Chapter 84: Drifting at Sea
The sea was a clear, endless blue.
Under the bright sky, a lone ship drifted across the water, rocking up and down with every swell. Waves rose and fell around the hull, lifting it high one moment and dropping it the next, making the entire vessel creak in protest. It looked so unstable that one could not help wondering whether it might capsize at any moment.
On deck, the atmosphere was even less stable.
"I told you we needed a navigator, but you would not listen!" Axel shouted, glaring at the blind man beside him. "Now tell me, who exactly is supposed to steer this ship?"
Issho remained as calm as ever.
"I cannot forgive sinners," he replied in the same steady tone as if that explained everything.
Axel's eyelid twitched.
"I am not arguing with that!" he said weakly, then pointed around at the open sea. "The problem is that without a navigator, how are we supposed to sail? You were so confident before that I thought you had some special way of crossing the ocean."
Issho lowered his head slightly, looking almost thoughtful.
"I have always done it this way," he said. "And nothing has ever gone wrong."
For a moment, Axel felt like an invisible bird had flown over his head chirping, idiot, idiot, idiot.
He pressed a hand to his forehead.
What kind of logic was that?
Still, he had no intention of arguing over whether Issho was wrong to refuse those scum. Everyone had their own principles. Axel found those human traffickers revolting too.
But because of that... because of that...
Not a single navigator had been left alive or conscious enough to help.
They had tied up the remaining local scum, handed them over to the island's security force, taken the pirate ship... and then gone straight out to sea with no one who actually knew how to sail it.
Axel had heard of "winning by chance."
He had even heard of "landing a finishing blow by chance."
But "finding the right island by chance"?
That was pure suicide.
Issho, meanwhile, looked utterly unbothered.
Axel stared at him and asked, "Then how did you usually find the next casino? You cannot tell me you just wandered around at random."
Issho gave a small laugh.
"It was nothing complicated," he said. "Usually, some kind pirates would take me there. I simply followed them. Sometimes they even helped fund my gambling as well."
Axel was silent for a second.
What a terrifying way to freeload.
He almost wanted to applaud.
Then he sighed and looked around the deck.
"This pirate ship is unbelievably poor," he muttered. "Not even a fishing rod. Why did you not buy one? If I have to drift at sea, at least let me fish to pass the time."
The ship beneath them had once belonged to Stoby. After Stoby and his crew were handed over to the local authorities, Axel had torn down the pirate flag and taken the vessel for their own use.
Normally, even cheap pirate ships carried fishing tools for emergencies.
This one had nothing.
Just some random supplies, a pile of weapons, a little food, and a lot of junk.
"No money," Issho said.
Axel turned to him with a deadpan expression.
"Liar. When you handed those people over, the sheriff secretly bribed you."
He still remembered the scene clearly.
That island sheriff had practically been glowing with joy while stuffing a large purse into Issho's hands. Clearly, he had intended to claim all the credit for taking down the traffickers. Issho, on the other hand, had accepted it with that same harmless smile of his.
Issho corrected him calmly.
"That was not ordinary money. That was gambling money."
Axel looked at him in disbelief.
"Gambling money is still money."
"No," Issho said seriously. "There is a difference."
Axel nearly laughed out of sheer frustration.
"It would not have killed you to spend a little of that precious gambling money on a fishing rod for me."
Issho remained unmoved.
"The money is mine. The fishing rod was unnecessary."
Axel stared at him for a while, then muttered, "You really are incredible."
Beside them, Adelaide clung desperately to the mast.
Unlike Axel and Issho, the old trafficker did not have the leisure to bicker.
Every time the ship rose and dropped, his old face turned a little whiter. He gripped the mast so tightly that the veins stood out on the back of his hands. The deck tilted beneath his feet, the timbers groaned around him, and now and then he could swear he heard something crack below.
To Axel and Issho, the swaying ship was annoying at worst.
To Adelaide, it was a floating coffin.
Axel and Issho stood steadily despite the violent rocking. Neither of them showed any intention of doing anything about it.
Not because they could not.
Simply because neither of them knew how.
If the ship really sank, Axel could manipulate buoyancy and walk the sea if he had to. At worst, he would just turn a shipwreck into a plank drift.
As for Issho, with his ability, even a sinking ship was not much of a problem. If he wanted, he could probably keep the whole thing afloat through sheer force.
So neither of them was nervous.
Adelaide, however, knew none of that.
To him, they were two lunatics drifting calmly toward death.
At last, after another hard lurch from the waves, Adelaide suddenly froze. Then his face lit up with wild joy.
"An island!" he shouted. "There is an island ahead!"
He sounded so happy that Axel almost pitied him.
After all his years, this was probably the first time Adelaide had ever found bare land so beautiful. To him, that distant gray shape was no less than salvation itself.
Axel stepped forward and narrowed his eyes.
Sure enough, there was an island ahead.
Gray land under a pale sky, rising out of the sea.
Issho turned his head slightly.
"Have we arrived?" he asked. "Is that the place you were talking about?"
Adelaide's face twitched.
He truly did not understand how the blind man could ask that so calmly.
Drifting into any island alive was already a miracle, and yet this man still seemed disappointed it was not the correct destination.
Suppressing the urge to curse, Adelaide forced himself to answer, "No. It is not the same island. The direction is wrong. It does not match the Log Pose route."
Axel clicked his tongue.
As expected.
Still, they had found land, which meant they could fix the situation.
He had memorized the route they had taken these past three days and the general direction of the sea currents. If they could get a proper navigator on the island, there was still a way back.
Or at least, that was what Axel thought.
At the same time, Adelaide's eyes flickered.
A strange island.
No familiar faces.
No one from Joker's network here.
In other words, this was an opportunity.
If he could escape now, then maybe, just maybe, he could disappear again and return to the comfortable life he had built for himself. Betraying Joker would mean living in fear forever, but if he ran and hid well enough...
It was worth gambling on.
The old man's gaze shifted restlessly toward the shoreline.
He was already thinking about how to run.
.....
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