Yarra’s Adventure Notes
Chapter 533 - 2 Boarding a Ship_1

Chapter 533: Chapter 2 Boarding a Ship_1

"Yo." While two mermaids and a few human females were whispering to each other hand-in-hand, a man emerged from the group who came out of the sea. He looked up, smiling broadly at the old captain next to the railing, waved his hand, and said, "Hello there."

"Uh, hello." The old captain felt uncomfortable with this out-of-place greeting, so he could only respond with a forced smile and a wave.

"Sorry, we made you anchor your ship." The blond man had a vibrant smile and apologized graciously. However, his actions didn’t match his language. He took out some shell-wrapped objects from nowhere, opened them, and started to stuff them into his mouth. The man spoke indistinctly while chewing, "Actually, you didn’t have to anchor. You could have continued. The sharks wouldn’t have hit us."

"Uh, to be safe, it’s better that we stopped." The old captain had a sense of foreboding and felt it was a mistake to converse with this man. Nevertheless, he had to continue, "May I ask why you stopped us? Is there a problem?"

"Ah um... chew, chew." The man swallowed the unidentifiable food that filled his mouth and his radiant smile returned. "Nothing really, just wanted to say hi. You see, the ocean is so big, but we happened to appear at the same time and place. This is miraculous..."

"Splash." The blond man was kicked back into the sea with a shriek. Standing by his side, a black-haired female pulled back her leg without any expression. Although the black-haired girl was wearing a thin jellyfish skin swimsuit, her actions were as ceremonious as if she were wearing a gorgeous dress. She bowed respectfully to the old captain in a manner befitting a knight and said, "Please don’t bear the nuisance of that man in mind, just ignore his bullshit. We’re high-level adventurers from the Nellie Adventure Team. My name is Catherine. I apologize for stopping your ship. Please do not worry. We’ve something to ask from you, captain."

"An adventure team? You’re also humans?" The old captain was just an ordinary man. To him, these high-level professionals could never do anything surprising. Thus, he had calmed down significantly and loudly asked, "Is there anything I can assist you with?"

"Yes, we’re humans too. We were on a mission in the deep ocean and just returned." Catherine responded seriously, "We want to ask if you would let us hitch a ride back to the City of Freedom. If you agree, we will pay the corresponding fee."

"Hitch our ship?" The old captain was surprised, looking unsurely at the sharks the girls stood on and the seven or eight sea race individuals next to them, he asked, "Don’t you already have means of transportation? Those are faster and more convenient than our ship. Why do you need to hitch our ship?"

"As you can see," Catherine pointed to her side and explained with a bitter smile, "we must have our friends from the sea race with us if we want to ride the sharks. However, the races of these friends are quite... rare. We don’t want to cause a sensation on the shore. Besides, there are too many people on the land and no place to change clothes. We’d like to change into everyday attire before we go ashore. I hope you can understand."

"Simply put, they are too shy to be seen by people and too lazy to swim a few kilometers to find an uninhabited beach to come ashore." The dark-haired man who was kicked into the sea had somehow re-emerged from the water and explained to the captain while treading water, "Hey, Vivian, what are you doing?"

The old captain silently watched a large fireball explode where the man’s head had just been in the sea. He estimated the remaining distance to the port, pondered and then said, "No problem. Helping each other is normal at sea, and please don’t mention the fare. It’s such a small matter that charging you would simply be a disgrace to all seafaring men. You there, lower the rope ladder to invite these adventurers aboard."

At sea, four girls and two mermaids hugged each other one by one. Under the unwilling gaze of the mermaids, the girls ascended the cargo ship one after another using the rope ladder. When the self-named Catherine climbed up the rope ladder, the old captain’s eyes twitched again. The ladder, which was robust enough to bear three to four burly sailors, creaked under Catherine’s weight. The captain couldn’t imagine what kind of object she was carrying in her bag to make it so frighteningly heavy.

Once the black-haired girl climbed onto the railing, the old captain didn’t hurry to pull up the rope ladder. He then leaned over the side, looking into the sea and asked, "Isn’t that gentleman who was... um, going to come up?"

"Oh yes, Pannis." The silver-haired girl slapped her palm and shouted towards the cabin, "Pannis, Pannis, where have you gone? Come out now. If you dare to sneak food from their kitchen, I’ll have the big sister kick you back into the sea. Then you can swim back yourself."

"Stop kidding me, how could I possibly sneak into the kitchen for a snack? Do I look like that kind of person?" After a few seconds, Pannis stuck his head out of the cabin, complaining discontentedly, "Lina, I can’t believe you see me like that, it’s heartbreaking. How could I possibly do such a thing, when there was clearly no food left in the kitchen. Even if... no, I mean, I don’t even know where the kitchen is, hahaha, yeah, that’s what I mean."

"Sigh, why are you such a fool every time." Lina, the silver-haired girl, pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose, sighed deeply, and pointed at the sea with a calm face, "Just jump in yourself and save us the trouble of kicking you off."

"I don’t want to." Pannis shook his head vehemently, "Don’t expect me to swim back by myself."

"Mr. Pannis." The girl, who was as large as the other three girls combined but still managed to look attractive, opened her arms to Pannis and said affectionately, "Come to me, I’ll protect you from them."

"Hmm, let me think." Pannis scratched his head and said seriously, "I think I’ll just jump in and swim back."

"You guys stop fooling around." Catherine glared at them and said to the fat girl, "Especially you, Freya, be mindful of your image. Don’t forget that there are people who know your identity. Let’s see what you do when your image is ruined."

Having forcefully quieted the rowdy group, Catherine turned to the old captain with an apologetic smile, "I’m sorry, we just returned from the deep sea, and the excitement of seeing daylight again may have gotten the better of us. I hope we have not caused you any trouble."

"Hahaha, it’s okay, it’s okay, the lads on the ship always get this excited when they set foot on land. I’m used to it." The old captain laughed heartily and waved his hand, "We will be docking in about an hour. You may want to take this opportunity to dry yourselves off and change clothes. If you don’t have any dry clothes, we have some old ones on the ship. They’re all clean. You’re welcome to borrow them if you don’t mind."

"No need, we have our own." Catherine patted the backpack behind her, "Then we’ll make use of the cabin for a while, thank you."

Soon, the group emerged with fresh clothes, and the old captain observed these mid-journey passengers while instructing the ship to approach the port. As his observations continued, the captain, who had seen all kinds of people, had to admit that this was indeed an odd group. The black-haired girl in armor should be a knight, why was she constantly cradling a mechanical device larger than herself, and why does she stroke it and giggle when no one’s looking? The silver-haired girl with glasses was clad in a priest’s robe, indicating her position as clergy, but why did she ignore everyone as soon as she changed clothes and start reading a thick book? The plump girl seemed to be a poet, touched by every detail she encountered, but why was she constantly interrupted when she was about to recite poetry? Then there was the girl with the magic staff who, despite appearing lost in thought, always managed to timely knock on the poet’s head, and that’s an interesting team. Then there was this inexplicably strange man. The girls must have had a hard time, why did they have to bring along someone who wasn’t quite right in the head? This indolent man was now comfortably lounging at the top of the mast, and no one had seen him climb up there. His precarious swaying in the wind caused concern among the people below.

However, thankfully, the busyness made the time pass quickly and before they knew it, their cargo ship was nearing dock number seven at the free city’s Long Bridge Port, under the guidance of the harbor’s pilot boat. The familiar stone pier was getting closer and closer, and the robust dock workers had been awaiting their arrival, with cargo trolleys lined up, ready to unload the ship’s goods as soon as it docked.

The Long Bridge Port was one of the two deep water ports of the Free City. The city did not levy harbor duties or customs duties on sea trade, which attracted various countries and trading companies to use it as one of their main transshipment points. This, in turn, stimulated the commercial prosperity of the whole Neutral Land.

The sailors skillfully controlled the speed of the ship, bringing it to a stop just next to the pier. As the cargo ship docked, the sailors let out cries of excitement. The old captain, also, stroked his beard with a broad grin. Turning his head unintentionally, he found that the five strange passengers had mysteriously disappeared and where the black-haired knight had stood, a gold coin lay peacefully. The old captain walked over, picked up the coin, and with a bitter smile on his face, shook his head, "Adventurers can be so stingy."

Indeed, one gold coin, equivalent to twenty silver coins per person, was half of what their ferry ticket would have cost them had they embarked from the nearest transshipment station. So, in terms of distance, it seemed about right, theoretically speaking, neither party had suffered a loss. (To be continued. If you like this novel, please vote for it on qidian.com, your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users can read it on m.qidian.com.)