Chapter 393 - 156. Iceberg Queen

Chapter 393: 156. Iceberg QueenThe Southern Ocean’s noon sun was fiercely strong, and Fisher’s group on their small wooden boat had no shelter from the relentless heat, leaving them all directly exposed to the clear sky overhead.

Old Jack carefully removed all of his bartender attire from the upper half of his body and constructed a rudimentary shelter in one corner of the boat to protect Dian Dian and Karma from sunburn.

He, like Fisher, was shirtless and stood at the bow, watching the boat’s direction.

They had been sailing for a full day and night since leaving Saint Nali, and during that time, Moli had dived in to catch some oddly shaped fish to serve as food.

Fisher wasn’t familiar with the ocean’s seafood, the only types he knew were those available for purchase in the Saint Nali market, and at the moment, he wasn’t sure whether the colorful, big-headed fish before him was edible.

Moli assured him it was edible, not poisonous, but he was still wary; the physiology between Whale-men and humans wasn’t just slightly different. Fisher and Old Jack tentatively tried it first, making sure it was safe before offering it to Isabella and the three little Mouse Ladies, along with a share for their little mouse offspring.

Since boarding the ship, Isabella had mostly kept to herself in a corner of the wooden boat, silent and visibly dispirited. At night, Fisher had even glimpsed her curled up and crying. If Moli hadn’t coaxed her to eat, she might have starved on board.

Fisher didn’t try to counsel her much, as his mind was occupied with Elizabeth’s situation. He chose to focus intensely on the matters at hand to escape the haunting thoughts.

"We’re almost at Schwali’s usual route..."

Old Jack and Fisher stood at the bow, looking out at the ocean, which seemed unchanging. Old Jack had no concept of navigation and relied on Fisher and Moli for an approximate sense of direction.

Old Jack scanned the horizon, but evidently, he found nothing conclusive.

"How long have we been sailing? I have no sense of time on this boat."

"About 27 hours or so, but our exact position is uncertain. We could be one to two nautical miles off the charted course, though those merchant ships can’t stick strictly to their routes either... The demon said this boat would automatically find dockable vessels and islands. Now that we’re in this area, we’ll rely on it to lead the way."

Book Knight also floated up, neither needing to eat nor sleep. Even after being on the boat for so long, it showed no signs of lethargy. However, after spending time with Fisher, it realized he wasn’t much of a talker, which was particularly uncomfortable for the chatty knight.

He wasn’t at all acquainted with Old Jack, the two ladies at the stern were in poor spirits and unwilling to talk, and his only chance to socialize was with the three annoying Mouse-man girls.

Initially, mingling with them was quite enjoyable, until they played "house" and suggested tearing pages from him to use as play money. After that, Book Knight no longer wished to entertain the three brats.

"Sigh!"

Emhardt floated midair, feigning vigilance with Fisher and the others at the bow, but a fierce gust of wind suddenly struck. It nearly blew him away, sending him tumbling through the air before crashing sternly onto the boat.

"Oh, damn this wind..."

At that moment, Moli at the stern twitched her ears, sniffed the air, and urgently informed Fisher in the direction of a scent she detected,

"Wait, Fisher... I think I smell a storm coming. I’m certain of it, it’s right ahead."

"Ahead?"

Facing the violent sea breeze, Fisher peered into the distance. As their small wooden boat sailed forward, he finally spotted specks of black beneath the distant sky. However, the dark clouds were moving fast. In a few breaths, they had already filled a corner of the sky.

"It’s a storm!"

Fisher frowned, watching the black clouds draw near, his mind flickering with thoughts.

A maritime storm could not compare to a land-based tempest and usually wouldn’t significantly affect ships on established routes. Otherwise, the very idea of having set paths would be pointless.

However, that was assuming the ships in question were larger vessels. Whether their small wooden boat could withstand the storm without capsizing was another matter entirely.

"Boom!"

As the clouds began to mass thunder, the sea beneath the boat grew increasingly turbulent. Waves swelled one after another, and the frenzied wind thick with heavy moisture resembled steam vapor.

"Hold onto the sides of the boat... Isabella! I mean you!"

Hearing Fisher’s words, Isabella shook herself from her daze and looked up.

Her momentary confusion shattered as she saw the dark clouds approaching, a sight the pampered princess had never before encountered. Feeling the boat rocking ever more as the storm neared, she quickly obeyed Fisher’s command, tightly grasping the boat’s side and closing her eyes.

Old Jack hurried to the three Mouse Ladies, Karma and the others quickly climbing onto his body like a soft, wearable armor. They buried their heads in his chest, their tails trembling behind them, as he leaned against the back of the boat, using an unloaded firearm to lock himself in place like a safety belt.

"Fisher! Come back!"

Emhardt hovered anxiously in mid-air looking for a place to hide; he had meant to fly toward Fisher, but seeing him still standing at the bow motionless, a somewhat heavy-hearted Emhardt had no choice but to tuck in behind Old Jack’s buttocks.

"Grandpa, that book is right behind your butt..."

"Squeeze in, squeeze in... you three little brats shut up already!"

The distant downpour arrived in an instant, and in a flash, the entire sky seemed to be enveloped in darkness. The dense, blinding rainfall poured down like bullets pattering crisply upon the wooden ship, causing it to shake fiercely.

Fisher didn’t take shelter because if the rainfall was too heavy, the wooden ship would fill up with water, and then, even if it didn’t capsize, it would be taken down by the water’s weight, so he had to stand up and keep bailing the water out.

"Crackle pop!"

Fisher summoned his Fluid Sword, transforming it into the shape of a scoop, allowing him to frenziedly bail out the water.

But no matter how hard Fisher worked, the quantity of rain from the heavens was too great, doing little to help, and he could only watch as the water level within the ship kept rising.

"Moli, you need to get off the ship to push us out, if we continue to stay here we’ll sink sooner or later."

Standing at the stern, Moli nodded and with a flick of her tail, leaped into the water. She supported the lower part of the ship and pushed the wooden ship toward the outer edges of the storm.

The whole ship shook again from this sudden acceleration, and with the roaring thunder and torrential rain, Fisher gently used his hand to block the raindrops slanting towards his face.

"Oh no! Help! Emhardt is going to drown!"

The water level inside the ship kept rising, and even though Emhardt’s screams were lost in the tempest, Fisher had no other choice but to hope they would quickly break out of the range of the rainstorm.

But upon barely opening his eyes to look, Fisher saw the downpour seemed boundless, with no end in sight, nothing but rain and lightning everywhere.

Was the direction wrong?

"Hoooo!"

As the small wooden ship continued forward, Fisher suddenly felt a bone-chilling wind gust toward his face, as though he had abruptly moved from a steaming sauna room into a freezer, this sudden cold making him shrink back into the body of the ship.

"Crack!"

And the cold didn’t halt at all; the crisp sound of ice breaking kept coming, and the nearby sound of the downpour suddenly paused, as though someone had grasped the course of the rainstorm mid-air.

"Fisher, the sea and the rainwater have frozen!"

The small wooden ship’s progress came to an abrupt stop. Moli, who had been pushing the boat behind, felt the cold and hurriedly covered her body and surfaced, but this surfacing gave her quite a fright.

Behind the small wooden ship, the downpour continued relentlessly, but in front of it, a vast expanse of the sea was covered by a spreading mist of cold fog, and where the fog passed, the sea hardened into ice, while the raindrops in mid-air also unsurprisingly turned into tiny ice crystals.

"What is this?"

Those on the ship, feeling the calm around them, looked up to see that not far ahead on the sea surface, a large, cold shadow gradually emerged from the continuous, confusing frost fog.

"Crack crack crack!"

In the next second, the shadow behind the ice fog pressed forwards ceaselessly, and a huge, spear-like portion easily pierced the ice blocks in front, ensuring its unobstructed passage.

Before Fisher and his companions’ eyes, a massive ship with a deep green hull broke through the ice. Hanging right above its mast was an all-blue flag fluttering with an upside-down hammer shape.

This was a ship Fisher recognized, one of the Four Great Pirate Ships, the "Iceberg Queen"!

And its captain was...

Fisher looked up and saw atop the large ship’s bow, a strikingly tall lady with snow-like skin, a handsome lady with no expression, holding a Thrusting Sword seemingly fashioned from Cold Ice. Her silver long hair was tied into a ponytail, fluttering behind her in the wind, accentuating her noble, young-duke-like image with a touch of beauty.

But when her eyes, devoid of warmth, looked down at the man standing at the bow of the wooden ship in front of her, a faint change appeared on her face. She seemed incredulous as she spoke,

"Fisher?"

"...Captain Alagina, long time no see."