C3 The Strange Message Man

Inside the captain's cabin, Albert stared at his chart in deep thought.

On the thick paper, which was a little yellowed at the edges, some of the places were freshly drawn, but in most of the places the handwriting already showed signs of time.

According to his calculations, this world was much larger than the place already marked on his voyage map, and if he searched aimlessly for the place of return, then he was afraid that he

would not be able to find it for the rest of his life.

After a knock on the door, Anthony's inquiring voice rang out, and Albert hurriedly withdrew his mind and rolled up the voyage chart, allowing Anthony to enter.

"Captain, my last job is done ......"

Albert took out his wine glass and poured wine, pushing the glass in front of Anthony.

"The cargo this time sold at a decent price, and those fire tongues that no one on the continent of Valance has ever tasted have made us quite a bit of money."

Anthony paused here and opened his mouth again after a moment's pause.

"Well, Connie asked me for two hundred Andadiel gold coins, and he said you know what for ......

Perhaps I shouldn't say such a thing, but that's almost all the profit we've made on this voyage ......"

Albert nodded and opened a drawer and pulled out a parchment pouch and handed it to Anthony.

"Anthony, this should be enough for you to live in peace."

Anthony opened the pouch and the yellow color reflected on his face.

"This is too much ......"

"Consider the extra as repayment for saving your life back then."

Anthony nodded and put away the parchment bag, letting out a breath.

" That , there's a merchant over at the Gray Mouse Tavern looking for someone to transport goods ...... "

Albert didn't wait for Anthony to finish before he started shaking his head, which caused Anthony to sigh.

"You could have explored the neighborhood on the way to the transport! At least spread out the large amount of money Connie spent!"

After saying this, Anthony suddenly realized that by taking the money, he would no longer be a part of the Crescent.

He hung his head and finished his drink, and sat down in his chair, his whole being in a trance, as if every novel picture of three years' exploration of the sky were being

before him-flashing by.

"The Crescent is an exploration ship, it exists for the sole purpose of exploration, and if we had not accepted a commission outside of this exploration, Pato

wouldn't have died."

Albert finished, stood up, patted Anthony on the shoulder, and continued, "I know you're worried about me, old buddy, and you don't have to worry about my livelihood.

Don't look so sad, let me see you off."

The crew had already taken their paychecks and left the Crescent, leaving only Marcel, the cook, who lived far inland on the mainland island of Davarance, and Connie, who was homeless.

In fact, most of the crew wouldn't take two days to go home, and they tended to spend that rate money on the bars and soft women of Maple Leaf.

After dropping off Anthony, Albert had likewise come to the Radiance Bar, but he hadn't come here to have a good time.

He came here to determine the direction of his next voyage.

"Oh! Here comes our great explorer Albert von Ardenne!"

The barkeep called out, holding up his freshly tapped beer, but there was little response from the bar.

Albert smiled and stared at the barkeep's two thick beards as he sat down in the old wooden chair in front of the bar.

"Don't make fun of me Artus, has anyone come looking for me in the days I've been gone?"

Artus lifted his thick arm to remove the half bottle of wine Albert had present here from the upper shelf of the wine rack and poured it into a delicate crystal glass and pushed it

it over.

"There is, quite a bit of it.''

He said, pulling a small leather-covered book from his pocket and tossing it directly to Albert.

Albert looked at it entry by entry; there had indeed been quite a few people who wished to see him in the past three months, so much so that Artus's crooked handwriting recorded

a whole page of names and addresses.

But of these, most were merchants who wanted to come and buy out the bearings of the line, and Albert had no desire to deal with such people.

For he had once sold a route to a small empty island.

In the beginning, that empty island with only one town did go towards prosperity, but as the price of the local specialty bamboo wheat sweet syrup became higher and higher, the people in the town began to sow only bamboo wheat, and even the only blacksmith's family also closed their store, and ran to steal the land from other people to plant.

The small, mono-producing economic system soon brought them to disaster.

The merchant who bought Albert's route suddenly lowered the price of sweet syrup and raised the price of other necessities, which directly destroyed the economy of the town.

This directly destroyed the economy of the town.

Some of the townspeople who realized the situation tried to diversify the island's economy again, but it was no use, the merchant had already counted them out.

But it was useless, the merchants had already counted them out.

The harvest price of bamboo wheat paddles was set at a carefully planned figure, so that if you kept planting them, you'd have to stop for a couple of months before you ran out of savings and starved to death.

Half a year ago, Albert was passing by that empty island, ready to board the island to replenish supplies, but what he did not expect is that it has developed to the point that everyone, working more than ten hours a day, desperately planting bamboo wheat, they even rely on the merchants who harvest them to bring in the simplest daily necessities such as iron nails.

What makes Albert feel most disgusted is that the merchants who bought his route in the first place, when they learned that he needed supplies, they ruthlessly ripped him off.

Although Albert, who had a vendetta against him, later used means to get his revenge, he had never sold any of the routes on his charts since then, even if it was a deserted and empty island.

Albert frowned, carefully discerning the purpose of the visit in the jumbled handwriting, and eventually his eyes landed on the name of Johnny Laurents.

"I was hoping to chat with the adventurer Mr. Albert von Ardenne about the legends of the Lost Kings."

The Lost Kings, were they referring to the same Chelvessi family that lost the dominion of the continental island of Valance two hundred years ago?

With such a question, Albert beckoned for his boss, Artus.

What does this man look like?"

Artus brought his face over to look at him, his brows stretching.

"Oh him, I remember him well ......

Gray hair, mid to late fifties, with a tall bowler hat, well dressed, and a flashy gold pattern on his scabbard.

Shout, he covered his mouth with a handkerchief as soon as he entered, full of disgust, and refused to drink, so he said straight out that he wanted to leave a message for you."

Albert was intrigued by the man, and he flipped through the book without finding the appropriate address.

"How come there's no address?"

"He said my place looked like a barn, and how could I possibly keep a fellow like that in my store."

The result was a shock to Albert, but he could do nothing about Artus, who treated the bar as if it were his own.

"Then where can I find him?''

Seeing Artus shrugging his shoulders, Albert could only give up and left the bar after the sweet soup that he hadn't been used to for five years.

Along the way, he pulled the history of the Chelvessi family and the legends related to their family out of the edges of his memory and tried to put them together, but was clueless.

After all, he had only been here for five years, so naturally his knowledge of history and legends was no match for the locals who had grown up in the area.

However, the place he was searching for was a legendary place, and he needed to pull the threads out of the legend and do his best to find this place.

Albert threw away his cigarette, the sun still shone above his head, not caring that it was already past twenty o'clock.

Unlike his own world where the blazing sun was so majestic that people couldn't look directly at it, the yellow light from the sun here always seemed to Albert as if it was old and sickly.

Albert had had enough of this strange sun, especially the dark spots that swam back and forth across its surface like ticks wriggling in a horse's hair.

He took out his little leather notebook and among the many crossed out clues, he repeated the one representing the Inferno religion, "From the flames, back to the flames".

Among the many crossed out clues, this clue of the Yan Shen Cult was undoubtedly the same as the others, and had nothing to do with the place of return.

He flipped the leather book back to the first page, looked at the only clue in the Land of Return, and fell into deep thought.

"In the middle of another ocean above the blue sea, there is a magnificent palace that serves as a bridge to another world, a place that can only be passed by abandoning all

hope to pass the road of no return."

Is the other ocean above the blue sea talking about a huge lake on some empty island?

Or was there another tectonic terrain in this world?

If possible, Albert really wanted to carefully explore the area under the lush canopy of the blue sea, but he knew that it was an impossible

possible to accomplish.

Five years ago, Albert in the exploration team was excitedly removing the geological samples from the drill, and his perennial drilling experience told him that this time they were going to be

get rich.

The tiny particles glittering on the sample were a sign of high gold content.

Just as he was about to report his discovery, he noticed a black fault in the cylindrical sample, which, instead of being loose like a coal seam, looked hard, like glass.

Just as Albert reached out and touched the black piece, it seemed to come to life as if it had flashed up along Albert's fingers.

By the time Albert opened his eyes again, he was in a dark forest.

The towering structures were larger than any trees he'd ever seen, and the canopy was so tightly connected to the trees that it hid the sky.

What followed was an unrelenting fear and deep despair, so much so that Albert's self-preservation instincts made him almost completely forget what had happened in the midst of the blue sea after he was rescued.

When he came back to his senses, Albert realized that he was already sweating coldly, and he hurriedly drove his thoughts away from the horrible memories of the Sea of Blue.

Looking up, he was shocked to find himself back in front of the empty harbor, he wiped his face and muttered to himself.

"Where the hell is this place of return?"

The empty harbor was still busy, and life in perpetual daytime wasn't without its benefits: the three-shift work system was easy to implement here.

It was easy to work three shifts here.

Everyone had their own bedtime, they didn't have to wait until night like on Albert's world.

Passing from berth to berth, dodging the horses that carried the cargo, Albert returned to his own berth, where he found, moored to the Crescent Moon

He found a man standing there in the berth where the Crescent Moon was moored.

He wore a high hat, and was dressed in the costume of an aristocrat, with his sword pinned to the ground, as if his patience had been exhausted by the long wait.

He seemed to have exhausted his patience with the long wait.

Nevertheless, he seemed to be trying hard to remain a gentleman.

Seeing Albert walking towards him, he stood up from the stake he was sitting on, and his wolf-like eyes quickly scanned Albert from head to toe.

Then the corners of his mouth rose, and the two moustaches above his lips followed his mouth as it curved to a higher height, looking somewhat comical.

He raised his hand and cupped it on the brim of his hat, lifting his tall bowler hat slightly, and said in a slightly muffled accent, "I presume your honor is the adventurer Sheriman von Ardenne?"

Albert stopped and surveyed the gentleman before him with equally sharp eyes.

"And you are?"

"I am John Laurents.