Chapter 491 Confession and the Collector

"Why don't you just ask Lorraine?"

Hearing Xia Nan's question, Ellison froze, clearly caught off guard by the sudden suggestion.

The atmosphere instantly stiffened.

A heavy silence stretched for three seconds before he finally let out a sigh.

He shifted his weight backward, leaning fully against the back of his chair.

"Did she tell you everything?" Ellison asked slowly, a deep weariness settling into his features.

Xia Nan had previously asked about his relationship with Lorraine. At the time, Ellison's expression had turned odd, and he had dodged the question, clearly unwilling to discuss it.

It was only later, through Lorraine, that Xia Nan learned they were siblings.

Given the pointed question and Xia Nan's earlier mention of temporarily joining the Blade of Vengeance squad, Ellison realized the young man had already learned the truth from Lorraine, so he stopped trying to hide it.

Watching the middle-aged man's reaction, Xia Nan felt a twinge of confusion.

He might not have the highest emotional intelligence or be a master of reading the room, but he wasn't a block of wood either. His sharp Perception allowed him to clearly sense the shift in both Lorraine and Ellison's moods whenever the other was mentioned.

Obviously, the relationship between the siblings was far from good.

They might not have even been in contact for a long time.

"How did your mission go?" Ellison asked suddenly. Whatever he was thinking, perhaps knowing Xia Nan already understood their relationship, he no longer avoided the subject.

"It went alright. We ran into some trouble midway, and everyone on the team took some minor injuries," Xia Nan replied. "But our luck was decent, and we didn't lose anyone on the ship."

"What do you think of Lorraine as a person?" Ellison asked. His thoughts seemed to jump around, the question lacking any clear context.

Xia Nan wasn't sure why the man had been so guarded before, only to bring her up so freely now, but he didn't dwell on it.

He simply followed the question and answered, "Lorraine... is experienced and very reliable. If someone wants to set sail as an adventurer, joining her team would be a great choice."

Even though they had only shared a single mission, the female captain with the long, fiery curls had left a very good impression on him.

Her appearance, personality, and conduct might be completely different from Adeline, the "Greenblood" of Rivervale Town, but as the leader of an adventurer squad, the two women displayed a similar sense of responsibility.

Lorraine treated her crewmates as comrades she could entrust her back to. Even when facing a powerful enemy, she was willing to step up as the captain, confronting the danger to relieve the pressure on her teammates.

She was even willing to give up a large chunk of her own reward to subsidize her crew.

If a rookie adventurer truly wanted to make a name for themselves out on the open sea, the Blade of Vengeance fleet would be a perfect starting point.

"Reliable..." Ellison's lips moved as he repeated the word, unable to stop a smile from creeping onto his face. "She was always like that, acting like a little adult, always keeping a straight face and nagging endlessly before every voyage."

"It seems your relationship isn't as bad as I thought?" Xia Nan said with pointed meaning, picking up on his tone.

"Heh, we might not have seen much of each other over the years, and we're in contact less, but it hasn't reached the point of being enemies." Ellison smiled and shook his head before suddenly shifting the topic. "Did she ever tell you the origin behind the name Blade of Vengeance?"

"She didn't."

But judging by the literal meaning, he guessed it had something to do with revenge.

"So she didn't tell you about what happened on the Morton ship out at sea either?"

"Morton!?" Xia Nan's heart skipped a beat as he caught the keyword.

After all, the reason he had traveled all the way from Rivervale Town to Barracuda Bay was to find this "Morton."

According to the information in that Druid's journal, a descendant of the Morton Family had supposedly brought the missing key for the [Dream Weaving Corridor] to the Southern Archipelagos.

And the reason Xia Nan had spent the past few days agonizing over how to get into the Lunar Tide Banquet was because the infamous pirate known as Algae Scale—the man who had attacked Morton and most likely taken the key back to his lair as a trophy—was expected to show up there.

He had originally assumed he would have to wait over two months for the banquet to begin before making any progress. He never expected to suddenly hear the name from Ellison's lips. It felt so surreal that Xia Nan wondered if it was just a coincidence of identical names.

Seeing Xia Nan's reaction, Ellison seemed to realize something and asked in surprise, "So she didn't mention it?"

"Alright then..." The middle-aged man wore a helpless expression.

It was a misunderstanding born by a twist of fate.

Seeing that Xia Nan already knew about his relationship with Lorraine, Ellison had simply assumed his sister had told him everything else as well. He hadn't expected this to be the first time it was brought up.

It wasn't exactly a profound secret anyway.

Seeing Xia Nan waiting quietly and listening intently, Ellison adjusted his posture. He cupped his teacup in both hands and slowly explained, "It happened many years ago..."

Ellison and Lorraine were siblings, and their full names were Ellison Morton and Lorraine Morton.

The young noble Xia Nan had been searching for—the one suspected of carrying the [Dream Weaving Corridor] key, Lyle Morton—was their father.

The events had started right around the time recorded in the Druid's journal. Lyle Morton had once been an adventurer himself. Following a disastrous encounter on a journey that left most of his teammates dead, a disheartened Lyle decided to travel to the Southern Archipelagos, hoping to enjoy an early retirement in the sun and seawater.

During that time, he found love, and his wife gave birth to Ellison and Lorraine.

From what Ellison described, their childhood had been fairly stable.

Lyle was born into a noble family. Even after leaving them behind, he still carried a substantial fortune. Combined with his strength and his status as a professional adventurer, he didn't even need to risk his life taking on quests. By running a few small businesses, he provided a comfortable, respectable life for his family.

If things had continued like that, their family undoubtedly would have become another success story of a retired adventurer.

That was until one seemingly ordinary voyage many years ago, when Lyle Morton never returned.

Neither Ellison nor Lorraine knew any more about what had actually happened that day than Xia Nan did.

But perhaps due to their contrasting personalities, the two siblings held vastly different views on the matter.

Lorraine accepted her father's death as reality. Abandoning any pointless fantasies, she fixated on the damned bastard who had attacked Lyle—Algae Scale. She swore to sacrifice the pirate's blood and head to her deceased father, and she had relentlessly pursued that goal ever since.

Becoming an adventurer, frantically boosting her strength, establishing her own team...

Everything she did was for that.

Ellison, on the other hand, felt that Lyle Morton's disappearance was incredibly suspicious. After all, Lyle's body was never found on the ship. Growing up with the powerful image of his father, Ellison refused to believe the man could die so easily. He was convinced his father had been trapped somewhere for some unknown reason, or had been forced to leave.

For years, Ellison appeared to be immersed in fishing, but in reality, he had been searching for traces of his father.

Unfortunately, his efforts had yielded little success. He hadn't discovered anything of note.

In fact, the reason he and Lorraine were so interested in the exotic items from Twin Canyon in the black market—and so disappointed when they turned out not to be what they were looking for—was because of the Morton Family's influence, the very clan Lyle hailed from.

"Maybe... Lorraine is right." After recounting all this, the middle-aged man suddenly seemed to age several years, his already fatigued eyes dimming further.

Xia Nan wanted to offer a few words of comfort, but he couldn't figure out how to start. Afraid that clumsily speaking up might just make the man feel worse, he chose to remain silent.

He didn't know how much time passed.

Ellison suddenly sat up and downed the last of the tea in his cup. He forced a smile onto his face. "Regardless, I still want to thank you for completing my commission."

"If you ever run into any trouble in Barracuda Bay or the Southern Archipelagos in the future, you can come find me."

Xia Nan had never imagined that Ellison, Lorraine, and the Lyle Morton he was searching for would have such a deep connection. He felt a subtle irony that he had unknowingly crossed paths and built relationships with both of them.

The conflicting sibling dynamic between the female captain and the old fisherman was their own family business. Xia Nan knew that well.

Whether their relationship worsened or gradually mended in the future, it was not his place to get involved.

Right now, Xia Nan was thinking about Lorraine. Before this, he had only seen her as a channel to the Lunar Tide Banquet and a reliable, highly skilled temporary teammate.

But now that he had learned the female captain's true goal from her brother, he couldn't help but have a few new thoughts.

After all, to some extent, he and Lorraine shared a common target: Dodd, Algae Scale.

He wanted to obtain clues about the [Dream Weaving Corridor] key from the pirate, while Lorraine wanted to sacrifice his life to her deceased father.

Perhaps... they could reach a cooperation in the near future?

Of course, there was no rush to communicate this. He could sound her out first and see what Lorraine's attitude was.

Xia Nan thought to himself.

As for Ellison...

Honestly, there was actually something he wanted to ask him.

"You mean, where did I get the news about these exotic items?"

Ellison was slightly surprised by Xia Nan's doubt, but he didn't pry. Instead, he candidly revealed the channels he had used over the years to search for traces of Lyle Morton.

"First, the black market in Barracuda Bay."

As the core town of the entire Southern Archipelagos, it gathered a massive number of adventurers traveling across various sea regions. Whenever there were shifts in the local situation or bizarre phenomena out on the water, intelligence could always be obtained there first.

The black market in Barracuda Bay also collected the strange and bizarre items these adventurers brought from all over. Practically every so often, Ellison would stroll through the black market, searching for anything familiar.

The same went for Lorraine.

Her frequency might not be nearly as high as Ellison's, but she always browsed the black market after finishing a mission.

"Then there's the Three-Legged Sea Dog Tavern and the Adventurers' Association."

The reasoning was the same. The extreme mobility of adventurers themselves meant this group had a keen perception for all sorts of intelligence.

Many times, even a trivial matter that shouldn't have spread would become a tavern anecdote that very night if a loudmouthed adventurer caught wind of it, quickly becoming known to every peer in the building.

Just as Xia Nan liked to dine in the tavern hall to expand his knowledge, Ellison frequently gathered intelligence in places where adventurers congregated.

"Finally..." Ellison paused, a hint of hesitation in his words. He seemed to be considering whether it was appropriate to share, but after a moment, he decided not to hide it.

"I know a collector."

"He is well-informed and knowledgeable. He has substantial wealth and vast connections, and he's particularly interested in exotic items."

"I have some relationship with him, and I can often gather intelligence through his connections."

'A collector?'

Xia Nan had a very simple reason for asking Ellison about the exotic items: he just wanted to gather more intelligence on suspected Secret Realms.

After all, for someone who could touch the core of a Secret Realm, the Secret Realms themselves were equivalent to attributes, equipment, combat techniques, and wealth. Every Secret Realm was a massive boost to Xia Nan.

Furthermore, the current charge in the [Dream Weaving Corridor] was nowhere near enough for the lv2 [Heavy Tide]. He needed Secret Realms to supplement more energy.

Hearing that Ellison actually knew someone of that caliber naturally piqued his interest.

Xia Nan didn't even have to ask; the experienced Ellison instantly saw the young, black-haired adventurer's thoughts.

In truth, bringing it up voluntarily meant he was already prepared to introduce this channel to him.

"Give it a few days," Ellison said, nodding at Xia Nan. "I'll find an opportunity to introduce this channel to you."

"He shouldn't be in Barracuda Bay right now."

"Wait patiently for a while. You can do whatever else, but try not to go out on missions. I'll notify you the moment I hear anything."

Xia Nan had already planned to rest for a while with the Blade of Vengeance Squad anyway, so he had no objections. He would simply wait for this highly capable collector to free up some time.