While I was napping under a tree, Vespera woke me up by gently shaking my body, telling me that Romanov had arrived in the town.
I yawned and rubbed my eyes. "Did I sleep all day?" I asked, noticing that it was almost nighttime already.
Vespera told me that she went back to check on the road while I was sleeping and found the camp of Romanov and his people. From what she could see, they were waiting for the night to arrive before entering the town.
My guess was that they wanted fewer witnesses to be around when they did their transaction.
A few moments later, we spotted the group walking through the town’s main road toward the port.
It was my first time seeing Romanov, but I confirmed it was him based on the appearance that Jen had described to me.
He was a tall and slender man wearing a blue suit and had long dark hair secured with a ponytail.
His right-hand man was about the same height but much more burly, bald, and had a scar on his right eye.
’Right-hand man? That dude looks more like a bodyguard...’ I thought.
Walking behind them, two hooded individuals were pulling a massive cart that was covered with a cloth piece, not allowing anyone to peek at what was inside.
When I used my "search" spell, I was able to feel the presence of people inside the cart, so we were sure these were our guys.
I was told that Romanov had taken around fifty of his men with him, but the only ones we were seeing were the two guys pulling the cart.
"When I checked on their group a few hours before, there were a lot more of them..." said Vespera, confirming that there were more bandits somewhere.
Since we didn’t know exactly where the other bandits were, we allowed Romanov to advance to the port until he started talking with his contact.
It was a hooded man who seemed to be the captain of one of the biggest ships in port at that moment, and after they exchanged some bags with each other, they hauled the cart into the boat.
I told Yoru to get out of my shadow and follow Romanov and his men. Meanwhile, Vespera and I were going to intercept the boat in the middle of the ocean and teleport the prisoners to safety.
It took a few more minutes, but after the boat had finally left the port, Vespera and I followed it in the air. Thankfully, the night sky helped us hide our presence a little more when tailing them.
Once the boat was far enough that nobody on the shore would notice a little commotion, we descended on the deck at full speed and started knocking out the crew that was working on the sails and the helm.
We were moving so quickly that the bandits that spotted us couldn’t even discern what was happening before we were knocking them out. It was nighttime in the middle of the ocean, so they certainly didn’t expect us to arrive like this.
After everyone on the deck was unconscious, we entered the hull of the caravel and went down a set of stairs that led to the cabins.
There were cannons lined up along the wall, and a few crew members were walking around, but Vespera and I knocked them out before they could raise their voices.
We made our way to the back of the hull and found that the entire back area was a prison cell with all of the kidnapped victims behind bars.
They all had their hands tied and were gagged with pieces of cloth, so all I could hear was their pleads for help muffled behind it.
I bent the metal bars with magic and started releasing the people from their binds with the help of Vespera.
There were around twenty prisoners, so we would have to make a few trips with our teleport to bring them back to our hideout in the capital.
I gave Vespera a few MP(+) potions since we were going to need them for our teleport spree.
The capital was pretty far from us, so one teleportation spell there would use quite a lot of our MP.
Before we could start sending them back, I heard the voice of the captain yelling from the other side of the hull.
"Vespera, start taking them to the hideout in the capital," I commanded Vespera as I turned around to look for the captain.
I was going to leave him in his office unharmed since the boat was already drifting with no course. The crew that was manning the ship was all knocked out, so I thought about leaving the captain alone so that he could steer the boat or stop it or something.
However, he had found us way faster than I expected, and now that he had seen the bodies of his unconscious crew, I assumed he was angry.
’It’s just this one guy. I’ll put him to sleep quick so I can take these people to safety...’ I thought as I walked back through the hull.
When the captain saw me walking, he quickly ran upstairs to the docks, yelling for everyone to pick up their weapons as intruders had entered the ship.
Nevertheless, everyone on the boat was knocked out and wouldn’t wake up for a few more hours at the very least.
When I followed him outside, the captain turned to look at me with a face full of hatred, which was different from what I was used to.
Usually, people like this guy would look at me with fear, especially after seeing the scene with all of their crew on the ground.
This bandit, however, glared at me with determination and anger.
"Hey, man. Where are you taking all those prisoners?" I asked.
The night was silent, and all we could hear was the sound of the waves crashing against the caravel.
"None of your business!" he exclaimed, waving his hand to the side and widening his eyes with rage.
"Those people were kidnapped against their will and turned into slaves. Did you know that? Or are you just the delivery guy?" I asked again, wanting to probe into the man’s head, who seemed to know a little too much.
The bandit clenched his teeth. "I cannot fail. I CANNOT FAIL THEM!" he exclaimed in a deranged tone as he reached for something in his pocket.
Pulling out what seemed like a small black pearl, he looked at me and grinned before putting the little orb in his mouth.
"I..." *crunch* "Cannot..." *crunch* "FAIL THEM!" *crunch*
The bandit kept repeating the same words as he chewed on the black pearl, which sounded as if he was eating glass with every crunch.
Suddenly, I started feeling an eerie and unsettling energy that was all too familiar to me now.
’That feels like... demonic energy!’ I thought.
When I looked again at the captain, he was chuckling like a madman as the shadowy energy encased his body.
He became taller, his entire body seemed to be made of shadows, and his face had disappeared entirely, leaving only a mouth with sharp teeth underneath.
Seeing the monster was not only unsettling, but it also gave me a strange sensation of static every time I looked at him. It was as if I was trying to watch him through a very old TV broadcast.
’What the hell is this...?’ I thought, confused as to what was happening.
I couldn’t keep my mind straight after the monster started attacking me relentlessly, destroying parts of the caravel with every strike that he tried to land on me.
He felt like a demon, but it wasn’t even close to the potency of the aura that Armaros used to produce from his body.
I used my bo to reflect some of his attacks, but the monster was strong, making it harder for me to protect against him and simply avoid his attacks. However, dodging meant that he would keep destroying the ship.
’He turned into this after chewing that black thing. Maybe it’s like a curse...’ I thought.
I pulled out a holy panacea from my void pocket and tried dumping it on the monster to see if it would bring the captain back to normal.
If what he had was a curse like the one that was placed on the bandits’ necks, then the holy panacea would’ve been able to cure him.
Nonetheless, as soon as the liquid hit his body, it sizzled and burned, creating a little steam as the monster kept his onslaught without stopping.
’It didn’t work!’ I thought as I avoided another massive attack from the creature.
It was the first time that my holy panacea couldn’t heal something. I mean, I expected that to happen at some point, but it caught me off guard.
’I gotta think of something else... There has to be a way to bring him back to normal...’ I kept pondering in the middle of the fight, avoiding every attack as the ship was slowly being taken apart by its captain.