The ship cut through the gentle swell of the sea, its wooden hull creaking softly as the waves lapped against it. Far behind, Pearlag was standing on the water, its silhouette a jagged line of green and stone. The sun hung high in the sky, casting a golden glow across the sea, turning it into a shimmering mirror that stretched to the horizon. The scent of salt and earth mingled in the air, carried from the island's faraway shores, and the faint sound of birds calling out from the trees drifted over the water, their cries lost in the vastness. The wider sea was filled with deep blue, as if inviting the ship to draw closer.
After staying on Pearlag for almost 10 days, I finally left the island for my next so-called Isekai Adventure.
In fact, I should have left the island a long time ago. The ship heading to Leverdent already arrived and left many days ago. I could have hitched a ride with them, but I didn't want the unnecessary questions like why an armed man wanted to go to their rural island suddenly? Or should they be the ones to bring him home, or send him to the depths of the sea at night? And things of this genre.
Don't underestimate the paranoia of people. As a paranoid person myself, I know how far this can get.
Furthermore, I still had to 'train' myself in the art of social survival, or I would have become a lamb for slaughter in this world and be taken advantage of on every corner.
While I may not have monetary problems because of the Box, that doesn't mean I should let others take advantage of me like that.
Now that I have left, these guys should be happy that I did. Heh, who am I kidding, they probably didn't notice that I even left.
—Third Person POV—
Back on Pearlag, in the open market.
"HE LEFT! THE DEAD EYED DEMON HAS LEFT!" On one side of the market, a man was running and shouting the news with the loudest voice he could manage.
"Is That True?!"
"Did He Really Leave?!"
"Yes! I Saw Him Get On A Ship Heading To Mabo With My Own Eyes!"
"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHH!"
"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHH!"
"YEEEEEAAAAAHHHHH!"
Roars of joy resounded from the market across the streets of the city. People were cheering and laughing, some were even crying in happiness!
"Thank God! Thank God!"
"He Is Gone! That Demon Is Finally Gone!"
"It Was Like I Was Living In A Nightmare!"
"I Thought This Would Never End!"
People were breathing a sigh of relief at the thought of not seeing him again, some were getting themselves more composed after clearing away their bent-up emotions and frustration.
"If he didn't leave, I would be in deep red this month."
"You didn't get to red already?! That Dead Eyed Demon already ripped me off three times!"
"Damn, I thought I would have to pay the debtors with my organs!"
"Just where did that kid come from?"
"Hell, obviously! Only a place like that could produce someone with such a cruel soul."
"Those dead eyes of his, it was like he could read my mind."
"Right? I felt the same thing many times, too."
"If I see his rotten eyes again, I might really shoot him!"
"They already tried that, didn't work. Only made him more ruthless."
"Well, as long as we don't see his face again!"
—Hachiman's POV—
It is not like I want to see them again, moreover, I made a good amount of money from all the 'grinding' I did.
This should last me for a while, enough to cover my expenses to Leverdent and more.
I really hope I don't need to go anywhere else after getting the Devil Fruit, but I know somehow I would need to. There is no way getting out of this world would be this easy.
And for that, I have to get a more efficient way to travel around the sea, hopping from one ship to the other is not very convenient to travel.
The best way is to get my own means of traveling, AKA: My own boat, which should be easy. The problem is traveling the sea itself.
Each of the four Blues is divided into smaller regions, as all of the Blues are very wide. Each of the regions has its own currents and climates.
Seafaring across the regions is dangerous. Unlike traveling in the same region, which can be done alone in small boats, if you are trying to travel further than the region you are in, you are exposing yourself to the dangers of the open seas. So people usually don't sail alone.
Professions like Navigators and Helmsmen exist for this reason, they can tell you what the safest and easiest paths are, how to avoid storms and dangerous waters, maneuver you away from pirates, and get you to your destination in 'one piece'.
Even if I have the Barbossa Sword and Sparrow Compass to help me with this, just depending on them is stupid. They are not omnipotent, following them blindly without having any skills myself is plain idiocy, it would be like putting the cart atop of the horse just because the horse is strong, expecting nothing to go wrong.
For this reason, I asked the Captain of this cargo ship if I could get classes from his Navigator and Helmsman, for a price of course.
"Hmm, I have no problem with it as long as it doesn't affect the trip. But you have to get their permission first. Wait, let me call them!"
He called his subordinates and told them my request. And they looked hesitant at first. But my newly upgraded Bargaining-Hiki skill told me this wasn't hesitation.
The moment I took out the money, they agreed immediately, even when I asked for the lessons to be crammed due to how short the journey is.
With only five days to learn both Navigation and Helmsmanship, the lessons have to be concise and to the point as much as possible. So, with no surprise, both men held the lessons completely on the practical side, with barely any theoretical side to it.
"Alright lad, hands on the wheel! And don't lose track of the Anemometer!" The Helmsman said to me the moment the lesson started.
I would be put behind the helm and asked to steer the ship directly. The Helmsman, called Marisol, will correct my mistake and tell me what I should watch out for.
Being a Helmsman wasn't just about watching the sea and keeping the steering wheel still. You have to watch over the change in the wind speed, intensity, and direction, making use of what you can use and avoiding the troublesome ones.
Sea waves and tides are also essential, as the wrong steer with a high wave could flip the ship upside down, which would mean game over. Going against the tide, or sailing directly into the turbulent wave, will send you to the depths of the sea faster than any enemy.
I was also taught more about the operation of the ship, boat handling, maneuvering, anchoring, maintenance, safety measures, and the law of the sea.
Marisol was an old sailor, so he had a lot of experience, which was better than any book. The biggest thing he emphasized on is to get a good hang of the ship you are piloting, to always test it when you can, to always know its condition and what it can and can't do.
The other is to always communicate with the Navigator.
"Alright, I will take it from here, lad. Relay on the logs to Sergei!" Marisol, the Helmsman, ended my lesson for now and told me to continue my lessons with Sergei, the Navigator.
Navigators' job is very connected to the Helmsmen's job. A good Navigator can make the Helmsman's job much easier, and in smaller crews, the Helmsman and the Navigator are usually the same person.
However, in the larger crew like this one here, they are separate jobs mainly because the larger ships like this one require more handling.
Also, because of the Seafaring Log.
On the upper deck of the ship, the Navigator Sergei was standing next to a small table and was writing something on a log.
"Did he get done with you?" Sergei asked directly.
"Yes," He was a man with a few words, just like me.
"Do you have the updates?"
"Yes,"
"Okay, write it down here and calculate our position," Sergei said, pointing his hand to the table where the log, map, and navigation tools are.
I move to the table and write down the log updates.
The updates from the Helmsman are the details about the ship's course, wind speed, direction, and status of the water currents. When the Navigator gets the updates from the Helmsman, he calculates the ship's speed, positions, and the next course to take according to the best wind and water currents.
Calculation is the key here. Navigation doesn't require much labor work, and it is the closest thing to a desk job in a ship. However, math wasn't exactly my favorite subject at school, so I struggled a bit with this at the beginning.
Thankfully, it was simple math, and as it was practical‒meaning I was applying it in real time‒it was much easier to understand than the eldritch curses they call advanced mathematics.
"I am done." Finishing my calculation, I put the tools on the table and reported to Sergei.
He picked up the logbook and looked at the map, comparing it to what he had written in his notebook. "Well done, you have a nice head over your shoulder," he complimented and then went silent for a bit.
"Now, calculate the weather on our route. And see if we need any possible change." He said as he gave me the notebook this time.
Now was the troublesome stuff.
To predict the weather, you get the data of wind speed, direction, air pressure, temperature, and humidity. And then run them through a series of formulas to get an idea of what the weather will be like in the direction you will be heading, and when you will need to adjust.
My problem with the navigation starts here, math was not my strongest aspect, and this step was math-dependent, so I was struggling with this step.
Luckily, the formulas for the calculations are the same every time, so I needed to memorize them, and the rest will need me to work my brain more.
"Hmm… you got it wrong here…" Sergei reviewed my work and pointed out my mistakes, and asked me to do it again.
He told me that this was the basic framework for the beginner Navigators, and the expert ones can predict the weather based on their sense.
While I would wish to get to this point already, I also wish to be back home before I need to reach this point.
In addition to course calculating and weather prediction, there are also other sides to navigation, like sea charting, star charting, and data collection through primitive and simpler methods.
Because if you are in the middle of the sea and you somehow lose your fancy navigation tools or they get broken, unless you can roughly use simpler make-shift tools to find your way in the sea, you are as good as dead.
The world is full of water, with no continental land mass. Meeting an island while sailing blindly is like winning a lottery.
That's why, unsurprisingly, Navigators are such a respected profession in this world. And it is one of the sea laws for a ship to have more than one person who knows navigation. For example, in this ship, other than the main navigator Sergei, the captain, the helmsman, and one more person, who I don't know who is he, know a bit about navigation.
"Okay, let's stop here for now. You can go and grab a meal first, then return to Marisol and continue with him." After finishing his part, Sergei pushed me back to Marisol.
I didn't even ask any more questions as I was very hungry at the moment.
And so, the time I spent on the ship was like this. I frequented the Helmsman, the Navigator, and the resting quarters.
This continued for the five days I was on the ship, and I found out by the fifth day that I was doing both the work of the Helmsman and the Navigator's all by myself, even if it was under supervision.
Furious was the thing I wanted to feel. I was basically paying them to work by this point instead of the other way around.
'Damn it, was I being scammed again? Not even a week since I finished grinding my Bargaining-Hiki skill, and I was already thinking that I need to upgrade it more.' It made this Hachiman a bit depressed!
'Komachi! Look how your brother is going through to see you again!' (Ah, this should give me a lot of Hachiman Points.)
Sigh, at least the cabin I had was clean and well-kept. After he saw the money, the Captain requested/demanded that I pay for renting his ship for seafaring classes, so I bargained with him that he should give me a clean and nice quarter if he was offering education services. The environment is a critical part of the education process, and he should offer something nice if he were demanding money.
The trip to Mabo Harbor was fruitful, it gave me much-needed experience on seafaring. Like this, I have a bit more confidence at starting to seafaring alone.
…Just a bit.
'Damn it! I am still traumatized...'
On the afternoon of the sixth day, the cargo ship finally arrived at Mabo Harbor.
…
A\N: That's it for now.
Thank you all for reading! Hope you enjoyed this one!
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