Whispering Verse

"A hired thief? If Oxenfurt is so persistent, are those photos important to him?"

Shade asked, and the old captain snorted, which caused another topic:

"I know his past as well as he knows mine. When he was a sailor on a ship, he was just as rough and violent as he is now, but that's what I need."

The old man squinted at the surrounding fields and showed Shade with his finger:

"The fields here are all mine, from here to that location. In addition to what we see now, I have my own properties in the Randall Valley and many cities in the southwest of the kingdom."

"It's awesome."

Shade praised dryly, and then Captain Allen asked the question that was on his mind at the moment:

"Do you think you can make so much money just by doing inland shipping business?"

asked the captain, and then gave the answer himself:

"Of course not, young man, we are in the business of smuggling. Transporting goods from Delarion to Carsonlik, and transporting goods from Carsonlik to Delrayon. Even without a shipping license and the New World We have a shipping license, but we always have to travel to the New World several times a year to transport some sensitive materials. Otherwise, do you think I salvaged so much property from the river?"

"Are you going to be river pirates or pirates?"

Shade then asked, and the old captain, who was walking one step faster than him, turned to look at him with a smile:

"Of course. Once it comes to illegal business on the water, no one can keep their hands from getting blood, otherwise they will bleed from their necks. The rules of survival on the water and on land are different. You can guess the illegal business How much more can I earn by traveling to the New World?"

Smoke drifted from his nostrils:

"Oxenfurt is a good sailor, cruel and irritable, but he doesn't like drinking and is extremely cunning. Before he left me, he was already my most trusted boatswain. I even thought about it for a while. Later, he negotiated with the shipowners and gave him the position of captain."

Shade frowned slightly:

"Why did he leave the ship? Because he wanted to get married and live a stable life?"

"Young man, don't worry, I haven't finished telling my story yet. Aren't you curious? How do I survive in this kind of business and still make so much money? It's just because I have better luck than everyone else. ?”

The captain walked sideways in the field and looked at the young man wearing a black coat walking on the snow. Shade just frowned and gave the answer:

"What did you pray to for strength?"

"Sure enough, you really know all about Stone Oxenfurt."

Captain Woody, who was holding his cane, smiled, turned around and looked ahead, and continued walking forward:

"To be honest, I don't know what I prayed for for strength. When I was twenty-one years old, I went to sea as an ordinary sailor on a ship. Then we encountered a storm. Everyone on the ship died except me, and I drifted to an isolated island."

It's like the beginning of some kind of adventurous survival story.

"I found a cave on that strange island filled with heavy fog that persists all year round, and found a strange manuscript in the cave. The manuscript describes a magical ritual that can summon unknown beings. A powerful existence and made a contract with it. Later I learned that it was a demon summoning ritual. Moreover, it did not point to a specific demon, but whichever one was summoned most recently."

He smiled self-deprecatingly:

"If I could travel back in time to when I was twenty-one, I would rather die there on the spot. But unfortunately, I wanted to live at that time, so I spent two years trying to make parchment on that island. Obscure content, repeated experiments and failures. Before I died on that desert island, I really succeeded once."

His steps are steady and powerful:

"A certain existence that I cannot tell responded to me, so I have a body that ages more slowly than normal people, I have the luck to ride the sea and the rivers and lakes, and I even have the strength to never drown in the water."

"And what's the price?"

Shade asked, and then he saw a rabbit standing on the snow not far away. After the latter saw Shade, he ran away in panic, leaving only a series of inconspicuous footprints on the snow.

"It's a pity that I didn't bring a shotgun at the cost of my soul and the souls of all my descendants."

The old captain who also saw the rabbit said this, his tone remained unchanged:

"I know that everything has a price, and I have received a gift far beyond my destiny. I accept all this, but I just don't want to harm more people. So, at the age of twenty-five, it was time to escape from that terrible island The following year, I bought medicine from a sea witch doctor that destroyed my fertility and that of my son, who was only six years old at the time.”

After saying this, he sighed softly:

"Then the story comes to Stone Oxenfurt. Young man, can you guess what I want to say?"

"Did he get his demon summoning ritual from you?"

Shade said, and the old captain nodded:

"That was about six years ago. I don't want to talk about the specific details, but he really gained a lot of my trust at that time. I told him my story and the sources of my luck after a drunken meeting. . I didn’t mean to show off, after all, selling your soul to the devil is not worth showing off. My original intention was to warn him not to try things he didn’t understand, but I didn’t expect that he stole those materials instead.”

He sniffed his nose, which was red from the cold:

"It took me at least a year to find out that the parchments had been stolen. After all, I didn't want to get close to them anymore, so I carefully hid them in the basement of the house I rented in Coldwater Port. I found out that they were stolen. After that, I spent another year to confirm that Oxenfurt had taken them. Oxenfurt also took advantage of these two years to decipher the obscure contents on the parchment and collected all the sacrifices. Then, now.”

The demon that the old captain came into contact with was something that Shade and Dr. Schneider could not solve. The other party just wanted the soul, and he didn't even know where he was, and the old captain himself didn't even think about resisting, which meant that Shade couldn't help him.

But Shade is still curious about other stories:

"You seized his old photos and letters because you hated him for stealing your stuff?"

"Yes, and he betrayed my trust. For those of us who live on ships, betrayal is the hardest thing to forgive."

The old captain nodded, and then turned with Shade, walking through the snow-covered farmland towards the windmill on the far bank of the river:

"I don't know what he called, but the demon is obviously older, more powerful, and weirder. Oxenfurt himself is unwilling to come to see me. Even if he is stronger than me, I am the person who knows him best. , and he doesn’t know how much I got from the devil. Therefore, those letters and photos that he didn’t have time to take away when he left the ship will always stay with me.”

"What about the story of Oxenfurt and Miss Haila Watson, now Mrs. Haila Oxenfurt?"

Shade inquired curiously again, and the old captain smiled:

"A very classic story about a poor boy and a rich girl. The first encounter was when the rich girl's father took her to the dock to discuss business. Fortunately, I don't have a daughter, otherwise I would have to educate her from an early age to stay away from those glib people. Boy. Of course, I will never agree to her going near the dock just to let her see the world."

The mill came closer, the windmill turning slowly in the late winter wind. Although it was winter and not the autumn harvest season, the mill was still working. Shade saw a donkey cart pulling grain parked at the entrance of the mill. The donkey with long ears was eating the dead grass growing at the base of the wall.

"She loves him very much, and he also loves her very much. You can think that during the period of their passionate love, they were both able to give their hearts completely to each other. I know what happened after Oxenfurt got off the ship. Not much, but I heard the news about their marriage within a few years, and later I heard that the death of Haila’s family was related to the devil, right?”

The two stopped at the entrance of the mill. The farmer who was loading the truck saw Captain Woody and immediately greeted him respectfully. It seems that the captain leased the mill to the villagers in the village across the river at a very low price, allowing them to use it at any time, and the villagers were very grateful for it.

They did not enter the mill, but after Shade observed the donkey with great interest, they bypassed the mill and continued walking towards the Yifa River.

Shade continued to ask his questions:

"Did you see Helena Oxenfurt after they were married?"

"No, I have not seen it even from Oxenfurt, leaving my ship."

"So in your impression, is Mrs. Haila the kind of person who is indifferent to emotions?"

The old captain thought for a while:

"No, although she is a relatively quiet rich girl, her mood is definitely not indifferent."

Shade nodded clearly and stood by the river with the old captain, watching seven or eight children wearing coarse cloth and patched clothes playing on the ice:

"I probably understand. I don't want to summon demons, but I'm just curious to know. Is the demon summoning ritual you used free of charge?"

If it's free, after solving Oxenfurt, Shade must dig out the information, and then find a safe place with Dr. Schneider to kill demons.

"Of course not, you have to give whatever you get."

The old captain shook his head, and finally talked about Shade's purpose here:

"I am willing to tell you so much because you are different from the people who have come before. I have seen many people on the ship, and I can tell people very accurately."

"So, you think I'm an upright person?"

Shade asked with a smile, looking at the children on the river singing nursery rhymes and playing games like "Eagle Catches Chicken".