The bastard child becomes the empires royal consort-Chapter 73: Most definitely not a good day [1]

"Ready?" Alan asked.

"Ready!" Julia responded.

She was dressed in a fairly plain yellow outdoor gown, which was suited more for a picnic and didn’t exactly match the whole ship-on-the-ocean aesthetic.

But when was Julia ever the type to care? Especially with Iris over here cheering on everything she did.

Well, Alan wasn’t exactly the type to care much either, brushing aside his thoughts about the weird ’system’ and Julia’s thought process.

"Let’s head out then."

He turned around and stepped out of the room, with Iris and Julia closely following behind.

...

Like mentioned before, it was quite early in the morning, so Alan wasn’t expecting any activities on the main deck.

So he was surprised when he saw the lively environment of the deck, everywhere he looked were pirates all up and awake, ready for action.

Well, most of them just engaged in simple chatter, because there wasn’t much to do on a ship, really.

Being this early in the morning, many were stuffing their mouths with food, which Alan assumed was for breakfast.

Feeling the cool breeze against his face, Alan took a step forward.

Thump

Only for his foot to bump against something... soft and fleshy.

"Hmm?" Alan looked down.

Snore Snore

Where a man was fully dead asleep.

Although countless questions instantly flooded his mind, he didn’t voice any, because the one lying by his feet was none other than Morgon, the vice captain of the Kestrel pirates, as well as the strongest man on board.

And what was he doing peacefully sleeping on the wooden ground? Alan had no idea.

Judging by how other members of the crew just entirely ignored Morgon’s actions like it was normal, Alan wisely decided to leave the man alone and quietly moved aside.

"Oh, you’re up?"

"Oh, it’s the faggot."

"Stop calling me that!"

The next person Alan ran into was Morgan, the man with unique style choices.

Alan looked behind him, sensing the lack of presence, and just as he thought, Julia and Iris disappeared, off to their own little world, leaving Alan by himself.

Not that Alan minded, it was often that the group would separate and go do whatever they wanted.

"Why are you surprised I’m awake?" Alan decided to ask, leaning against the railing.

By now the dark clouds were completely gone, replaced by a clear blue sky and a glowing sun.

Everywhere Alan looked, he only saw the colour blue, absolutely nothing else in sight, which was to be expected after travelling across the sea all night.

The functions of a ship were fairly similar to that of a carriage, well, with a lot more complexities.

Just like how a carriage didn’t require any animal support to travel, utilising a specific mana system to function.

A modern-day ship was the same, with the use of mana acting as support, the ship could technically continue onwards without ever stopping as long as there was a mana supply.

"Because it’s sunrise?" Morgan replied, breaking Alan from his thoughts.

"So what? All of the crew are awake too."

"That’s true." Morgan scratched the side of his face. "But you’re not part of the crew, you know, usually those we escort just sleep in around this time."

"Oh, that’s a fair point."

"Yeah..."

With that, the two of them fell into a small, awkward silence, broken by Alan’s question. "So what’s for breakfast?"

"Dunno, I came to see for myself." Morgan shrugged and started walking off.

With nothing better to do, and quite hungry himself, Alan followed behind Morgan.

The occasional bump Alan felt from the uneven water surfaces of the ocean was a feeling that was difficult to become accustomed to.

While it did feel somewhat nice, at the same time, due to his incapability of swimming, it scared him as well, but he obviously never showed it on his face.

"I’m a little curious." Alan said. "What is your position in this crew?"

"My position?" Morgan frowned. "Why would you even ask that?"

"Like I said, curious." Alan looked Morgan up and down. "Also, because you look like a retard."

"Stop saying that!" Morgan grunted. "And positions, huh? I don’t know."

"So you’re not only a retard, but also a useless one?"

"Shut up!" He grumbled. "It’s just that we don’t have a fixed position, it doesn’t work like how you think."

"Huh?"

"The only two real positions on this ship are the captain and vice captain." Morgan pointed out. "Everyone else is just assigned to different areas on the ship, some are management, others are part of the combat force, you get my point, there isn’t any real hierarchy over here."

"Interesting." Alan rubbed his chin. "And the vice-captain is that man over there, correct?"

Alan pointed at a man lying face-first on the wooden ground, Morgon, the same person Alan accidentally bumped into in the morning.

"He is..." Morgan muttered through gritted teeth.

"What’s with that reaction?" Alan almost informed Morgan that the man he was showing hostility to was far, far stronger than him but decided against it, assuming there was a reason behind it.

"He is a knob-head!" Morgan bluttered out.

"That’s the first time I’ve ever heard anyone actually use that word—"

"Lazy, doesn’t do anything other than sleep all day, and has no sense of responsibility!"

"Yo, chill out—"

"Nah, nah, listen to me here!"

After a while of receiving random complaints from Morgan, which Alan didn’t bother paying attention to, Morgan paused in the middle of his lecture.

"What’s with the commotion?" Morgan muttered, looking somewhere with squinted eyes.

Alan turned to look as well and noticed a commotion taking place, a large number of the crew were circled around a specific area.

"What’s going on?" Alan asked.

"Hmm, dunno..." Morgan said, then moved towards the commotion.

As the two of them came closer to the circle, the louder the sounds became, Alan could hear overlapped shouts of the crew members, and none of them sounded happy.

"What’s happening?" Morgan asked one of the men.

"Ah, Gan?" The man turned around. "You’re a bit late."

"Shut up and just tell me what’s going on."

"Well, I can’t see properly from here." The man scoffed. "How about you go in instead of asking me bullshit?"

"Alright, fine." Morgan grunted, then pushed past the men gathered in front of him.

He passed through the crowd, leaving behind a convenient space for Alan to simply follow without having to do anything.

It didn’t take long to reach the middle of the crowd.

"What the hell?"

Where a man was being hung upside down.

"What is going on over here?!" Morgan shouted the moment he caught a glimpse of what was happening.

All the previous noise came to an instant stop as everyone turned to look at Morgan.

"You’re late!"

"Just fucking tell me what’s going on over here!"

Hmm, Morgan did say he had no position on the ship, but why did it seem like he was the only one keeping everyone under control?

While Alan was lost in useless thoughts, someone pointed at the man who was hanging upside down.

"We found him hiding inside a barrel!"

"Mmmm! Mmmmmm!!!"

"Shut up!"

"Was he found tied up and hung upside down in the barrel or something? Why the hell is he like that?" Alan whispered, though no one answered him.

Also, why did the figure of the man... look kind of familiar to him?

"Inside a barrel?" Morgan stroked his chin, glancing at the upside-down man.

"Mmmm! Mmmmm!"

"...First, ungag him." Morgan gave the first instruction.

One of the men approached the man and took out the piece of cloth lodged inside his mouth, leaving the man gasping for air.

Only then did Alan realise why the man seemed familiar.

"What the fuck is he doing here?" Because the man was Jack, the very same carriage driver who escorted him to Kahl.

"What the fuck am I doing here?!" It also looked like Jack had the same question as Alan.

"What nonsense are you saying?" Morgan frowned. "You’re the one who was inside our storage."

"Why was I there?!"

"???" Morgan was even more perplexed by the situation, he looked down at the barrel lying on the ground.

And realised he had seen it before, it was that one barrel he carried onto the ship himself, the one that didn’t feel like it was storing liquid.

So what was Jack doing in there?

"Huh?" Jack suddenly stopped wiggling, his eyes latching onto Alan. "Alan?!"

"Uh..."

"Alan! Help me!"

"I don’t know who you are."

"Can you at least tell me what the actual hell I’m doing here?!"

"Mate, why the fuck would I know?!"

"You know this guy?" Morgan asked Alan, gesturing to Jack.

"Well..." Alan suddenly remembered how Jack ran off the second he had a chance to sell his information.

Then suddenly saw Jack’s desperate puppy gaze, which was not cute at the slightest for a man in his fifties.

Alan sighed. "Yeah, I know him."

"Alright then." Morgan nodded. "Release him."