Mystery: Mr. Witch and Ms. Hunter

Chapter 248: The Edge of the North
When Adele woke up in the morning, she found that the sea around her was covered with floating ice.

On the ocean, a dazzling gray-white long belt stretched southward to the horizon. Loon's whaling ship called it the ice belt. No matter how thick the ice was, it could not make the ice belt darker. It indicated the appearance of floating ice areas or floating icebergs.

Sure enough, huge floating ice with dazzling surfaces soon appeared. Their luster changed with the changes in the clouds, allowing light to penetrate and refracting sunlight on countless crystal faces.

"Captain, we have reached the edge of the Northland. Over there is Cape Minsk."

Wagner knocked on the door and walked into Adele's room.

"Slow down the Honeysuckle Queen and pass through this ice area."

Adele stretched and lazily instructed, "Although the ironclad ship is very strong, there is no need to compete with those icebergs."

"Yes, Captain!"

Wagner saluted with his hand on his heart and trotted out of the room.

"It feels like you are becoming more and more like a real captain now."

Wendy sighed, "If you were born a few years earlier, you might have been a pirate general famous throughout the five seas. For example... Vice Admiral Honeysuckle?"

If I had been born a few years earlier, I probably wouldn't have come to the sea... Maybe I would have bought a house in Backlund and become an ordinary middle-class person?

After hearing Wendy's words, Adele couldn't help but feel a little dazed, but she quickly reacted and gradually returned to normal.

Cape Minsk is the estuary at the end of the Minerminsk Mountains and is the northernmost natural landmark of the Kingdom of Loen. Although there is the Northland further north, except for the War God Church that mines some kind of high-phlogiston gas there, no one is willing to go there.

After the Honeysuckle Queen passed Cape Minsk, it only needed to sail southwest for about a day to reach the location agreed with Tracy.

The further south you go, the more and larger the floating ice islands become. Thousands of polar birds build nests on the ice islands. The calls of petrels, sea eagles, and some unknown black and white birds are deafening.

Although the Honeysuckle Queen tried to stay as close to the land as possible, it did not make the temperature rise a bit. The sailors removed the mercury thermometer that was originally hung outside, as it was very likely to freeze in the temperature of minus 30 degrees.

In this kind of weather, even Natalie, who had some northern blood, was unwilling to go on deck, so the captain's room with a wide view became their gathering place. Less than ten minutes after Wagner left, the witches dressed in their best clothes came to Adele's room.

Aphra went straight into the bed that Adele hadn't had time to tidy up, and wrapped herself up tightly. This poor woman had never even seen snow in her life, and the outdoor temperature of minus 30 degrees was still a bit stimulating for her.

Lisette and Wendy sat on the sofa, quietly looking at the books in Captain Adele's room. Although many of those books were antiques left by Captain Basque and might be older than Leila, they read them very seriously.

Leila sat in Adele's office chair, staring at the icebergs floating in the distance. She liked such entertainment very much, and often watched it for a whole day. Only at this time could she calm down. At other times, she would always chirp like a noisy little bird.

"...So, how far is Vice Admiral Disease's fleet from here?"

Natalie stood beside Adele, looking at Leila tenderly while chatting with Adele.

"It's not far. Even if the fleet is slowed down by passing through the ice, it will take at most two days to reach the agreed meeting point."

Adele replied. "However, the further north we go, the less accurate the compass indications become. It will be more difficult for us to determine our location. I hope Tracy can find a way to locate us."

According to Wendy, who came from the Church of the God of Knowledge and Wisdom, the north indicated by the compass is not actually the north in the geographical sense. There will be a certain deviation from the actual result, and the further north you go, the more obvious the deviation will be.

So now if the Honeysuckle Queen wants to accurately locate its direction, someone needs to hold a compass and repeatedly measure at different locations on the ship to get an average value. And this work can obviously only be done by Wendy. Every hour or so, she has to walk around the entire ship and make corresponding measurements and calculations.

"Since they asked you to go, there must be a way to locate you."

Natalie didn't seem anxious about this. "Will we stop at other ports this time?"

"Of course not."

Adele shook her head. "This voyage was a secret one. Officially, we were heading to Queen Island for a preliminary survey, but in fact we were heading in the exact opposite direction."

"No matter which port an ironclad ship is in, it's hard to hide it. Once it gets close, it's inevitable that the news will leak out. To keep it secret, we won't even meet the Black Death. Tracy will go directly to the Honeysuckle Queen. After we complete the exploration together, she will return to the Black Death."

Adele drew a circle on the nautical chart hanging on the wall with her finger. "We won't take the whaling route, nor will we stop in Israel. We can go directly through the three major islands in the north. We can go ashore and hunt for food supplies."

Israel is the northernmost port of Loen and the estuary of the Wintershire River, which runs through the Amanda Mountains and the Minminsk Mountains.

"Speaking of hunting, why didn't that Venata come out with you?"

Natalie asked casually, "Last time she came to the bar, she said she and you were living together."

"Did she tell you this?"

Adele raised her eyebrows in surprise. "It's not easy to explain. To put it simply, she is now at the company headquarters in Indo Port, helping me take care of the children and the house..."

"You two even have a child?!"

Natalie looked shocked, "I didn't see any signs the last time she came?"

"It's not our child..."

Adele wanted to explain something, but Natalie interrupted her and said, "It's not your child. Is it your child with someone else?"

"It's not my child either... That's why I said it's hard to explain."

Adele felt that she was making things worse, so she pressed her swollen forehead. "Anyway, she and I adopted an orphan when we left Backlund. The child has some health problems and needs someone to take care of him. Also, the company needs someone to take charge..."

"Why would you want to adopt a child when you're living a good life...Aren't you good enough in that aspect?"

Natalie was still confused, but then she suddenly realized: "Oh, no matter if it worked before, it really doesn't work now."

“…Get lost!”

(End of this chapter)