02

Leo earnestly thought that if he closed his eyes and opened them, the raging beast in front of him would disappear and he would wake up in a hospital bed.

In that faith he clenched his eyelids shut, but the result remained the same, the fish-like bird kept cawing at them, its voice resonating in his ears.

"Are you all in position?"

"You there! Guard the treasure!" The brown-beared man charged, pointing at a confused Leo who was miraculously still standing.

At the sound of such an easy job, Leo couldn't have been happier, save for the fact that he had no frickin clue where this treasure was kept.

And he knew asking would get him thrown off.

Taking chances, he sets in the direction of the cabins, "logically speaking, that's the only place to look." He tells himself, dashing through the open door, running down the stairs, seeking safety.

"What is that smell?" He asks while navigating through the hallway, pinching his nose at the stench of something foul.

It seemed to be coming from the end of the hall, which seemed to be the farthest and safest place to hide.

*Thud*

The racket from above doesn't let up, Leo who is unable to keep up with their pace crashes into a cabin, as the ship sways to the left.

Rubbing his elbows, his eyes dart around to the junk scattered across the floor, comprising of some strangely carved figures, made of hollow wood with some sort of green moss growing around it.

"Why are there so many of these? It'll weigh the ship down." He figured, noticing bags and crates were teeming with the junk, as he called it.

The ship drifted to the left, almost knocking Leo off his feet, he latched on to the window frame, salty sea water splashing onto his face.

His fingers turned bright red, as he tightened his grip, tilting his body to the side, as the ship continued changing course, perhaps it was retreating.

In the spur of the moment, the creature terrorizing them flew by the cabin, and the wind from beneath its wing sent Leo crashing back. Hitting his head hard against a crate, almost cracking his skull!

Leo reached out and touched the back of his head, he brought his palm to his eyes, "blood." He cursed, suddenly feeling dizzy from the loss of blood.

Before the youngster could take another step, he ended up passing out on the sac of weirdly crafted figures, his blood trickling onto its exterior.

However, instead of his blood sliding off the surface, it was quickly absorbed into it, mixing with the green moss. And as a result, bright green light exuded from the carved objects, shining around an unconscious Leo.

**********

A moan escaped his lips as Leo felt something hot tickling his toes, he stirred in his sleep, mindlessly cozying up to the source of warmth.

Till he ended up lunging his left foot forward into a flame of fire!

"Ouch!"

"What the hell!" He cussed, jolting awake while using his fingers to massage the tip of his swelling toe. With widened eyes, the first thing he notices beside him is a large white eyeball, staring directly at him!

"Holy..."

Leo backs away quickly, the image of the ferocious creatures flashes in his mind, his heart pounds at a fast pace, as his distorted brown eyes look around him.

Just where was he?

"Looks like the bastard's finally up! Someone get the captain." A voice announced, luring everyone's attention away from the meat cooking over the fire, to a startled Leo.

"Stand on yer feet, will ya? Captain's nun gonna like a wimp." A broad-shouldered man with large biceps scolded, stomping hard on the deck, his one foot crushing a hole into it.

Without being told twice Leo complies, standing on the swollen toe, sucking up the pain he felt.

Content at how quick he was to respond, the 'buff' man ripped off the lid of a crate with his bare hands and pulled out two jars from inside.

"Catch." He said, throwing one of the tightly sealed jars to him, the rest of the crew watch Leo fumble around, almost letting it crash against the shaky deck.

Relieved he didn't mess up, he pulls out the cork, and almost immediately the scent of wine filters through his nostrils, carried by the cool night breeze.

If not for the fire, he would have either fallen overboard or died of cold.

"As I thought," Leo mumbles to himself upon realizing it was liquor inside the black jar. Seeing as he was offered a drink, the youngster took it as a good sign, that perhaps he was a friend of theirs.

'That creature didn't look normal, and this feels too real to possibly be a game.' he deduced in his head, pushing the jar to his lips.

He gulped three whole times before parting with the jar, and when he did...

"Aaaaah! That's the spot! This hits way better than canned beer!" He spat out, pulling his lips back into a satisfied grin, grateful such a lower-wage earner like himself could have a taste of such good alcohol.

The rest of the crew kept silent, save for the dark-skinned hefty man who offered him the drink. He had long curly hair packed to the back and claw marks on both his arms.

Taking a closer look, Leo could notice something that looked like sharpened fangs peeking out of his mouth but immediately shook his head.

"It's probably just the booze." He figured, certain there was no way that man had fangs.

"Say..." The youngster called out, taking a sweep of the ship, seeing less than half the number of men initially onboard. Cooking over the fire was a large chunk of meat, and sitting next to it were larger chunks of meat, waiting to be cooked.

"What happened?" Leo couldn't be more tempted to ask, reaching to the back of his head, inspecting where had been hurt.

Only this time when he brought his palm to his line of sight, it was perfectly normal, in short blood free.

'Come to think of it... didn't I already die?' his rather slow-witted brain finally asked, a replay of his delivery truck colliding with another truck flashed through his mind.

"What happened? You wasted Eighty gemstones taking a little nap." The crass remark was accompanied by the sound of calculated footsteps marching toward the main fire.

Leo looked at the silhouette drawn across the floor, it was a bearded figure, he frowned when he realized that said person was...hopping?

He raised his head and set his sights on the same brown-bearded man, from before, accompanied by two other people he had seen at the time of panic.

Only this time, the captain was missing an eye and a leg.

"Captain!" All the men on board chorused, standing at attention to greet the man who needed the support of others to walk.

A kid no older than sixteen with short wavy black hair quickly pushed a crate forward, then used his head scarf to clean it.

The one-eyed man who had a silver eyepatch draped over his left eye, sat down, his intimidating aura reaching Leo, despite being suddenly handicapped.

"So...how do you plan on repaying me?" The captain asked, resting both elbows on his thighs, using his knuckles to cushion his chin.

His eyes turned deadly serious, staring daggers at Leo, who looked like he was holding in a...

"Haha..." Leo nervously chuckled, "I have the gut feeling that I owe you something I won't be able to pay back." He blurted out, easing into his words.

The captain's expression remained unchanged, Leo let out a nervous whistle and then darted his eyes across the ship. The first thing he noticed was the thorn sail, then the broken mast. Some parts were clogged up with bloodied clothes, keeping water from filtering in.

In fact, the more he looked around, the more he realized that the ship was in horrible condition.

"What happened?"

The question accidentally spilled out of his tongue, almost casually.

"A Crothawk, that's what, and a big one." The captain remarked, the hefty dark-skinned man took out another jar and tossed it casually to the captain.

Without even looking, and despite being blind in that eye, he effortlessly caught it and bit the cork off.

Leo blinked twice, "I don't think I follow, that thing that attacked us, was real?" He stressed the latter part, half of him unaccepting of the fact that this was real.

The captain took one huge gulp then diverted his gaze back to Leo, "it was real I tell you, and it ate half my crew, including all our recovery magic users." He said.

"Excuse me, but did you say magic?" A confused Leo sheepishly chipped in.

Ignoring him, the captain diverted his one good eye to the clear white eyeball, right next to the young man.

"At the very least, that eye will cost me a good price at the black market, and then there's the king." He took a pause and looked at Leo.

"It's not like I didn't take this many loses into consideration, this was an even better outcome than I expected." The captain announced, taking a sweep of his once proud ship.

"After all, with this in my possession..." He said, lifting his eyepatch to reveal a shiny red stone, wedged deep into his sockets.

"My life is pretty much made! Men We're fucking rich!"