Klein was fairly familiar with the name King in Yellow. After all, anyone with some knowledge of the Cthulhu Mythos would basically know of Mr. Cthulhu, who lived deep beneath the sea with an octopus head, as well as the King in Yellow, who wore tattered yellow robes.
Although he had never specifically studied the Cthulhu Mythos in his original world, he had still learned a little about it. He knew that the King in Yellow was one of the common avatars of a Great Old One named Hastur.
Wait. If that figure in tattered yellow robes last night really was the King in Yellow, then He was very likely an avatar of the Great Old One Hastur walking the mortal world?
An avatar of a Great Old One...
Klein suddenly felt extremely fortunate that last night, he hadn't followed the urging of his curiosity to investigate further. Instead, he had left in time, avoiding the dangerous area, and hadn't tried to reconstruct what happened last night through divination afterward.
"Sure enough, people really shouldn't be too curious." Klein breathed a sigh of relief inwardly, but he soon thought of something important.
The King in Yellow and Hastur. If the King in Yellow existed, then Hastur... Back in Backlund, he had met an Earl named Hastur Campbell, someone who gave him an extremely mysterious and unfathomable feeling.
No way. It should just be a coincidence, right?
Klein's heart beat rapidly a few times. He quickly suppressed the strange feeling and stopped thinking any deeper about the matter. Who knew whether the other party also possessed the ability to know whenever His name was spoken?
After sailing for two days and one night, the ship soon arrived at another nearby port. Nothing happened along the way.
While Klein went around gathering information about other wanted pirates, he heard about something rather interesting.
Recently, a new group of pirate hunters had appeared on the sea. It was said to be a combination of three people and one dog, whose members were known as: the Whip of Judgment, the Brain of Wisdom, and the Dog of Imagination.
Klein frowned slightly. The pirate-hunting business was getting harder and harder. Now there were even newcomers joining in to compete with him for business.
Counting his gains during this period, his debt to Miss Messenger had already fallen to 1,000 gold coins, while he himself had nearly 4,000 pounds in savings. It sounded like quite a lot, but it still wasn't enough to buy a decent house in Backlund.
"Looks like I'll have to take the risk of hunting those pirate admirals. That's the only way to accumulate wealth in a short period of time."
Klein sat inside a well-informed bar, wearing an unfamiliar face and drinking a cheap two-pence beer as he considered his next move.
While he was silently thinking, a commotion came from outside the bar. Apparently, someone had captured an entire ship full of pirates and was currently exchanging them for bounties with personnel from the Church of Storms at the harbor.
Although the bounty on each individual pirate wasn't high, there were simply too many of them, including many ordinary pirates who weren't worth much.
The crowd began discussing it, saying that this seemed to be exactly the sort of thing the three-people-and-one-dog group liked to do.
It was said that whenever this new group arrived at a port, they would unload a pile of pirates from their ship, exchange them for bounty money to purchase daily necessities, and then sail away again.
Quite a few famous pirates had tried to curb the momentum of this new group, or use them as a stepping stone to fame.
But without exception, those famous pirates all became living bounties at the next port. This caused the reputation of the new group to grow increasingly prominent.
Klein merely listened in silence without showing much interest. It was just that their route seemed to be the same as his, both heading toward the location where the mysterious island left behind by Emperor Roselle was rumored to be.
"These days, even pirate hunting has become this competitive."
Klein sighed. He had no intention of continuing to rest. He needed to speed up his intelligence gathering as well, or all the pirates on the sea with bounties on their heads would soon be snatched away by others.
Out at sea, aboard the Hope, Xio, Fors, Audrey, and Susie, three people and one dog, were dividing up the bounty money.
"This time, we earned a total bounty of 2,780 pounds. Adding the cash we found on their ship and on their bodies, we have about 3,400 pounds in total."
Xio began tallying the money and divided it according to everyone's contribution.
She and Audrey received the largest shares, thirty percent each, while Fors and Susie each received twenty percent.
"Woof!" Susie pawed at the money Xio had pushed over to her and carefully counted it. Then she gestured for Audrey to save her share for her.
After spending so much time together, Xio and Fors had gradually come to understand Susie's Beyonder side. They were no longer as surprised as they had been at the beginning by Susie's almost human-like behavior.
Fors had gone from initially feeling ashamed that she was ranked alongside Susie to feeling fortunate that Susie hadn't surpassed her.
If one day Xio, Miss Audrey, and Susie each received thirty percent of the bounty while she could only get ten percent, that would be truly humiliating.
"The closer we get to the location from Emperor Roselle's legends, the greater the chance of encountering famous pirates. I can hardly wait for our next hunt!"
Having earned 1,000 pounds, Xio narrowed her eyes and excitedly waved her fist.
"We still need to be careful, in case something unexpected happens," Fors said, remaining as calm as ever.
Audrey, meanwhile, remained silent. She was no longer as interested in hunting pirates as she had been at the beginning. Instead, she now wanted to explore the unknown places of this vast sea.
That night, unable to sleep, Audrey knocked on Hastur's door.
Hastur, who had originally been preparing to go to bed, put on a set of pajamas and opened the door.
Tonight, Audrey's face was shrouded in a faint melancholy. She seemed troubled by something, and even the bright moonlight couldn't dispel the trace of sorrow between her brows.
"Mr. Hastur, I'm really sorry for disturbing your rest."
"Facing the sea, it's easy for people to become lost."
As Hastur spoke, he walked out of the cabin together with Audrey and came to the deck at the bow.
Even at night, the entire ship continued slowly sailing forward. A fishing lamp hanging high above barely illuminated the path where the bow parted the seawater. Occasionally, fish strongly attracted to light would gather within the glow.
"Mr. Hastur, are you used to life at sea?"
Audrey stood at the bow as the night sea breeze blew her carefully maintained hair into disarray. Hastur casually set up a wall of air to block the sea breeze and began chatting with Audrey about some interesting stories from the sea.
Boredom was an inevitable hurdle that anyone living at sea for long periods had to overcome.
People always endowed the sea with too much imagination, but in reality, life at sea was dull and monotonous, nowhere near as relaxing and leisurely as life on land. The confined range of movement made people constantly feel as though they couldn't breathe freely.
Audrey was probably experiencing the gap between fantasy and reality right now.
There were plenty of interesting stories about the sea. Hastur casually picked a few rumors, and that alone was enough for him to talk for a long time.
Audrey listened attentively, occasionally smiling as she gazed at the starry sky reflected on the surface of the sea.
The tranquil sea, the vast expanse of stars reflected upon it, and the mysterious legends being slowly recounted soon revived Audrey's somewhat lost spirits.
"Would you like to experience a different kind of life at sea up close?"
"Mm, I would." Having already talked until his throat was dry, Hastur opened a travel portal as tall as a person in front of Audrey.
"Is this a teleportation portal?"
Audrey's eyes sparkled. She had heard Fors mention such things before, but she had never truly experienced one herself.
"This is a portal used for travel. It does indeed have the ability to teleport."
Hastur extended his arm. Audrey reached out and linked her arm with his, naturally moving a little closer to him.
"Woof?"
After the two disappeared through the travel portal, Susie, who had been following Audrey from a distance, trotted over and stretched out a paw, waving it through the spot where the travel portal had vanished.
In the end, she chose to lie down there and wait.
...
Old Ross Tavern.
When Hastur appeared at the entrance with Audrey, who was dressed in a black mage's hooded robe, they naturally attracted many gazes. The noisy tavern instantly became much quieter.
Most of those gazes fell upon Audrey. Her tall figure, combined with her mysterious classical mage attire, easily aroused people's curiosity.
But they only looked for a few moments. Before knowing someone's background, no one except a fool would keep staring at them and risk inviting unnecessary trouble.
Hastur led Audrey through the crowd. Along the way, a drunken man tried to secretly grope her, but a gust of wind seemed to sweep past, effortlessly severing his hand and spilling blood across the floor.
The intense pain instantly sobered him. His face turned deathly pale as he hurriedly wrapped his clothes around the wound, swiftly picked up his severed hand from the floor, and quickly left.
If he received treatment in time, there was still a chance his hand could be saved.
Audrey, who noticed what had happened, felt her cheeks beneath the black hood grow warm and slightly red.
Mr. Hastur had acted just now to protect her, right?
When they arrived at the bar counter, the wall lined with all kinds of fine alcohol immediately sparked Audrey's intense interest.
Although she had once seen a far more impressive wall of alcohol in Earl Hall's wine cellar, the wall here seemed to symbolize passion and freedom. Just looking at it made one's blood stir, creating an irresistible urge to order every bottle and taste them all.
The gradually returning clamor around them, along with people using simple instruments to beat out bold and lively melodies, seemed to urge every guest who entered to quickly order a drink and enjoy this bustling night to the fullest!
With novelty and excitement intertwined, Audrey ordered three brightly colored drinks in one go. Although she had no idea what they tasted like, merely seeing them arranged before her was already satisfying.
Beside her, Hastur had already begun enjoying the stimulation brought by the alcohol.
He turned his head slightly and looked at Audrey's expression, filled with anticipation and excitement yet also a hint of nervousness, and couldn't help saying, "The drinks here are usually rather strong. It's better not to drink too much."
Audrey nodded. In the end, she chose one that smelled relatively sweet and fragrant and began sipping it little by little.
Hastur glanced at the name of the drink, chuckled, and shook his head.
He could already foresee what Audrey would look like once she got drunk.