Stowaways

Four hours earlier.

North Atlantic.

Waters of the Hebrides.

This was Scotland's northernmost archipelago, and one of the most desolate stretches of sea in the world.

Here, waves churned and surged, beaches lay empty, cliffs rose precariously, and uninhabited wilderness surrounded everything.

The nearest city was Delanberg, more than a hundred kilometers away.

During King Arthur's era, that city had served as a prison for exiled criminals. During the Age of Discovery, it had been occupied by the infamous pirate Drake and became his refuge from pursuit. Under George I, it had become a tax-evading port for stockpiling enslaved Africans.

But now, with pirates gone and the slave trade abolished, only a sparsely populated town remained—a town of barely a hundred people who lived by fishing.

Other than seabirds and herring, virtually no other species cared to visit this region.

Yet now, an old diesel fishing boat was racing through the waves in these cliff-lined waters.

There were four people aboard.

The man steering the fishing boat was named Terry. He was a typical Caucasian man, with a large nose, thin lips, and a thick beard.

He wore worn jeans, knee-high rubber boots, and a grimy fishing hat. With his rough hands and feet, he looked no different from the other fishermen in these waters who caught herring.

But he was not a fisherman. He had been once, but not anymore.

Before turning twenty, Terry had fished at sea with his father. But after surviving the horrors of World War I and returning home, he could no longer look favorably on fishing, that stable but unpromising line of work.

After struggling in these home waters for more than twenty years, he now had a far more profitable occupation than catching herring.

Smuggling.

Smuggling people.

The Hebrides connected Scotland, Denmark, Iceland, and Norway.

Ever since the outbreak of World War I, stowaways had never stopped coming through here. Thanks to the desolate surroundings, wandering foreigners would occasionally try to use Scotland as a landing point, then make their way into the British Empire, hoping to find work in the more stable environment of England.

But Terry knew that most of those dreams were unrealistic fantasies. After being exploited at every stage, most stowaways ended up dying in a foreign land.

Over the past twenty years, Terry had seen every kind of passenger. But these passengers...

He had truly never seen anything like them.

Through the seawater-blurred rearview mirror, he could see three strange figures sitting ramrod straight on the deck behind him. Their postures were identical. The sea wind and spray striking them seemed no different from waves crashing against reefs.

Terry knew that bearing well. Only soldiers sat with such rigidly straight posture.

But calling them soldiers also felt strange. All three wore oversized robes that concealed their appearances, along with tall, pointed hoods.

Those were not the tattered robes worn by stowaways. Their robes were pure black and brand-new, cinched with scaled leather belts. Even in such fierce winds, they were not the slightest bit disheveled.

He had seen so many military units during World War I, yet he had never seen troops from any country dressed like this.

The only thing that identified them was the red emblem with a swastika on each of their arms.

The symbol looked vaguely familiar to Terry. He had often seen it in newspapers these past two years. It seemed to belong to some workers' organization in Germany.

But Terry was not certain. The people in the newspapers certainly did not dress like this.

The boat cut through a wave and jolted violently.

"Which direction did your passenger from this morning go?"

Suddenly, the one sitting at the front—the tallest of the three—spoke.

He sat utterly still, as if his backside had been welded to the boat.

"Uh..." Terry was caught off guard while lost in thought. The three had not spoken since boarding, and he had assumed they did not speak English.

"What did you say?"

"I asked which direction your passenger from this morning went."

"Sorry, I don't know what you're talking about."

Terry deflected the question. He might have been a smuggler, but smugglers had rules too. More than forty years of life experience had taught him that staying out of all conflicts was the wisest way to live.

"Is that so? It seems he paid you quite a lot."

The tall hooded man spoke softly. His voice carried an inexplicable magnetism that made one's mind relax.

Terry's wary gaze immediately turned vacant.

"Oh, you mean that generous little passenger? He did give me a lot of money."

The hooded man asked, "Which way did he go?"

Terry answered, "He also landed on Handa Island. He followed the River Tay south into inland Scotland. There's nothing there, and plenty of people who go in get lost. Some never come out at all. I'd advise you not to go in."

Smack!

The fishing boat passed through another wave and lurched sharply. Blown by the sea wind, Terry shuddered and snapped back to his senses.

He felt as though he had just said a great deal, but could not remember what he had said.

In the rearview mirror, the three still sat like rocks. Just as before, not the slightest change showed on their faces.

"Damn it."

Terry muttered and sped up the fishing boat. He wanted to finish this strange job as quickly as possible.

Fortunately, the boat soon reached the island shore. Lichen and moss covered the area. The cliffs were mottled sedimentary rock, scattered with jagged bizarre stones, and the coastal cliffs were streaked with bird droppings.

Two burly men stood on the shore, smoking and waving at the boat.

At the sight of them, Terry relaxed. He was a cautious man who never did anything without confidence. Those two were his cousins and worked with him in the people-smuggling trade. They were extremely reliable partners.

Terry brought the boat to a stop. One cousin came aboard and drove down a rusted iron stake, while the other tied the mooring rope around it.

Terry said, "Get off here. The total price is forty-five pounds. I'll give you a discount—make it forty. If you need a ride, go thirty kilometers east along the coast."

After speaking, he stood at the edge of the boat with his hands on his hips, waiting for one of the three to come forward and pay. His two cousins stood beside him as well, in case anything unexpected happened. Their business was illegal, after all, and their passengers came from all walks of life.

The three people aboard stood up. The tall man at the front asked softly, "Did the little man get off here as well?"

"Yes, yes. Stop asking and pay up, then leave. There are coast guards in this area too," Terry said impatiently.

Ignoring Terry's unease, the tall man turned his head and said indifferently, "Überprüfen." (Check.)

The other two silently disembarked and spread out, turning their heads to inspect the surroundings. One of them even took out a black rod and began tracing circles and lines in the air.

Seeing their behavior, Terry narrowed his eyes, and a dangerous gleam flashed through them. He slowly lifted his damp shirt, revealing the handle of a mahogany revolver at his waist.

Seeing Terry's dark expression, his two cousins exchanged a glance and slipped their hands into their pockets, where the thick handles of two large knives rested.

Terry was a smuggler, a man with blood on his hands. He had seen dangerous stowaways before—murderers, bandits, thieves. But in twenty years, no one had ever gotten the better of them.

Then something happened that left Terry stunned.

The tall hooded man's chest suddenly bulged. Then a gleaming silver monkey head pushed out from it. It had long, lustrous silver fur and huge eyes.

It scampered onto the tall hooded man's shoulder in a few movements, looked at Terry with pity, then closed its eyes and swayed its head in the air.

Terry had never seen a monkey like that. Never.

His two cousins were completely dumbfounded as well.

The silver monkey suddenly opened its eyes, pointed in one direction, and began chittering.

The hooded man nodded. The other two men immediately put away their black rods.

The three headed together in the direction indicated by the silver monkey, with no intention whatsoever of stopping to pay.

Terry grew furious. He yanked the revolver from his waist and, with a click, aimed it ahead.

"Hey, stop! Who the hell are you?"

His two cousins whipped out their machetes.

Yet the three continued walking ahead, one in front and two behind, their steps steady and resolute. They had no intention of stopping. It was as if they had not heard him at all.

Terry curled his finger around the trigger, a vicious glint flashing through his eyes. He had been to war. He had no qualms about killing.

But at that moment, something suddenly fluttered down and landed on Terry's shoulder.

Terry had assumed it was one of the seabirds common to this region. But when he turned to look, he froze.

It was a creature he had never seen before.

It had the body of a butterfly, yet was as large as a hawk. Its entire body was green, while purple keratinous protrusions covered its fleshy wings. It had cold red eyes and slender hooked claws.

Terry stared in utter shock.

The next second, the creature opened its mouth, revealing sharp teeth and a purple tongue.

With a hiss, it gave Terry no time to react. It lunged at his face. Never having encountered anything like this, Terry panicked and desperately clawed at it, trying to tear the monster off his face.

"Idiots, help me!!"

His two knife-wielding cousins were stunned as well. They no longer cared about the three strange men and hurriedly tried to pull the bizarre creature away from Terry.

The creature clung too tightly. Even the strength of grown men was useless. It opened its narrow mouth, and its tongue pierced Terry's skull in an instant.

"Argh!!"

Terry let out a miserable scream. He felt all his memories rapidly slipping away, along with his emotions and reason.

His two cousins panicked and tore at it frantically.

But then two more strange creatures descended from the sky and landed on the shoulders of Terry's cousins.

The two exchanged a glance, then were instantly engulfed by overwhelming terror.

They forgot everything else and turned to flee in blind panic.

They had not run far before collapsing to the ground, struggling and convulsing desperately.

Meanwhile, Terry could no longer even remember his own name. In the end, driven mad by despair, he wildly pulled the trigger.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

After the smoke cleared, the beach fell silent following the gunshots.

Terry lay motionless on the beach. His two cousins were the same.

Green-and-purple fleshy wings wrapped around Terry's face. On the empty beach came a teeth-grating sucking sound as half the creature's body burrowed into the man's head.

At last, the grinding sound stopped.

The green-and-purple creature pulled its head free and shook the blood from its body. Then it spread its wings and swiftly caught up with the men, who had become mere dots in the distance.

Not long afterward, the other two also finished feeding, rose, and began chasing after their masters.

Only the bodies of the three men remained on the desolate beach. Each had a bowl-sized hole bored into his forehead, and the insides were completely empty.

When the tide rose, seawater swept up the three bodies. They rolled across the rocky beach a few times before vanishing without a trace.