Chapter 524: The Hijackers [Part 1]
Northern leaned on the rails of the airship, observing the gentle clouds as it glided through them, flowing with the current of the winds.
It was almost as if the ship was alive; the gentle hums made it feel like they were riding on a wooden vessel built upon the back of a floating abomination.
Sometimes Northern didn't want to believe this was a kind of vessel that had soul essence flowing through its veins. It sort of made it a living organism. Although, thinking about it crowned his head with aches.
He already had something to deal with. And that was the chaos he had seen.
He narrowed his eyes as he inspected the clouds of the sky, remembering what he saw. For a couple of seconds after he saw it, he had pondered over whether to tell anyone or not.
But telling anybody would mean giving himself away. The whole event was a shocker to begin with.
But it was going to cause a major drift in their journey; they were going to crash because of it, and the continuation of his journey would suddenly be made difficult.
Hence, he was baffled as to how he could deal with this. How he could deal with airship hijackers.
Northern grimaced a little bit. Then he leaned away from the rails, walking over to one of the sailors.
"Excuse me, sir."
The man, looking like he was in his late forties, with lines of aging stretching across his face here and there where they needed to be, responded, "Young man, do you need something?"
"What are the dangers of flying on an airship?"
The man did not look surprised by Northern's question. Instead, he smiled like it was a normal thing, saying, "This must be your first flight."
"Kind of..." Northern responded blankly.
He was too interested in the man's response to care about the politeness or even reciprocate it. Didn't mean that he was rude, however.
"Well, there are a lot of things that can hinder our journey. The greatest hindrance of them all is the weather. Although devices to help predict the unlikely behavior of the storms have been developed, sometimes the readings and predictions could go wrong. But this rarely happens, so I assure you, young man, you are on a safe ride."
Northern stared squarely at the man for a couple of seconds, suppressing the irritation he felt.
The man probably thought he was asking out of fear and felt the need to answer the emotion rather than the question, which pissed Northern off greatly.
But still, he shoved his emotion aside and pressed, "What are the chances of hijacking?"
The man's face froze for a second, his mouth slightly agape as he looked at Northern again, silent for a couple of seconds before he started his response.
"Young man," his voice rang, "Hijacking is not something that we just come across every now and then. You really do not need to be worried about it."
'He is doing it again.'
Northern grimaced, "You are not answering my question."
Seeing the dark expression on Northern's face, the man shivered a little, stuttering as he reaffirmed to Northern, "I can assure you that there wouldn't be any dangers in this journey. Everything will go on fine."
Northern's expression fully drew out his fury; he grabbed the sailor by the collar. "Do you think you are talking to a kid?!"
Only after saying it did he realize what he was saying. It didn't seem like an issue when he was in the dark continent because all that mattered was survival.
But now, faced with this old man, trying to find a way to save the ship before disaster befalls them and being treated like a kid scared of traveling by air was suddenly so disgusting and demeaning.
Alystren approached both of them as other sailors began to throw glances in their direction. "What's going on here?"
The old joker had his usual humorous face completely replaced by an intense look of rage. And Northern was its recipient.
Northern released the man's collar, lowered his head for a second, and muttered, "I'm sorry." Then he walked away briskly.
Alystren apologized more on his behalf before leaving the man, and the sailors continued whatever it was they were doing.
Alystren glanced at Northern where he was standing-beside the rail. Then he went inside the airship.
After a few seconds of going inside, Shin came outside and leaned right beside Northern.
"I assumed that this shouldn't be a stressful journey for you. It wasn't your first. But then again, I remember the trauma you've had with your first, so I figured that I was forgetting something."
Northern's gaze was lost in the distant clouds. He responded without retrieving them, "Every airship I had entered had left in disaster, one thing to another."
The academy, the damned promised airship from Raven, and the chaos spawn that was after their life. Now, this one with hijackers who were going to crash the whole thing.
'What's with me and airships?'
Shin, observing Northern's prolonged silence after his short sentence, avowed with a soft tone, "Nothing will happen to this ship, Northern. And there will be no disaster because I will protect you, whatever it costs."
At that moment, Northern finally retrieved his eyes from the sky and looked at his father,
letting out a small smile in a show of gratitude.
"I'm sorry for worrying you."
"Worry me all you want; it is what I want."
A second later, Northern frowned, looking forward. "Then I will tell you."
Shin looked at him, slightly puzzled but his eyes burning with a readiness to jump into flames
at his words.
"This ship will be attacked soon."
Shin's brows expanded.
"And how do I know? Well, let's say I have a visionary ability. As you would have guessed, my eyes are not normal," Northern explained briefly, pointing at his blue eyes.
Shin's expanded brows coalesced into a deep frown less than a second later, and he asked,
"What should we do?"
The question made Northern's eyes widen; he definitely wasn't expecting such a response. 'Shin, he really has changed a lot. Or has he always been like this?'
Northern was silent for a moment, bowing his head with a small chuckle before he raised it
back up.
"Well, we do every single thing to prevent this ship from crashing. I don't know who they are, but their luck just ran out because we are on this ship."