The sailors couldn’t stop exclaiming.
Fern had to stand up and smilingly dismiss them.
"Don’t just stand there, scatter! Go and set up your tents quickly!"
"Captain, you should rest first. I’ll call you when it’s time." Serdur volunteered.
He had done the least today, apart from treating the wounded on the ship, he barely moved, and his spirits were the best.
"I’ll leave it to you then." Gauss didn’t say much.
He quickly opened the door, and together with Ying and Aaliyah, the three of them entered the folding house.
The door closed softly behind them.
The noise and the cool sea breeze outside were instantly isolated.
The interior seemed more spacious than the outside.
Gentle magic lamps lit up the living room, and the air was filled with a refreshing faint scent of grass and wood.
"Wow, the interior is quite nice." Aaliyah touched here and there, full of praise.
It was her first time here too.
"Indeed, it’s not bad." Gauss was also pleased, at least in comfort, it was many times better than a tent.
The house was divided into two floors, and besides the living room, kitchen, and bathroom, there were six rooms in total.
They had more than enough space to live in.
"Use the house’s energy sparingly," Gauss reminded. "Remember to turn off the lights when you leave a room."
All the energy in the folding house was provided by a magic stone placed as the energy source.
And one piece cost several gold coins.
Much more expensive than electricity bills from the past life.
"Okay."
Soon, the three split up, each selecting a room they were satisfied with and then drifted into a dream.
...
The next day.
Gauss stretched.
He was the last night watch.
Besides him, there were also a few other crew members of the Seagull on watch.
At this moment, along the sea and sky horizon, a red sun was slowly rising.
The night had finally passed.
Thinking about this, he looked towards the distant mountains again.
Last night was not peaceful.
There was even a noticeable tremor akin to an earthquake.
Everyone sleeping was shaken awake by the sound as if the earth and mountains were shaking.
Until the tremors did not further intensify, they succumbed to sleepiness and returned to sleep.
When the crew gradually woke up,
the people on the Seagull had no plans to stay on the island any longer, and didn’t even bother with breakfast.
After confirming that the breach on the Seagull was fully repaired, they eagerly got on the small boat to return to the Seagull.
Set sail!
The Seagull quickly left the vicinity of the island.
Everyone was put on edge by the tremors of the previous night.
If it weren’t too dangerous to sail at night, they might have left overnight.
Fortunately, it turned out to be without danger.
"Let’s return to Sen City as soon as possible." Fern looked at the vast ocean, eager to return home.
The Seagull sailed steadily on the return route, the dawn painting the sea in golden red.
On the deck, though the sailors still carried a hint of fear, their faces were also filled with the joy of harvesting, busily tallying and sorting the spoils of the battle.
Primarily brought by the second encounter with the goblin pirates.
All valuable items on the mothership had been dismantled and transported to the Seagull.
The loot mainly included three light ballistae dismantled from the ship, reinforced iron-clad rams, various special ironwood planks, sails, and ropes.
A small pouch mixed with gold coins, silver coins, and copper coins—accumulated from the goblins’ long-term plundering.
Some intact gold and silver jewelry, necklaces, rings, bracelets, and so forth, although regrettably ordinary accessories, not magic items.
Besides these, there were also damp spices, bundles of fairly decent furs, and various iron tools and weapons.
Several merchant ships must have met a cruel fate.
Nonetheless, Gauss and the others’ gains from this venture were considerable.
Monsters with the profession of bandits were actually quite welcome; after all, they lived off extorting others, thus their wealth was beyond compare to normal monster groups, being more likely to yield more gold coins.
If it were in Gray Rock Town, commissions like this might have been quickly snatched up by waiting professionals called "order-grabbers" as soon as they came out, never reaching Gauss and the others.
But at Sen City’s East District Branch, Gauss and the others had a bit of privilege, allowing them to pick commissions at ease before other adventurers.
That’s how they secured this lucrative task.
Even the other thirty-something crew members were very pleased.
While Gauss’s team feasted on meat, those drinking soup also got a considerable share of the profits.
The earnings from this commission run were enough to support them without needing to work for quite some time.
Of course, most of them, after a brief stay on land, would likely choose to continue heading out to sea.
Such was the fate of sailors; going out to sea was their livelihood, requiring them to stay on the ocean for extended periods, feeling uneasy when back on land.
Not far away, Captain Fern approached Gauss holding several scrolls.
"These are charts of the surrounding seas, might be useful to you." He paused. "And there’s this as well."
He pulled out a slightly old, edge-worn tanned leather from the charts and handed it to Gauss.
Gauss took a closer look.
The leather had crude drawings in dark red ochre paint.
By his understanding, the twisted lines represented coastlines or mountain ranges. Among the various textures were several marks of unclear meaning, as well as a line of blurred writing seemingly in an ancient dialect.
"Looks like a treasure map, quite convincing." Gauss observed for a while.
Fern waved his hand dismissively.
"Keep it, but don’t take it too seriously. On this vast ocean, there are not ten thousand but at least eight thousand such ’treasure maps’, and the vast majority are made by idle folks or those with ulterior motives. Who knows from which unlucky merchant ship these goblins scavenged this from, treat it as an amusing souvenir."
Gauss did not refuse.
He reached out and accepted this so-called "treasure map."
The images on it were too abstract. Even if someone wanted to search based on its content, no direction could be found in a short time.
Perhaps the writing on it could be a breakthrough.
Returning later, he could learn a 1st-level spell to comprehend the language and take a look.
However, understanding languages isn’t all-powerful or rather, its function is quite limited.
For certain ancient scripts, it can only comprehend superficial information, while deeper secrets remain undecipherable.
"Thanks, I’ll keep it to look at when I have time."
The Seagull surged through the waves.
Time unknowingly slipped by another day.
In the morning, the Seagull tore through the azure sea, the bow plowing white waves; the outline of Sen City’s southeast port gradually became clear, magnified.
The bustling of the dock, the cries of seagulls, the distant busy figures of energetic longshoremen coming and going... The vitality of the mainland was overwhelming.
The lively scene made Gauss, who had been away from land for several days, somewhat nostalgic.
Because they needed a place to sell the spoils of this journey, the Seagull did not return to the small port they departed from but instead chose one of the larger, more prosperous main ports closer to Sen City’s commercial area.
As the Seagull slowly moved into a berth, dropping the heavy iron anchor, the din of the dock enveloped everyone instantly.
Gauss looked around, the port was vibrant.
Various ships were docked all around, from majestic multi-masted sailing vessels, large ocean-going merchant ships multiple times the Seagull’s length, to those that looked intimidating, flying unique adventure group flags, and armed ships that reflected the hard metallic glow under sunlight.
"That’s the Big Snake Adventurer Group’s armed ship!"
Fern noticed Gauss’s gaze and introduced it.
Gauss, hearing the name, turned to look at Serdur.
"It has nothing to do with us half-snake men."
"Indeed, the Big Snake Adventurer Group is one of the most renowned large local adventurer groups in Sen City, led by the leader Kidd Vives, a powerful bloodline mage with snake blood." Fern continued to explain.
This wasn’t any secret, but rather common public knowledge.
"Vives..." Gauss heard the familiar surname again.
Is he from the same clan as Adelle?
In those few days, he hadn’t heard her mention this name, but strictly speaking, aside from the initial brief introduction to complete a family commission, she hardly mentioned any more about the Vives Clan.