The bright street lights illuminated the streets, but walking on the deserted streets under the sea made Charles feel a little weird.
"Prepare your weapons and be careful." Charles kept reminding the sailors around him using flag signals.
Above them, the Narwhal's pitch-black torpedo ports were open, ready to attack any enemy that appeared.
"Wow" ~ A flash of white appeared at the end of the distant street. Charles saw it, but he did not chase it.
"There's something here. They've started to notice us." Charles' heart was hanging.
Charles knew he couldn't just sit there and wait for death, so as he waved his hand slightly, Dipper next to him slowly swam away.
Pretending nothing had happened, Charles led his crew members and walked slowly forward along the street. He did not let the crew members enter the surrounding buildings to explore, so as to avoid being ambushed by the thing just now.
The place became more and more weird, and at this moment, he suddenly missed Feuerbach's shark very much.
Perhaps Charles' lack of reaction gave the other party the illusion of paralysis. A few minutes later, a white head quietly poked out again from the roof of a small building two hundred meters away from Charles.
As he was quietly watching Charles and the others, he didn't notice that a hideous and terrifying fishman was swimming above his head.
"Wow~" Dipper waved his hands and pounced directly at the thing with his teeth and claws bared.
"Captain!! I caught it! It's a kid!" Dipper shouted in the water with his gills wide open.
Charles, wearing a heavy diving suit, rushed over immediately, and soon he saw the guy in Dipper's hand who had been monitoring him.
He looked very ordinary, with a white baseball cap on his head and brightly colored children's clothes on his body. His entire body was dressed completely in line with the attire of a child on the surface. He was not an underwater monster, just a boy.
The child seemed to be frightened by Dipper's terrifying appearance. He twisted his body and struggled, shouting for help.
"Earthsea language? This boy can communicate?"
Charles thought about it quickly and pointed upwards. It was not convenient to ask here. Since he had caught the tongue, he had to ask carefully.
All the divers' large submersible tubes began to retract, pulling them upwards over the Narwhal, with Dipper grabbing the kid and following closely behind.
Inside the Narwhal's decompression chamber, as the sea water slowly dropped, when the child saw Charles' face behind the glass, the extremely frightened expression on his face disappeared for the most part.
Charles stopped the bandage outside the decompression chamber and opened the door. He turned his head and looked at the boy in front of him who was only about eight or nine years old.
"Do you understand what I'm saying?" Charles asked.
"Who are you? Why are you arresting me? I didn't do anything. I was just taking a look. Is it not okay for me to just take a look?" He answered in panic.
Charles was relieved when he saw that the other party was able to negotiate. It was much easier to communicate. This was the first time in all these years that Charles had met a native who could communicate so fluently.
"Don't hurt me. I don't have much. I can give you all my points. I was wrong. I shouldn't have sneaked out of the shelter."
As the little boy said this, he was about to touch Charles' hand, but what greeted him was a rapidly spinning chainsaw.
Scarlet blood kept dripping onto the floor of the decompression chamber. The boy screamed in fear, holding his right hand with the middle finger nail cut off, and his feet kept shaking.
"Stop making noise! It's so annoying!" Second mate Krona slapped the boy, knocking him unconscious.
"Your actions made me overreact a little bit. I'm sorry, but we just came into contact, so it's best not to do anything abnormal. Fortunately, the misunderstanding is not serious, just some minor injuries."
Charles' words did not bring the boy out of his daze. He stood there motionless, as if his computer had frozen.
"Pa~" Charles' hand, covered by a thick diving suit, gently patted his shoulder, causing the boy to tremble all over. His expression froze and he was almost on the verge of collapse, and a stream of yellow liquid flowed out from under him.
All signs indicated that the child was just an ordinary boy, but Charles remained vigilant.
You know, no child can breathe underwater, whether on the surface or in the sea.
Charles walked to the door of the decompression chamber and spoke something to the bandages outside through a crack.
Soon he brought some things over, one of which was a mind printer and some sugar cubes.
"What's your name?" Charles asked the first question after placing the printer on the ground.
Surrounded by a group of men wearing heavy diving suits, who were twice his height, the boy resisted the urge to cry and opened his mouth several times before finally opening it. "Po... Pogro..."
"Squeak~Squeak~" The printer started moving, and the data it displayed proved that the other party was not lying. The boy's name was Bogro.
"Well, Pogro, tell me, where is this island?" Charles put a candy in his mouth.
"No. 68" As the water droplets on Pogro's brown hair slowly dripped, the sweetness of the sugar seemed to work, at least his body was not shaking as violently as before.
"Island No. 68? This naming method is quite characteristic of the Foundation." Charles thought to himself.
"Is there anyone else on the island besides you?" Charles asked.
Bogro nodded, "Well... they are in the shelter below the street. The mayor said that there is great danger recently and we must not come out."
Mayor? It seems that the people on this island still maintain normal order, which is a good thing.
"Then do you see a huge key on this island No. 68? Just help me find the key and I will put you back right away."
As if he had heard the possibility of returning home, Bogro's eyes, which were filled with fear, suddenly lit up.
He reached out and pulled out a round-handled key from around his neck, "You want a key, how about this key? This is the key to my front door."
Charles shook his head. "Not this kind of key. See the ship we are on now? That key is 10 times bigger than this ship."
Bogro looked at Krona, who was watching him closely, fearfully, and said hesitantly, "I don't know."
Charles asked again for some details, but the other party knew very little. He could not answer any questions about either the foundation or the key.
Just as Charles was thinking about how to get more clues out of him, the bandage outside the decompression chamber pushed the door open.
"Captain... there's something outside... flying over here."
(End of this chapter)