Chapter 455 Mysterious Past

Xia Nan quite liked the atmosphere aboard the Blade of Vengeance Ship.

In his view, for an adventurer squad to survive long-term under their dangerous, high-pressure lifestyle, order and rules were certainly important, but good relationships among members were also indispensable.

They needed to understand each other's temperaments—at least to the point where, even if friction arose between them, they knew with absolute certainty that the other party wouldn't betray them during a mission over it. Only when they could still safely entrust their backs to each other in battle could a team go the distance.

Otherwise, given the high-risk, high-reward nature of the adventurer profession, no matter how strong the squad was or how many missions they survived, they would eventually crumble from within.

Of course, these were just Xia Nan's superficial thoughts on adventurer squads.

It had been less than two years since his transmigration, and he didn't have much experience.

He had never even been part of a fixed squad; on the rare occasions mission requirements forced him to cooperate with other adventurers, his teammates' fates rarely ended well.

To some extent, for him to be the one drawing these conclusions and talking about "liking the team atmosphere" was actually a bit morbid.

But regardless, from his brief exchange with the other two core members of the Blade of Vengeance just now, the information captured through his Perception allowed him to roughly judge that his next three months in the squad wouldn't be too miserable. At the very least, there were no terribly difficult teammates.

"Creak... creak..."

His leather boots dragged across the deck, letting out heavy, sluggish creaks.

Led by the druid Hein, Xia Nan and Alton were on their way to the captain's cabin.

The Blade of Vengeance Ship was much larger than the speed-focused Flying Fish Oil Barrel Ship, and Hein took the opportunity to introduce the various facilities in the cabins and on the deck to Xia Nan.

Looking at the druid ahead—who was wearing a grayish-green linen shirt and explaining the functions of the cabin rooms as she led the way—Xia Nan listened carefully while his thoughts drifted.

Three days ago, when he personally heard the words "Twin Oceans" from her mouth, a deeply complex emotion had welled up in Xia Nan's heart.

First, because of the scalpel he had looted from "Bloody-Nosed Rat," he had pinpointed the Twin Oceans as the suspected location of a secret realm. Then, when trading for the [Tide-Surge Lure Pole], Edson had issued him an extra commission with that exact same destination. And finally, even the Blade of Vengeance adventurer squad he had just joined was heading there.

To Xia Nan, this could hardly be called a simple coincidence anymore. It felt as if an invisible hand were drawing him toward the sea known as the Twin Oceans in a completely natural and inevitable manner.

It left Xia Nan with a faintly peculiar feeling in his heart.

And honestly, if he really wanted to be rebellious, he could completely halt everything happening right now and just stay in Barracuda Bay.

He could afford to bear the price required to do so.

But... what good would that do?

Xia Nan had no reason to abandon this clue about a suspected secret realm, nor could he just give up the channel to attend the "Lunar Tide Banquet" and search for the [Dream Weaving Corridor] key.

He could find countless reasons to keep going, but only this single vague inkling to give up; it made no sense at all to choose the latter.

The only thing he could do was properly bid farewell to Alton in three months, temporarily distancing himself from the potential scrutiny of the Goddess behind the halfling.

However, from another perspective, back on that rainy day when he tossed the [Fate Coin] high into the air, he might have already entered the sights of those great entities.

This wasn't necessarily a good thing, nor was it exclusively bad.

Just like the adventurer profession as he knew it, danger and opportunity coexisted.

To some extent, his ability to grow from a bottom-tier adventurer who trembled at the thought of killing a goblin to his current level of strength in less than two years was primarily due to talent and hard work. But a little bit of crucial opportunity at the right time was also a very important part of it.

As he pondered this, Hein stopped in front of a door.

"Knock, knock, knock."

"Come in."

The door opened from the outside, and the captain's cabin of the Blade of Vengeance Ship appeared before Xia Nan's eyes.

The first thing to greet him was the strong smell of tobacco; even the air was hazy with pale white smoke.

It forced Xia Nan, standing at the door, to inhale quite a few mouthfuls of secondhand smoke.

Fortunately, his current physical constitution far exceeded that of an ordinary person. He only found the smoke pungent; even prolonged inhalation wouldn't have any negative impact on his body.

Hein beside him was already used to it. She merely waved her hand symbolically in front of her nose to dispel some of the white smoke and called out into the room, "Captain, I've brought them to you."

After receiving a response, she turned and left.

Before leaving, she patted Xia Nan's arm, gesturing for him to find her on the deck after this was over so she could continue showing them the ship's layout.

Well... perhaps she hadn't noticed, but she used her left hand to pat Xia Nan's shoulder. This caused the silver-and-black bracelet around her wrist to recoil sharply, and faint, displeased hissing sounds could be heard from deep within her sleeve.

The captain's cabin wasn't large; one could cross the entire space in just a few dozen steps.

The pale white smoke from the burning tobacco drifted lazily in the air, swirling and rippling from the draft stirred up by the opening and closing of the door.

The room was very quiet. Aside from Hein's fading footsteps outside, only the faint, distant commotion from the docks and the crisp clacks of pointed leather boots tapping against the floorboards could be heard.

Lorraine, the captain of the Blade of Vengeance adventurer squad, sat on the leather sofa directly facing the door. Her two long legs, clad in tight riding breeches, were crossed just as they had been when Xia Nan first met her.

The desk in front of her was wide and cluttered.

In the center, taking up the most space, was an unrolled parchment nautical chart covered in shipping routes and complex symbols of unknown meaning. To her right sat a tin cup filled with cold tea, and to her left was an ashtray made from a seashell, already heaped with over a dozen cigarette butts.

"You're here? Take a seat," Lorraine greeted without looking up, her brownish-red eyes fixed on the nautical chart before her, a recently lit cigarette pinched between the index and middle fingers of her left hand.

Pulling along Alton—who had been curiously inspecting the room's furnishings ever since they entered—Xia Nan stepped forward and sat across from Lorraine.

"Have you met everyone?"

Taking a moment to react and realizing she was likely referring to the Tabaxi and the burly man named Aken, Xia Nan nodded slightly.

"We bumped into them on the way here and exchanged greetings."

"What are your impressions?"

His mind involuntarily flashed back to the Tabaxi's inwardly curling fluffy tail and the flashy tattoos covering Aken's entire body. Xia Nan paused, carefully weighing his words before replying, "Uh... they're both very genuine."

"Heh." Clearly understanding what Xia Nan meant, Lorraine chuckled and tapped her cigarette ash with her left hand. She looked up, glancing at the black-haired young man in front of her. "To become a member of the Blade of Vengeance, strictly speaking, neither of them can be considered bad people. Once you get to know them, even Sasha is quite easy to get along with. They generally don't have any taboos in their day-to-day lives. If you ever feel offended, just speak up. They'll be mindful of it. Or you can come straight to me, and I'll deal with them for you."

"Also..." At this point, Lorraine paused slightly, her gaze sweeping over the twin swords Xia Nan had placed beside his hand upon sitting down. "Hein should have already told you the specifics of this commission. Rest assured, it's just a normal mission, and we won't need to travel far. As long as we're careful, there won't be any danger. There are still over three months until the festival. We can treat this trip as a shakedown run."

They were all experienced adventurers. Perhaps limited by their lack of understanding of their teammates' specific abilities and combat styles, they couldn't execute precise coordination just yet, but Xia Nan and the others still understood the most basic principles of teamwork.

Alton went without saying. Staying near Hein in the backline, playing a few tunes on his lute to buff his teammates—that was all it took for him to fulfill his role.

As for Xia Nan... he didn't need to disrupt the Blade of Vengeance's original formation. Utilizing his speed and mobility to weave in and out of the battlefield as a "free agent" suited him perfectly.

He had communicated this point with Hein a few days ago, and she had expressed no issues with it.

The destination for this trip had been mentioned before; it was the sea region known as the Twin Oceans.

It wasn't too far from Barracuda Bay. If the one-way trip went smoothly, about seven days would be enough to arrive.

The specific goal for the Blade of Vengeance's voyage was Twin Canyon, located at the very core of the Twin Oceans.

The islanders living there seemed to have encountered some trouble and needed adventurers to investigate and help.

"Hein should have already arranged your rooms. Just have her take you there later," Lorraine said. "If anything comes up on the ship, you can always come to the captain's cabin to find me. I didn't call you over for anything else today, mainly just to give you a general overview of our upcoming voyage. Is there anything else? If not, I won't keep you."

Right as they were departing port, Lorraine, as the captain, looked incredibly busy. Even her speaking speed was a notch faster than when Xia Nan first met her.

Hearing her say this, Xia Nan originally intended to follow her cue, excuse himself, and head down to the deck to find the druid.

Suddenly, as if remembering something, he subconsciously glanced at Alton sitting beside him. The halfling had his head tilted up, curiously studying a painting on the nearby wall, and showed no reaction.

Only then did Xia Nan turn his head back to look at Lorraine.

"I ran into someone when I was doing a mission on Cliff Rock Island a while back, and I've been quite curious about him," Xia Nan said. "Edson. Do you know him?"

The reason Xia Nan was interested in the Twin Oceans was that he had discovered a foreign item from there.

Both Edson and Lorraine, on the other hand, had gathered intelligence from the black market in Barracuda Bay and grown interested because of it.

The former claimed to suspect that ancient treasures were hidden there, while the latter supposedly just wanted to drop by and check things out on the way to a mission.

Edson's treasure theory might not have had any logical flaws, but Xia Nan, sitting right across from him at the time, had clearly sensed through his Perception that the man was lying.

And Lorraine... if she really just wanted to take a look "in passing," ending the crew's vacation this early and setting off in a hurry after staying in Barracuda Bay for only a week was entirely too suspicious.

Xia Nan had even used the past few days of prep time to ask around the taverns in Barracuda Bay. He found that the Twin Oceans had absolutely no traction among adventurers; there was no sign whatsoever of a treasure appearing.

Under these circumstances, for two completely unrelated people like Lorraine and Edson to weirdly develop an interest in the exact same area made it hard not to overthink things.

Xia Nan had previously asked Edson if he knew Lorraine, and the man had given a negative answer—an answer Xia Nan also saw right through as holding something back.

Since he had the chance today, he decided to ask Lorraine about it right before leaving.

He hadn't expected it to actually yield results.

The moment the name "Edson" left his lips, Lorraine, who had been sitting on the sofa studying the nautical chart, couldn't help but jolt in shock.

She subconsciously jerked her head up, staring stiffly at Xia Nan. Her eyes flickered, betraying unknown thoughts.

The atmosphere in the room instantly froze.

After a long time, accompanied by an inexplicably drawn-out breath, Lorraine raised her left hand and took a deep, forceful drag of her cigarette.

No longer deliberately holding back, the exaggerated lung capacity of a Class Holder allowed her to reduce the cigarette—which was still more than half unsmoked—down to a mere stub in a single drag.

She casually crushed it out in the seashell ashtray as pale white smoke billowed from her nose and mouth.

"He's my brother."

'Huh!?'

Xia Nan truly hadn't expected Lorraine's answer.

At most, he had thought they were old lovers who had had a falling out. He never imagined they were blood relatives.

'But they don't look alike either...'

'No, wait!'

He didn't know if it was just his imagination, but after hearing Lorraine say it, closely observing her facial features and comparing them to his memory of Edson's face... they did actually share some similarities.

It was just that one had a scruffy, decadent aura, while the other was aggressively radiant, making it very hard for anyone to notice the resemblance in their features.

Similar to Edson's behavior, the two siblings both seemed highly averse to mentioning each other's existence.

Faced with Xia Nan's question, Lorraine only gave that one sentence in reply. She was unwilling to say more, clearly having no intention of explaining the exact nature of their relationship to him.

This naturally made Xia Nan even more curious about what could have driven these two into their current circumstances—one retreating from the world to fish, while the other lived the tempestuous life of an adventurer.

He also wondered what the Twin Oceans meant to them, and why they had both taken an interest in that stretch of sea at the same time.

But sensing that the current atmosphere in the room wasn't right for diving into her past, he wisely kept his mouth shut.

Pulling along the little halfling beside him—who had had zero presence throughout the entire exchange—he bid Lorraine farewell and left the captain's cabin.

Anyway, there was still plenty of time. Once they reached the Twin Oceans, he would definitely discover something.