Chapter 149: A Tense Crew

Chapter 149: A Tense Crew

Late Afternoon - Early Spring : Strait of Western Elynnor

Vice's face was red as a strawberry, it looked like he was gonna pop a blood vessel. -Man, he’s really putting his all into this..-

"That's.. impossib-"

*pop* His wrist popped as I felt his hand go limp.

-That's unfortunate.-

*Crack-creaak*

His hand cracked and the ship rocked as I slammed it into the table. -Whoops.. I definitely broke his hand with that..-

"AARGGH.." His groan echoed through the silent room.

-That was a bit underwhelming..- Although he was stronger than I expected, I couldn't help but be underwhelmed. "Well, while I'm here? Anyone else wanna give it a try?"

As I scanned the room, everyone wore looks of disbelief or fear, the only exception being Adrian who wore a wide smile.

"You want to give it a try, Adrian?" I was quite curious to see his strength first hand.

"Haha, I think I'll pass. Although I'd love to challenge you, I think the ship would give out before the victor is decided." He pointed towards the massive peg that was acting like a table

-Hm?- As I looked down, I noticed an indentation from my elbow and a small crack that formed where I slammed Vice's hand down. -Oh.. whoops.. I tried to hold back but still ended up damaging it..- "Well, that's a shame. I was looking forward to seeing how strong you were.." I was genuinely disappointed.

"Haha, well, if we come across any sea monsters I'll give you a good show, how about that?”

A smile quickly formed on my face. “Haha, I'll look forward to it!”

“Well, if there aren't any other challengers, how about Phil distributes the winnings?" I quickly realized Adrian's wide smile was from winning the bet.

"R..right.." Phil nervously walked up to the table and started sorting through the coins. *chink-chink*

The noise of coins being moved around filled the silence. No one moved, and no one talked.

-Are these guys antisocial or something?-

Adrian also quickly noticed the awkward atmosphere. "What's with the tense atmosphere guys? Just because most of you lost all your money doesn't mean you can't get it back."

"Cap.. we can't win against him... Even Vice got folded by him." The bald pirate from earlier spoke up in a halfhearted manner.

"Who said you needed to fight him?" He quickly caught everyone's attention. "Boys! We are setting sail for southern Nerrania and the top 5 crew that give the best performance on this voyage will get a 'special bonus'." He wore a confident smile.

Although I didn't know what that bonus was, the crew seemed to have an idea.

"Top 5?!"elia’s face immediately flushed red. "That's-"

As I was walking towards the stairs above deck, I gave a light wave. "Just think of it as payment for hospitality." -I shouldn't create any misunderstandings with things like that..-

Above deck, the crew were all hard at work, dropping the sails and pulling up the anchor.

To my surprise though, none of them were using any of the various artifacts that were built into the ship. -Are they not there to ease the workload on the crew?-

To ease my curiosity, I walked up to a crewmember who was hastily tying off the rigging to the railing. "Sir, sorry if I'm bothering you, but what are all of those artifacts for?"

"Hm?" Not expecting a voice, he paused what he was doing and glanced back at me. "Ah. You mean these?" He reached over and tapped the artifact on the peg he was tying the rope to.

"Well, yeah. I'd assume they all have different purposes though, right?" Although several were on rigging pegs, those weren't the only ones.

"Haha, yeah. They each have their own use, but most of them are simple strengthening artifacts, they're part of the reason why the ship is so sturdy!" He puffed up his chest as he bragged about the ship's strength for a moment.

"So what are the other uses?"

"Well, these here.. on the pegs, have a fancy new rune that has come around recently called a tension rune!" He seemed proud of his knowledge. "Basically what it does is make things shrink in length but get fatter. It's great for the pegs since the rune makes the rope tighter and that tighter knot that is needed to hold the mast steady!"

In short, unlike how a strengthening rune increases the strength of crystalline bonds, the tension rune strengthens things with elasticity.

-How fascinating..- "Can tension runes snap the rope if it gets too tight?"

It looked like I popped his bubble of confidence with my question. "Well, I don't quite know all of the details yet, but Lynn should be able to give you some insight. At the very least, we have only had ropes snap to monsters yankin on em so far."

"How would monsters be able to yank on these ropes?" For a second I forgot about all of Mothers warnings about the oceans. I had somehow forgotten the horror stories about monsters the size of mountains existing.

"Well, some of the bigger creatures like octopus or krakens will sometimes reach up on board and if a rope is in the way, it'll snap." He turned around and finished tying off the rope before tapping the artifact making it give off a faint glow. "There’s nothing to worry about on this ship though, so don't worry! You're perfectly safe here." He showed a confident smile with his few missing teeth.

"Haha, it's reassuring to see your confidence."

"I'm glad I could give you some reassurance.” He quickly glanced over at another crewmate who was calling him over. “Well, I should get back to work so we can get going. Be sure to ask Lynn or Cap if you are curious about anything specific, they're both real smart."

"Alright, thanks for your help!"

"Anytime!" He happily ran across the deck and talked to another crewmember before tying more rigging to a different spot again.

-Maybe my impression wasn't as bad as I thought..-

Continuing around the deck, I carefully observed everyone's actions and asked a few other crewmates some questions I had.

After a while of asking around and chatting with the crew, I saw Adrian finally came up from below deck but unlike when I saw him earlier though, he seemed to be in a bad mood.

-Did something happen?- Quickly wrapping up my conversation with one of the crew, I made my way up to the bridge deck. "What's wrong, Adrian?"