The next day, Christian made a point of asking and finally learned that the survivor they had pulled from the sea really was just an ordinary man.
Never mind the alchemical treasures a certain troublesome little girl had been longing for—he did not even have a single copper on him!
He was merely an ordinary sailor aboard a large merchant ship named the George. According to him, roughly ten days ago—or perhaps longer; even he could no longer remember exactly when, though that hardly mattered—their ship had entered these waters and encountered a group of terrifying Sirens.
Yes, Sirens, not the supposed storm he had mentioned when they first hauled him aboard!
The monsters had ambushed and stopped their ship, then ordered the captain to sacrifice a third of his crew as a toll before they would let the merchant ship pass safely through these waters.
Their hotheaded captain had, of course, angrily rejected such an outrageous demand on the spot, then ordered the sailors to make full sail and force their way through.
Naturally, the two sides had come to blows.
The result...
There were no surprises there. Judging by the sailor having spent more than ten days in the water, they had clearly lost, and lost miserably.
The merchant ship had sunk, and everyone had fallen into the sea. That sailor had only escaped by a stroke of luck, aided by an undercurrent, and survived until they rescued him.
Christian found the outcome unsurprising. They had been at sea, facing a whole group of Sirens. How could a mere merchant ship and its hundred or two sailors, armed with scraps of battered metal, possibly defeat Sirens on the open sea?
The only thing that annoyed Christian was that the man had told a different story when they rescued