Warlock Apprentice

According to Torras, the story behind that sword was nothing too special. It all started when Torras’ ship, The Feral, was sailing across Devil’s Water. One day, before reaching Gearwheel Grave, the first officer of the ship gathered some people and started a riot.

The reason for the betrayal was quite simple. Since Torras was hoping to become a wizard at Fey Continent, he took all the treasures and valuables he collected through his years with him. However, a part of the crew including the first officer would like to take their treasures back to their homes and enjoy the rest of their lives rather than taking a risky venture to somewhere unknown.

A fight broke up, which ended with Torras emerging victorious.

Torras cornered and killed his first officer at the rear of the ship. Then he took the officer’s sword, stabbed it into the steering wheel, and claimed that he’d spare anyone who came back to him while killing those who would resist.

The ship became peaceful again after some minor conflicts.

Later, Torras left the sword there just to display his authority to his people. And from there, it didn’t take them very long to stumble into the dark dimension.

“You put it there… there was a secret room underground with a lot of valuables. Those were yours, right? You never gave them to anyone else?”

“That’s right.” Torras nodded.

Angor scowled. It happened again! Lucas “predicted” a story that occurred in another way.

What Lucas said in his logbook was that HE killed a group of pirates, seized a full shipload of treasures, and left his sword in the wheel.

Everything was true except for one, that the “main character” in the event wasn’t Lucas, but Torras.

The great coincidence looked exactly the same as when the flowerbed and Tree of Blessing were mentioned. These things truly existed, but whether Lucas experienced his stories himself was questionable.

“Were his stories Prophecy at all?” Angor rubbed his forehead and felt a big headache. He learned so many interesting clues that seemed to show him the final truth he was looking for, yet he still lacked something. A key that connected everything together.

He decided to listen to more of Torras’ stories and hopefully discover the logic that hooked up the clues.

“Let’s move on. Tell me about how you lived on the island while you were still alive. Make sure you don’t overlook anything suspicious.”

“Alright, here goes…”

Torras’ sailors dug out some space underground and stayed there. At first, they were glad that they found no dangerous animals or any threat on the island. But this soon turned out to be a problem because they couldn’t find anything to eat either.

The lack of water was their first and most imminent trouble.

It didn’t take them long to exhaust the last drop of fresh water stored on their ship. They did find a lake on the island. However, they would vomit simply by smelling the sharp odor of that black water from afar. No one would like to drink that stuff.

After bearing with the deadly thirst for a while, people still surrendered and accepted what they had. Thankfully, the water could keep them alive as long as they boiled it up and took some time to sift the filth away.

The next crisis was illnesses caused by the dirty environment, such as stomachache and dysentery. Without many medical supplies, their only choice was to wait and endure. Yet the nasty water they lived on quickly worsened their conditions. Soon, they had the first group of casualties.

After being trapped in the gloomy and lifeless world, people felt their wits slowly breaking down until they forgot how to properly communicate with others.

Then there was a food shortage.

This matter wasn’t so serious at first because the size of their crew was decreasing at a slow but terrifying speed. Their ship was intended to travel a long distance and go to Fey Continent, so they stocked up enough food for everyone to feed on for several years.

Yet their food couldn’t last forever.

When everyone else had died either to diseases, depression, or starvation, Torras found himself as the lone survivor in his cave. There wasn’t much food left for him. To conserve strength, he spent most of the days lying in bed.

By that point, he was still determined to stay alive for as long as he could.

But he couldn’t create food out of thin air. After consuming the last grain he could scavenge, he spent several more days in despair while hoping for a savior to come, or at least a ship that brought more food.

Still, his death was inevitable.

Torras was almost crying when telling the last part of his story. In his years, he was both a powerful pirate and a professional survivalist who came back from various fatal situations. But his skills were of no use in that god-forsaken hellhole.

“Maybe this is my fate… When I killed too many people in my life, the hands of fate already decided to pull me to my doom like dragging a wired puppet. It’s impossible to escape…” Torras covered his face.

Meanwhile, Angor almost sensed something flashing in his mind that was about to enlighten him and help him reach the conclusion of everything.

He was sure he got the strange feeling when Torras mentioned “fate”. This wasn’t anything in particular because it was common for pessimistic victims to speak about fate and gods being unfair, yet… something told him that Torras wasn’t such a simple case.

“Is there anything else worth noticing when you were struggling on the island?” Angor wasn’t giving up yet.

“I don’t think so…” Torras slowly rocked his head to and fro. “Only that weird skeleton was out of place, while everything else… wait. The skull. That skull!”

“Skull?” Angor remembered the previous story where Torras cut off Lucas’ head. “Are you talking about Lucas?”

“Who’s Lucas?”

“The name of that body you found in the ‘ghost ship’. You removed his head, remember?”

“Ahh, yes. So it was Lucas’ skull. I hallucinated a lot during the last days of my life, and sometimes I couldn’t tell fake from reality, or whether I was awake or dreaming. But one thing was certain… Lucas’ skull would often sparkle beside my bed.”

Angor quickly remembered that when he was hiding from Leviathan in the underground path, Toby mentioned seeing something flashing in the cave.

“Was it a yellow light? Golden?”

“Yup. It was a golden light. Looked pretty.”

Damn. I left it behind… Angor complained in his mind. It didn’t look like anything special back then.

Toby, who had been enjoying a sweet sleep in Angor’s pocket, stirred a bit.

“How do you make sure that you weren’t seeing things when you were starving?” Angor asked. “Maybe your eyes were failing and saw something that wasn’t there?”

“Because I remembered the days when I just became an undead. That thing was still shining in my view.”

“Really? Was there something noticeable about that light? Did it have rhythm?”

“Not that I can think of. But I can tell you that it sometimes flickered, while sometimes it stayed bright for a while.”

“Did you feel anything wrong during the different conditions?”

“No… I used to stare at the flashing light for a long time and didn’t see anything beyond that. As for when the light became constant… huh?”

Torras suddenly froze up as he recalled another scene hidden deep in his mind.