Scholar Eli pushed up his glasses and smiled, making a suggestion to Lin Gui and the other two.
“You three should take a walk around the Twin Reefs.”
“Though it is small, if you look closely, you can find many interesting things.”
Lin Gui glanced at Freya in the distance, feeling a bit hesitant.
“Without Captain Freya's permission, it wouldn't be right for us to wander off.”
Hearing this, the scholar laughed.
“After spending these past few days together, everyone has long since stopped viewing you as outsiders.”
“That girl Betty even says all the time that she wants to switch teachers and study under you instead.”
Remembering the girl who couldn't go three sentences without mentioning Levitation, Lin Gui couldn't help but chuckle.
“Captain Freya didn't punish her?”
“Of course she did,” the scholar said with a laugh. “She punished her by sending her to inspect the train's concealment magic runes.”
“So, relax. There is no need to be so polite.”
As he spoke, he waved to Freya in the distance and pointed at Lin Gui and the others.
Freya looked over, smiled, and waved back, signaling her silent consent.
Theia immediately jumped up in excitement.
She grabbed Eve with one hand and yanked Lin Gui with the other.
“Let's go, let's go!”
She dragged the two of them as she ran toward the bizarre residential areas.
As they passed between several crooked stone houses, Lin Gui's gaze drifted through the gaps between the buildings, casting once more toward that deathly still, pitch-black sea.
At the thought of how the North Wind caravan planned to cross the Forbidden Zone tomorrow, as the scholar had explained to him, Lin Gui's brow furrowed unconsciously.
A pair of hands suddenly cupped his face, forcing his head back around.
Theia glared at him, her cheeks puffed out in annoyance.
“Lin Gui! No thinking about this or that right now!”
“Your primary mission right now...”
She released her grip and gestured with her hands.
“...is to accompany Eve and me!”
“To! Tour! The! Island!”
Her eyes sparkled.
“This is my very first time seeing the ocean, and my first time stepping onto an island!”
Under Lin Gui's helpless gaze, Theia began to drag him forward with all her might.
“Come on, let's go!”
In the end, Lin Gui could only let himself be dragged along, walking beside a faintly smiling Eve toward this small island standing at the threshold of the Forbidden Zone.
They passed through the noisy cluster of goblin stone houses, watching the little green creatures decorate their doorframes with coral and seashells.
They also passed by the damp spiral towers of the sea folk, where blurry shadows swam behind translucent fish-bladder windows.
The two vastly different architectural styles were crammed together, yet they possessed a strange sort of harmony.
Theia was curious about everything, standing on her tiptoes to watch the goblins mend their tattered fishing nets, and then squatting by the roadside to examine the shiny beads on a sea folk vendor's stall.
Eve quietly followed by Lin Gui's side, occasionally pausing to feel the salty, damp sea breeze brushing over the reef.
Dragged by Theia through the narrow alleyways, Lin Gui's gaze would still occasionally drift past these exotic sights, falling upon that distant Silent Sea that seemed capable of swallowing light itself.
His brow never fully uncreased.
Something wet and cool suddenly pressed against Lin Gui's cheek.
He turned his head and saw it was Eve.
Her fingertips were holding a tiny, iridescent seashell.
“If worrying cannot solve the problem,” she said with a faint smile, “why not put it aside for now?”
“Just let nature take its course.”
“Since the prophecy shows we will arrive safely...”
“...then this time, we will surely make it through safely.”
Lin Gui raised an eyebrow. “The word 'surely' shouldn't be coming from the mouth of someone who can use Prophecy.”
Eve smiled but said nothing.
Still, she was right.
Since they had already reached the outskirts of the Silent Sea, they had no choice but to trust the North Wind caravan.
Even if the method they were going to use tomorrow was extremely risky.
Lin Gui let out a breath, his mind settling slightly.
Only now did he have the peace of mind to look around, realizing he was standing in a small market in front of a sea folk vendor's stall.
The stall owner was a classic mermaid. She had the beautiful face of a human woman, with translucent, gill-like fins behind her ears, and silver-blue scales covering everything below her waist, tapering into a powerful fish tail.
The merfolk were the branch of the sea folk whose appearance was closest to humans.
Just like the beastkin, the sea folk comprised many bizarre and diverse races.
On their way here, Theia had curiously approached a crab-kin member of the sea folk, reaching out to tap on his thick carapace, only to be driven back by the waving of his massive claws.
From his mouthparts, which were lined with fine teeth, he spat out a series of gurgling, bubbling noises.
Neither Lin Gui nor the others could understand what he was saying.
Marine humanoid creatures like this, who possessed their own languages, were also considered members of the sea folk.
Lin Gui looked around, suddenly realizing that Theia had vanished.
“She went back to the train carriage to grab some things,” Eve explained softly.
“They only accept barter here.”
“She said she wanted to bring some daily necessities to trade.”
“I see.”
Lin Gui squatted down and looked at the wares displayed by the mermaid stall owner.
Most of them were beautiful pearls, coral, and bizarre shells.
Quite a few of the sea goods bore distinct demonic traits, such as black shells covered in fine scales, or dark red coral bristling with sharp spikes.
There were even some materials harvested from deep-sea demons.
Lin Gui did not know much about deep-sea demons, but that did not stop him from asking.
“This,” he pointed at a bone emitting a faint green phosphorescence, “what kind of demon did it come from?”
“And this,” he pointed to a clump of seaweed that wriggled like a bundle of nerves, “did it move when it was alive?”
The mermaid stall owner flashed a sweet smile, her voice sounding like gentle waves caressing the reef.
“Those are the finger bones of the drowned, from the Specter Demons that wander the shallow waters of the Black Reef Sea.”
“And this seaweed is the dried corpse of Soul-Devouring Algae. It indeed wraps around its prey when alive.”
Her voice was exceptionally pleasing to the ear, a natural gift of the merfolk.
In the slave markets, a beautiful mermaid with a lovely singing voice would command a price that left elven slaves miles behind.
Yet for some reason, they seemed to have rarely been seen in recent years.
Lin Gui asked about several items, mostly just out of curiosity.
In the end, his gaze was drawn to an unremarkable, cracked glass bead.
Mixed in with a pile of shiny trinkets, it looked dusty and dull, yet Lin Gui felt as though a faint glimmer of light had flashed deep within its cracked interior.
Lin Gui picked up the cracked glass bead and held it up to the sunlight, but found nothing out of the ordinary.
“What is this?” he asked the mermaid stall owner.
The mermaid blinked her large, beautiful eyes, hesitated for a moment, and then said in a highly mysterious tone:
“This was salvaged from a shipwreck deep within the Silent Sea.”
“Legend has it that this is the mana vessel of an ancient archmage!”
“At night, it emits a mysterious blue glow.”
“Look at these patterns, they contain ancient wisdom...”
“And look at this luster, it was condensed from the tears of a mermaid...”
She was spinning a wilder and wilder tale, until even she could barely keep a straight face.
Lin Gui looked at her, completely speechless.
This knack for boasting was exactly the same as the dishonest merchants on land.
Asking no further questions, he casually reached into the pocket of his mage robe and pulled out a slightly worn but finely crafted charcoal pencil, holding it out to her.
“Trade?”
The mermaid's eyes lit up, and she snatched the charcoal pencil away, turning it over and over in her hands, unable to put it down.
On this island far from the continent, such exquisite writing instruments were a rare sight.
“Deal!”
She answered crisply and quickly, terrified that Lin Gui would back out, and carefully tucked the charcoal pencil away.
And just like that, the dusty, cracked glass bead ended up in Lin Gui's hand.
Rate on N.U.
