Castel might not have many sailors, but quite a few nearby islands were home to pirates year-round. Jeremiah only needed to take a bag of gold coins to a tavern and call out, and he could recruit a whole shipload of sailors.
On the Storm Ocean, sailors and pirates meant the same thing. Merchant ships simply did not recruit strangers.
"That's different. What I need isn't merely sailors who can handle a ship. For example, this is the contract I prepared for you. Do you want to take a look?"
Theus patted the papers on the table.
Jeremiah's eye twitched. Of course he did not want to look—he could not read.
"That's precisely the reason. I need sailors, but I need more than just sailors. I didn't get a close look at your ship, but it should be a wooden sailing ship, right?"
Jeremiah nodded. The phrasing was rather strange. What did he mean by a wooden sailing ship? Weren't all ships wooden sailing ships?
Was he talking about rowboats? Those things indeed had no sails.
"If I build ships out of steel in the future and use steam engines for power, then my seamen must be literate and understand mechanical principles—the latter is much harder by comparison. That is why I choose people from the students to learn navigation, rather than picking seamen and sending them to school."
Jeremiah listened in confusion. He did not know much about steam engines, though the name seemed vaguely familiar. But he had certainly heard the part about building ships out of steel.
That was rather absurd. How could steel be used to build ships? They would sink.
This had nothing to do with him, but after remaining silent for a while, he still asked. Jeremiah was a captain, after all. He was