When Levi came downstairs, he found Sarah putting on her hat and getting ready to head out.
“Sarah, where are you going?”
“To take a look at a shipment that came in today. Want to come along?”
“If you’re inviting me, how could I possibly refuse?”
At first, Levi had been more than happy to accompany Sarah.
Now, however, he felt like coming with her had been a terrible mistake.
He had heard plenty about Bloodharbor before, but actually experiencing it firsthand was something else entirely.
They hadn’t even arrived yet when an overwhelming stench struck him hard enough to make breathing difficult.
Levi’s throat churned, and he felt as though he might vomit at any moment.
The smell seemed capable of worming its way into everything.
Even when Levi pinched his nose as tightly as he could, it still felt as though the stink had seeped into him and would never come out.
All kinds of strange sea beasts were hauled into the slaughterhouses and split open by butchers, filling the air with an overpowering reek of salt, blood, and rotting flesh.
Some of the intestines spilling from their carcasses were thick enough for a grown man to crawl through.
Blood had poured across the streets and dried there, while discarded entrails clung to the cobblestones after baking beneath the sun for who knew how long.
Then there were the thousands upon thousands of seabirds that came to steal scraps, leaving droppings everywhere, not to mention the workers of the Slaughter Docks themselves, their bodies and clothes constantly smeared with blood and gore.
All those smells combined into an indescribable assault on the senses.
Even someone with the strongest stomach imaginable would have ended up vomiting until there was nothing left.
After years upon years of slaughter, so much blood had flowed into the harbor that the surrounding waters had long since been stained dark red.
A greasy film floated across the surface, reflecting the light with a nauseating sheen.
Hunting sea monsters and butchering them afterward was how countless people in Bilgewater made their living.
People survived on whatever the world around them provided, and here, the sea shaped nearly every aspect of life.
The endless depths and the terrifying monsters lurking within them were horrors capable of taking human lives without warning, but they were also sources of enormous wealth and valuable resources.
Their small boat cut through the filthy water, pushing the floating layer of grease aside as it sped forward.
First Mate Rafen was sweating heavily as he worked the oars.
He was one of Sarah’s most trusted and capable men, as well as a seasoned sailor who knew Bilgewater inside and out.
“How are you holding up?” Sarah asked gently when she noticed Levi’s sickly expression.
“If you need to throw up, just do it.”
Levi curled his lip.
“I really shouldn’t have come.”
Sarah couldn’t help laughing at the expression on his face, even though the stench disgusted her too.
But Sarah was a Bilgewater native.
This was far from her first time coming here, and she had known exactly what to expect.
Naturally, she was handling it much better than Levi.
“The water here is so full of blood that I’m surprised it’s not too thick to make waves anymore,” Levi complained.
“If that’s what you think, you’d be very wrong,” Sarah replied, looking at him.
She knew perfectly well that the water beneath the seemingly calm surface was anything but peaceful.
“If you don’t believe her, put your hand in the water and see for yourself,” Rafen said quietly, glancing at him.
Levi actually lowered his fingers toward the surface.
Almost immediately, the water rippled.
A fish with a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth burst from the water and snapped at his hand.
Levi reacted quickly and jerked his hand back.
Had he been even a little slower, his fingers probably would have ended up as fish food.
“He tells you to try it and you actually do it?” Sarah snickered at him.
“What the hell was that? A piranha?”
“It definitely eats people,” Rafen said.
“Around here we usually call them Razorfish.”
He paused before continuing.
“The damn things are covered in spines and barely have any meat on them. Even dogs wouldn’t want them with all those hard bones.”
“We’re here.”
After finding a place to dock, Rafen expertly tied the small boat to a wooden post.
Sarah stepped ashore, with Levi and Rafen following close behind her.
The moment Levi’s feet touched the ground, he noticed how unpleasantly sticky it was.
Every step produced a faint squelching sound beneath his boots, making his skin crawl.
The three of them stopped in front of a large warehouse.
Two burly men stood guard outside.
They wore rough leather clothing, their hands clasped behind their backs, with gleaming curved blades hanging from their belts.
“Captain!”
The moment they saw Sarah approaching, both men straightened and greeted her loudly.
Sarah’s men respected her deeply.
Compared with most gang leaders and pirate captains in Bilgewater, she treated the people under her command with considerably more humanity.
Sarah gave the two men a nod.
Understanding immediately, they opened the warehouse doors and struggled to carry out a large chest.
It was extremely heavy.
Even with both men being strong and powerfully built, they clearly had trouble handling it.
The chest hit the ground with a heavy thud.
“What’s inside?” Levi leaned forward and asked quietly.
“Why don’t you open it and find out?” Sarah replied irritably, tossing him a key.
Levi caught it, stepped forward, and quickly unlocked the chest.
He looked inside.
“What are these rocks supposed to be? Treasure?”
Sarah immediately sensed that something was wrong and looked inside herself.
The chest was filled to the brim with nothing but broken stones.
“What happened? Where’s the shipment?” Rafen demanded sharply after taking one look, his expression changing instantly.
“That’s impossible. I swear we checked this shipment ourselves. There was absolutely nothing wrong with it.”
Seeing the grim expressions on Sarah and Rafen’s faces, the two guards looked completely bewildered.
Neither of them had any idea what had happened.
“Forget it. Take it back inside,” Sarah said with a wave of her hand.
Only then did the two men finally breathe again, wiping the sweat from their foreheads.
They knew just how much money the contents of that chest had cost.
Even if both of them were sold into servitude, they wouldn’t have been worth enough to repay the loss.
“I believe them. They wouldn’t lie about this,” Rafen said, looking at Sarah.
Sarah nodded.
She knew her own men.
They wouldn’t deceive her.
“But how could everything inside the chest just disappear?” Sarah muttered.
Even she couldn’t make sense of it.
She had never encountered anything this strange before.
“I think I know who did it.”
Levi rummaged through the chest for a moment before finding something unusual.
Sarah immediately looked at him.
“Then tell us. Who was it?”
“I think once you see this, you’ll both know exactly who did it.”
Levi held up the object he had just pulled from between the stones.
It was a playing card, and a faint golden glow still shimmered across its surface.
Sarah and Rafen exchanged a look.
The same name appeared in both their minds at once.
Twisted Fate, the Card Master.
“He actually had the nerve to steal from me.”
There was unmistakable anger in Sarah’s voice.
“Someone must’ve offered him a very good price,” Rafen said, rubbing the stubble around his mouth as his brow furrowed.
“Otherwise, he wouldn’t have done something like this. The question is, who hired him?”
“Then all we need to do is find Twisted Fate, right?” Levi asked.
“That bastard comes and goes like a ghost, and he’s slippery as hell. Finding him isn’t that easy.”
Sarah rubbed her forehead and sighed, clearly not holding out much hope.
“Maybe we don’t need to find him.”
The corners of Levi’s mouth curled upward into a mischievous grin.
“We can find someone else first. Someone who isn’t exactly known for using his brain.”