Charles' hand trembled, and he almost dropped the wine bottle in his hand to the floor. He rushed to Tobba's side and nervously asked, "What did you just say? Don't fool around when it comes to something like that.
"Will it be just you, or will all mankind die with you?"
Tobba's brows were tightly furrowed, and he looked quite troubled as he said, "Hmm... I don't know. I only saw the moment of my own death."
"Talk properly to me, Tobba. Don't speak in riddles. This is really important to me!" Charles exclaimed. He grabbed the arms of the old man in front of him and lifted him up, making his feet dangle in the air.
Just as Charles thought that Tobba wouldn't say anything, Tobba's pure and child-like eyes abruptly changed. He seemed to have transformed into an adult as he said, "It has nothing to do with you. I'm just announcing my death in advance.
"Let me make it clear, my grave has to be next to Lily's grave. The color of the tombstone should be pure yellow, and there has to be nothing written on it. On the day of my burial, I want to be my own chief mourner."
Charles' heart was inundated by a wave of joy. He had only seen this kind of Tobba in another perspective. "You've come to your senses? What can you see in the future? Is the Foundation still there, or is it gone?"
"How can I see that when the myriad of futures are now stacked on top of each other? There are a myriad of futures, but there's one thing I am sure of—the Foundation will always exist."
As soon as Tobba finished speaking, Charles' body instantly tensed up. He felt a powerful danger approaching!
Just then, two triangular rifts quietly appeared on the white wallpapered wall next to them. Tobba had attracted the attention of the perspective police!Charles had dealt with them before, and their bizarre attacks, along with the fact that they were immortal, made them troublesome enemies to handle.
When Charles thought that a fierce battle was going to unfold, his expectation was betrayed, and the room remained peaceful.
Charles turned to Tobba just then and found the latter staring at him with a silly smile tugging at his lips. Clearly, the "real" Tobba had left.
He let go of Tobba, and the latter hopped toward the kitchen with some terrified mice in his arms.
Charles felt conflicted as he stared at Tobba's cheerful back profile.
Was he really going to die? Was he going to lose another crew member?
Tobba's words had shaken him so much that he couldn't continue drinking. He carefully pondered over the information that Tobba had conveyed to him. He even called Anna and Sparkle over to talk about them.
Tobba had provided very little information. He said that the Foundation would always exist, but he didn't really say anything about which side would win—were the winners the Foundation or them?
Charles found Tobba's words to be contradictory. His words about how the Foundation would always exist wouldn't hold true if the Foundation ended up losing the fight, but it was possible.
They could choose to coexist peacefully with everyone, after all.
Charles and the others thought hard and long about it, but no matter how hard they thought about it, they couldn't make any conclusions apart from the conclusion that Tobba was going to die soon.
Before they could extrapolate more information from Tobba's words, Charles heard news from the Shattered Heart Isles, which was thousands of miles away from Hope Island.
Charles soon synchronized with the spider and found himself in the same underground church as earlier, and the first thing he saw was Kevin with a live fish in his hands.
Kevin presented the live fish, which was only as big as his index finger, to the spider eye, and a fawning look suffused his face as he said, "Sir, this is a fresh yellow-scaled fish, and it's the most delicious deep-sea fish in the Southern Seas!
"We heard that you haven't been eating well recently, so we specially went out to sea to catch this fish for you."
Charles glanced at Shindy sitting upright beside him. He made the spider eye inject its digestive fluids into the fish, and then he turned to Kevin, asking, "Have you found a solution to what we had discussed before?"
"Yes, sir!" Kevin nodded excitedly. "We discovered that a ship is setting sail tomorrow to deliver goods to one of the inner islands in the Sea of Mist!"
Kevin pointed at Shindy next to him and said, "I've bribed the boatswain to let this brother of ours come aboard as a sailor on his ship. Fortunately, this brother of ours is a Haikor, and they are less wary of their own people.
"If he were human, this arrangement would be impossible."
"Do you know the ship's destination?" Charles asked. Then, he briefly returned to his own body to take out a large nautical chart. He wanted to know just how far was the destination from SITE 6.
"Um... we can't really ask that kind of question. The Haikors rarely talk about the happenings inside the Sea of Mist," Kevin asked, revealing a trace of embarrassment on his face.
"It's fine. Just get us on the ship and leave the rest to us," Charles said.
"Mmhm!" Kevin nodded vigorously. "Those false gods can only hope to threaten the Great One! The day of His awakening is the day of their reckoning!"
Charles stared at Kevin and nodded. "If you two can handle it, I want you and your brother to cause some trouble for the Haikors using the Fhtagnists in the prison upon our departure."
A commotion in one of their islands could definitely distract the Foundation.
"Understood! We will do it even if it costs us everything!" the Fhtagnists present stood up straight with eyes filled with a fanatical light.
They all thought that Charles—a big shot in the Fhtagn Covenant—had just given them an order. They all believed that succeeding in this task meant being bestowed upon the grace of an initiation ceremony, which would transform them into true servants of the Great One!
Soon, it was the morning of the next day.
Shindy made a beeline for the docks, as he had already prepared everything last night. Kevin had sent over a shark skin that would serve as his identification, and he gripped it tightly as he strode over to a turtleshell ship in the distance.
The work of a sailor was more or less the same—scrubbing the deck clean, doing odd jobs, and doing maintenance on the ropes—Shindy had done these before, so he had no issues with them.
The bribed boatswain revealed a satisfied look upon seeing that Shindy didn't need to be taught.
A thirty-centimeter-long palm patted Shindy's shoulder. The hand belonged to the boatswain. Shindy turned and saw the boatswain's face, whose most prominent feature was his ball-like beard.
"You're pretty good, kid. Follow me for a few more trips after this, and you'll become convinced by how much easier it is to sail the straits leading to the inner islands compared to the sea outside. Consider yourself lucky to be here."
Shindy straightened his back at Charles' signal and asked, "Boss, how many days are we going to be out here? We shouldn't be out for too long, no? I want to go back early if possible.
"If my mother finds out that I'm out here sailing again, then she will definitely scold me to death."
The boatswain picked his nose and flicked the booger to the floor that Shindy had just mopped clean. "If we don't encounter huge waves and are able to maintain this speed, then the trip there should take us twenty days.
"In other words, the entire trip will take forty days to complete, so your mother will definitely find out that you're out at sea again."
"We're not going to keep turning, are we? I don't get seasick, but I feel like throwing up whenever a ship is turning."
"Don't worry, we aren't turning. The destination is just straight ahead. Anyway, keep working hard out here," the boatswain said. He patted Shindy's shoulder once again before turning around to leave.
Meanwhile, in the Governor's Mansion of Hope Island, Charles took out a large nautical chart and placed it on the table. He quickly drew the ship's current route based on its current speed and heading.
For a veteran captain like Charles, anticipating the route of a ship based on its speed and heading was a piece of cake. Of course, a few more details were necessary, but as long as the details were there, he'd have no issues deducing a ship's destination.
Upon seeing that the ship's destination was six hundred nautical miles away from SITE 6, which he had marked on the map, Charles knew that he had to take control of the ship before it reached its destination.
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