Red Storm

Book 2-7.2 Captain Thriger (I)

“Tell you about the continent? I didn’t get to see many places. But there were a few things that left a big impression.”

“If it left a big impression on you master, it must be an amazing place.”

Yulian was even more curious at Chun Myung Hoon’s answer and asked. Chun Myung Hoon debated about what to tell his disciple, before finally starting to speak.

“Hmm...the most memorable place was a tower with 100 floors, called the Magic Tower.

“100 floors?”

“Yes. The country I used to live in was well developed in construction to build a castle that was close to 10,000 li[1] in height, but nothing as tall as 100 stories.”

“That is amazing. How could humans make such a thing.”

“This place seems to have an amazing skill called magic. Similar to Tuma Takaka’s incantations, just a few words and hand movements, as well as using powders called reagents, made things possible that were beyond my imagination. I heard that the tower was made with magic as well.”

“Magic… I have experienced Tuma Takaka-nims incantations a few times; if this magic is similar to that, I guess it is something we cannot ignore.”

“There was a group called the apostasy where I used to live, and they had necromancy and talisman arts that called forth ghosts.”

“Swords and magic … which is stronger?”

Chun Myung Hoon shook his head as he answered.

“That is a stupid question. No matter what subject it is, if a person dedicates their time to study and train, the person themselves becomes stronger. There was an old woman who was the chief of the Magic Tower, and her knowledge of magic was so solid that I could not stop my admiration. Also, in an island where night never comes, there was a middle-aged man who was called the Patriarch, and he made me full of admiration as well.”

“I can’t believe it. For master to admire them, I cannot imagine just how strong they must be.”

“People call me the Greatest Under Heaven, but there are bound to be many eccentric people in the world. They may be authors, people cleaning up poop in a stable, and maybe even a scholar who just enjoys the world by quietly reading. Since all of them live in the world based on their own will, there is no such thing as absolute in the world. That is why you need to study for all of your life.”

Hearing his master’s thoughtful words for the first time in a while, Yulian realized he still had a long way to go and asked about other places. Chun Myung Hoon started to tell Yulian about the amazing stories from the many places he visited.

The day was growing dark as they continued to chat like that. Once it became night time, they felt like they could not do anything else that day and left the quicksand river to pitch the mobile paoe and laid down.

They were going to rest tonight and look for it again tomorrow.

“Let us slowly move up the quicksand river starting tomorrow. The fact that Pareia has never seen such a ship should mean that they do not come this way often. If we slowly make our way up, we should run into them at some point.

Yulian nodded his head at his master’s words and laid his head down.

Morning came again and the master-disciple duo rode on top of Shopping as they slowly made their way up the quicksand river.

After talking for three days, they didn’t have anything left to really talk about. Since he was bored, Chun Myung Hoon had Shopping crawl while helping fix any errors in Yulian’ martial arts, as well as starting to teach him some new skills.

Another week passed by like that.

Same as what they had been doing for the past week, Yulian and Chun Myung Hoon finished their light sparring and started to eat the mobile meals they brought with them.

“Anyways, is it okay for you to leave the tribe for this long?”

Although Chun Myung Hoon didn’t care about the tribe’s matters, he knew that no matter what group it was, it was never a good thing for the leader to leave for a long time. That was why he was worried and decided to ask. Yulian shrugged his shoulders like there were no problems and answered.

“Pere is there and Grace is there as well. Honestly, while I was focused on the training with the warriors as well as my own training, Grace look care of all the issues in the tribe. Pere also has a keen eye for government, so if Pere is there helping her, there should be no problem. Plus, right now, there is nothing big that might happen, and we are focused on stabilizing the tribe.

“What about the Shuarei?”

“Since they lost 20,000 warriors and 3 Greatest Warriors in this war, for a few years, they should be focused on defending their own oases. In addition, Yarumaha, the chief of the Cold Oasis, and the Angry Brandistock Vibli were told to endlessly irritate the Northern territory, so their attention should be focused there right now. The Rivolde are in the Northwest as well.”

“Even so, if the head of an organization disappears, it becomes a bag of bones. Let’s finish this quickly and head back. I also might die from eating this tasteless thing.”

At Chun Myung Hoon’s grumbling, Yulian started to smile. There was just one thing his master complained about. Food.

“Of course. I have a strong feeling that we will really discover it today.”

Yulian’s strong intuition took four more days to be correct.

That thing cut through the glare of the bright sun bouncing off the sand as it appeared in front of Chun Myung Hoon and Yulian.

“Oh! It exists!”

Chun Myung Hoon was also shocked at this ship that could move across the desert and shouted with admiration.

What appeared in front of them had a length of approximately 30 meters, width of 10 meters, and height of approximately 20 meters. It has three large triangular masts, as well as two smaller rectangular masts.

Seeing as how it had an upper deck on top of the deck, the inside of the ship was probably designed the same way. Just looking at it, you could tell it was a large and cool looking ship.

The fast flowing quicksand and the strong winds that blew across the quicksand river increased the ship’s speed to unbelievable levels.

There was nothing they could ride in the desert that could bring forth that much speed.

“Shopping! Follow after it!”

Yulian shouted loudly and Shopping understood his master’s command as he started to chase after the ship.

But feeling like Shopping was hesitating, Yulian started to speak.

“I think he is scared of that ship. His eyes are completely frozen.”

“Since he used to live here in the quicksand river, he might know about that ship. The fact that he is scared should mean that it is pretty strong.”

Chun Myung Hoon stared at the ship while debating whether to just run over and climb on board.

At that time, there was some commotion on the ship, as if they noticed Shopping. One of the masts folded.

“They seem to have found us.”

“I’m sure they have just seen this punk. Normal people cannot see us from that distance.”

“They are doing a quick turn.”

“It is an amazing speed. For something that size to turn that quickly, if thi was the ocean, they would not be able to do that.”

Since Yulian had never seen this place called the ocean, he just nodded his head and asked.

“Do you think they are trying to capture Shopping?”

“The fact that he is scared should mean that the ship has caught many Sand Dragons until now. What should we do?”

“What do you mean?”

“Since we are curious about the ship’s abilities, are we going to face them once before you climb on board? Or Are you going to shout and let them know we are here before climbing on?”

Yulian wanted to see the abilities of this ship he had seen for the first time. That was because his focus was on how much this ship that can move across the quicksand could help him reach his goal.

“Let’s lightly observe their abilities first.”

“Since Shopping is extremely scared, protect him well. It will be troublesome if he suddenly decides to dive into the quicksand before you know it.”

“Yes.”

Yulian answered before patting Shopping’s head.

Shopping felt like he was going to die. He knew quite a bit about that ship. It was the ship that brought death upon tens of his kind.

There were still some of his kind that didn’t know, but the ones who did would curl up inside the quicksand as soon as they saw that ship. That was how afraid they were of that ship.

But his masters didn’t know about that and were trying to kill him. He was following orders because he was afraid of the beating that would come from the masters who were extremely close to him, but if his life was in danger, he was ready to run away into the quicksand at any moment.

The ship quickly started to approach them. Shopping moved left and right to try to move to the back of the ship, but the masts on the ship moved in a multitude of directions to always maintain a direct look at Shopping.

“Load!”

There was a loud shout from the ship and they heard some rattling on the ship’s deck.

“Cross Bow[2]?”

Yulian remembered the things he saw in books as he shouted.

“It is huge. I have seen that weapon before. Isn’t it too big to be called a Cross Bow? I believe it is the weapon called the Volley Star (a weapon shaped like a cross bow with an extremely large arrow).”

“What would happen to Shopping if he was hit by it?”

“One hit kill. I’m curious to see how they will pull up the dead monster.”

Shopping felt a chill go down his spine and Yulian put on a bitter smile as he started to speak.

“Grace cares so much about this punk lately, if he dies, I’m sure we will have to face her wrath.”

“Who said we will kill him? I just said I was curious.”

Chun Myung Hoon casually answered before looking toward the Volley Star and asking.

“Are you going to keep watching?”

Yulian took out his greatsword and answered.

“I want to see its strength.”

“You take care of it.”

Chun Myung Hoon sat down behind Yulian and started to admire the ship. It wasn’t that he had never seen a ship before, but the method they used to make a ship here was very different than back in China.

In addition, where would Chun Myung Hoon have seen a ship that could leave the water?

Chun Myung Hoon was starting to get greedy and wanted to have at least one of those for himself.

The people on the ship never even considered the fact that there may be people on top of the Sand Dragon’s head, and even the crew members who saw something move just assumed it was the Sand Dragon moving around. They prepared to catch Shopping.

“We will see some money for the first time in a while.”

The First Mate of the Desert Runner, Technol, shouted toward the captain in joy.

Thriger McDullah, the Captain of the Desert Runner, the man called the Looney Matroos (Man of the Ocean) by his crew, shouted in joy as well.

“The Sand Dragon’s Monster’s Soul is good money. Bow Man, is the Volley Star not ready yet?”

“We are preparing it, Captain!”

“Hurry it up if you want to drink enough rum to twist your nose tonight.”

“Just two left!”

Once the Bow Men shouted loudly, Thriger took a close look at the target. Based on its size, it was already an old monster. The Monster’s Soul should be big, and thinking that they got a big one for the first time in a while, Thriger excitedly moved the key here and there before turning the ship a bit to make sure the Bow Men could accurately shoot the Volley Star.

“The Volley Star is ready to go.”

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[1] The li, also known as the Chinese mile, is a traditional Chinese unit of distance. The li has varied considerably over time but was usually about a third as long as the English mile and now has a standardized length of a half-kilometer.

[2] Crossbow is usually one word, but the author has it written in English as Cross Bow, so I will keep it that way.