Boat

Time continued to pass swiftly.

Richie's legs had already begun to disobey him.

Blair made him a crutch.

Whenever he needed to go somewhere, he would lean on the crutch and walk there.

He often summoned his two children.

From their childish mouths, he listened as they told him about the new knowledge they had learned and all sorts of fresh happenings within the Tribe.

Some of the Tribe's younger generation had also gradually taken over the elders' duties and carried out their responsibilities admirably.

Richie felt gratified.

There were already many things he no longer needed to worry about.

Yet these idle days instead left him feeling somewhat weary.

Just as he was growing drowsy from these leisurely, silent days, a sudden event caught his interest.

"Tribe Chief, something huge! Something huge!"

"Master Blair and the carpenters have built that legendary boat according to your request!"

A guard suddenly rushed excitedly into the cave.

Richie opened his eyes, and a glimmer lit up in his dry, dull pupils.

"Good heavens, you must go see it yourself! It's incredible! It's so big I could lie inside it, but it won't sink into the sea. If that isn't the legendary boat, then what is?"

The guard vividly described what he had just seen, gesturing wildly with both hands.

Richie suddenly felt that his aged body had regained a trace of the strength he possessed in his youth.

Supported by Barlow, the captain of the guards, he walked out of the cave.

Although his vision had already grown somewhat blurry.

Richie felt that the world before his eyes had never been brighter.

Just like the day, many years ago, when he became Tribe Chief.

At this moment, his two sons followed behind him as well.

The two children were already ten years old.

Under Richie's and the elders' earnest guidance, both children had become far more mature than others their age.

Yet when they heard about the boat, they behaved no differently from children their own age.

Richie arrived at the shore.

On the shore.

Tribe members who had heard the news also gradually gathered there.

The first thing people saw was a rope.

An incredibly thick rope, woven from who knew how many plants, lay across the beach.

The rope was wound around a large wooden stake by the shore.

Its other end stretched into the sea.

A wooden object with pointed ends and a sunken middle rested on the beach.

It looked like a thick wooden bow laid on its side.

"That is the boat."

People stared in astonishment.

So that was the legendary tool that could float on the sea.

But it did not look like a fish.

"We can go farther out to sea?"

"What is in the farther sea? Islands like the one beneath our feet?"

"Yes, bigger islands, more food."

"Then what about the sea farther and farther away? Does the sea have an end?"

"The end of the sea must be a bottomless cliff. If we get there, we'll definitely fall off! Haha."

People began discussing it.

There was excitement in their discussion.

There was also fear.

People were filled with the same awe toward the vast, mysterious sea as they were toward the gods.

Only, within that awe, fear accounted for the greater part.

Although the discussion was exceptionally heated, when facing the boat, no one showed the same eagerness to try it that they had shown toward the Bow and Arrow.

For a time, no one actually suggested getting on it to give it a try.

Richie stared blankly at the boat.

When the thing he had dreamed of for decades truly appeared on this shore, the aged man no longer knew what emotions he should face it with.

The children did not notice their father's shifting expression.

At that moment, the two children only looked at the boat with great excitement as they made their request of their father.

"Father, let us get on it and try it."

Only then did Richie come back to himself and look toward Blair.

Blair bowed humbly.

"I have already tested it with the guards. The Driftwood Boat can hold two people and will not easily overturn in wind and waves. As long as a guard who can swim accompanies them, nothing will happen."

The children looked expectantly at this stern yet compassionate Tribe Chief.

Or rather, their father.

"Go on."

Before Richie's hoarse yet kindly final note could fade into the sea breeze,

A figure had already dashed toward the beach.

"Let me go first! I'm the younger brother, so big brother will definitely let me!"

The child rushing in front shouted excitedly.

That was Richie's son—Boer.

Boer cried out joyfully.

Although the two brothers had been born at the same time.

As they grew up, the children had chosen their own identities.

Boer believed he was the younger brother.

Because their father had always taught them to yield to younger children.

Compared to his quiet, taciturn older brother, Boer had a particularly mischievous nature, which gave Richie quite a headache.

At that moment, Boer impatiently picked up a wooden oar.

As a student learning under Blair, he had long heard a general explanation from his teacher about how to use an oar to maneuver a boat.

He wanted to show his father his own independent wisdom and extraordinary courage.

After he climbed aboard.

A guard who could swim sat behind him.

The two boarded the boat.

As the thick rope was steadily let out, the boat finally entered the water.

Under the excited gazes of the crowd, the Driftwood Boat sailed across the sea.

Even though the waves made it rise and fall, it always maintained a marvelous balance as it traveled steadily over the choppy waters.

"Good heavens, it really can float on the sea."

"Just like a leaf drifting on the water."

"Look, Boer really got the boat moving."

When everyone saw that the boat truly had not sunk, they could not help but cry out in amazement.

People gradually calmed from their anxious expressions.

Finally, after watching Boer wave at them vigorously from atop the boat, everyone in the Tribe smiled.

The moving boat was like a stone hoe upon the calm sea.

Wherever it passed, it slowly hoed out a shallow furrow.

And those faint grooves were quickly, quietly filled by white waves.

Boer did not know.

The ripples he carved at that moment were the scenes his father had dreamed of through countless days and nights many years ago.

"So this is how a boat floats on the sea."

Richie watched his younger son drift upon the waves, drifting farther and farther out into the sea.

His thoughts drifted farther along with the boat.

He thought of the past.

Had the Tribe's ancestors once arrived here aboard boats much larger than this one?

Then he thought of the future.

What kind of future would this boat bring to him and the Tribe's people?

Richie thought of many, many things.

He thought that this boat might belong to people of the past, or perhaps people of the future.

But he had never considered that it might belong to him.

Just as he immersed himself in that sea and his thoughts drifted farther and farther away, he suddenly heard an urgent shout.

"The tide is rising!"

That cry awakened the Tribe members who had been lost in their wandering fantasies.

Upon the sea that had been clear and windless, waves suddenly rose for no apparent reason.

The Driftwood Boat also began to sway and rock.

People came back to their senses.

"Get young master Boer back quickly!"

"Pull the rope!"

"Pull the rope!"

But just as everyone hurriedly began pulling the rope, someone looked up toward the waves.

Then,

His mouth fell open, and the rope in his hands slipped free.

"Th-there!"

He pointed toward the sea in shock.

Everyone raised their heads as one and looked in the direction he pointed, horror appearing on their faces.

The surging waves did not subside.

The white seawater gradually gathered into a small hill.

The sea was not rising with the tide.

It had actually been pushed upward by something.

Beneath the surface, some enormous creature was swimming.

Splash!

Before the terrified eyes of the crowd, a massive black shell burst through the seawater.

As the enormous shell rose inch by inch amid endlessly breaking white foam, two huge cracked pincer-like limbs also broke through the sea, gleaming with different hues beneath the sunlight.

They were unmistakably two crab claws, like gigantic pincers.