Chapter 643: Diary
Just think about it—even if you only ventured into the safest regions marked on the nautical charts, the wealth you could gain would rival that of four or five entire Blazeforge Planes!
It's astonishing...
Now, all that wealth is practically beckoning to Leon.
Leon put away the largest nautical chart, feeling unusually cheerful—he even let out a rare laugh.
He walked out of the room filled with nautical charts.
It didn’t take long before he found the first mate’s study. The place was thick with dust and the shelves were crammed with books, but Leon could only sigh with regret.
He casually released a bit of magic to stir the wind element—a gentle breeze swept through, and all the books instantly crumbled to dust.
These ordinary pages had no magical protection at all. If they’d been stored elsewhere with proper care, maybe some could’ve survived. But this is the USS Dauntless—time’s corrosion has long since turned every book here to ashes.
Just imagine—the first mate’s study aboard the USS Dauntless, second only to Redbeard himself. The books here must’ve been priceless, but now every last one is lost.
A gust spell swept the dust out the window, but suddenly Leon’s eyes widened—he strode over to a bookshelf.
The shelf had once held seven or eight hundred books, now all reduced to dust—except for one inconspicuous corner on the second-to-last row, where a leather-bound book remained perfectly intact!
Leon frowned slightly and cast a detection spell, but the results showed nothing unusual.
It was just an ordinary book.
He picked up the book, only to notice a thin hidden compartment behind it. Disabling the simple mechanism, he found a necklace inside.
It looked like an utterly ordinary necklace—mithril forged, with a ruby set at the bottom.
The moment Leon touched the ruby, his expression changed instantly.
Powerful—unbelievably powerful magic!
There was a kind of magic inside that ruby that even made Leon’s heart race!
Yet his detection spell couldn’t sense a thing!
He tried probing it—the magic within the ruby was incredibly stable, and there seemed to be some sort of barrier. Forget extracting any magic, he couldn’t even make contact.
After a while, Leon frowned and set the necklace aside, picking up the leather-bound book instead. It was simply yet elegantly made, about thirty centimeters long, with a single rune on the cover—Leon couldn’t decipher its meaning.
Opening to the first page, Leon’s face showed genuine surprise.
It was a diary!
"Coldmoon, the thirteenth. Today, I finally became a sailor—no more sleeping in filthy slave quarters. I even met the captain..."
Leon flipped through a dozen pages—every entry was just the diary owner jotting down sailor’s trivialities.
On page twenty-five, Leon suddenly stopped.
"Embermoon, the twenty-eighth. Today was supposed to be a good day. After a month of effort, we finally killed that cunning Sky Rank sea beast. But then, just as it died, something terrifying happened—a massive whirlpool appeared on the ocean. It was so enormous, you couldn’t see the edges. It felt like the whole sea had turned into a vortex. That was the first time I saw the wise and steady captain, who’d been unfazed even fighting Sky Rank beasts, suddenly look terrified. He went mad, ordering us to flee the whirlpool at once.
We didn’t even have time to bring the Sky Rank beast’s corpse aboard—the captain tossed it away without hesitation. Everyone could see he was gripped by fear. Poor squad leader John fell overboard, and I saw that terrifying whirlpool swallow him in the blink of an eye..."
Reading that page, Leon could almost see, through the scrawled handwriting, just how terrified the diary’s author had been—his hand must have been shaking as he wrote.
The great whirlpool...
Immediately, Leon remembered the largest nautical chart, where the most dangerous spot was marked—a rough whirlpool symbol, completely out of place on an otherwise precise and meticulous map. Whoever drew it must have been terrified at the time.
There was even a blood-red X over the whirlpool symbol—a vast stretch of ocean that not even the USS Dauntless could approach.
Leon pondered for a moment, then turned the page.
"Embermoon, the twenty-ninth. Today, I heard the cook George died—apparently choked on a stolen piece of bread. Serves him right. We’re risking our lives while that bastard’s sneaking food..."
He kept flipping.
"Embermoon, the thirtieth. Byron, that idiot—supposedly the nimblest thief on the Dauntless—managed to fall from the second floor and die. Damn..."
Leon kept flipping through, finding the same kind of entries—someone died every day, page after page, more than twenty in a row...
"Rainbloom, the twenty-third. Damn it, another death. It’s terrifying. There’s a rumor going around—the hunt for the Sky Rank beast angered something terrible, and now there’s evil aboard. People die every day—not just lowly sailors and slaves. Today, a squad captain died..."
Leon’s brow furrowed as he flipped faster, dozens of pages all the same. The diary’s author went from indifferent to increasingly terrified—even the dates grew sporadic.
Suddenly, Leon stopped, his expression growing serious as he studied the new page. Once again, the handwriting was scrawled—the diarist’s hand trembling in fear.
"Frostmoon, the eighteenth. Everyone else was resting, and I went to clean the cabins. I ran into something terrifying. Just one look and I couldn’t move. It asked if I wanted to become the most powerful person on this ship. How could I believe that? Isn’t Redbeard the captain the one with all the power? Then it asked if I wanted to be the most powerful person under Redbeard...
Was it joking? I’m just an ordinary sailor. I was so scared—I agreed. I don’t want to die, really don’t want to die. It said it would help me, but the price was that I’d have to do something for it someday. I could only agree. Damn that squad leader—if he hadn’t made me clean at night, I wouldn’t have met that thing. It must be the evil on board; everyone dies at night. Damn that squad leader, he must’ve wanted me dead. I’ll kill him..."
He flipped a few more pages—nothing of value. Eight pages later...
"Frostmoon, the thirtieth. Today’s the day of the shipboard contest. I challenged the squad leader to a duel, and then I regretted it...
I thought I was dead for sure, but somehow I killed the squad leader. I won. I became the new squad leader..."
Seeing this, Leon immediately thought of that unkillable monster.
He kept turning pages—nothing special. The diary’s owner began to rise rapidly, in both rank and position, as if blessed by the goddess of luck. Either his superiors died in battle, or he broke through himself.
On the second-to-last page, the diarist had become first mate—earning Redbeard’s deep trust.
"Is this what they call a protagonist?" Leon was dumbfounded. The diary’s owner really had protagonist potential—almost as if blessed by the goddess of luck. His whole rise was so smooth it was unbelievable, like everything had been set up just for him to take the first mate’s seat...
But when Leon turned to the last page, his opinion changed instantly...
The final page held just one sentence: "It came for me. It wants me to betray the captain..."
Turning further, there was only a torn half-page left—just a few fragmented words.
"I don’t want to betray the captain, but I’m too afraid to defy it. No, no, I have to find a way to deal with it—I can’t become a puppet. I heard..."
"Huh?" After reading the fragmented words, Leon suddenly realized—the diary was only half there. The other half had been torn away...
"Wait, what’s this..." Just as he was about to set the diary down, Leon’s gaze lingered on the last page—a faint red mark caught his eye.
Carefully, Leon reached out, wanting to wipe away the faint red mark. But as soon as he touched it, he knew something was wrong—it wasn’t a mark at all. It was a red hair!
Yes, Redbeard!
"The missing half of the diary—Redbeard must have taken it!"
That’s right—it had to be...
Thinking back to what the first mate wrote on the blueprint—if I die, give the things in my room to the captain—Leon was certain the first mate had found some clues about the monster, and put them in the missing half of the diary...
But that half of the diary had been taken by Redbeard...
Looks like a trip to the captain’s cabin is in order...
Leon slowly closed the diary. Just as he stepped out of the study, he saw Hubert approaching from afar.
"Hubert, did you find anything useful?"
Hubert scratched his head, answering cautiously.
"Lord Merlin, I didn’t find anything—just a bunch of ruins..."
Leon shook his head.
"Forget it. If there’s nothing, let’s get out of here quickly."
Hearing Leon’s words, Hubert actually looked curious and asked:
"Lord Merlin, did you find anything useful?"
Leon glanced at the diary in his hand and replied offhandedly, "Found a little something."