Red Storm

Book 2-7.3 Captain Thriger (II)

As the Bow Men reported after setting up all seven Volley Stars, Thriger nodded his head and shouted.

“Shoot the ready ones first! Aim properly if you don’t want to struggle to pull it up. And there might be other monsters around, so grab your spears and assist the Bow Men.”

“Aye aye, captain!”

The thirty-ish crew members on the deck each held a spear as they stood in a line on the side of the deck.

“Third Volley Star, fire.”

“Seventh Volley Star, fire.”

At Thriger’s command, the two Bow Men who had finished aiming their Volley Stars shot the human sized arrows. The arrows had a thick rope tied to the end of it as it flew toward Shopping.

“It is coming toward us.”

Yulian stated as he looked toward the large arrow heading toward them, before swinging his greatsword to fling the arrows away.

“Hmm...I was curious how they were going to get it out of the quicksand, but they just tied a rope to the end of the arrow.”

Chun Myung Hoon mumbled while watching the arrow fall into the quicksand, and Yulian nodded his head as he flung another large arrow away.

“The strength of the arrow is no joke.”

“Since it is a weapon used to break down castle gates, it needs to be strong. It is probably going to take a long time to recharge all of these, so what do they do if they can’t catch it using the first round of arrows?”

Chun Myung Hoon’s curiosity was answered by the ship’s movement.

“You stupid idiots! Is this your first time firing the arrow? How do you miss all seven arrows? I guess we won’t be drinking tonight. Hurry up and open up our sails before he chases after us!”

Thriger continued to shout as he prepare to retreat. His experience and training made it easy to catch the likes of a Sand Dragon these days, but that was only when they had their weapons.

They had never had a situation where all seven Volley Stars had failed like this, so they had never needed to prepare extra arrows.

On top of that, since their ship was the only one on the quicksand river, they didn’t need to prepare for battle against other ships either.

“Hurry up and retrieve the arrows. You know how much each of those costs, right? Let’s first retreat and reload before coming back to get him.”

The crew members started to pull on the rope to retrieve the arrows. It was connected to a reel, but it was not easy to retrieve an arrow that had fallen into the quicksand. At least five or six of them were on each rope and started to turn the reel.

“They are retrieving the arrows.”

Yulian spoke after seeing the arrows being pulled by the rope toward the boat, and Chun Myung Hoon flicked his sleeve once before starting to speak.

“If that ship disappears, we do not know when we will see it again. I should head over there. What will you do?”

“I cannot step on the quicksand, and Shopping cannot catch up to the ship’s speed……

Yulian gazed at the rope pulling the arrows before coming up with an idea.

“Master, couldn’t I run across that rope and go on board?”

Chun Myung Hoon took a look and thought it was possible, but since it was the end if Yulian made a mistake, he shared his concerns.

“With your level of technique, it should be possible, but if you make a mistake, I cannot save you.”

“Just throw me toward it.”

“Should I just carry you there?”

“I need to make them into my subordinates, how would I have any face if you did that? I am confident that I will not make a mistake so please just throw me.”

Seeing Yulian confidently answer, Chun Myung Hoon decided he could protect him from the back and grabbed Yulian’s collar.

“Grab your balance properly.”

Chun Myung Hoon warned Yulian before throwing Yulian with a lot of force.

Since Yulian had not been slacking off in training his force techniques, he was able to flip twice in the air before softly landing on one of the ropes that was being pulled back to the ship.

With the thickness of the rope being no joke, Yulian felt like there wasn’t a need to worry about losing his balance.

Seeing Yulian land safely, Chun Myung Hoon also jumped off of Shopping’s head and started to run behind Yulian.

“Captain Thriger.”

“What do you want? You idiots couldn’t even hit that fatass properly. When we return, everybody do some more target practice.”

When one of the Bow Men pulling the ropes called out to him, Thriger responded with anger.

“It is not that … there is someone headed our way.”

“Who the hell would be coming toward us? The Sand Dragon? That is why we are running away as fast as we can.”

“That… it looks like a human……”

At the Bow Man’s words, Thriger thought the Bow Men must have eaten something wrong today.

“You couldn’t hit that thing and now you are seeing things as well? I guess that is why you missed. Stop talking nonsense and hurry up and retrieve the arrows.”

“Captain, I think it is a person as well……”

“It looks the same to me as well.”

As the other crew members on the bow started to speak, Thriger let go of the key and ran down from the second floor of the deck to shout at the crew.

“Did you all do some drugs? Why are you all talking nonsense?”

One of the crew members pointed down with his hand and Thriger shook his head as he headed toward it.

“How could a person be chasing a ship on the quicksand river……”

Thriger’s eyes became round. He then rubbed his eyes.

He was sure that he had made a mistake, but even after rubbing his eyes, it was indeed a person.

“What? Is that really a person?”

What Thriger saw was a young man running up the rope, and an old man running on top of the quicksand.

“They are not human. What are you doing? Cut the rope. Bowmen, ready your Cross Bows and try firing at him. Oh lord, are you sending ghosts into the quicksand river now?”

The deck became busy at Thriger’s words. They scratched away at the extremely thick rope with their daggers, and the Bow Men quickly started to ready their Cross Bows.

“They are trying to cut the rope.”

As Chung Myung Hoon casually stated it to Yulian, Yulian smiled as he answered.

“I am already at the end. Let us go up now master.”

Once he finished speaking, Yulian lifted his body and arrived on top of the ship, with Chun Myung Hoon looking like he was flying as he boarded behind Yulian.

Once Yulian and Chun Myung Hoon made it onto the deck, the crew members were scared and surrounded the two of them.

In the midst of the chaos, there were even some crew members who quickly brought over the Divine Mark of the church.

“Please drop your weapons. I did not come up here with ill intentions.”

Seeing Yulian show both of his palms, the crew looked toward Thriger.

“Are you really human?”

“Do we not look like humans?”

“Sir, have you ever seen a human being that can run on top of the quicksand and jump over 20 meters onto a ship?”

Yulian started to smile as he answered.

“Didn’t you see it today? Didn’t I say I did not come with ill intentions and ask that you drop your weapons?”

Thriger peeked toward Chun Myung Hoon. At least the young man rode on top of the rope, but he was uncomfortable about that old man who ran on top of the quicksand.

“What are you looking at?”

At Thriger’s very noticeable gaze, Chun Myung Hoon stared right back at him as he asked. Thriger looked up and down Chun Myung Hoon’s body as he answered.

“Old man, I am afraid of you.”

“No need to feel special. Everybody is afraid of me. I only came up here to satisfy my curiosity, so don’t mind me.”

Chun Myung Hoon leisurely looked around and moved to different parts of the ship, but nobody could stop him.

“No need to be surprised. My master is someone who cannot handle being curious. Shall the two of us talk?”

At Yulian’s words, Thriger had the crew members lower their weapons. His wealth of experience told him to not turn these people into enemies. Although he looked like he was crazy, Thriger was actually a very smart man.

That was the reason many crew members decided to follow him as well.

“I promise I came bearing no ill intentions. I came here to benefit everyone. Also, can you stop the ship for a bit? Our Shopping is about to die chasing after the ship.”

“Shopping?”

As Thriger asked about the name, Yulian pointed to the back.

“That Sand Dragon following after us is our pet. Did you not see it? We were riding on top of his head.”

We thought it was just him moving around … then our Volley Stars?”

“My wife cherishes him quite a bit, so I couldn’t let him get hurt.”

They definitely were not people to make into enemies.