June 14, the eighth year of time travel, sunny
"The vague whispering in my ears has appeared again recently. It's a sound that doesn't sound like a sound. It's chaotic and dark. This garbage place is really not a place for people to stay.
My first mate, Old John, told me that I could try his method to find the sweet-smelling girls in the Red Lips Inn.
I admit that I had this thought in my mind, but I finally held back. I couldn't waste my hard-earned Echo Coins in a place like that, and I couldn't relax for even a moment in order to get home.
Humans are a species that lives on the ground. If humans can appear in the underground sea, then it proves that there must be a way back to the ground. I must find it!
I dreamed about my family again yesterday. I miss them, but I can hardly remember what they look like… "
Charles Read was interrupted in his writing by the sudden shaking of the Rat.
The old oil lamp placed next to the diary illuminated the face of its owner. With black pupils and black hair, he had a normal Asian face, but his face was so white that it was almost transparent, like a vampire in a movie.
From a modern perspective, Charles looks quite handsome, but at this moment he looked heavy and tired, and appeared extremely haggard.
After listening attentively to the sound of the waves outside the window for a while and finding nothing unusual, Charles picked up the pen and started writing again.
"I don't need those special service workers. Writing a diary can also improve my auditory hallucinations. I can sleep for 5 hours every night recently. I haven't slept so soundly for a long time.
Of course, following the example of those predecessors who wrote diaries, I deliberately wrote in a language that only I can understand, Chinese characters. "
"Squeak~~" A harsh metal friction sound came from outside the window, and the sound was like something scratching the bottom of the boat with sharp nails.
"Snap." The diary was closed, and Charles, with a frown on his face, walked towards the round porthole.
He stuck his head out and found that outside the porthole was the same as what he saw eight years ago, the lightless sky and the dark green sea formed a dark curtain in the distance.
Darkness rules everything in the Earthsea. It seems as if some monster is brewing in the darkness, and everything is weird.
But here, there is no starry sky, no moon. If someone looks up with a night vision telescope, all they can see is the uneven underground rock formations.
This is Earthsea, an ocean located underground. Endless darkness is the main theme here, and the darkness proves that everything is normal.
Looking out the normal window, Charles frowned even more tightly. His sailing experience in the past few years told him that there must be something wrong, so he decided to go and take a look.
Charles opened the bedside table, and hundreds of golden bullets inside rolled left and right with the waves.
He pulled out the revolver from his waist, loaded the bullets skillfully, and walked towards the cab.
"Captain, why are you so early today? It's not your shift yet."
The man at the helm in the cockpit was a fat old man with an unshaven beard. On the chair to his left was a young boy of about seventeen or eighteen years old sleeping sideways. The sailor suit he wore revealed his identity. Both of them looked like Eastern Europeans, and like Charles, their faces were pale as hell.
"First mate, why is the Mouse a bit bumpy? Is the course normal?" Charles asked John who was at the helm.
After he said that, he walked over and kicked the leg of the chair, waking the boy up.
When the boy saw that it was his captain coming, he quickly wiped the saliva from the corner of his mouth with his hand and climbed up from the chair in a hurry.
"Haha, it's probably the underwater creatures that smelled our flesh again. You know, there are more disgusting things in the sea than fish. Don't worry, the Mouse is an iron ship, they can't ram it open." The fat old man said as he took a step back and gave the steering wheel to his captain.
Listening to the first mate's report, Charles still did not let down his guard.
In this strange place, humans are no longer at the top of the food chain, and the only thing they can rely on to survive is caution.
Between the sea surface and the cockpit is a deck filled with cargo. The whole ship does not look large, being only about thirty meters long.
"The route to the Coral Islands has been traveled many times by various cargo ships. It's impossible for those things to come here to ask for trouble. It's a bit abnormal." Charles held the steering wheel that was polished to a shine, his brows tightly locked.
Old John was stunned. "Did we deviate from the route? That's impossible. Look, the navigation mark is still far away."
He pointed his finger at the faint light in the distance and said.
In the underground ocean without stars, the only things that can point the way are the compass and the bright beacons placed on the route. As long as you can see the beacons, it proves that this route is a safe route discovered by the exploration ship.
At this moment, Charles, who was looking at the sea, suddenly shrank his pupils to the smallest and swallowed hard. "That...that beacon, how long have you been looking at it?"
"Probably for a few minutes. I was staring at it without moving." At the end, Old John's voice gradually became lower, and a trace of fear appeared on his fat face.
After sailing for such a long time, we haven't passed this beacon yet. Obviously, the beacon is moving at the same speed as the steamship. There is something wrong with it!
Suddenly, Charles seemed to be wound up, and he turned the steering wheel frantically with both hands and turned the rudder to the left as far as possible.
With a creaking sound of metal, the steamship beneath them began to turn. Fortunately, the boat turned around quickly, and the Mouse began to distance itself from the strange beacon.
Before Charles could breathe a sigh of relief, the boy next to him pointed at the glass window behind him, his eyes widened as if he had seen a ghost.
"Ship... Captain! That thing is approaching us! So fast!! It's going to catch up!"
"Damn it!" Charles yelled into a nearby communication channel, "Second Engineer! Turn the turbocharger to maximum! Something is chasing us!!"
"Yes, Captain!" A simple and honest voice came from the iron pipe.
Thick black smoke continued to billow from the ship's chimney and the speed of the steamship began to increase.
"It's still getting closer!! It's so fast! It's about to catch up with us! Oh my god! What kind of monster is that!"
The boy's voice rose several degrees due to extreme fear, and his whole body was shaking like a sieve, as if he was about to go into shock.
"Dipper! Close your eyes!" Charles, who was in a state of extreme tension, kicked him on the calf and knocked him to the ground.
John, who was standing next to him, pressed his head firmly to the floor with his hands, and yelled at him frantically with a red face: "Don't look, don't listen, don't think! The captain will take us back."
As soon as he finished speaking, there was a loud "bang", the cabin shook violently, and the two people on the ground rolled into a ball. Charles held on to the rudder tightly to avoid being thrown out.
"Captain, it's hitting us!"
Charles' face was ashen, and his cheeks were slightly bulging because he was clenching his teeth.
He put his mouth close to the pipe and shouted, "Second Engineer! The turbine will be overloaded for thirty seconds!"
"Captain! No! This thing is too old!! It will explode!"
(End of this chapter)