Chapter 246. Tobba's Knowledge [Bonus Image]
Seeing that Bandages had understood him, Charles lay on the ground and continued gasping for air. An excruciating discomfort pressed down heavily on his chest, and with each breath he took, he spat out blood mixed with pink bubbles.
"Mr. Charles, what happened? Are you alright?" Lily was the first to rush over. Her furry face was tainted with worry, and her voice was laced with concern.
"Everyone, back off. Give him space! He surfaced too quickly again and got decompression sickness. Can't you stop halfway for just a few seconds? Is suffering once not enough that you want to experience the same thing again?" Laesto grumbled as he took a swig from his tin flask before barking orders to the onlooking sailors. "You, you, and you. Carry him to the medical room."
The sailors lifted Charles and slowly moved him toward the cabin designated as Laesto's medical room. Just as he was being lifted up, Charles managed to catch a glimpse of the inky dark waters and could finally relax when he realized that he couldn't see any tentacles emerging from the water's surface.
It took Laesto five hours to treat Charles.
Some color had returned to his face as he lay on the hospital bed and reflected on what he had seen underwater. The creature was not large, but Charles felt an almost divine presence emanating from it.
The fear it stirred deep within his soul was overwhelming; it was far beyond the sensations any ordinary sea creature could instill in him. Charles felt that if he had stared at the eyeball for even just another split second, his mind would have broken down on the spot.
"So. How did it go? Did you find what you were looking for underwater?" Laesto asked as he grabbed a nearby stool and sat on it before accepting his tin flask from Linda.
Charles shook his head. "No, but I found a map of the underwater island. I need to study it carefully before attempting another dive. The success rate will increase that way."
"What?! You're planning on going down again? Are you not afraid of encountering something else?" Laesto exclaimed. Both he and Linda were shocked by Charles' declaration.
A trace of hesitation appeared on Charles' countenance, but he eventually nodded and said, "Yes. I have to go there again. There's definitely something down there."
The first dive was done, and he would be able to avoid the mistakes he had made in his first dive during his second dive. The previous dive had been perilous, but none of them got injured; the situation underwater wasn't completely hopeless either.
"Sure. You're the captain; you call the shots. I'll prepare the herbs for your dive. Just don't get decompression sickness again. If you do, you might as well just dig your lungs out and discard them," Laesto commented.
Laesto struggled to get out of his seat, but his efforts were in vain until Linda extended a helping hand to him.
"I don't need your help. I'm not that old yet!" Laesto snapped and shook off Linda's hand before he limped into the adjacent room.
Charles glanced at Laesto's retreating figure before he turned to the female Divine Light Order disciple standing before him.
"Why are you here?" he inquired.
"Doctor called me to learn medicine from him. He's close to death and fears that the ship will be left without a doctor once he's gone," Linda responded in a calm tone as though she wasn't even the least affected by the imminent death of the old man she was familiar with.
Hearing Laesto's explicit curses from the connected adjacent room, a trace of sadness flickered in Charles's heart. Another crew member was about to leave the Narwhale.
However, he quickly shook off this unnecessary pity; he didn't need it, and neither did Laesto. Currently, there were more pressing matters that demanded his attention.
The black ink of Charles' fountain pen swiftly left straight lines on the pages of his journal. Regurgitating from memory, Charles replicated the map of the sunken island. After much practice over the years, he had become remarkably proficient in mapmaking.
Black fumes stopped billowing out of the smokestack of the Narwhale.
First Mate Bandages had joined Charles in the medical room, and the two were engrossed in charting a map.
"We've passed that area already. Steer the ship in the 1 o'clock direction and advance for five nautical miles; that should put us directly above Project Laboratory. Diving from there should be easier," Charles instructed Bandages, and the latter nodded silently in response.
It turned out that Charles was calculating the optimal diving location.
"No, no, no. What you're looking for isn't there," a voice suddenly echoed from behind Charles.
Charles turned around to see Tobba. He was now in clean clothes, and his hair was completely shaven off. He looked completely full of energy as he held a bunch of colorful mice in his arms.
Meeting Charles' gaze, he rubbed a mouse on his smooth head and explained, sounding embarrassed, "Little Lily said she wouldn't let her friends play with me unless I cleaned myself up, so I did."
"I didn't ask." Charles immediately cut to the chase. His sharp senses had picked up the underlying message in Tobba's words. "What did you mean by what you just said?"
"Watch me. I'll draw it for you," Tobba said and snatched Charles' pen out of his hand before he started drawing haphazardly in the journal.
"The place you've drawn has changed. 319 has been moved to a different location. They had many meetings back then to decide on the relocation. In fact, 319 is here," Tobba said as he marked an X on the map. "You need to go this way, then here, and then dive in here to reach it."
Staring at the totally unrecognizable map on the journal page, Charles regarded Tobba with a hint of confusion in his gaze. "How do you know I'm looking for 319? And how do you know its location?"
"Aren't you looking for 319? I know because you are looking for it. I lived in that area for a long time, and 319 is my good friend," Tobba replied.
"A good friend? 319 is a living thing?!" Charles' voice rose in surprise.
"No. It's a printer. But who said humans can't be friends with things?" Tobba retorted as if it were the most natural and logical thing in the world.
A corner of Charles' lips twitched in response to Tobba's mad ramblings. "Sorry. You sounded so normal for a second that I almost forgot you are insane."
Tobba chuckled as though he had just received a compliment. Suddenly, his expression turned serious. He leaned closer to Charles and whispered, "When you get down there, don't go to Door 3. There seems to be something terrible locked inside of it."
An imaginary vice grip tightened around Charles' heart. "Are there many dangerous relics on the main island?"
"Hmm..." Tobba tilted his head to the side and sank into deep thoughts. "I won't say they're dangerous. The relics there can't move or talk. But if you play with them, bad things will happen to you. For example, someone else's head might grow on your body.
"Ah, right! Once you get down there, help me check up on 372 behind Door 15. It still owes me money from the last time we played poker. Of course, 246 owes me money, too!"
Charles scrutinized Tobba as he pondered over the background of the eccentric man before him. He realized that Tobba seemed to know a lot about the main island of the Foundation. Perhaps he could gain more clues from this living relic.
He swiftly snatched the pen away from Tobba and started drawing on a fresh new page. It didn't take long for him to complete the sketch of the indescribable clump he had seen within the skeleton.
"Do you recognize this? Is this some relic on the main island? What are its weaknesses, if any?"
Tobba studied the drawing of the tentacled eyeball on the page, and a hint of confusion flickered across his face. "It seems...familiar. I think I've seen it somewhere before."
Meanwhile, Bandages had been silently listening to the conversation from the side with an expressionless face. His gaze fleeted across the sketch, and a shudder coursed through him. "Captain....it's... alive..."
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