"Come in."
A rough and hearty voice answered. It was Captain Hols, the iron-skinned playboy, who would even mess with his friend's wife right before his eyes. Sigurd pushed the door open and dragged Ed inside without much difficulty. After all, the physical fitness and strength of people in this world were abnormally high, and for Sigurd, carrying Ed, who weighed at most 60 kg, was hardly worth mentioning.
This was Ed's first time inside a sailing ship's captain's cabin. It wasn't as extravagant as he had imagined, just an ordinary, relatively spacious room with simple furniture. A painting hung on the left wall, contributing to the very basic decor. On one side stood three rows of simple bookcases, fitted with a wooden barrier in the middle to keep the books from falling during rough seas.
All the furniture and supplies were essentially bolted down. The most eye-catching item was the large solid wood desk at the back of the room. It looked somewhat messy, covered with various parchment scrolls and some navigational tools. Ed only recognized a compass; the others were unfamiliar to him.
A huge map hung on the back wall, alongside a handmade portrait of a half-naked woman wearing only colorful ribbons across her breasts and crotch. Her hair was loose, a beautiful smile on her face as she made a beckoning gesture. She sat on a beach with a setting sun behind her. Whoever painted this, Ed had to admit, was a real talent.
Surprisingly, Ed also recognized the woman in the portrait: she was the tavern owner's wife, whom Hols always teased in various ways, later getting beaten by her husband for it. It seemed he had an interesting history with her, but Ed had never been one for dramatic stories, especially when hearing them from the losing party's perspective, so he had no intention of showing interest.
Even if Hols wanted to talk about it, Ed would simply walk away. As for saving face? Ha! He had the island's most powerful boss standing behind him. What could a puny character like Hols, who couldn't even defeat a tavern owner, and let him steal his crush, do to him?
But aside from Hols's failed love life, Ed was interested in everything in the captain's cabin, especially the maps, which were the very purpose of his visit. Yesterday, Ed had asked Sigurd to take him to the captain's room to look at some detailed maps. He was very interested in them, well, to tell the truth, he wasn't, but his damn system forced him to be.
This kind of thing was usually only available in the captain's room. Hols looked at the visitors, especially the one who had become famous on his ship in the past few days. "Oh, our poor treasure hunter is here," he said to Ed with a smile. "How's your health, kiddo? Don't worry, I know a doctor. After we land, I'll bring him to you. He'll have you healthy in a few hours. But for now, here, drink this wine. It'll help you."
"Although, no matter what I do, Marcy is surely going to beat me to death after she learns I let her favorite adoptive son get sick the whole way and suffer by—"
"Puuuu!!! What kind of shit is this? Even seawater is more delicious than this thing! Did we run out of water, so you have to drink urine?"
Hols and Sigurd had black lines on their foreheads, hearing Ed's blunt complaint about the most expensive wine they had ever seen. Just as Ed was about to toss the wine bottle aside in disgust, Hols hurriedly snatched it from him. After confirming it wasn't damaged, he breathed a sigh of relief.
"Brat, you're not getting any more wine from me, ever again," Hols said angrily, trying to calm himself. He even took a sip of the wine Ed had insulted so thoroughly, making an expression as if he had drunk the world's most delicious nectar.
Seeing his expression, Ed couldn't help but wrench himself from Sigurd's arms, grab the dustbin bucket beside the table, and vomit up all the vegetable soup he'd drunk that morning.
Blurch!
"I think you shouldn't have to drink that in front of him... Is it really that bad?" Sigurd asked hesitantly, coming to stand beside Hols, who was still taking small sips of the wine.
"Why don't you try it yourself?" Hols offered the wine to Sigurd, though his expression wasn't as friendly as before.
Though very hesitant after seeing Ed's reaction, Sigurd, as a good brother, prayed to the Stone Mother and finally took a small sip. Unlike Ed's extreme reaction, he only frowned slightly, then took another sip. With each sip, his expression improved, and by the fifth sip, he had become a die-hard fan of the wine.
"Damn, this is so good!" Sigurd exclaimed delightedly.
"See? Told you. It seems your brother is a weirdo. He wants to be a treasure hunter, but gets seasick. He can't appreciate fine wine. I don't know how your mother raised him," Hols said in a low voice. But seeing the unfriendly look in Sigurd's eyes at the mention of his mother, Hols became honest and offered him more wine to calm down this mama's boy, who looked ready to explode at any moment.
About five minutes later, Ed, with trembling legs and supporting himself on the table, finally stood up. He picked up a two-liter water jug from the table, emptied it in one go, and slammed it back down, his eyes bloodshot.
"Don't ever bring that wine and drink it with that disgusting expression of yours in front of me again," He growled. "Otherwise, believe me, I'll throw both of you off this ship and let the sharks feed on you." Having said that, he began panting heavily and fell silent.
Hols and Sigurd looked at each other, then at the bottle in Hols's hand. Silently, Hols put it back in his coat pocket before approaching Ed and patting his shoulder merrily.
"Come on, kiddo, you can look at these maps. Maybe they'll help you feel better. If you don't understand anything, just ask me. You know I can't delay you; otherwise, Marcy might pull my head off. And the chance of that happening only gets higher with each passing day. Hahaha!"
"How can it be that exaggerated?" Sigurd, who had bonded with Hols over the wine and now considered him a buddy, asked with a sidelong glance.
Hols came over and patted his shoulder with a sympathy that was hard to place, perhaps for himself, for Sigurd, or for both of them. "You're her son. Don't you know?"
Hearing this, Sigurd could only fall silent and take a deep breath.
Ed completely ignored the two men's banter. After all this nonsense caused by them, his condition was even worse. He urgently needed something to make him feel better, or he'd have to rest like a patient, something he never wanted to experience again. So he went directly to the huge map on the wall behind the table.
He first took a long look at Hols's lifelong curse, needing something to energize his poor eyes, which had only seen muscular men for the past three days, and were desperate for something beautiful. He never expected that in just three days, he'd be so desperate to return to Raila's embrace that he'd be willing to pay all his money for it. Only after satisfying his eyes did he turn to the map.
"Is this a world map?" He asked in a hoarse voice, leaning against the wall with both hands.
Hearing this, Hols shook his head. "No, no, no. This is a map of the Muharat Homeland, also known as the North Homeland Sea," He walked to the map, pointed to a specific location, and continued, "We are here now. This is Golden Wheat Island, and this is our destination." He pointed to a spot on the lower right side of the map. The distance between the two points on the map was barely two or three centimeters, almost touching.
"What is the Blood Gold Alliance?" Ed asked weakly after a moment of silence. The large area they were in on the map was labeled "Blood Gold Alliance."
"The Blood Gold Alliance is an alliance of several important islands, and Golden Wheat Island is also a member," Hols explained patiently.
Ed nodded in understanding, realizing it was equivalent to the governing body of this area.
An alliance, a united government? Well, it doesn't matter. They're the ruling party anyway.
He wasn't interested in that kind of information. He had come to see the map to test his system, which was so useless that if it weren't for his Inventory, he might have forgotten its existence.
His Treasure-Hunting System required a map as a medium. He wanted to know how the golden finger would perform with such a large map covering a wide area. It was impossible for densely packed light spots to fill the entire map. There had been four light spots on the small Golden Wheat Island when he first used it. This map showed a vast sea area and countless islands, not to mention potential treasures like shipwrecks beneath the waves.
Thinking of this, Ed looked at the entire huge map and blinked. Immediate, obvious changes appeared on the map, though Hols and Sigurd noticed nothing unusual. They were still chatting with each other, for some reason stuck on the topic of that f*cking wine, which made Ed's blood boil every time he heard it mentioned.