novelraw Chapter 221: Iceberg Queen
Chapter 221: Iceberg Queen
The sea surface of the Southern Ocean at noon baked intensely. Fisher's group upon the small wooden boat had no items to shelter them, therefore everyone was directly exposed beneath this cloudless clear sky.
Old Jack meticulously took off all the bartender attire on his upper body, explicitly building a simple canopy at a corner of the wooden boat for Diandian and Karma and them so as to prevent them from getting sunburned.
While he himself, just like Fisher, bared his upper body standing before the bow of the boat looking at the direction of advance.
Since they came out from Saint-Nazareth they had already sailed for an entire day and night. During this period Jasmine still went into the water catching several bizarrely shaped fishes up to serve as food.
Fisher wasn't familiar with the aquatic products in the ocean, the only ones known were merely those able to be purchased from the Saint-Nazareth market. And right at this moment looking at this colorful big-headed fish before his eyes, for a moment he unexpectedly didn't know whether it was edible or not.
Jasmine said it was edible, not poisonous. But he always felt the disparity in constitution between Whale-kin and human wasn't just a tiny bit. Fisher and Old Jack first frowned and tasted it. After confirming there were no problems they then passed it to Isabel and the three little squirrel girls, incidentally also portioning a bit for the little rats they brought.
Since boarding the boat Isabel mostly shrunk to the corner of the wooden boat without saying a single word, her expression also extremely dispirited. When sleeping at night Fisher still indistinctly saw her curled up in the corner weeping. If it wasn't for Jasmine persuading her to eat food, he feared she would starve to death upon the boat.
Fisher didn't persuade her much, because during this period his own heart also similarly held matters regarding Elizabeth. He could only first wholeheartedly place his energy onto the matters before his eyes to shake off those feelings following like a shadow.
"Almost arrived near Schwari's shipping lane..."
Old Jack and Fisher stood at the bow of the boat, looking around at the ocean where the scenery basically had no change. Old Jack had entirely no concept regarding navigation, able only to rely on Fisher and Jasmine to roughly identify the orientation.Old Jack gazed around a circle, but obviously in the end discovered completely nothing,
"Exactly how long have we sailed? Staying upon this boat I have absolutely no sense regarding time."
"Roughly around 27 hours, but our specific position right now is still uncertain. It's possible to be off by one to two nautical miles from the shipping lane on the nautical chart. However those merchant ships also have no way of strictly following the position of the shipping lane... That Demon said this boat will automatically search for ships and small islands able to dock at. Now arriving nearby here we rely on it to help guide the way for us."
Sir Book also floated up. He neither needed to eat food nor required sleep. Even having swayed upon the boat for so long he didn't appear dispirited in the slightest. Only that after interacting with Fisher for a period of time he finally discovered Fisher wasn't the kind of extremely talkative person, making him who had many words exceptionally uncomfortable.
Old Jack he wasn't familiar with at all, the two ladies at the stern's mental states were not good and they also weren't willing to open their mouths. The only opportunity he could open his mouth was with those three annoying Ratman Race girls.
Originally getting along with them was still quite happy, but ever since when they played house they said they wanted to tear off his book pages to serve as banknotes, Sir Book no longer wanted to mind these three bratty kids.
"Whoosh!"
Eimhart floated in midair, putting on an act patrolling a circle together with Fisher and them at the bow of the boat. As a result, having not even walked a pace or two, a gust of fierce sea wind abruptly assaulted. Almost didn't blow him out, painfully tumbling upon the sea for two circles and then fiercely smashing onto the stern of the boat.
"Oh, damned sea wind..."
At this moment Jasmine sitting at the stern of the boat's ears abruptly twitched. She raised her nose, looking at a certain direction in the distance suddenly saying to Fisher anxiously,
"Wait Fisher... I seem to have sniffed the scent of a rainstorm, this scent can't be wrong, it's straight ahead."
"Ahead?"
Facing that intense sea wind, Fisher looked at the clear sky in the distance. Following the continuous advance of their small wooden boat, he finally saw a tiny speck of black beneath the firmament in the extreme distance. But the moving speed of that black cloud wasn't slow, merely in the span of a few breaths, that tiny speck of black had already occupied a corner of the sky.
"It's a rainstorm!"
Fisher furrowed his brows, looking at that black cloud constantly approaching towards this side, the thoughts within his mind constantly flickering.
Rainstorms in the ocean far couldn't reach the level of storms on land, and also wouldn't bring about any massive impacts to merchant ships upon the shipping lane. At most it was exactly sailing when it would be extremely bumpy, otherwise designing fixed sailing shipping lanes would have no meaning whatsoever.
But the problem was, the above hypotheses were entirely directed towards merchant ships with relatively large volumes. Whether this small wooden boat of his would capsize in the rainstorm was hard to say.
"Rumble!"
Looking at that black cloud beginning to condense thunder within the sky, the sea surface beneath that wooden boat also began becoming extremely unsettled. Layers upon layers of sea waves rising one after another began to condense. Within the chaotic sea wind thick and heavy water vapor was already indistinctly intermingled, just like breathing steaming water vapor.
"Everyone hold onto the hull tightly... Isabel! I am talking to you!"
After hearing Fisher's words, only then did Isabel raise her head like blankly distracted.
At this moment, her somewhat delirious state finally began collapsing upon seeing the black cloud constantly approaching towards her side in the distance. How had a pampered princess ever seen this kind of formation? Feeling the entire boat beginning to sway again, she was so scared she hurriedly completely complied with Fisher's command, rigidly clenching the hull aside and closing her eyes.
Old Jack hurriedly ran towards the three squirrel girls. Karma and them also hurriedly climbed onto Old Jack's body, just like a soft automatically worn armor, they entirely buried their heads within Old Jack's embrace, the tails behind them still trembling. Old Jack leaned against the rear of the hull, using the unloaded firearm to wedge his position acting as a safety belt.
"Fisher! Come back!"
Eimhart floated anxiously in midair searching for a place to hide. Originally he wanted to fly towards Fisher's direction, but looking at him still standing at the bow motionless, he who was somewhat cowardly had no choice but to run behind Old Jack's butt to huddle,
"Grandpa, that book is behind your butt..."
"Squeeze a bit, squeeze a bit... you three little brats quickly shut your mouths!"
The rainstorm in the distance arrived in an instant. In a split second, the entire patch of sky seemed to have been wrapped up by darkness. Densely packed rainstorm obscuring the line of sight poured down, bursting out crisp sounds upon the wooden boat akin to bullets, striking the wooden boat until it swayed intensely.
Fisher didn't lean against the side because if the volume of the rainstorm was too large it would cause the wooden boat to fill with water inside. At that time even if it didn't capsize it would be taken below by the water, therefore he still had to stand up to continuously scoop water out.
"Crackle crackle!"
Fisher called out the Fluid Sword in his hand, letting it turn into the appearance of a water scoop, enabling him to craze-like scoop water out.
But even if Fisher worked as hard as he could, right now the volume of rain in the sky was still too large. Whatever he did was of no avail, he could only watch the water within the hull growing more and more.
"Jasmine, you have to go into the water to push us out, continuing to stay here sooner or later the boat will sink."
Jasmine standing behind the boat nodded. Raising her tail behind her she leaped into the water. She supported the lower end of the hull, pushing the wooden boat to travel towards the outside of the storm.
The entire hull swayed once more owing to this abrupt acceleration. Accompanied by thunderous roars and rainstorm filling the sky, Fisher gently used his hands to block the raindrops slanting towards him head-on.
"Oh oh oh! Help! Eimhart is going to drown!"
The water level within the boat constantly rose, Eimhart's shrieks nevertheless concealed within the violent wind and abrupt rain. But Fisher also had no other methods, able only to pray they could quickly rush out of the range of this rainstorm.
But Fisher reluctantly opening his eyes to look, that rainstorm nonetheless seemed boundless completely unable to see the end, everywhere was rainwater and thunder.
Was the direction wrong?
"Whoosh whoosh whoosh!"
Just as the small wooden boat continued to advance, Fisher leaning against the bow abruptly felt a gust of bone-piercing cold wind coming towards his face, like instantaneously having gone from a steaming sauna room into a freezer. This suddenly arriving coldness caused him to shrink his body hiding into the hull.
"Crack!"
While that coldness lacked stagnation in the slightest, the crisp sounds of ice shattering constantly transmitted. The rainstorm sounds aside nonetheless came to an abrupt end, just like the rainstorm's progression was grasped by someone in midair.
"Fisher, the sea surface and rainwater have entirely frozen!"
The advance of the small wooden boat came to an abrupt end. Jasmine pushing the boat at the back sensed the coldness, hurriedly clutching her own body floating out of the water surface. But this floating out of the water surface concomitantly gave her quite a fright.
Only to be seen behind the small wooden boat, that rainstorm was still currently continuing, but at the front of the wooden boat, large patches of the sea surface were covered by an arriving sweeping cold fog. Wherever that fog passed the sea surface consecutively hardened freezing into ice blocks. And the raindrops in midair unscrupulously turned into granular tiny ice crystals.
"This is?"
The people upon the boat feeling the surroundings calming down consecutively raised their heads to look, yet saw on the sea surface not far ahead, within that constantly fluttering arriving frost fog gradually manifested a massive cold shadow.
"Crack crack crack crack!"
In the next second, that shadow behind the ice fog constantly approached forward. A massive, spear-like portion effortlessly pierced through the ice blocks ahead, guaranteeing the unimpededness of its voyage.
Before the eyes of Fisher's group, a colossal ship overall deep green broke the ice arriving. And right above that mast actually hung a fully blue flag, fluttering upon it was the shape of an inverted hammer.
This ship Fisher recognized, it was one of the Four Great Pirate Ships named the "Iceberg Queen Ship"!
And its captain was...
Fisher raised his head to look, yet saw at the bow position of that giant ship, an exceptionally tall, handsome lady with skin like snow expressionlessly gripped a rapier seemingly composed of cold ice. The long silver hair tied into a long ponytail behind her fluttered in the wind against her back, contrasting her image resembling an elegant aristocratic young master with a few points of beauty.
Yet her devoid of warmth expression after lowering her head to gaze upon the man standing upon the bow of the wooden boat before her eyes immediately suffered an obvious change. She somewhat unbelievable opened her mouth,
"Fisher?"
"...Captain Alajina, long time no see."