Inside the stinky water full of unknown floating substance, the Luminous Stone slowly reached the bottom and helped Angor see the nature of the shadow.
“It’s a ship?” He knew so because he already saw the empty pole masts and the drifting remains of cloth hanging onto it.
Sunken ships were not strange in this world, but the ship at the bottom of this isolated lake was.
He already checked around the lake and saw no canals that connected the lakewater to the outside. Before considering how the ship was destroyed, he would like to know how it ended up here.
Was it possible that a repairman brought the ship here for maintenance, then he realized that he couldn’t move the ship back out and just abandoned it?
No. That was so stupid.
The lake was obviously not a good choice for repairing ships. And besides, it was too small for the extra-large vessel, which seemed to be a cargo ship.
He jumped into the water under the effect of the Purification Field. After making sure there were no underwater tunnels for transporting the ship, he moved closer to check the ship itself.
It was placed right in the middle of the lake. When looking up close, the ship didn’t appear as big as when looking from above the water.
He knew it was for transporting heavy goods, but he couldn’t ascertain which era it came from since he wasn’t so good at nautical history as Helen and Erwin.
He entered the cabin but did not find anything that could help him tell more information about the ship other than more debris.
He then moved to the bottom area and saw the structural keel had snapped from the middle. By looking at the damage, he assumed that the keel was smashed open by a large force.
The only thing that might unleash such strong power should be a giant sea monster. Yet there were no such things in this lake. Or rather, there weren’t ANY creatures here.
There were also no noticeable items in the ship apart from someone’s broken bones. The cargo area as well as the captain’s room were completely empty.
With nothing else to do, Angor returned to the surface.
For now, the two biggest question marks regarding the ship was its origin and what destroyed it. Neither could be answered if he could not find an “entrance” for the ship or monsters to reach this lake.
“Don’t tell me it fell from the sky...?”
An idea suddenly came to his mind.
In his memory, there was another ship that appeared out of nowhere and disappeared into the unknown, which was The Feather Fan. The same thing could happen again, no doubt.
He looked up at the sky, which was completely dark.
Could it be that this whole area was another dimension that worked like a trap that randomly caught unlucky ships from Devil’s Water and dropped them here?
And if this ship fell from the sky, the suddenly flat drop on the water surface was deadly enough to break it in half.
Likely.
He glanced at the edge of the lake where the cooking pot was. Perhaps somebody survived the fall and remained there.
“Then they still met the inevitable because of the lack of food...”
With this in mind, he searched around the “campsite” hoping to find more corpses. Whoever swam away from the broken ship was in no condition to travel too far.
As expected, Toby soon found two white skeletons and carried them back.
One of them had a necklace with an iron casket attached to it. Also, Angor remembered seeing this item before—some of the sailors working on The Limpet also had these necklaces.
Similar to dog tags, these small caskets were used for keeping the sailors’ death wills and identification. When sailing on the sea, they would never know when a sudden disaster would claim their lives. If by some miracle, someone came and salvaged their bodies, then they could at least send their last regards and personal valuables back to their homes.
Even though the valuables would be looted by who discovered them most of the time. In these cases, the looters would consider the valuables as their payment for sending the bodies back. There was a rumor among sailors that those who “took stuff and left” would suffer from great curses. Of course, it was only a rumor.
Since the ship didn’t contain anything interesting, he picked up the iron casket, hoping to finally find something useful in it.
The container wasn’t big—about 3 centimeters in length. And it was badly rusted.
After opening the casket and waiting for the dust cloud to settle, he saw a cracked ruby ring and a piece of folded parchment inside.
The ring was probably the “payment” for whoever took the body to their family.
The body’s name was written on the front of the parchment. Gablin Frando, from the Red Maple Republic, a nation located at Magus Corridor.
Compared to the neat characters that explained this man’s identity and address, the remaining phrases below looked rather messy, probably because Gablin wasn’t in any condition to write carefully when leaving his last words.
The description of the sailor mostly proved Angor’s previous idea.
The ship under the lake was called The Black Lotus, which was a cargo carrier from Magus Corridor heading to Ferran. It accidentally ran into a strange mist while passing through Gearwheel Grave, and before everyone knew what was going on, the ship began to free-fall and ended up inside that lake. Gablin was lucky enough to stay alive, but he didn’t have much time without food and fresh water.
Also according to Gablin, The Black Lotus appeared here 300 years ago, which wasn’t too far in history. And secondly, Gablin left a strange question at the end of his message.
“Maybe my eyes are failing due to starvation... I think I saw a shadow. He looks just like the legendary Vile King.”
“Vile King? Legendary?” Angor mumbled. “Did Gablin actually see another individual roaming around here?”
It was possible. He just saw an unknown presence quickly escaping from his view, and he didn’t think he was hallucinating.
And it this was true, then this “Vile King-like character” had lived here for several centuries.
He would stay even more cautious from now on, knowing that a living threat might be lurking nearby.
He returned Gablin’s possessions since he wasn’t planning on helping the poor sailor get back home. His travel schedule didn’t involve going to Magus Corridor, which lay in the opposite direction of Land of Revelation.
He decided to look around the island for more, and hopefully, he would be able to discover Lucas’ treasures. Knowing that there were truth-finder wizards trying to get here, he preferred not to waste any time.
Together with Toby, they left the lake area and reached the plain ground on the other side of the island. He couldn’t see the sea yet, but the terrible smell in the wind suggested that the edge wasn’t far.
Darkness, dead trees, but no more human traces.
He walked through a dead palm grove and was shocked to see more abandoned ships left at the coastal area in front of him.
A lot of them.
Expedition ships, icebreakers, cruisers, pirate ships... He could almost find every type of ship he could think of. But just like The Feather Fan, every single one of them was deserted.
The coast wasn’t completely dark because some of the ships still had Luminous Stones on them. However, the weak and pale light only made the whole sight creepier.
“A graveyard for ships...” Angor muttered.
Suppose this strange place was a “trap” that occasionally pulled ships inside, why were The Feather Fan and The Black Lotus separated from the rest while all the remaining ships gathered at one spot?
By traveling from The Feather Fan to here, Angor could almost see the entire island on his way, yet he didn’t find any place to hide treasures. Was Lucas referring to this graveyard then?