Chapter 289. Rewards
"All right, stop here," Laesto said before pushing the door open and heading toward his residence. A rather anxious-looking Linda was standing at the entrance with a smoking beaker in hand.
The car door was shut, and James ordered, "To the docks."
The car soon arrived at the docks. Every shipyard in the docks had stopped operating, as all manpower had been consolidated in an effort to complete the Governor's submarine project as soon as possible.
The Governor's submarine project took precedence over anything else.
James walked into the largest shipyard and saw the Narwhale. She was hanging in thick chains while workers were busy installing steel plates and drilling into her with the many different machinery in the shipyard.
A few shipwrights were drilling holes at the bottom of the ship, and James judged that they were going to fill those holes with something. The Narwhale seemed to have sensed James' arrival as her mooring ropes waved in James' direction.
James returned the gesture in kind before making his way over to the bustling crowd in the shipyard, where he found Charles. Charles seemed to be discussing something with a bespectacled old man.
As James approached them, their conversation sounded clearer in his ears.
"Remember to make a dozen diving suits capable of withstanding the pressure of the depths," Charles said.
"We need to add a few more oxygen pipes to the ship. It's going to be a bit difficult, but it's not impossible. I'll figure it out as soon as possible," the other man replied.
Charles was busy talking with the bespectacled old man about the blueprint in front of them when he spotted his former Chief Engineer walking toward him. He cast a surprised gaze upon the latter and asked, "James? What brings you here?"
"I just want to consult you about a minor issue, Captain. What do you think I should do about this?" James asked before handing over the document he had been holding in his hand.
Charles skimmed the document and immediately understood the gist of it.
"What's going to happen to them based on the laws of this island?" Charles asked.
"This is unprecedented, but if we were to treat this as a prison break, it'd be execution by firing squad," James replied.
"Isn't that a bit excessive?" Charles asked.
"You'll have to ask Dipp that question, Captain. He's the one who put that law in place," James replied.
Charles turned and swept his gaze across the designers arguing over the blueprint.
"Lock them up for now. Once the refitting is done, release them then," Charles said. He didn't think that these people deserved to die after toiling for him. They simply wanted to go home, after all.
If their desire to go home warranted an execution by firing squad, then Charles also probably deserved the same feat for kidnapping them in the first place.
James was about to reply, but a red-robed man walked over to them.
The man's robes were enough for anyone to deduce his identity—he was a follower of the Light God. The red-robed man was smiling, and he sounded respectful as he turned to Charles and said, "Governor, His Holiness has sought your presence."
What? He's still alive? Charles had his own suspicions, but the news still made him feel inexplicably shaken. Charles decisively walked out of the shipyard and hopped into the car that the red-robed man had prepared for them outside.
As soon as he alighted from the car, Charles saw a bustling crowd around the magnificent cathedral. Each and every member of the crowd had a white triangle on their foreheads.
Based on the ecstatic smiles on their lips, it seemed that the red-robed man hadn't lied. The Pope had managed to come back alive.
Cardinal Bishop Hunn was all smiles as he walked up to Charles. "I told you, right? Governor Charles? An evil Divinity in the depths cannot possibly kill His Holiness. I wasn't lying, right?"
Charles didn't feel like responding upon seeing Cardinal Bishop Hunn's smug look, and he walked away, heading straight for the familiar prayer room. As usual, the floor of the prayer room was covered in red and yellow silk.
Charles quickly approached the statue of the Pope. However, the statue remained unmoving despite Charles standing in front of it. It looked nothing more than an ordinary stone statue.
"Where have you been all this while?" Charles asked the statue.
However, the statue gave no reply to Charles' inquiry.
Three minutes later, the statue's face moved ever so slightly—that was it. Everything else remained unmoving aside from its face.
"It's a long story, my child. But the nutshell is that I was gravely injured. I even thought that I was about to ascend to His kingdom. Fortunately, He graced me with his protection and saved me. Naturally, it's all because I still have unfinished duties," the Pope replied.
Charles had no idea whether to feel happy or disappointed. However, Tobba's warning in that video made him feel slightly more disappointed rather than happy.
"He never lies. Swann has truly been tainted by the evil in the deep sea, but we failed to stop him," the Pope remarked. However, Charles only trusted half of his words.
"Do you recognize what Swann had summoned?" Charles asked.
The Pope didn't respond immediately. The eyes of the statue slowly turned to Charles as the Pope replied, "My child, what do you know about the evil that lurks in the deep sea? I heard you've seen them before; is it true?"
Charles didn't find it necessary to hide such information, so he replied, "Based on my diary, I saw a huge yellow eye of a Divinity twelve years ago when I arrived in the Subterranean Seascape. Four years ago, I saw the palm of a Divinity.
"Afterward, I got trapped on an island filled with swamps. It managed to trap us inside with its ever-rising walls, and I saw a mass of darkness with deep red eyes when the island sank. I'm not sure if that mass of darkness counts, but if it counts, that's the third Divinity I've ever seen."
"Cough! Cough! Cough!" Fierce coughing noises echoed from the statue. The Pope coughed for quite a while. When he finally recovered, he said, "We do have some records about that, but I do not wish to tell you more about them."
"Still keeping secrets at this point?" Charles asked with a frown.
"It's for your own good, my child. Their mysteries are beyond your imagination. The more you know about them, the more attention they'll pay to you. Have you already forgotten how hard you struggled just to escape their gaze last time?"
Hearing that, Charles recalled his experience in 041's world.
Meanwhile, the Pope continued. "The less we know about them, the safer we are. Those evil beings in the deep sea are truly terrifying. Humans are but paltry ants before them, and that is exactly why we need to have faith in the Light God."
Charles looked confused as he stared at the stone statue. Since when did we start talking about the Light God?
"The Light God is our only hope of salvation in this bleak world. Only He can lead us to triumph over the despairing beings in the deep sea," the Pope explained.
"How can you be so sure that the Light God will help you? What if the Light God is on the same level of existence as those beings in the deep sea?" Charles asked.
"No, no, no, the Great Light God is definitely on a different level than those things. He is mankind's one and only hope," the Pope replied.
Charles had no intention of allowing the Pope to start preaching to him, so he decided to address the elephant in the room.
"Anyway, why were you looking for me? I'm quite busy at the moment, so I can't listen to your preaching today. Maybe next time when I'm free," Charles said.
"Oh, right. I wanted to tell you to be wary of Swann. He'll probably blame us for the Albion Isles' fate. I don't mind taking the blame since I'm always in the Grand Cathedral. But you're always out at sea, and it'll be troublesome if you somehow run into him. Anyway, just be careful."
"Wait, be wary of Swann? He's still alive?!" Charles exclaimed. His voice was so loud that the followers stationed outside the prayer room heard him loud and clear.
"He had sacrificed the entire Albion Isles, so it'd be strange if he actually died. Yes, he's still alive, and he had even obtained the Feaster's... rewards."
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