Mystery: Mr. Witch and Ms. Hunter

Chapter 155 Before Setting Sail
More than ten minutes later, the sailors left the room, looking back every few steps. During this time, because they would peek at Adele from time to time, they had several times screwed the rivets in the wrong place or got the order of assembling the instruments wrong, which made Wendy furious and drove them out of the room.

"I'm so sorry, Mrs. Statham..." Wendy said to Adele apologetically, "Perhaps you have never had similar experience before. On the sea, especially on ships like this where the crew cannot return to land for a long time, the sailors are often... rude."

She hesitated, as if choosing a word that Adele would be more receptive to.

In fact, from what I have heard, the plans of these sailors deserve to be described in harsher terms...

Adele, who had already learned the sailors' plan through divination, muttered in her heart.

Just as Adele was about to answer Wendy, Vinata brought Sophie back to the cabin. Sophie's face was red from the cold, but she was still in high spirits.

"Mom, Sister Venata bought me a thick collection of Jianhai County folk tales and said she would tell me a story tonight!"

Sophie excitedly held up the thick hardcover book in her hand and showed it to Adele.

So thick... Adele's face twitched slightly. She looked at Vinata, who looked guilty.

You obviously just want to see it! Adele didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and cast a contemptuous look at Vinata.

"Speaking of stories at sea, the treasure legend is more famous, right?"

Hearing the conversation here, Wendy interrupted.

"But I heard that the legends of treasures at sea are most likely false."

Adele smiled back.

"You heard about the treasures in the Sonia Sea, the Raging Sea, and the Misty Sea in the south of Loen, right?" Wendy replied without surprise. "Those rumors about treasures are indeed more false than true. Even if there are true and reliable clues to the treasure, the people who can find it with this level of information are rare."

"However, what I'm talking about is the rumor of treasure that is unique to Jianhai County. This has been repeatedly verified and is reliable."

Wendy said mysteriously.

“How much is the treasure worth in pounds?” Sophie asked with interest.

"Gold pounds? No, no, no." Wendy shook her head. "I'm not talking about man-made treasures like gold, silver, and jewelry. I'm talking about the mineral deposits on the small islands in the Jianhai area. This is a natural treasure unique to Jianhai County."

"There are many islands formed by submarine volcanic eruptions on the high seas in the inter-sea region. According to geological knowledge, these areas formed after the volcanic eruption must have different types of gemstone mines, including emeralds, garnets, citrine, spinels and other gemstones that are closely related to magma."

"But if there are such gem mines, why doesn't anyone mine them?"

Adele's eyes moved slightly, not only because of the profits brought by the gem mine, but also because he heard the name of a familiar material: spinel.

This is one of the main ingredients for the "Assassin" potion!

"Because these mines are located in the high seas, Loen, Feysac, and Intis are reluctant to take action, fearing that they will cause conflicts among the three countries." Wendy explained in detail.

"Among the fleets owned by individuals nearby, the largest one is Captain Basque's. However, even for this kind of fleet, the time it can sail in the high latitudes where those small islands are located is quite limited. More importantly, they have no money and no one to expand the scale of the fleet. They cannot build a complete gem mining industry on their own, and the income is not proportional to the investment."

Adele nodded in agreement. The smaller the scale of similar companies, the greater the proportion of labor costs of workers, and the less profit, unless they are willing to exploit like the factory owners in Backlund. However, sailors begging for food on the sea are not like Backlund's workers. Anyway, the emperor is far away, and if you really piss off your subordinates, you can just make them the foreman on the island. I'm afraid you won't have anywhere to cry.

"Besides, there is another more important point."

Wendy pushed up her glasses and said, "The pirates didn't come here before because there was no money to be made. They were too lazy to do the mining themselves. But if you set up a mining company on these islands, then these islands will become ATMs for the pirates."

"Excuse me, what is a 'cash machine'?"

Adele asked, somewhat confused.

"It's probably another new thing that the Church of Steam has come up with." Vinata said carelessly, "But you can probably tell what it is just by the name."

"...Yes, this is an invention that the Church of Steam is still in the process of trial production..." Wendy suddenly covered her mouth: "Sorry, I think I said something I shouldn't have said, please forget it..."

"It's okay, miss. We have no intention of prying into the secrets of the Steam Church." Seeing Wendy's expression, Adele thought she had said something wrong again, so she didn't take it to heart and turned her attention to Sophie. "Why is your hair loose again? Come here, I'll help you tie it up."

Sophie said "hmm" obediently, turned around and sat on Adele's knees. Adele lifted her hair and began to style it. The slightly curly green hair exuded a faint fragrance and felt very good to the touch, but Adele's mood did not improve at all.

Because, behind Sophie's neck, she found a piece of keratin that was obviously more flexible than the skin elsewhere, and it had a tendency to spread outwards. And Sophie's originally smooth hair was now divided into several strands, feeling like tiny green snakes.

Demonization has really begun to affect her body structure...

Adele felt a little heavy-hearted, but she was soon stumped by another difficult problem before her.

"This is not easy to take care of..."

Adele looked at Sophie's tangled green hair and sighed with a headache. After hesitating for a while, she decided to simply braid it into multiple strands.

Having made up her mind, Adele simply stopped thinking about other messy things. She spread Sophie's hair apart and patiently overlapped them in a specific order, making three complicated braids. She then braided them together using the three-strand braid method and loosened them slightly to the right.

Vinata, without taking off her shoes, was half lying on her bed, reading the "Folk Tales of Jianhai County", occasionally looking up at Adele who was working hard and Sophie who was twisting her knees restlessly.

The few of them just quietly did their own things until the sunset outside the window gradually fell and the sky became as dark as ink.

"Wait a moment, everyone. I'll get you dinner."

Wendy put down the instrument in her hand, nodded to Adele, and then left the room.

(End of this chapter)