After marveling for a while at the audacity of [the Hermit] amid the Gray Fog, Klein left the ancient castle and opened his eyes on the toilet.
"Splash..."
After washing up briefly at the basin, he pushed open the bathroom door, got dressed properly, walked out of his inn room, went down the stairs, and arrived at the ground-floor lobby.
It happened to be morning, and since he'd been woken by Silas's prayer, he had no intention of going back to sleep. Instead, he decided to sample the local specialty breakfast of Bayam.
After a bit of negotiation with the front desk, he managed to place his order, and before long a waiter brought out the food: rice cooked with coconut milk and fragrant leaves, bananas coated in batter and deep-fried, and a richly flavored specialty grilled fish.
Klein tasted the food carefully. He found the coconut rice and fried bananas far too sweet: fine as an occasional treat, but unbearable if eaten every day. The grilled fish, though, was quite good.
Just as he was passing judgment on the meal like a food critic, he suddenly noticed the people around him murmuring about something in low voices.
"I hear the King of the Five Seas is holding another pirate conference?"
Someone who'd already started drinking that early in the morning spoke up first.
"Isn't that the truth. I hear all the pirates have already been contacted, and even the exact venue's been decided," another man said.
"That's good news for us seafarers. With all those pirates off at the conference, the waters will be a lot safer..."
On the subject of such major maritime events, everyone showed intense interest.
More and more people gathered together, discussing eagerly.
"I wonder how many Kings and how many Generals will attend this time..."
"Heh, I don't know who'll be going, but I do know who won't: Vice Admiral Ailment definitely won't be able to make it. He's stuck locked away deep in the Soren family estate."
The man said this with a look of both pity and envy on his face, cracking a grim joke.
"Speaking of which, will the Blood Reverend bring his fleet along?
His men claim he's the King of Scarlet, but it seems none of the other Kings have acknowledged that... What do you think, is it possible they'll fight it out at the conference to prove himself by force?"
"The Blood Reverend has to be the stronger one.
He's the notorious criminal who single-handedly forced his way into the Loen royal palace, and back then he even dared order his ironclad to bombard Sodela Palace!"
"Tch, he's just some newcomer who's recently made a name for himself. The King of the Five Seas has been around for who knows how many years.
He's ruled the seas since I was a kid. Plenty of great pirates were mighty for a while, but within a few years they were finished, either wiped out by the navy or killed in some internal feud..."
"Idiot, the Blood Reverend is different..."
Hearing the drunkards steer the conversation toward comparing combat strength, Klein shook his head and lost interest.
In truth, he knew far more of the inside information than these people, things like the venue for this pirate conference and the exact date it would be held.
This information had come from [the Hanged Man].
In fact, after the matter of Elaine had concluded, he'd originally planned to head to the God-War Ruins to search for traces of mermaids and carry out the promotion ritual.
He'd meant to ask [the Hanged Man] to sail him there, but the latter said he couldn't take the job, since the Storm Church had given him a new assignment: attending the pirate conference to gather intelligence.
Silas had gone to the Fog Sea, and [the Hanged Man] had to attend the pirate conference. It seemed the only one left he could turn to was [the Hermit] Cattelya?
Klein thought, helplessly.
But that bold lady had just leaked information to Queen Mystic. If he boarded her ship, wouldn't that obviously draw the queen right to him...
No, maybe I can look at this from a different angle.
Having Queen Mystic Bernadette form a connection with my Tarot Club probably isn't a bad thing either.
Judging from her exchanges with Silas, she's a neutral-leaning-good existence. Handled properly, she could provide quite a few resources.
Besides, she surely has many of her father Huang Tao's diaries, which would let me get my hands on more hidden knowledge...
And what's more, I still can't find a clear pretext to discipline [the Hermit].
If I really do run into Queen Mystic aboard the ship, it would confirm that she was the one who leaked the secret, giving Mr. Fool good reason to teach her a proper lesson!
Since Bernadette couldn't manage to properly raise her own adopted daughter, then let Uncle Zhou next door... ah, no, Grandpa Zhou, come help you out...
Sonia Sea, aboard the Doe.
"First Mate, did you ask the captain?"
"Are we going to the pirate conference or not?"
The sailors gathered on the deck, all talking over one another.
To them, the captain was mysterious and dignified: someone reliable they could depend on, but hard to get close to.
The boatswain, meanwhile, was fierce and stuck rigidly to the rules, which nobody much liked. The first mate, on the other hand, was usually easygoing, liked joking around with the crew, and could even hold his own talking to the captain.
Even though he liked to needle everyone, people were still willing to talk to him more.
Sure enough, with the pirate conference drawing near, everyone was itching with curiosity, wanting to see for themselves just what kind of existence the legendary King of the Five Seas truly was, and what the pirate conference would look like.
Anderson gave a wry, private smile.
Go where? The captain isn't even here. You want a mere Sequence 5 like me to hold things together? What if we actually end up in a clash with that King?
But he couldn't say that out loud, so he just cleared his throat and tried to calm everyone down. "All right, settle down, everyone. Get back to your work. I'll go ask the captain and see what he thinks."
In truth, this was just a stalling tactic. After all, Gascoigne wasn't there. All that sat in the captain's cabin was a flesh-and-blood puppet.
All he had to do was go in, put on a bit of a show, then come back out and tell everyone the captain had said no.
So Anderson turned and walked into the captain's cabin, put on a bit of an act, then came back out and, amid the crew's sighs, announced that the captain had said no...
What he hadn't noticed was that the invitation sent by the King of the Five Seas was sitting right there in a drawer of the captain's cabin, glowing faintly.
Early the next morning, after finishing his report to Mr. Fool, Silas left Midpoint Island and continued flying west.
Following the safe route, he flew at full speed, pressing forward against the storm.
Outside the safe route there were still plenty of Spirit World creatures, but the moment they saw him coming, they immediately chose to hide, either burrowing deep into the black clouds or diving beneath the sea, leaving him with nothing to look at the whole way but dull currents of air and rolling waves.
Without those creatures watching him, Silas's journey went a good deal more smoothly.
At around three in the afternoon, he left behind that dreadful sea, thick with storms and an aura of death.
Soon, another strange sea stretched out before him.
He had reached the Fog Sea.