Chapter 342
“Woohoo! Yahoo!” Siegfried cheered.
“Huh? Which crazy bastard made that noise just now?!”
“Can’t you read the mood?!”
“L-Look at that crazy fool!”
“Hey! Throw that bastard overboard!”
All eyes belonging to the merchant company sailors darted toward Siegfried, and they hurled all sorts of curses at him.
It was a given they would react in such a manner as the Silver Sea Serpents were extremely scary sea monsters, and there was no way they would not be annoyed when someone on the ship was cheering after it appeared.
It was the same in real life. If everyone were in mourning, then someone suddenly started cheering, would anyone be forgiving toward them? They would probably not curse at them like what the sailors did, but they would definitely obtain the ire of everyone.
“Hey! Nice to finally meet you! It’s good to see you!” Siegfried greeted the monster, and then he exclaimed, “You should’ve shown up earlier! I’ve been waiting for you!”
The bastard who couldn’t read the mood—no, it was more like Siegfried couldn’t care less about the reaction of the sailors as he cheered at the sight of a Silver Sea Serpent.
‘I would’ve committed mutiny and taken over this ship if this thing appeared just a few hours later,’ he thought. He was tired and bored from the hours of manual labor, and he seriously considered taking over the ship to actively search for the Silver Sea Serpents.
Yes, Michele was definitely going to give him an earful, but his frustration was so pent-up to the point that he was close to not caring at all.
What if he were asked to start mining Gravity Stones when he was so frustrated?
He would have, without a doubt, committed a crime.
Fortunately, a Silver Sea Serpent appeared just in time!
‘Let’s catch that thing and hurry back home,’ Siegfried thought as he clenched his +15 Gaia’s Fist.
Suddenly, the captain of the ship, who was an ex-pirate, grabbed Siegfried and said, “We’re about to die, but why are you cheering? Are you that happy to see a Silver Sea Serpent?”
“Huh?” Siegfried tilted his head in confusion.
“Go and become its food if you love it so much!”
Then, the captain threw Siegfried.
“Kyaaaaak!”
The Silver Sea Serpent opened its mouth and swallowed Siegfried whole.
“Now! Row, row, row the ship!” the captain shouted.
“Heave! Ho!”
The laborers rowed with all of their strength since their lives depended on it.
In the end, Siegfried ended up becoming bait for the ship to escape from a Silver Sea Serpent.
However, that wasn’t the end of it as the captain shouted, “Heed my words!”
“Aye, aye, captain!”
“Pick ten laborers at random and prepare to throw them overboard as bait! One won’t be enough to distract the Silver Sea Serpent! We will need to offer at least ten people as a sacrifice to get away from that monster! Get moving!”
It turned out that the merchant company mining Gravity Stones was quite adept at dealing with Silver Sea Serpents. However, their chosen method to deal with the monsters was to throw the laborers whom they had hired to mine stones overboard.
They were basically offering live sacrifices, but for their very survival rather than for religious purposes.
“A-Ack!”
“We’re going to be bait?!”
“Hey, you son of bitches! We came to work and not become bait! How dare you treat me like a piece of worm!”
“You fucking assholes!”
The laborers were enraged after hearing what the captain said, and they were on the verge of going on a rampage on the ship.
It was understandable that they were quite enraged as they had come all the way here to work only for them to be turned into bait.
“Silence, you maggots! We need ten people for the survival of everyone! Do you want to die together then? Use your brains, you idiots! Boys! Teach those rascals a lesson!”
“Aye, aye, captain!”
The sailors, who were ex-pirates just like their captain, started beating up the laborers who dared to rebel.
“Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaaak!”
Splash!
The Silver Sea Serpent that devoured Siegfried jumped out of the water and cried out.
“Kyaaaak! Kyaaaahk! Kyak! Kyaaa…! Kyaaaaah!”
However, the Silver Sea Serpent’s cries sounded like it was in agony, and it sounded like someone had rubbed salt on its open wound.
Thirty seconds later, the Silver Sea Serpent’s abdomen ballooned before it exploded with a boom!
Splat!
The monster’s intestines, organs, blood, and various other organic matters rained down from above.
“W-What was that?!”
“The Silver Sea Serpent exploded!”
“What in the world…?”
It was while everyone was shocked at the sudden turn of events…
Shwaaaa!
A speedboat was rushing toward the ship.
***
Shwaaaa!
An Aqua Runner was cutting through the waters.
“T-That’s an Aqua Runner! But why is the Nordic Tribe’s Aqua Runner here in the West Sea?!”
The captain, who was an ex-pirate, was so old and experienced that he was able to recognize the Aqua Runner at a single glance, and he instantly recognized the person driving the Aqua Runner.
“T-That punk is…!”
“HEY!” Siegfried shouted while maneuvering the Aqua Runner, and then he shouted once more, “You wait for me right there!”
“H-Hiiik!”
“I’m going to throw you exactly the same way you threw me!” Siegfried growled at the captain.
“H-How did that punk?! Boys! Shoot that bastard down! Shoot it down—”
Puuuk!
A large front paw kicked the captain’s back.
“Gweeek!”
The captain let out a squeal as he fell face first on the deck.
“Shoot? Shoot what?! Kyu! Don’t move! I’m going to smash your captain’s head if you dare to move! Kyuuuu!”
Hamchi used his skill to grow much bigger, and he threatened the sailors while stepping on the captain.
Tak!
Meanwhile, Siegfried finally came back on deck.
“I’m the captain now,” Siegfried said.
***
‘How can things fall so perfectly in place? Hehe…’ Siegfried thought happily.
Five minutes ago, Siegfried noticed something while he was within the Silver Sea Serpent.
‘Huh? At this timing…?’
Siegfried was flying through the air when he noticed the Silver Sea Serpent had its mouth open in an attempt to devour him, and his brain calculated like a supercomputer within those few seconds while he was in mid-air.
Perhaps it could be called instinct, but Siegfried came to the conclusion that he didn’t have to avoid the Silver Sea Serpent.
‘Oh well, here goes nothing!’
Thus, he decided not to do anything and let the monster devour him. It was probably one hundred million times better for him to attack the monster from within instead of engaging in naval combat, and it was why he decided to get swallowed by the monster.
He instantly used Irradiate as soon as he was in the monster’s stomach, and then he used Splitting Heaven and Earth once he felt that it was the right time.
And what was the result?
He managed to bring down the feared monster without even lifting a finger.
[Alert: You have obtained Aquarium – 1kg.]
[Alert: You have obtained progressed 33.3% of the Quest – Bespoke Weapon Crafting! (1/3)]
He easily obtained one kilogram of Aquarium.
[Bespoke Weapon Crafting]
[Procure the materials required to craft the Epic weapon, Vanquisher’s Grasp, and deliver them to Quandt.]
[Aquarium x 1kg] ✔
[Arachnid’s Leather x 1]
[Essence of Golem King x 1]
[Progress: 0% (0/3)]
[Reward: Vanquisher’s Grasp x 1]
He only had to gather two more materials to complete the quest.
‘So all I have to do is go after the Arachnids? Hohoho!’ Siegfried snickered while checking the quest contents. Then, he turned toward the captain, who was struggling underneath Hamchi’s paw and said, “Hey.”
“K-Kuheok!”
“Turn the ship around.”
“Keuk…! W-What are you talking about?”
“Forget about that stone or whatever; turn the ship around.”
“B-But…!”
“I’m going to have a word with the head of your merchant company.”
“Heok!”
“Does it make sense for you to do something like this? You threw an innocent man overboard and tried to use the laborers as bait! Is this legal? Isn’t this just as bad as human trafficking?”
Siegfried was absolutely pissed.
Taking recruitment fees from the laborer’s wage and asking the laborers to row the ship was already exploitative, but using the laborers as bait was a whole different story.
They were violating the rights of laborers so badly that fifteen gold was nowhere near enough to go through all of this. In fact, even 1,500 gold would probably not be enough, either!
“I’m going to have a word with your merchant company, so turn the ship around if you value your life,” Siegfried said.
He was not interested in mining the Gravity Stones, so he decided to use this as a convenient excuse to head back to port.
“A-Alright…”
In the end, the captain decided to listen to him.
“T-Turn the ship around! We’re going back to port! Hurry up, maggots!”
However, there was no way Siegfried was going to be satisfied with just this.
“It’s time to shift now! Hey, you guys over there! Go and row the ship until we reach the port!” he shouted at the sailors.
“W-What nonsense is that?!”
A sailor immediately retorted, but Siegfried already had the perfect reasoning to convince him otherwise.
Whoosh! Bam!
He lightly swung his +15 Gaia’s Fist and smacked the sailor on his head, knocking him out cold.
Thud!
“So, do you want to row or become like him? Y’all are free to choose,” he said.
“I will row!”
“Give me that oar!”
“I was born to row!”
“I’ve loved rowing ever since I was a boy!”
“Guess it’s time for me to use these big guns on my arms!”
Siegfried’s threat was well-received by the sailors as they instantly started rowing the ship with all they had.
“Y-Your Majesty? What are you going to do once you meet the head of the merchant company?” Gringore asked.
“Ah, that one? I plan to extort them,” Siegfried nonchalantly replied.
“What?!”
“I’ll extort around ten thousand gold from them, give some to the laborers, and then pocket everything else! Hohoho!”
“…!”
“Here comes the money! Here comes the money~!” Siegfried hummed as his eyes slowly turned into dollar signs. “I’ll be getting a new weapon soon, so I need to make money to enhance it, right? Kekeke!”
“…”
“I was just about to see if I had some money stashed away somewhere for the enhancement fee…”
He no longer had an enhancement coupon, which meant that he had to spend a fortune just to enhance his Vanquisher’s Grasp. In other words, he had to start saving up a lot in order to enhance his weapon later on.
***
The ship Siegfried had taken over didn’t head back to port.
“Huh? What the hell?” Siegfried grimaced and grumbled before he asked, “I think the port should be visible by now, no?”
He opened the company on his world map to check his current coordinates.
‘I met the Silver Sea Serpent here… and the port was here… then that means… Eh? Isn’t this just an uninhabited island?’
As suspected, they were nowhere near the port right now.
“Hey, can you tell me where the hell are we going right now? I thought we were going back to port?” Siegfried asked while tapping the captain’s head with his +15 Gaia’s Fist.
“T-That is…” the captain stuttered and nervously replied, “You wanted to meet our boss, so I brought you to our headquarters…”
“The merchant company’s headquarters is in such a place? Are you expecting me to believe that?”
There was no way a merchant company was going to be located in the middle of nowhere surrounded by water. After all, there were no benefits for a commercial enterprise to place its headquarters in the middle of the sea.
Actually, they would suffer losses by being in such a remote location, as they would inevitably have logistics issues. A normal merchant company engaging in maritime trade would probably place its headquarters in port cities or as close as possible to a port.
However, this merchant company was actually located on an uninhabited island.
Why would they set up their headquarters in such a remote place?
This was going to make logistics a nightmare, which would gnaw away at their profits.
“Well, I’m just a subcontractor, so I have no idea why they’re here of all places—” the captain replied.
His voice became smaller and smaller after seeing Siegfried grimace.
Shwaaaaa!
Then, ten warships rapidly approached the ship that Siegfried had taken over.
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