Translated by: Chua
Edited by: I and Elkassar
Witnessing such an extraordinary sight, Sheyan held his breath. He had prepared earlier, an apple, fried bacon, two loaves of rye bread according to Chris’s instructions and threw them into the water. A peculiar sound rung softly, a soft sound of a Greece Harp. From beneath the water surface, a shadow darting back and forth. This shadow was strangely fast, like a black belt darting around rapidly. Sheyan observed this shadow, he felt a queer dangerous sensation welling up in his heart, as though he would get polluted and suffer dire consequences. He knew this was his high perceptive sensing warning him, reflexly taking a step back in precaution so that he could dive behind the nearby rock to take cover.
The shadow seemed as though it had no intention to surface, after consuming the food Sheyan threw in, it dispersed. The silverish glow on the water surface gradually dimmed, at this moment he could see a message in a bottle, covered in moss and algae, floating in at a fast pace. Sheyan picked up this bottle, the silverish glow dissipated regaining its earlier turbulent condition.
Sheyan was also not willing to continue staying by the seashore, because his lone figure was extremely prominent in the darkness of the night. After entering a bar, he tossed out 2 pounds, requesting a room from the bartender. Presently, the bars were like a supermarket, hotel and even a brothel. Thus, the bartender was not surprised at all, bringing Sheyan to the back as they rounded a corner, and entered into a room.
Most probably because their receiving customers were mostly pirates or seamen, this room was renovated to look like a ship’s cabin. Atop the wall, hung a decorative rudder, it had small oval-shaped windows, and beside it was the popular darts game set at the time. On top of a bench at the side were several distinct burn marks, it seemed like an inconsiderate customer had previously pressed their cigarette bud there. Its only praiseworthy aspect was an old fashioned greyish striped linen made bedsheet that was relatively clean. It even gave off a clean and fresh fragrance as though it had previously been in the sun.
Sheyan sat down on the bed, he started to carefully inspect the bottle. This was a dark brown, thin neck circular body type bottle, there was a thick layer of wax sealing on it. This maintained the cork of the bottle to be clean and dry. The surface of this bottle was no longer glossy, several vine and algae had attached itself to it, which produced a deliberate rough feeling. What surprised Sheyan was that the bottle was icy-cold to touch, as though it was just taken out from a freezer. Holding it eliminated any trace of warmth from the hand all the way to the bone marrow.
According to Chris, if he opened this bottle, this mission would abruptly cease and cause an evil spirit to emerge. This evil spirit was an illusionary being, no amounts of attack could harm it, instead it would carry out curses on people and the user that opened it would have a 100 HP reduction within 5 minutes. Then it would vanish. Previously, an unfortunate member impulsively opened it, and was subsequently cursed by that evil spirit.
Before entering the nightmare realm, that unfortunate member was a pick-pocket. He was known as a sly and slick expert who could pinch out over 10 coins secretly from others without harming them. His agility had painstakingly been raised above 20 points, however, his physique was only on par with an average person. In the end after suffering from that curse, even after racking his brains to think of a solution, he could only watch in silence as he stepped into death’s doors after five minutes…before dying his crumbling feelings must have been unfathomable.
After witnessing such a scene, the rest would obviously not dare to open up their bottles. After a series of investigations, Chris’s party managed to discover an old person named Palesius who resided inside Tortuga castle, who expressed great interest in this object. That old man’s status wasn’t low in the castle, he was probably a butler who had earned the trust of his masters. Every day at 9 in the morning he would go out to purchase groceries. Once one passed the bottle to him, one will obtain a hefty reward of 20 pounds sterling , and can even obtain his friendship. From then, one can use the excuse of visiting Palesius to freely enter the outer area of Tortuga castle. This was obviously not without any benefits, based on Chris, using a piece of whetstone in there could enhance your weapon’s attack powers permanently by 11, and even had a certain percentage of receiving the remaining deep level mission.
However, Sheyan had no intentions of following the action sequence that Chris took.
Firstly, that Chris brat was not any good kind of person, earlier he had exploited the agreement contract, and purposely omitted the essential clue of having to build a good relationship with Mole Waller. This caused huge frustration to Sheyan. According to psychologists, a person would let his guard down the most when he was nearing success. Therefore, if Sheyan continued to follow this action sequence, he may encounter another trap that Chris had craftily set up.
Crucially speaking, the rewards from this did not attract Sheyan much. After Ammand’s generous division of loots, Sheyan’s personal pound sterlings exceeded 3 figures. A mere 20 pounds sterling was not important. Regarding the ability to be able to freely enter the outer courts of Tortuga castle, it looked like it provides many benefits, but to the killer of the Madam of the castle and a Bell and Mug pirate member, frequently entering that place was not a good idea. If something went wrong, it would do more harm than good.
Therefore, Sheyan chose to attempt the other pathway of this side mission - that was opening the bottle which Chris’s party avoided!
The spirit’s curse seemed extremely dreadful, but unfortunately this sort of abnormal conditions (loss of blood etc) did not threaten Sheyan at all. Once he equipped the title of ‘pirate ringleader’, his maximum life points would reach as high as 190 points, even now his life points were worth 170 points. Draining 100 HP within 5 minutes to him was just a slight strain…… It did not carry any life threatening or capability impairing injuries at all.
After carefully weighing out the pros and cons, Sheyan steadily picked up the bottle, willfully absorbing the icy chill into his body temperature. He retrieved the candlestick beside him, using his hand to touch the flames for a moment as though he was testing the heat of the flames. He then placed the tip of the bottle against the candle. Slowly the thick and reliable wax starts melting from the roasting heat.
Following the heat from the flames, the wax at the tip started dripping one drop at a time onto the table top. A faint fragrance emitted into the air. Sheyan looked at this image, he suddenly recalled a time when he was young where Uncle Dasi told him a ‘haunted house’ story. It roughly talked about Uncle Dasi’s father. When he was young he travelled with his friends for business. In a mountainous area when the sky had turned dark, they found a small house. There was nobody in the house, a sinister looking headless idol was displayed in the center of the house, but the rice bags, firewood and bed were fairly organized. Although everything felt very eerie, their stomachs were rumbling with hunger from walking the whole day in the mountains, in addition to the pouring rain, they decided to rest there for the night.
Naturally, the few businessmen decided to start a fire to cook their meal, after eating they slept early. In the end, the house had no chimney, the vapour from cooking the meal extended everywhere. Not long after, when their meal had not yet finished cooking, they realized dozens of horrifying evil spirits had appeared and frantically charged at them. Astounded, they fled for their lives, two of their counterparts fell off an overhanging cliff because of the slippery roads. Afterwards an experienced and intelligent colleague mentioned that the house was a trap set up by bandits, the crux was the firewood that they used to cook their rice.
This firewood was probably layered with a poisonous mushroom extract from Ailao town, interpreting it would simply mean a layer of hallucinogen. After it burnt up, it would produce a smoke which would cause the inhaling persons to hallucinate. Adding up the surrounding eerie environment, the sinister headless idol, of course a terrifying image would be formed.
Yet when Sheyan saw the burning candle wax, and after smelling the faint fragrance, his heart unconsciously formed an anxious and ominous premonition. Because following this present generation, to open up this message in a bottle, the most common method was undoubtedly to melt off the wax. Thus, it was hard to explain if there was any booby traps that was devised with it. Hence, he immediately moved away the bottle from the candle flames, and opened the window to take in a few breaths of fresh air. He did not know if he was paranoid or what, but Sheyan felt that his head had cleared up a little.
Although there was no notifications of damage from the nightmare imprint, he still had a strange paranoid feeling. He swiftly checked on his personal attributes, and instantly he obtained the origin of his paranoia! Because on the side of his attributes showed a prominent notification:
“When attacking an enemy, you have a 14% chance of the attack being ineffective.”
Very naturally this cruel effect faded rapidly, because Sheyan immediately carefully examined himself again after reading those words. He realized this damned debuff (negative sustaining effects) had not much difference in nature. That effect of probability in rendering an attack ineffective had dropped to 13. It looks like within a minute, this debuff would gradually fade away, and will not alarm anyone.