Chapter 18: Interrogating White Shark

Chapter 18: Interrogating White Shark

Thud!

The bartender fell to the ground, curling into a ball and rolling from the pain.

White Shark Hamilton gave a heavy snort. Without saying a word, he turned and walked toward the second floor, making the wooden stairs creak beneath his feet.

With the spectacle over, the drunkards scattered one after another. Captain Elland and the others returned upstairs unaffected, continuing their card game.

Klein seized the opportunity and followed up the stairs.

He had returned to the Flying Fish and Wine not to deal with White Shark over a nonexistent threat, but purely to learn more intelligence from this bar owner who had connections with multiple pirate factions. After all, the hidden meaning behind naming his new identity Gehrman was to hunt pirates whose hands were stained with blood, and use their spirits, flesh, and Beyonder characteristics to replace the souls within Creeping Hunger that were waiting to be released.

Damir Harbor had no gas resources. The second-floor corridor was quite dim. On the brass candlesticks set into the walls on both sides, flames flickered weakly, faint as beans.

As Klein observed his surroundings, he reached up and wiped a hand over his face, silently transforming into one of the guards from downstairs.

As for the differences in clothing and accessories, he made up for them using his ability to create illusions.

Once prepared, he walked toward White Shark Hamilton’s room, guided by his spiritual intuition.

He first passed by the room where people were playing cards and did not attract anyone’s attention.

When he arrived before the guards holding the passage, he consciously stopped and lowered his voice.

“Something else happened downstairs.”

“Storms above, what exactly is going on tonight?” one guard sighed.

“I hope those sweethearts do not get hurt,” another said with some worry.

He was referring to the prostitutes attached to the bar.

“They are fine.” Klein passed the guards, arrived before White Shark’s door, and raised his hand stiffly to knock.

“Who is it?” Hamilton asked warily.

“Boss, it’s me. Something else has happened downstairs!” Klein recalled the way people had addressed each other while watching the scene earlier and deliberately made his voice hoarse.

“Damn it!” Hamilton roared. “Come in and explain what happened!”

Klein turned the handle and walked in.

As he closed the door behind him, he canceled the illusion. The muscles of his face rapidly squirmed, returning to his previous identity—the new bar customer with blond hair, blue eyes, and ordinary features.

“You…” Hamilton was first stunned. Immediately after, he opened his mouth wide and tried to shout.

At the same time, illusory fish scales appeared on the back of his hands. His already tall and obese body swelled another size.

Suddenly, his heart began to pound faster. A powerful fear born of instinct seized his throat.

At that moment, he felt that the stranger standing by the door was a demon that had hungered for many days, using a cold, craving gaze to sweep back and forth over his flesh and soul.

In an instant, White Shark Hamilton sank into extreme terror, unable to mount any effective response.

Klein strolled unhurriedly to the sofa and sat down, then smiled politely.

“Can we have a calm conversation now?”

The sensation of being watched by a terrifying monster abruptly vanished. Hamilton suddenly felt lighter, and his body deflated like a punctured balloon.

He no longer recklessly called for help. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he asked, “Who are you? What do you want?”

“A hunter,” Klein answered casually. “I heard you have connections with multiple pirate factions. I want to know the relevant details.”

“No, I do not…” White Shark Hamilton instinctively denied it.

Immediately, he once again felt that hunger that had reached the height of madness. He had the impression that the man’s eyes opposite him had been stained with a dark red hue.

Klein considered the persona in his heart, then smiled in a refined manner.

“You have two choices.

“First, answer honestly.

“Second, be killed by me, and then answer honestly.”

Killing and then spirit channeling? White Shark Hamilton had heard similar rumors. He swallowed with difficulty and asked, “Why do you want to know these things?”

Klein smiled.

“I am a hunter. What I pursue are bounties.”

Hamilton suddenly felt that the other party’s courteous smile carried an indescribable madness. He could not help blurting out, “You—you are insane!

“I have seen quite a few adventurers like you, and every one of them ended up buried at the bottom of the sea!

“Hunting a single pirate alone is not difficult, but can you guard against the retaliation afterward? The prostitutes in the bar, the customers who look perfectly ordinary—any of them may be pirates’ informants! A companion who treats you amicably may be bribed at any moment and shoot you in the back! Pirates will also gather intelligence in advance and surround the ship you are on. Can you protect all the passengers? Can you survive on the open sea, where there is nowhere to flee, amid bombardment from one cannon after another?”

After pouring out the fear in his heart in one breath, he saw the man opposite him, who called himself a hunter, once again reveal a refined and gentle smile.

“If I kill them all, those problems will no longer exist.”

…A true lunatic… White Shark Hamilton drew in a breath and said, “I am connected to many pirates, but all of it is passive. The cash, jewels, and cargo they seize need to be sold. They need to exchange them for strong liquor, food, fresh water, weapons, and the comfort of women. All of that must go through me. But I can only wait for them here. I do not know where their ships are sailing or what their recent targets are.”

“What else?” Klein asked without changing expression.

His answer just now had mainly been intended to frighten White Shark. As for pirate retaliation, he was not worried at all. As a Faceless, if he could be found so easily, he might as well find a place to sink himself to the bottom of the sea.

What else… White Shark Hamilton’s throat moved, but he did not immediately give an affirmative or negative description.

He shut his mouth tightly and looked at the gentleman in the half top hat, meeting those calm, restrained eyes that seemed to be brewing madness.

The uneasy silence echoed gently like the surface of the sea before a storm, colliding and fermenting.

At last, Hamilton looked away. Irritated, he placed his hands on the table before him and said, “Yes. I also gather information for them. If there is urgent intelligence, I use the radio station they gave me to warn them.”

White Shark did not dare take the risk. He was afraid the other party possessed some unique Beyonder ability that could determine whether he was telling the truth, and whether he had spoken all the facts.

“Radio station?” Klein, who had won the psychological contest, keenly captured the term.

“That is what they told me to call it. It is similar to a telegraph, but it does not need wires.” Hamilton turned and walked to the grayish-white safe, then crouched down.

Wireless telegraph? Pirates are this high-tech now? Klein vaguely guessed what the radio station was.

He had once thought of inventing something similar, only to discover after browsing the relevant magazines that wireless telegraphy had already appeared. It simply had yet to find its own position in commercial use. The Berserk Sea separating the Northern and Southern Continents had lightning year-round, chaotic magnetic fields, and raging storms, with only a few navigable routes. Even if equipped with wireless telegraphy, it was almost useless. Similarly, the Fog Sea and Sonia Sea saw violent changes in weather and possessed many factors that affected electromagnetic transmission, greatly limiting the application of wireless telegraphy.

Has an improved model that can solve part of the problem appeared? Klein watched as White Shark pried open the floor in front of the safe and turned a mechanism, causing a hidden door to appear in the wall.

Behind the secret door was a concealed cabinet divided into three compartments. The top layer held documents and bills. The middle contained weapons such as revolvers and new-style half-arm guns. Stuffed into the lower compartment was a complicated black machine.

Klein only glanced at it once before, relying on impressions from his previous life and the information he had previously collected, judging that the mechanical creation was a wireless radio set.

“This is it. They call this a radio station. The messages sent from it can, at the farthest, be received by a similar thing in the Rorsted Archipelago. Any farther depends on the weather and on luck. Normally—normally, it is also very troublesome and has many limitations.” Hamilton did not understand it very well. He could only give a vague description based on the instruction he had received and his experience using it.

More advanced than the new wireless radio sets currently being commercialized… I wonder who invented it… After listening quietly, Klein asked directly, “Who are they?”

He made himself appear like a bounty hunter who did not understand technology.

White Shark Hamilton wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.

“Silver Coin Viper Odell, who claims to serve the owner of the Dawn, and Old Quinn, intelligence officer of the Admiral of Blood. They appeared together. I cannot confirm whether they are cooperating. Of course, Odell has always only claimed that.”

The owner of the Dawn—the Mystery Queen? Klein withdrew his gaze. At some point, a gold coin had appeared in his hand.

The coin kept rolling between his fingers, finally leaping into the air and falling down. White Shark watched it without understanding, trembling with fear.

Klein lowered his head for a glance, then slowly stood.

At that moment, he suddenly asked, “Who gave you your potion?”

“Old—Old Quinn…” Hamilton hesitated for a moment, but still chose to answer honestly.

Klein nodded lightly. Asking no further questions, he turned and walked toward the door.

Clang! The wooden door opened and closed. The figure in the black woolen coat vanished from White Shark’s room.

Hamilton held his breath and waited for more than ten seconds before finally letting out a long sigh.

He quickly wiped the sweat from his face, moved the radio station onto the table, found a codebook, and busied himself sending a telegraph into the distance:

“I have been targeted!

“An unfamiliar fellow!”

Beside the fully focused Hamilton, Klein stood quietly with both hands in his pockets, taking in the wavelength spectrum and the contents of the codebook.

His departure just now had been nothing more than a large-scale illusion, more than enough to deal with a low-Sequence Beyonder of the Sailor pathway like White Shark.

As for whether he would be able to remember the specific contents later, that was not something a Seer needed to worry about. A single dream divination would allow him to recall everything.

The Admiral of Blood and his subordinates love killing, love blood, and are obsessed with assaulting women. Each time they plunder a passenger ship, they create a massacre… This is publicly acknowledged, and they themselves take pride in it, never stinting on spreading the tales… As targets of the hunt and objects of adventure, they should be given priority… After some thought, Klein took advantage of the moment while Hamilton was putting away the radio station and prepared to truly leave the room.

For the time being, he did not intend to deal with White Shark. He feared startling the true prey. In any case, someone like this, who stayed on land, had a fixed territory, and whose weakness was now in Klein’s grasp, could be easily handled afterward with a single anonymous report.

Amid Klein’s soundless footsteps, the door slowly opened a crack, then quietly closed again, bringing in a faint chill breeze.