Chapter 339: Shell Picker |
Once again, a wave came crashing down, slamming into the boy’s head and shoulders, pressing him into the water. His limbs flailed and convulsed in panic.
The seawater there barely reached past his knees, yet somehow, he just couldn’t get back up.
The others nearby heard the sounds of his struggle and once more paused what they were doing, turning to look in his direction but not a single person reached out to help.
Between the bobbing and thrashing, the boy's face would occasionally breach the surface, crying out for help. But no one came to his aid. None of the others even removed the black cloths from their faces.
They merely stared numbly in the boy’s direction, expressions blank and filled with sorrow.
Saul, whose face wasn’t covered, naturally saw what was happening.
At some point, the rope tied to the boy’s waist had snapped. A translucent hand was tugging on that rope, pulling it toward the deeper waters.
Which meant that when the fallen boy tried to climb his way back to shore by following the rope, he was actually moving toward far more dangerous depths.
Saul’s expression darkened.
It was a Zero Rank spell—Mage Hand.
A faint magical tremor rippled through the air. Saul searched its traces, feeling out the subtle spiritual energy hidden within.
Turning his head toward the source of the disturbance, he spotted a man and a woman standing together in the shadows beneath the cliff.
The man was tall and broad, his face expressionless. The woman clung to his chest like a timid bird, her head tilted as she watched the boy struggle in the water, a smile playing across her lips.
Just as the boy’s thrashing began to weaken, Saul moved a single finger.
The man-eating chill of the sea suddenly transformed into two gentle hands. They lifted the boy up from the water, raising him above the waves.
Only after the boy scrambled to his feet, bewildered and panicked, did those hands melt back into seawater, slapping rhythmically against his thighs.
Naturally, Saul’s act of intervention caught the attention of the two apprentices.
The man looked over, still with that deadpan expression. The woman rolled her eyes with open contempt.
But they made no further move.
Clearly, the attempt to kill had been nothing more than a whim. They weren’t interested in provoking a confrontation with a stranger over it.
The Mage Hand in the water dispersed, and the boy stood still, finally realizing his rope had broken.
He licked his lips, dry even with seawater drenching them, and croaked out, “My rope broke.”
His throat was parched from choking on seawater, his voice rough and hoarse like that of a ghost whispering from the shadows.
After a long moment, someone finally answered, “This way. The shore’s over here.”
The person wasn’t lying—he was standing on a patch of dry sand.
But the wind and the crashing waves distorted his voice, making it impossible for the boy to tell where it was coming from.
He tried to feel his way forward, took two steps, and nearly slipped again.
He had wandered into even deeper water during his struggle. If he fell now, he might drown for real.
Too dangerous.
Battered by waves, the boy finally steadied himself again but he no longer knew which direction was which.
At last, he gritted his teeth. His lips were so tight they cracked and bled.
Cautiously, he raised his head and peeled back a corner of the black cloth over his face.
He didn’t dare look at the sky, or the sea—he just wanted to glance around quickly, to confirm where the shore was.
Yet before he’d even turned 30 degrees, he saw the beach and someone standing on it.
A person completely shrouded in a gray cloak.
The figure stood near the other shell pickers, yet none of them seemed to have noticed him.
From the clothing and aura, the boy could tell at once—this was a wizard.
He shrank back in fear, shoulders hunching but then he remembered the hands that had just lifted him from the sea.
Those hands had been so warm. Compared to the icy ocean, it was like standing before a hearth in winter.
The boy bowed deeply toward Saul. As he bent forward, a splash of seawater hit his face again.
“He’s quite clever,” Saul muttered, smiling as he watched the boy almost bury his head in the water in his eagerness to bow.
“Little Algae, bring him over.”
At his command, Little Algae darted forward. It wrapped around the boy’s waist, scooped him up, and soared above the water, carrying him toward Saul.
The boy had struggled at first, but quickly went still, letting himself be delivered to Saul’s feet.
“Master Wizard,” the boy said, dropping to his knees with the force of his landing, pressing his forehead to the cold sand.
“Stand up. I have a few questions.”
The boy hesitated. He had met wizards before, and they never cared whether he knelt or stood.
But remembering how Saul had just saved him, he scrambled to his feet.
“What are you all picking out there?”
“Replying to the Master, we’re picking black sea snails.”
There were black sea snails here?
Black sea snails were also used in spellcraft, though they weren’t particularly valuable in the wizarding world and had few applications.
Still, their association with wizards had elevated them to a rare delicacy in the eyes of ordinary people.
Even the Wizard Tower served dishes made from them—though Saul, not being fond of seafood, rarely ordered it.
The most flavorful part of the snail was a certain internal organ, but eating too much of it could cause hallucinations.
Some rich folks even used it like a drug—to harm others, and sometimes themselves.
Now that Saul knew black sea snails could be found here, he understood why people would risk their lives to comb the sea for them.
“Do you know how often Soul Tides occur here?”
He had already asked the wealthy merchant Pound about this once.
But the perspective of someone scraping out a living by risking their life at sea was bound to be very different.
At the mention of “Soul Tides,” the boy’s back gave a visible shudder.
“Replying to the Master… this past year, there have been… around ten. Two just last month.”
Ten times a year? Twice in a month? That was far too frequent.
“Have you ever seen one? Just how dangerous are they? I mean… Do people die every time?”
“Replying to the Master,” the boy wet his lips, still dry despite all the water, “someone dies every time… My father… he was pulled in last month.”
Saul fell silent.
He had just picked someone at random and ended up speaking to a victim’s son.
According to Pound, the Soul Tides used to be rare—once or twice a year. Ships would receive warnings from the shore, anchor offshore for a night, and dock the next day.
But in recent years, the tides have become more frequent. Hardly any ships dared stop here now.
To Pound, the tragedy was that Bluewater Bay lost its trade and prosperity, and since fewer people came, there were fewer casualties.
But from the boy’s perspective—those who lived by the sea—when the port withered, they had no choice but to return to the ocean to survive.
Even this snail-picking job was dangerous and required qualifications.
The boy’s father had been a shell picker. That’s why the boy had inherited his spot.
As the boy finished his story, the sky darkened further.
A breeze stirred across the sea.
The people still picking snails in the shallows quickly grabbed their ropes and returned to shore.
Only once they stepped onto dry ground did they remove their blindfolds.
And only then did they realize the boy had already returned and was speaking to a mysterious figure.
None of the other shell pickers dared approach or flee. They stood with their backs to the sea, shivering in the cold wind.
“…Alright. You can go back. I’ve asked what I needed to know.”
Saul had more or less gotten a sense of the frequency of the Soul Tides and saw no reason to keep the boy.
But the boy glanced back at the others, then turned again. Gathering all the courage he had in his small body, he said:
“Master, please… I have two younger sisters and three younger brothers… Could you… could you maybe see if any of them could become your apprentice?”
(End of Chapter)