters.

The Oar Room on the right was across from the sailors' cabins, on the side facing the dock. If he could get into that room, Roy planned to jump straight out the window onto the pier. A drop of more than four meters was not that high, after all. At worst, he would only break his legs.

But the second mate led them into the Oar Room on the left, where the ship's side faced the sea...

If they jumped from the ship, they would have to jump into the ocean. It would be safer, but they would need to swim back to the harbor dock. If they were caught again during that time...

Roy did not dare think about it.

The room was long and narrow, like a huge communal sleeping area. Wooden oars more than ten meters long hung along one side of the ceiling. Each rowing position had roughly eight seats, making it seem that eight sailors operated each oar. There was even some luggage here, so it appeared that sailors lived in this place as well.

But the room was empty at the moment...

Under the Divine Light in Roy's hand, more than a dozen wraiths were floating through the room.

Nearly all the wraiths here had completely lost themselves, merely hovering motionlessly in the room.

The Soul Fire on their bodies varied in strength. As Roy passed by them, the Holy Light Power radiating from that single ball of light completely extinguished the Soul Fire of one lost undead.

It then vanished into the air like a wisp of green smoke without struggling at all, while its azure soul broke free from the shackles of resentment and took form under the Divine Light.

Having lost all its memories, the soul flew toward the sky without a trace of attachment, disappearing above the cabin ceiling in the blink of an eye.

There were still many wandering souls in the room. Roy and Jasper carefully distinguished them. Some had been dead sailors, while others were members of the Gana Sea Clan and elves...

Jasper's face turned somewhat pale when he saw so many wraiths.

With his Holy Light Power, there was no way he could purify so many wandering souls.

His panic was not entirely because the ghosts had frightened him.

Seeing that this sea ship was like a graveyard was what truly gave him a tremendous fright.

Roy's greatest concern was that this sea ship had already been docked at Castleton Harbour for three or four days. Clearly, it would not remain here much longer.

High tide tonight would be around three in the morning, the perfect time for the ship to leave the harbor while Fishing Boats were entering port.

All the oars in the Oar Room had been prepared, and the storeroom was piled full of food. They had clearly completed every preparation for departure...

They had invited Jasper over tonight probably because they wanted him to purify some of the wandering souls aboard the ship, and then... they had never intended to let him leave.

Roy's arrival had been a buy-one-get-one-free bonus. The two exchanged another glance, seeing fear in each other's eyes.

They started running almost at the same time. They were less than three meters from the oar windows, and before the second mate and the Sailor could react at all, they charged out without looking back. Their thin bodies were just small enough to slip through the oar windows.

The second Roy's body slid out of the window, his heart sank completely.

A huge Fishing Net stretched before them, and Jasper and Roy fell into it one after the other.