He looked at everyone and asked with a puzzled expression, "You’ve all been chatting here for so long, aren’t you hungry?"
Upon hearing this, they all silently began to eat. They had been chatting for so long they’d forgotten what they were doing.
...
「The next day」
When Simon proposed that he wanted to go ashore and look around the Island, Alka brought Jason and Pororo with him. He had a rough idea of what Simon intended to do.
When Simon saw the wreckage of the steel ship, split in two and twisted out of shape, he simply stood there, stunned. The three of them stood behind him, careful not to disturb him. After a long mont, Simon managed to compose himself, turned to them, and said, "Please, wait for for a mont."
They all nodded.
Jason said, "If you need any help, don’t hesitate to ask."
"Thank you," Simon replied with a nod.
Then, they watched as Simon walked into the ship’s wreckage. He carefully wrapped one set of skeletal remains after another, carrying them out and placing them outside. Alka noticed that the orange-yellow burlap sacks containing the remains were each marked with a na.
"He can recognize his forr crewmates just from their bones?" Jason said, sowhat surprised.
"Shouldn’t we help him?" Pororo asked, arms crossed, as he watched Simon painstakingly moving the remains by himself.
Alka shook his head. "Let him do it alone. It’s what he wants."
Indeed, just as Alka had said, that was what Simon wanted. He, the only one still living from the ship, wanted to be the one to give those whose remains were still on board their final send-off.
He worked tirelessly from morning until noon, finally finishing the task of carefully packaging all the remains and placing them outside. Then, led by Alka and the others, he went to the various locations where the bodies of the walking dead lay. Due to the sheer number of corpses, Alka hadn’t been able to deal with all of them, and so had completely decomposed with the passage of ti. Simon simply identified each body, carefully wrapping his teammates’ remains to take with him.
Finally, he collected a pile of black ashes into a bag. These were the ashes of the Six Spirals walking dead that Alka had fought the day before—Simon’s forr captain. It was said that this captain once possessed the strength of Nine Spirals, but even his undead body combined with construct components couldn’t restore his original power.
Once all this was done, he placed all the collected remains on the deck of the wrecked ship. Then, he swept his hand over a tal box at his waist, and various construct components appeared. He arranged these components around the wrecked steel ship. He raised his right hand, which bore the Hand of Precision and the finger-like Treasure, and touched the shipwreck. Through a peculiar transmission of Magic Power and special ripples, the constructs he had installed around the wreck seed to be affected. These unknown constructs began to transform the entire steel ship.
Before Alka and the others’ eyes, the surface of the entire ship began to boil, then lt, turning into molten tal. The molten tal surged upwards, enveloping the remains on the deck within a tallic sphere. In just over ten minutes, a smooth, solid iron sphere stood where the shipwreck had been.
"Truly impressive," Jason couldn’t help but exclaim, witnessing the scene.
Alka nodded. He recognized that Simon had likely used an Artifact Forger’s "lting" Spell. However, Alka admitted to himself that he couldn’t possibly lt such a large steel ship into a sphere. It was sowhat beyond belief. Is it his own ability, or an enhancent from the Treasure?
Row upon row of nas appeared, densely inscribed on the solid iron sphere. These were the nas of those whose remains lay within, as well as the nas of crew mbers whose bodies had never been found—all were engraved on the sphere by Simon.
Then, they saw Simon take out what looked like rods. He inserted them into the ground one by one, forming a circle around the iron sphere. He raised his right hand and tapped lightly. The rods underwent a peculiar change, then plunged deep into the ground. The small portions remaining above ground connected with lines of Magic Power.
Instantly, a thick cloud of dust billowed upwards. The iron sphere sank into the earth, a massive pit forming that was just large enough to entomb it. The rising dust didn’t spread outwards; instead, it swirled up to a certain height before settling back down. When their vision cleared, a burial mound had already ford where the pit had been.
Then, they saw Simon make a triangular sign over his chest, a gesture resembling a prayer, as he softly chanted in a language they couldn’t understand.
"I originally said I’d bring you two to help him collect the bodies, but instead, the three of us just stood here watching for the better part of the day," Alka couldn’t help but remark.
Soon, Simon finished his prayers and walked back to them. "Alright, it’s done. We can go back now."
They all nodded.
The four of them returned to the Sound of Dawn in silence, the sa way they had co.
Now that Simon’s final farewells were complete, Alka went to the deck and waved his hand. "Set sail!"
As his words fell, a bright song rang out. The sails unfurled, and the ship gradually moved away from the Island’s shores.
Simon stood at the stern, watching the Island recede into the distance. He held a greyish-black tal plate in his hand.
Alka ca to his side. "The Steel lody, wasn’t it?"
Simon nodded. He then raised the tal plate, tapping it with the artifact finger of his Hand of Precision. Magic Power flowed into it. The tal plate began to lt and boil, rapidly taking shape. The entire process took less than two minutes. After those two minutes, the tal plate had transford into a perfectly scaled-down model of a ship.
The ship model looked incredibly familiar. Alka had seen it before in his Dream Realm. After a mont’s thought, a piece of canvas materialized in Alka’s hand. He handed it to Simon. "A sailing ship isn’t complete without its sails."
Hearing this, Simon smiled and nodded. He neatly cut the canvas and fashioned tiny sails, attaching them to the masts of the model ship.
On the side of the steel model ship, unfamiliar characters appeared: Steel lody.
This was the miniature replica of the ship Simon had once sailed on, now a tangible mory for him.
The twilight glow scattered across the sea, its amber rays illuminating the Island as it receded further into the distance. It continued to shrink until the Island was nothing more than a black speck on the horizon, then vanished from sight completely.
A gentle breeze filled the sails of the Sound of Dawn.
The ceaseless ocean currents propelled the vessel onward, toward the unknown that lay ahead.
User Comments
0 comments from readers