Chapter 529
Chapter 529
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 529
Chapter Title: The Smuggler's Haul
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1.
"How dare you! How dare you! How dare you!!"
A few days after collecting his new slaves, Lurye was overjoyed.
To such an extent that he hadn't once uttered his usual refrain of "How dreadfully boring."
Of course, chatting with his loyal crew was enjoyable too.
Hmm... No, actually, it wasn't quite as fun as he'd hoped.
They had unquestionably sworn loyalty beyond the bounds of mere familiars.
He had no doubt about that fact.
However, it would be a mistake to assume that loyal retainers make for delightful conversation partners.
They couldn't feign surprise like Siwoo did, nor pretend to gasp in genuine admiration.
Even knowing half of it was for show, Siwoo never failed to react perfectly whenever Lurye boasted about his magnificent Aquila, and he lavished praise on every morsel of food.
Excluding his master, only one weapons dealer had ever spent such fulfilling time with Lurye.
And even that was just a handful of meetings back in his apprentice witch days.
It wasn't an exaggeration to say that Lurye—who had waged solitary struggles across endless ages—was giddy all day long from the unfamiliar scent of another person.
Thus, he had viewed Foreign Minister Rakenraken's killing in a positive light.
The man worked diligently, listened attentively, and provided entertainment. Lurye figured it was fine to accept him as a member of the Aquila crew—perhaps even lift the lifetime enslavement and grant him proper crew status.
But then...
"Outrageous!"
How dare a mere slave spout nonsense about his lord's grand ambitions.
Whether other witches rebelled or he was branded a public enemy—it was all irrelevant.
And he had no intention of indiscriminate slaughter to begin with.
Even if he started a war, he only planned to target military forces precisely.
"Hmm?"
Lurye's eyebrows slanted as he stormed toward the bridge.
A stroke of genius flashed through his temples like an electric current.
It was a profound idea that only a genius strategist unbound by conventional thinking could conceive.
"Could it be... you're a spy...?"
He couldn't rule out the possibility.
The aquarium handed over through the pact with the progenitor witches.
Shin Si-woo, who had naturally become a slave aboard the Aquila—a place where no outsider had ever set foot before.
"......"
Gehenna, or perhaps the United States, Russia, or China.
Whichever it was, they had clearly caught wind of his world-conquering ambitions.
Planting a spy to undermine him and sap his will was entirely plausible.
Of course, it was still just a hypothesis.
"Impressive."
Rather than doubting or raging, Lurye chose to admire the enemy's clever ploy.
This method would allow anyone to embed a spy without arousing suspicion.
In truth, Lurye hadn't harbored the slightest doubt until now, placing full trust in him.
A sinister smile crept across Lurye's lips.
"Very well. I don't know who sent you or on whose behalf, but I accept your challenge in this game of espionage."
Espionage rife with schemes and ploys was a perfectly valid form of warfare.
And when it came to war, Lurye had no intention of losing.
An eye for an eye.
He would seduce the devious Siwoo and turn him into a double agent.
Then reverse-engineer enemy intelligence from him—until he outlived his usefulness, at which point he'd mercilessly revert him to slave status.
"Hahaha! Hahahaha!"
Lurye's line of thinking was less the product of rational judgment and more like interpreting a dream.
And truthfully, he wasn't even pondering it that seriously.
The reason was simple: even if it was a slim possibility, treating it as fact and acting accordingly seemed far more entertaining.
His snap decision not to harm Siwoo right away fell into the same vein.
In any case, the green light on the lamp meant his crew had discovered some usable "spoils."
"New events bursting forth without end, and now spoils on top of it all. How could I not be thrilled?"
Lurye's stomping footsteps had lightened to the weight of a feather.
2.
3,000 meters beneath the ocean surface.
A water temperature hovering near 2°C.
A pressure of 350 kg per square centimeter.
Even in nature's pitch-black harmony devoid of light, life persisted.
Aboard the half-buried, tilted deck, Lurye inspected the surroundings, then playfully tapped the nose of a small fish that showed no wariness toward humans.
The nameless fish bolted away in a panic.
Around it, mermaids moved in perfect unison, hoisting salvaged goods up to the Aquila.
"It's been a while."
In the age of great voyages, ships shattered helplessly in storms—but a building-sized liner crossing the Pacific crushed ten-meter waves without faltering.
Unlike the tireless naval battles of World War II, these vessels boasted unbreakable steel keels, making sinking a rare prospect.
The few sinkings that did occur involved small to medium ships capsizing near national waters, only for swift aftercare under pretexts of rescue operations and pollution control.
Finding a wreck in modern society was thus no easy task.
They were salvaged before the Aquila could reach them—which explained why the sub carried so few contemporary goods.
"Hmm..."
In that sense, this latest salvage was anything but ordinary.
A midsize cargo ship whose tonnage made one wonder how it dared traverse the open sea.
Sunk mere months ago, its pristine condition had carried it to depths no ordinary merchant vessel would approach.
Despite satellite detection of its off-course path, no search or rescue procedures had followed.
In other words, it was a vessel managed under some special protocol or agreement.
Such ships fell into two categories:
Pirate vessels launched by desperate folk from impoverished nations.
Or smuggling ships delivering worldly goods to Gehenna.
"A smuggler's ship."
A slight exaggeration, and it could pass for a legendary treasure galleon.
An ordinary merchant ship required immense mana—proportional to its mass and volume—to pass through the "gates."
No mere smuggler possessed such power, so they filled the gap with mana water.
Even after covering those costs, profit demanded luxury cargo.
Ordering even trivial mass-produced goods required paying dozens of times their value.
Thus, this unmarked vessel disgorged a torrent of opulent luxuries ill-suited to its humble exterior: handwoven carpets likely crafted over three generations, fine liquors of every stripe, precious materials and gems for magical research.
Just selling off that diamond-encrusted wand would fund a dozen such ships outright.
Yet Lurye's reaction was utterly lackluster.
Like biting into a fruit that looked irresistibly ripe, only to taste nothing but sourness and astringency.
"Why did it have to be a smuggler's ship, of all things?"
He hadn't even hoped for a heavily guarded warship.
A modern merchant sunk by storm would have sufficed for some excitement.
At least then, something intriguing might have turned up...
Money was no object anyway.
The sealed kingdom where he once lived with his master brimmed with treasures alongside fond memories: physical shares in oil drilling companies, bonds from various corporations, mountains of artwork.
Complete the trials, and he could easily afford a brand-new destroyer, if not an aircraft carrier.
"Put it all in the warehouse once the work's done."
Deeming it unworthy of further attention, Lurye returned to the submarine alone.
And hours later, he realized his judgment had been premature—right after the brought items had been cleaned and dried.
3.
Siwoo had earned Lurye's wrath with his loose tongue.
It was meddling gone too far, rubbing salt in the wound.
He had no deep bond with her, and as a detainee, he should have been flattering her relentlessly.
Instead, he'd dashed cold water on her ambitions.
But he felt no regret.
Siwoo didn't dislike Lurye.
Her mannerisms evoked memories of the twins—not to mention the absence of the near-mad distortions he'd sensed in every public enemy he'd encountered before.
He wanted no part of her veering down a twisted path, only to become another Water Jar Witch or Witch of Desire.
Yet barely eight hours into his confinement...
Lurye pounded on Siwoo's cabin door and shouted,
"Come quick! Hurry! Hurry!"
"Yes? Yes?"
"No time to dawdle!"
He'd expected a grave discussion upon her return.
At minimum, a barrage of reprimands as she stewed in her anger.
Lurye's mindset was utterly childish—the epitome of a spoiled princess raised without restraint.
"Hurry! Hurry!"
But what was this?
She strode at near-sprinting pace, repeatedly urging him onward and overtaking him.
The moment they climbed the stairs, they faced a lobby strewn with miscellaneous junk.
"See that? Freshly salvaged spoils, straight from the depths!"
Lurye beamed with uncontainable excitement, as if not a trace of prior resentment lingered.
"Spoils, you say?"
"Goods from the wreck, of course!"
His heart had sunk at the thought she might have turned pirate on an intact merchant vessel, so he breathed a quiet sigh of relief.
"You've been assigned a new task! Feast your eyes on this!"
Lurye flung out both arms, pointing proudly at his hard-won haul of modern items.
Only then did Siwoo spot the familiar objects amid the clutter.
A massive TV, stacks of Blu-ray discs and players, surround sound speakers, computers, and more.
The yield was tremendous.
As items ordered by lofty witches, they came in near-perfect protective packaging—and with the dropped container buried in sediment, all ten types of contemporary goods had survived intact.
"Sort them, organize them, and teach me their uses! Especially this pile here! Understood?"
"Wasn't I confined?"
"Confinement's over! Over! It's an emergency!"
Before the bounty of spoils, a slave's backtalk wasn't worth the ire.
Come to think of it, the modern gadgets were enshrined like holy relics—while gems clearly worth hundreds of times more lay casually dumped in a corner.
He confirmed once more: Lurye had an immense fascination with modern goods.
Judging by that tossed-aside cargo, it was definitely a smuggler's ship...
Who could have wanted to build a home theater in their room?
"Understood, to start with."
Siwoo nodded, his face a mask of bewilderment.