"January 11, 435
We are finally here. With the blessing of the Almighty, as long as I find the holy object, I can receive the initiation ceremony and become a true servant of the Holy Lord!"
This is the content of the last diary. From the title, we can see that the captain is a believer of the Futan religion. It is not difficult to guess that the Futan religion sent its believers before looking for Charles.
Charles asked the crew to check on other ships and found that the situations were similar. The captain's diaries recorded their excitement at the last moment.
Just when Charles couldn't figure out why, the thin chef Fred handed him a diary.
"Captain, look at this, this is a little different."
Charles took it and opened it. His pupils shrank to the smallest in an instant. He saw that the beige diary was full of messy words.
"Be careful! Don't go to the island, our own people!! They are not human!! They want to eat us! I don't want to be! I want to go back to the island, safe! On the island!"
The chaotic arrangement of various logically different phrases indicated that the man was mentally abnormal. This made everyone who read the diary feel a little creepy, and they were all wondering what the captain had experienced.
"Gudong" Dipp swallowed hard, retracted his head and looked vigilantly at his companions around him. The diary said that the danger came from their own people, so did that mean that there were monsters lurking around them
Charles knew what he was thinking and slapped him on the head with his diary. "Don't think about it. We haven't even reached the island yet."
"Captain, are we still going?" Dipper asked hesitantly.
"Of course I'll go." Charles' expression suddenly became determined. No matter what dangers there were on the island, it could not stop him from going home, even if he died on the road.
The Mouse slowly approached the beach. After the rusty anchor hit the water, the black smoke from the chimney slowly dissipated.
A wooden boat was launched and everyone approached the island together.
Looking at the dark island getting closer and closer, Charles opened a wooden box and distributed some flintlocks and revolvers. At the bottom were bundles of tightly packed explosives.
He purchased a lot of things specially for this mission.
With weapons, everyone calmed down a lot.
Seven strong men with weapons in their hands jumped off the canoe and walked across the beach towards the forest in the distance.
It is called a forest, but there is not a single green leaf. All the hideous branches seem to be covered with a thick layer of rust. All the tree trunks seem to have tumors, some are swollen and some are suddenly sunken.
Walking in it gives you the illusion of walking inside a human body.
The crew members all knew that their mission target was a golden statue of the god Ftan. Under the light of torches, they kept searching around for any shiny objects, but found nothing.
Not long after they walked, a group of scattered footprints appeared on the ground. Seeing the footprints, everyone felt a little relieved. The footprints at least proved that this road had been walked by other people, so it should be safer.
I don't know if I guessed right, but the seven people walked for nearly two hours and nothing unusual happened.
The tense atmosphere eased slightly when they gathered a bunch of branches and started a bonfire.
The white bread was roasted by the fire and smelled delicious. The crew members ate while guessing what happened to the missing people.
"You say a monster ate them? Like something from the sea."
"Not really. Some of those boats are people of the Futan religion. As you know, things in the sea rarely attack them. I think there is some danger on the island."
There was no danger on the island, which was undoubtedly very strange. He had read the records of many exploration captains and found that no island on the sea was safe.
The islands inhabited by humans today were occupied only after the dangers were eliminated through hard work.
Just like the coral islands before, when humans first came into contact with this coral island, they discovered that the island was actually alive. A fleet of more than 20 exploration ships launched a fierce battle with the giant coral. It was said that many people died before they finally killed it.
"Stop chatting. Let's find it after we finish eating. The longer we stay in this place, the more dangerous it will be."
After hearing Charles' words, the crew stopped chatting and began to swallow faster to briefly recover their strength. Then Charles and his crew continued on their journey.
"Captain, I heard that when we go back, we will take a big ship, right?" Dipper came over and asked in a low voice.
"Um."
"That's great! By then, I can manage a dozen sailors like the boatswain of other large ships. I won't be like now, with not even half a sailor under my command."
Charles glanced at the enthusiastic boy and raised the corners of his mouth. It’s good to be young. You can always think positively about everything you do.
However, after returning, we should indeed recruit more sailors. Although the Mouse is not big, it is a bit inappropriate to have no sailors at all.
Charles and others continued along that path, but the path seemed to have no end and kept extending forward.
If it weren't for the sporadic footprints on the ground that kept changing, Charles would have thought he was standing still.
When they had been walking for nearly three hours and their feet were sore, the forest suddenly disappeared and a stone building entangled by brown vines suddenly appeared in front of them.
The building looked somewhat dilapidated from the outside, and it was hard to tell whether it was a temple or a church. The place where the wooden door should have been had disappeared, leaving only a pitch-black hole.
Charles pulled the bandage over with his hand, pointed at him solemnly and asked, "Is that thing in there?"
Bandage nodded hesitantly, "It should be... yes... I'm not... quite sure... Sorry... I don't have a good memory..."
Regardless of whether it was true or not, Charles decided to go in and take a look. At least the footprints on the ground were heading towards the door, and there was nothing messy about the footprints on the ground, so there was no danger yet.
He turned his head and looked at his chief engineer and the chef and said, "Let's go, the four of us will go in and take a look."
James and Frey nodded at the same time and strode in with Charles.
The light of the torches illuminated the interior of the building. Compared to its dilapidated exterior, the inside seemed very clean and spacious. There was not even a trace of dust on the flat red floor, but the things on the walls made people who came in feel their scalps tingling.
The surrounding walls were covered with various strange reliefs, with deformed creatures beyond human imagination entangled with each other.
It looks like a cross between a starfish and an octopus, with an eye embedded in the center of its strange body.
Through their body language, one could vaguely feel they were worshipping something.
However, these strange reliefs did not attract much attention from the three people. Everyone focused their attention on the golden statue placed in the center. That strange human-shaped statue covered with tentacles was the god Futan.
(End of this chapter)