Chapter 784: Noisy

Barnamo Port, the Carnival Bar.

The adventurer Mason had donned the loose-legged pants and thicker jacket favored by pirates, his gaze fixed on the unknown adventurer drinking strong liquor with his back turned, his spirit remaining tense.

He wasn't worried the man would harm him—he was anxious about when this life would finally end.

Pirates were never a group that reasoned or refrained from taking out their anger; after no one responded to the arrogant unknown adventurer's provocation, many pirates tried to vent their fury on other adventurers in Barnamo Port.

Adventurers who frequently moved about Barnamo Port had long grown accustomed to hiding, never identifying themselves as adventurers in public but instead posing as other professions—otherwise, corpses would inevitably turn up at the end of alleys or floating off the nearby docks.

In a port dominated by pirates, being an adventurer was clearly a dangerous and unexposable profession; people like Mason maintained legitimate, disguised identities in daily life, or even joined pirate crews as members stationed in Barnamo Port to help gather supplies.

Taking contracts wouldn't expose an adventurer's identity, since many pirates also took on missions for bounties—simply killing a rival pirate, seizing his estate, and then collecting an additional bounty through connections was a common practice; who wouldn't want that?

Of course, pirates and adventurers still differed in how they carried out missions: pirates first determined who issued the contract and weighed whether they could simply kill the client outright. Some adventurers did the same, naturally turning into bandits in places lacking sufficient order.

Mason had recently lost his job as a merchant's clerk and, bearing physical features unlike those of locals, had no choice but to dress as a pirate to avoid being targeted.

Amid his swirling thoughts, his gaze drifted to a window-side table in the Carnival Bar, where the wall was charred, the glass cracked, the furniture overturned, and two badly burned, mutilated corpses lay, their body parts scattered nearby.

They were two pirates.

At noon, they recognized an adventurer they'd encountered before and intended to vent their malice on him—but the unknown adventurer at the bar didn't even turn around; he summoned one crimson-white flame-raven after another, instantly blowing the two pirates to pieces and burning them for a long time.

This made every pirate present truly believe the unknown adventurer was a man of his word.

He said he'd kill you, and he would kill you; he said anyone who crossed the line would be executed, and he would execute them—even here, in a pirate port, even with thousands of pirates and countless extraordinary individuals watching him!

And the captain of those two pirates dared not retaliate.

Mason had witnessed the entire scene; he realized the two pirates had some understanding of the "Arsonist's" abilities and were skilled fighters—one even a low-rank extraordinary being—but even with caution, they couldn't escape the pursuit of a dozen or so fire-ravens, and were engulfed in flames the moment they fled from the bar's center to the window.

This stirred in Mason an involuntary sense of longing.

When will I ever possess such power?

When will I become an adventurer capable of intimidating so many pirates?

Mason had originally intended to "kindly" dispose of the two pirates' remains, but to his disappointment, the captain and first mate of that pirate crew arrived quickly—and they didn't even dare drag away the bodies, merely collecting the "estate."

"I need to stay as close to this adventurer as possible—otherwise, if I'm recognized, I'm done…" Mason gulped down his dark-brown beer, suddenly feeling a pang of bewilderment, "How did my life, once so normal, turn into this?"

Though he hadn't suffered direct harm, he seemed to have been caught in the fallout.

This intensified his fear that he'd somehow drawn disaster to Barnamo Port, yet he also felt it wasn't quite disaster yet—it would end when the unknown adventurer left or when a pirate general or pirate king arrived.

"In the future, I absolutely won't perform any ritual I don't fully understand…" Mason warned himself.

He then raised his cup, clinking it toward his reflection on the wall, as if making peace with himself.

…………

Inside the shadow, Francia was attentively observing the situation inside and outside the Carnival Bar.

This was her mission.

Lumian was in the open; even if he was vigilant and cautious, he could still be ambushed, for the extraordinary realm was full of strange, hidden, hard-to-defend abilities, rituals, and spells—so she needed to hide in the shadows, observe from another angle, and act promptly to interrupt threats or provide a "mirror double."

During the past two days following Lumian around Barnamo Port, Francia first saw pirates drinking, chatting, laughing, cursing, eating, gambling, and sleeping, thinking they weren't much different from ordinary people and feeling a pang of pity for the planned plague; but after witnessing pirate infighting and hearing of murders, kidnappings, bullying the weak, robbery, and rape, she sincerely believed infecting these scum with plague was purification of the world, an act of virtue.

Fighting hunger, Francia silently scolded Lumian:

"Does this guy not even realize it's been an hour past lunchtime?"

"You get to eat—I don't!"

"According to our unspoken agreement over the past two days, shouldn't you have shaken off any possible trackers, returned to the inn, and let me rest and eat something?"

Muttering to herself, Francia still diligently monitored her surroundings.

At that moment, several pirates entered, bringing lively, joyful, and excited energy to different tables.

Huh… Francia, blending into the shadows and clinging to the wall, quietly crept beside one group of pirates and listened closely.

"Has the 'Deep Sea Admiral' really arrived?"

"The 'Nuyens' is docked!"

"Do they know about this adventurer?"

"…"

Oh, so the 'Deep Sea Admiral' has come at last… Francia murmured silently, her speculation confirmed.

Since Jian Na had given no warning, no pirate king had arrived in Barnamo Port—so Francia began anticipating how the 'Deep Sea Admiral' would react and what he would do.

She was certain the 'Deep Sea Admiral' and his key lieutenants knew the unknown adventurer had defied the entire pirate community.

This was a simple deduction:

Since the 'Deep Sea Admiral' was evading the 'Dusk King,' he would surely confirm Barnamo Port's situation before coming to resupply.

The most common approach was to send obscure pirates aboard other ships ahead to scout; if Barnamo Port was a port he frequently visited, he might even station trusted subordinates there under false identities to provide timely updates.

Alternatively, he could cooperate with local forces for early warnings—either way, the 'Deep Sea Admiral' must have sufficient knowledge of recent events in Barnamo Port, otherwise he wouldn't have surfaced the 'Nuyens.'

Francia fell silent again, no longer affected by hunger.

Yet like the pirates, she waited over half an hour without seeing the 'Deep Sea Admiral' or any of his powerful subordinates, growing puzzled:

"Why hasn't he come yet?"

"Could you, 'Deep Sea Admiral,' also be someone who follows the heart's desire? Unlikely—you're clearly only at Level 6 in the Sequence, and this cunning bastard has only used crimson-white flames, not the pure white flames of the 'Harvester'…"

Francia thought carefully and roughly understood the reason:

If she were in his position, hunted by the 'Dusk King,' she certainly wouldn't provoke trouble the moment she arrived at a port—she'd first complete resupply and prepare for another submersion before doing anything else, so that if anything went wrong, she could flee Barnamo Port immediately without failing her primary objective.

Moreover, Lumian, the unknown adventurer, had been in Barnamo Port for two or three days now, yet hadn't hunted any well-known pirates with substantial bounties—he seemed to be waiting for something.

This would make others suspect his true purpose, and the 'Deep Sea Admiral' would naturally feel wary.

Huh… Francia exhaled silently.

Her gaze still drifted across the Carnival Bar, alert for any possible incident.

During this, her eyes inevitably swept over Lumian, who sat sideways to her; she saw his lips slightly curled, his mood quite good, holding a cup of amber-colored Luranchi with some unknown additive.

…………

Lumian toyed with his cup, using the Hunter's exceptional hearing to grasp why the pirates had suddenly become excited, joyful, and anxiously awaiting.

His target had arrived!

Lumian felt no surprise—he already knew this; Jian Na had come, hiding in the shadows, placing a written note where his palm had lightly pressed.

Anticipating the 'Deep Sea Admiral' wouldn't come to him soon, Lumian sat calmly, his expression natural, as if utterly unaware of the commotion behind him.

He glanced at the bartender, who was struggling to control his expression, and smiled:

"The wind today is rather noisy."

The bartender didn't know how to respond, only stiffly smiled:

"Yes."

Lumian said nothing more to him, focusing inward on his emotions and state.

To be honest, facing a pirate general with his own fleet still made him slightly uneasy—but it also made his blood stir, boil.

He had never been someone who feared challenges; since becoming a Hunter, even more so—he even savored the thrill of them.

Thinking of this, Lumian raised his cup of Luranchi, tilted his head slightly, and drained it in one gulp.

(End of Chapter)