Chapter 1013 Yasen's Dark History
"……Oh well."
Yasen said reluctantly, "Any kind of secret is fine?"
"If it's not enough, add more."
Aiwass said simply, "The Moon Deer will tell you when the time comes—you won't tell it to me, tell it. Children love to hear that."
...secrecy, shame, and guilt.
You mean, dark history?
Yasen hesitated for a moment, racking his brains for a long time before he could barely think of a few secrets that he couldn't even remember the details of.
"...When I was very young...when I was a sailor on a ship," Yassen said slowly, "I accidentally discovered the smuggled goods that the second mate brought on board. They were elixir drops, the raw material for making love potions. The second mate hid them in some rum. When I was carrying them, I realized that they were lighter than normal rum, and the sound and center of gravity of the liquid when shaken were also different...so I examined them curiously.
"But I didn't report it to the captain. Instead, I secretly took some of it. I sold it after I got ashore. That was my... first theft. And possibly my first murder.
"Because later... the second mate disappeared when he was supposed to board the ship. We waited a whole day for him, but he didn't come back... I thought at the time that he might have been killed by the gang dealing with the goods due to insufficient cargo. I felt very regretful, so from then on, I no longer kept the stolen money on me... I also donated the money I earned from selling Elf Dettol on the black market anonymously to the orphanage.
“…Even then, I didn’t even have a place to live.”
"--not enough."
Yuelu suddenly said, "Add one more, or explain it in more detail."
Aiwass thought for a moment, but didn't ask Yasen to tell another story. Instead, he pressed on, "How did you take it? How much did you take?"
"That's rum in wooden barrels, one gallon per barrel. When we're on the boat, we mix this rum with water to quench our thirst. Otherwise, the fresh water is too hard to swallow...so this rum is actually part of our fresh water reserve."
Yasen sighed and continued, "We had just passed the Theocracy customs and were preparing to load the cargo aboard. Originally, this job should have been the stevedores' job, but the second mate said he'd worked as a stevedore before and was worried they might break the barrels with their clumsy hands, so he asked me to help with the loading."
"I don't know how he got through customs... but when I was moving these barrels, I suddenly realized that the weight of some of them was not right. I quietly lifted one of them and felt something was wrong.
"Although the color and taste of the wine were the same as other cheap rums, I soon realized that these barrels had an interlayer - the wine was only two-thirds full. There was another interlayer at the bottom of each barrel. I took out this 'barrel within a barrel' and saw some liquid with a beautiful silvery luster underneath.
"—I didn't know it was Elf Dettol at the time, but I immediately guessed it must be some good stuff, and it must be smuggled goods... So I put it in my water bottle, and there was probably enough Elf Dettol in it to fill two bottles.
"I felt around and determined that these problematic barrels all had a subtle triangular notch about three centimeters from the ground. It's invisible to the naked eye and can only be felt with the fingertips.
"I didn't dare stay in the cabin for too long, so I hurried out to continue moving the barrels. I made excuses to return to my room twice and poured the liquid in the kettle into the empty buckets in my room. There were only four problematic barrels, and I filled four kettles with water. The water was poured into the buckets until it was almost one-quarter full.
"So I followed the second mate's example and made a wooden barrel bottom using the same method. I didn't dare bring it directly to shore, but left it in the room. Late at night, I swam back to the boat and took the things away."
"……etc?"
Hearing this, Aiwass suddenly realized something was wrong.
He couldn't hold it in any longer. "There were four barrels in total, and each barrel contained enough Elf Dew to fill two jugs. You brought back four jugs in total—good boy, does that mean you just gave him half?"
Other people only take a little when they steal, but this kid took half of it the first time he stole something.
As expected of a natural-born thief. He truly sees the big picture from the small...
"I didn't want to be discovered, so I took them very evenly. I thought that if a barrel was missing a part, he would immediately realize that it was me who tampered with it. Because I was the only one who touched them. But if they all had problems, then he might think that there was something wrong with the source of the goods... I know this idea is naive, but I was also very young at the time."
Yasen sighed. "I thought about it and remembered that it was weighed when it was brought aboard. I clearly remember the weight of each bucket and knew how much water to add to restore the weight, so I secretly added fresh water to make up for the missing weight. They still glowed silver after adding water, and there seemed to be no problem to the naked eye... So I was very glad that my work was flawless.
"I also thought that if the second mate came to confront me, I could just say something like, 'Aren't they the same weight when they were on and off the ship?' ... And my craftsmanship is very good. I restored every detail to their original appearance. There is a notch in the 'barrel within the barrel' and the outer barrel. I also found it and aligned them and adjusted them back to their original angle - exactly the same."
"...I won't say anything for now. This reason is tantamount to confessing one's own guilt."
Hearing this, Aiwass couldn't hold back any longer. "So you turned the high-purity Elf Dettol into low-purity Elf Dettol contaminated with impure water... That's basically useless! How can you take half and destroy the other half?"
The unfortunate second mate should have sent it.
Low-purity Elven Dew is worthless to begin with, let alone contaminated by the mossy, insect-infested freshwater the sailors have been consuming at sea. It has essentially lost most of its power, and its purifying power is even less effective than holy water blessed by a common priest. If this stuff were made into Love Ichor, drinking it would likely turn it into a berserk potion.
"I can't help it," Yasen spread his hands, "I don't understand alchemy right now."
"...How much did you sell this for?"
Aiwass asked, "That's a quarter gallon of high-purity Elf Dettol. In Star Antimony, it would be worth an estate."
"Well... maybe I got ripped off. Or maybe I didn't store it well. But I ended up selling it for four hundred Iris gold coins."
Yasen recalled, "I remember the number very clearly. I didn't dare take them back to the ship, so I had to find a place to bury them. I spent a total of three gold coins - one of which I used to buy a new dagger, which I later lost."
Iris gold coins are smaller than Star Antimony gold coins. Four hundred Iris gold coins are roughly equivalent to more than three hundred and twenty Star Antimony gold coins, which is equivalent to about five hundred White Crown coins.
"...Well, you did lose."
Aiwass nodded. "That half bucket of yours is worth about eight thousand gold coins just for the raw materials—this stuff uses 'drops,' so it can make over four hundred bottles of love potion. I won't count the finished product. After you mixed it with the dirty water, this bucket is probably worth fifty gold coins... That second mate deserved his death."
Rounding it off, that's a scam of 8,000 gold coins... Given his status, it's impossible for him to have smuggled the goods himself. He was most likely commissioned by some organization.
After losing goods worth 8,000 gold coins, if they could come back alive, Aiwas would be amazed at the politeness of the local gang in Iris.
However, judging by his failure to point out Yasen, the second mate probably didn't realize the barrel had been tampered with by Yasen. After all, Yasen was just an ordinary sailor who had come from a stevedore background, and he had perfectly recreated the barrel's "anti-theft measures." He probably genuinely believed the shipping company had tampered with the barrel.
Thinking of this, Aiwas glanced at Yasen.
It really can cause trouble...
If the black marketeer who bought the Elven Dettol from him wasn't part of this gang, more than just the Second Mate would have died in this incident. Eight thousand gold coins is a lot of money even for a noble, let alone an underground gang. If the source of the shipment is traced, a fight would likely ensue.
And Yasen also realized something, and his face turned ugly.
“Hehehe…”
Yuelu suddenly let out a crazy laugh that reminded people of a clown or a madman: "Enough, enough..."
After tasting the pain and regret in Yasen's heart, Yuelu took a deep breath of air like a gourmet intoxicated.
Then it jumped high.
It turned into a ray of moonlight, cutting through the sky in an instant.
Just like the speed of light, or the speed of longing—
In just a moment, they arrived at their destination.
Update completed meow!
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
