"Bite too light, it does nothing, the lords won’t be satisfied; bite too hard, she bleeds, and when it’s ti to settle accounts we’re the first ones handed over!"
"Lailo, you still don’t get it!?"
From beginning to end, Batty had opposed Lailo’s plan.
Adventurers and gang mbers are two completely different breeds.
The forr only need to answer to themselves. They’re like locusts passing through—no matter how vicious or extre they act, they can just pat their asses and move on to the next place.
The latter are part of a proper, structured organization. They need manpower, turf, deep and careful managent, and that drags in countless entanglents.
Given the Corner Shark Gang’s scale, they absolutely shouldn’t be ddling in sothing of this Level, let alone serving as the ones actually kidnapping a Baron’s Daughter.
One mistake, and the ending is total annihilation.
"You scared?"
Lailo raised his eyes, his face shrouded in shadow so his expression couldn’t be read, his tone still steady.
"Scared? Lailo, what’s the point of talking about that now?" Scar-browed Batty’s lips curled in a cold smile, but his words ca faster and faster. "I just think maybe we should be considering our own way out."
"A Baron losing his daughter is like jabbing a hornets’ nest. The reason he made it to special approval officer isn’t just that so‑called ’Baron’ title."
"The adventurer association’s commissions are plastered all over the quest board. In this whole Suo Yu Bay, there are probably hundreds of adventurers looking for us. Among them, how many do you think already have a Professional Level?"
"It’s been this long—where’s that ’safe passage’ the lord promised? Haven’t even seen its shadow, have we?"
"Back then they promised we’d just ’invite’ the lady over as a guest for a few days, give Baron Farrow a scare so next ti he stamps an approval he knows his place a bit."
"And now?"
"With the posture Suo Yu Bay is in right now, we’re already way past the point of ’teaching a lesson’. How do you think we’re supposed to exit the stage?"
The Corner Shark Gang are the "black gloves" for those noble lords up in the White Cliff District.
The organization’s combat power isn’t low; they have multiple adventurers with Professional Level. The gang’s Boss and his second‑in‑command have even reached Level 5 and Level 4 respectively—more than respectable.
But they’re also shackled by the tangled power structure in the Saltwater District, eager to grow yet unable to.
In such a situation, the mont those power‑holding noble lords say a word, the sharks that sll blood will swim up on their own.
The actual content of the利益 exchange is very simple.
The Corner Shark Gang use the intel provided from above to kidnap Baron Farrow’s daughter—of course without harming her—just to give this special approval officer a lesson, so that in future he’ll turn a blind eye to certain approval applications.
That way, the nobles get their return, and the Corner Shark Gang, which officially disappears and keeps its head down for a ti, can just switch to so na like "Shark Tooth Gang" or "Horned Whale Gang" and use the resources and connections they gained through this job from White Cliff to rise again.
But now, with things having developed to this point, it was clearly slipping out of control.
The shack was dead silent.
The little brothers on both sides stared at the floor, at their own noses, at their own hearts, not daring to say a word.
And though the gang’s Boss, "Horned Shark" Lailo, still clung to a sliver of luck in his heart, he couldn’t deny that what Batty said was true.
The situation was sliding into an uncontrollable Abyss, and the filth between the nobles could very well drag people like them down with it.
"What’s your idea?"
After a brief silence, he asked his second‑in‑command.
Batty’s gaze swept once more across the Baron’s Daughter in the storage room, his face dark, his voice low:
"The ’goods’... are still in our hands. That’s our bargaining chip."
"And the ones we negotiate with don’t have to be just those few lords from White Cliff that we already know."
"The Comrce Association, the Church, even those people from the Southern Islands... might be interested."
Lailo’s pupils shrank slightly. He could of course understand what the other ant, but...
"You’re playing with fire!"
If right now there was still a chance to turn things around, then the mont they took the Baron’s Daughter out of Suo Yu Bay and handed her to those off‑island people, it would an they were standing directly against Baron Farrow—and even all of White Cliff.
When sothing went wrong then—
It wouldn’t just be him; the entire Corner Shark Gang would be wiped out.
"Better than rotting in this damn wooden shack by the sea waiting for the tide to roll in and drown us." Batty’s voice stayed cold. "The ssier we make the Water, the better the odds that nobodies like us manage to live."
"Think about it, Boss."
"The na Corner Shark Gang is done either way. We pull this off, take the money and resources and run far, change our na, head inland or to so other coastline. Do business, run another gang, hell, even go back to being adventurers—whatever."
"First of all, we get out of this damned Suo Yu Bay!"
Lailo’s heart sank bit by bit.
His chest rose and fell slightly as he looked at the second‑in‑command whose strength was second only to his own, this old teammate who had followed him for years yet whose mind had beco harder and harder to read.
He could see sothing called "ambition" wantonly sprouting and spreading in the depths of the man’s eyes.
When had it started?
Was it ten‑plus days ago, when he’d taken this job by force over the man’s objections?
Or even earlier, when the two of them left their team, ca to the Saltwater District, and founded the Corner Shark Gang?
Lailo couldn’t see it clearly.
He didn’t even know whether this proposal ca from Batty’s inherently extre, reckless nature, or whether he still had so card hidden that Lailo didn’t know about.
"Keep a close eye on the ’goods’."
In the end, Lailo chose to compromise.
"We wait one last night. If by dawn tomorrow we still haven’t received the signal... then we’ll talk again."
Scar-browed Batty gave a slight nod, said nothing more, and withdrew into the shadows at the side.
But in the very next second, as a flash of razor‑sharp cold light flickered through the air, the dagger that had just been bathed in fresh blood, wiped clean long ago and sheathed for so ti, was once again in his hand.
Shadow Energy rippled silently. His pair of cold eyes suddenly snapped toward the doorway.
Noticing Batty’s strange movent, "Horned Shark" Lailo, though already harboring so grievances with his second‑in‑command, still, out of the trust built over so many years, instinctively gripped the Double-bladed Giant Axe leaning beside him and rose from his seat.
They didn’t have to wait long. A set of footsteps suddenly sounded from outside the shack.
With a clear intent, not just passing by—the steps drew closer and closer to the shack.
"Tok, tok, tok."
The knocking echoed lazily.
No one answered.
The wrong knocking pattern was enough to prove the visitor wasn’t a mber of the Corner Shark Gang.
And everyone inside had clearly received professional training; they all kept silent and didn’t dare make a sound.
"Anyone in there?"
The knocking didn’t stop. When it got no response, a crisp female voice sounded from outside the door.
Still no answer.
The air grew quiet again; no one in the room spoke.
They did not hear the footsteps fading away.
Which ant the outsider who had knocked was still standing out there.
"Creak."
The soft crack of splintering wood was piercing in the deathly silence.
The already rickety door shuddered slightly, a tiny crack appearing on its surface.
Then...
"Snap."
Wood chips sprayed.
A hole the thickness of a finger opened in the door.
A fleshy tentacle, slick with sli, soft and lined with suckers, slowly squeezed through the little hole.
One, two, three...
A mini octopus no bigger than a quarter of an adult’s palm squeezed out of the hole in front of everyone and drifted down to the floor.
It struggled to straighten itself. Its eyeless little head seed to be sensing sothing, swaying gently.
Then, it slowly stopped—pointed at Batty.
Buzz—
Though nothing in the room moved, the seasoned Wanderer felt as if so invisible presence had locked onto him completely.
He no longer cared about the noise he made. He lunged forward, Short dagger aid at the octopus.
"Bang!"
"Awooooo..."
That was the shack’s door exploding apart—and a long wolf howl from behind the group, outside the rear wall, from sothing that had sohow circled around them.
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