Just as the two were chatting casually, suddenly, Bandage felt something and turned his head to look to the left.
On the dark sea, a semi-elliptical black shadow, larger than the Narwhal, was floating towards this side.
Just as Bandage was about to turn the steering wheel to steer the Narwhal away, Charles pressed his hand on the steering wheel, stopping it.
"Wait, that's not some dirty thing in the sea. I've seen that thing before. It's a ship of the Hik Tribe."
A minute later, Charles stood on the deck, frowning as he watched the turtle-shell ship drifting next to the Narwhal.
The ship seemed to have suffered some unknown attack. There were cracks all over its hard shell, making it look very miserable.
"This...maybe...is...a dead ship..." Bandage said slowly.
Dead ships at sea generally refer to those dead ghost ships, but in order to distinguish them from real ghost ships, this type of ship is called dead ships.
Charles frowned as he looked at the ship in front of him. Generally speaking, in the dark sea, it is very dangerous to rashly approach a dead ship.
But if the Hik tribe had not rescued him before, the Narwhal would have become a dead ship.
Since these indifferent giants had helped me, it would be a bit unreasonable for me to just run away now that they were in trouble.
"Audric, fly over and take a look." The bat soared into the sky and quickly circled the turtle ship several times. Soon he came back.
"Captain, sound waves can't penetrate the turtle shell. There's no movement at all. It looks like there's really no one there."
"Is it really a dead ship?" Charles thought for a moment, then returned to the cockpit and blew the whistle.
"Woo~Woo~" The low whistle of the Narwhal echoed in the dark ocean.
Blowing the whistle in unexplored waters is a very risky thing because you don't know what underwater will be attracted by the sound.
Looking at the turtle shell still drifting with the current, Charles waved his hand and signaled to start the boat.
He had done the most he could to this extent. It would be too much to send his own crew to look for survivors there.
"Da" Just as the Narwhal was about to set sail again, a square turtle shell on the left side of the turtle ship suddenly opened, and a shriveled arm like a zombie stretched out from it.
"Water..." The perceptive Charles heard the extremely weak voice.
Several iron wine jugs filled with fresh water were grabbed by the bats and thrown over.
"Gulp~Gulp~" Even though he was several meters away, Charles could hear the extremely thirsty sound of drinking water. Judging from the sound, there was no one in this turtle shell boat.
Under the bright searchlight, a haggard giant from the Hek tribe, who looked like a zombie, poked his head out of his turtle shell.
He opened his lips that were so dry and bleeding and continued to shout, "Water, give me water."
This time, Odric lifted a large bucket, and the sound of sucking fresh water violently came from the turtle shell again.
"Captain... there is a strong stench of corpses in there. Many people must have died." With his fangs exposed, Audric leaned over and whispered in Charles' ear.
"Look at how thirsty they are, it's impossible that no one is dead." Charles continued to look at the turtle-shell ship in front of him.
Soon the haggard giant crawled out again and again asked for fresh water.
Just as Bandage ordered the sailors to prepare fresh water again, he was stopped by Charles. "How many people are on your ship?"
He really wanted to help, but helping did not mean ignoring his own actual situation. The Narwhal also needed fresh water, and he had to give priority to his crew.
After quickly estimating the amount of fresh water needed and the remaining days of the journey, Charles asked them, "How much fresh water do you Heike people need every day?"
"At most we only need three liters."
"Very good, then I will give you 20 liters of fresh water every day. The fresh water on the boat is enough to sustain us back to Broken Heart Island."
The man from the Hik tribe showed a trace of relief on his face. "Thank you, Captain. We will report your selfless dedication to the King of Broken Heart Island, and he will definitely repay you!!"
Charles didn't care whether to repay or not. If someone saved him once, he could save someone else once.
"Can your boat move? If not, throw the boat rope over here and I'll pull you along."
Soon, a funny scene appeared on the dark sea: a streamlined steamship was pulling a large turtle shell.
Of course, in order to prevent accidents, Charles specifically asked Odrick to turn into a bat, hang upside down at the stern and stare closely, just to be on guard against others.
Although he planned to save these people, he did not think that they were necessarily good people. Perhaps these guys were pirates from the Haik tribe.
In the first few hours, the two ships were at peace, but at meal time, the other side made a strange request.
"Captain Charles, do you have any extra sea salt on board? I need some."
"Are you short of food on your ship?" Charles asked the giant named Aginor.
"We don't lack food, we just need sea salt, which we can buy from you with gold coins."
It was just a little bit of salt, Charles didn't care at all and asked Odrick to send a bag over.
In the next few days, the two ships were in peace and nothing unusual happened.
But on the fifth day, Charles always heard a hoarse and strange sound in his sleep. Even the sound was vibrating with a "clucking" sound, which obviously did not sound like it came from a human.
Charles originally thought that his auditory hallucinations had started again, but soon he discovered that other crew members had the same problem, and his attention immediately turned to the turtle-shell ship.
Charles didn't hide anything and asked them directly to their faces.
"Captain Charles, don't worry, there won't be that kind of sound again, and the previous sound won't have any effect on you."
Faced with this answer, Charles didn't say anything. He looked deeply at the giant opposite, then turned and left.
Seeing Charles on the opposite side leave, Ajino breathed a sigh of relief. He retracted into his turtle shell and crawled quickly between the honeycomb-like grids.
Not long after he left, the rope connecting the two ships sank slightly for no apparent reason.
Finally, Ajino crawled down in front of the darkest corner. With an extremely respectful tone, he said to the darkness: "Dear God's messenger, the humans in front of us can sense your voice in their dreams, please keep your voice down."
"Giggle, giggle~" With a trill, a monster with evil, reflective skin crawled out of the darkness. It had a trumpet-shaped suction cup... a lizard-like body, and its limbs were stiffly bent at the elbows and resting on the ground.
Ajino seemed to understand the meaning of the gurgling sound and retreated respectfully.
Soon, he came back holding a half-rotten corpse of the Haik tribe.
Aginor smeared the corpse with salt he got from the Narwhal and brought it to the deformed monster.
(End of this chapter)