The Holy Man of Another Century Gospel

Chapter 241 Sea Storm
Wow!
Huge waves crashed against the ship, creating a heart-stopping roar.

The Queen Vermeer was tossed and turned by the huge waves at sea, and its interior was in complete disarray.

There was almost nothing completely stable to hold onto inside the cabin, so Eric could only stand in the doorway, his hands gripping the cabin walls, while Natalia clung tightly to his arm.

On the other shoulder was Kasha, who had transformed into an owl.

Eric glanced over and saw the other passengers, who were still dizzy from the jolting, tumbling out of their rooms and seeing the two people and the bird standing motionless, so they followed suit and clung to the wall at the doorway.

"Idiot, hold onto the wall, don't grab the door!"

"You've taken up all the space..."

Outside the ship, a fierce storm raged, and inside the cabin, there was no peace at all; curses, prayers, and cries rose and fell.

"Waaah... This is my first time at sea... I don't want to die at sea... Goddess, ocean goddess, please let me return to land alive..."

"If you don't want to die, hurry up and stop jinxing!"

"O ocean goddess above, please calm your anger...O ocean goddess above, please calm your anger..."

After listening for a while, Natalia suddenly spoke up: "They are all praying to the sea goddess. It seems that once they reach the sea, the supreme Yera is forgotten."

Eric glanced at her. "It seems the storm hasn't affected His Highness that much. You actually have the mind to think about this."

Natalia looked away, gazing at the small glass window, but still clung tightly to his arm. "It's precisely because my fear is almost overflowing that I have to think about other things to distract myself..."

Eric paused for a moment, then said, “Don’t worry, for the Queen Vermeer, this is just a minor storm. Turbulence is inevitable, but it will never capsize.”

Natalia looked back again, "How did Your Highness know..."

"I don't know, I'm just trying to comfort myself. I'm actually terrified."

"..."

She turned her head away and stopped looking at him.

The ship rocked violently once again, eliciting a chorus of screams from inside the cabin.

Natalia was able to hold back at first, but as the ship rocked and tilted more and more, she couldn't help but scream.

On the other side, Kasha gripped Eric's shoulder tightly with her claws, her wings flapping incessantly. His left shoulder was stinging from the constant slapping from her wings, and his right ear was nearly deafened by the continuous screams. Even if the ship didn't capsize, Eric was on the verge of collapse from this double torment.

As the boat tilted to a certain degree, it swayed back to the other side, jolting violently and eliciting another round of synchronized screams.

After shaking for a few more times, the amplitude gradually decreased, and the passengers' anxiety slowly subsided.

Eric felt a sudden weight on his right shoulder as Natalia rested her head on it. She was breathing rapidly, almost sobbing, and her shoulders were trembling.

Faced with the mighty power of nature, even the strongest courage will inevitably waver.

Eric gently reassured him, "It's alright, we're still alive."

Natalia didn't look up; she buried her head even deeper into his shoulder.

The wind and waves continued to crash against this tiny, lonely boat at sea.

Eric leaned against the wall, his mind drifting to the scene on deck, wondering how the sailors managed to furl the sails under such dire conditions.

The sky darkened, and strong winds, torrential rains, and towering waves swept across the land.

Outside the window, it was like the end of the world. The giant ship swayed on the undulating sea, living and dying at the same time, while most of the passengers on board were suffering a fate worse than death.

By the time the boat stopped rocking, it was well past noon.

Through the glass window, Eric saw that the waves outside had shrunk considerably, and only after confirming that the storm had passed did he let go of his hand.

The darkness brought by the storm seemed unlikely to recede, but the more realistic situation was that after an afternoon of raging winds, torrential rain, and towering waves, it was already quite late.

The lack of sunlight also made it difficult for people to quickly emerge from the shadows. After surviving the ordeal, many simply lay still on the ground.

Eric raised a hand and cast a powerful, charged super-illumination spell on the ceiling of the cabin passageway.

The dazzling light shone down, and many passengers stared blankly for a moment before kneeling down before Eric, weeping and worshipping him.

"Your Highness—"

They may not have actually developed any sense of admiration for it; they were simply terrified by the afternoon's storm.

The Queen Vermeer is a lifeline for everyone crossing the ocean, but on the other hand, it is also a floating prison from which there is nowhere to escape. These ordinary people have been tormented to this day in this double despair.

Eric felt only pity for them.

Even he, when faced with waves that looked taller than the ship, thought that getting on this ship might be the biggest mistake of his life.

Suddenly, his shoulder was released. He looked down into the cabin from the corridor. Natalia looked up and met his gaze. Then, without a word, she released his arm and walked to the window to look for a while.

"Have we gotten out of the storm?" Eric asked.

She turned around, a hint of relief appearing on her numb face.

"It should be...relieved."

Kasha suddenly flew out along the aisle. Eric guessed she went outside. He also wanted to go outside and take a look, but there was no rush.

He righted the overturned cabinet, securing the bed to the floor. He walked to the narrow glass window and peered outside.

The waves were surging so violently that they could no longer be seen clearly through the less transparent glass window, indicating that the sea had returned to relative calm, or that they had left the more turbulent waters.

“The good news is that on our first day aboard, we already had experience dealing with the most dangerous situations at sea,” Eric said to Natalia, who was leaning against him on the other side.

She closed her eyes. After enduring most of the day's seasickness and a continuous afternoon of fright, she finally couldn't hold on any longer and her face showed utter exhaustion.

"I'm actually not in that rush..."

"Unfortunately, this is not a choice we have to make."

Natalia covered her face with her hands and mumbled something indistinctly, as if she had completely lost face, but Eric couldn't be sure.

“Your Highness may go to bed and rest for a while.” Eric glanced at the sky outside. “It should be almost dinnertime. Hopefully, nothing has been affected.”

Natalia lay down on the bed and gestured with her eyes to the bread on the table, which had fallen to the floor several times but was still neatly wrapped in paper.

"If Your Highness is already hungry..."

"I'm not that hungry." After reassuring him a couple more times, Eric left the cabin temporarily to go outside and take a look.

Before he could leave, Barnabas came to the cabin and ran into him. Upon seeing him, he asked, "Your Highness, are you alright?"

"I'm fine." Eric's gaze lingered on his face for a moment. In the half afternoon he hadn't seen him, there were many scrapes and bruises on his face.

"It's good that you're alright. What about Her Highness the Princess of the Empire..."

"She's fine. Besides, she's the Grand Princess."

Barnabas nodded quickly, though it was unclear whether he had taken it all in.

"The captain sent me to check on the situation in the passenger cabins, especially the two princes..."

"Go get checked out. At least we're alright. Her Highness the Grand Princess is resting; don't disturb her."

"it is good."

Eric asked again before he went inside, "Can we go to the deck now?"

Barnabas hesitated for a moment, "I suggest you just look at the cabin door; the deck is a bit messy right now."

"Row."

As Eric passed by the restaurant, he glanced inside and saw several crew members who looked like chefs calmly tidying up, and he indicated that the two princes' dinner would not be delayed.

Leaving the cabin and going out onto the deck, he found it wasn't as chaotic as he had expected, perhaps because of the storm.

The sails on the huge masts had been furled and tightly tied to them. One can only imagine the price the sailors paid in such a storm to complete this arduous task.

Eric soon found out.

Seeing Kasha casting a healing spell on one of the sailors, he quickened his pace and then noticed two motionless sailors lying under another mast.

Broken ribs pierced through their chests, and both men were covered in blood, showing no signs of life. They had clearly fallen to their deaths from the slippery mast.

The other injured people nearby were in slightly better condition, but one of them had broken his entire leg bone, which was exposed outside the skin and flesh, and he had lost consciousness.

Kasha and the druid navigator were each treating a sailor, and Eric knelt down in front of the sailor who had broken his leg, trying to stop the bleeding first.

"Aren't there any priests on board who specialize in healing?" he asked the sailors around him as he performed his treatment.

"No, Your Highness," the first mate replied. "Falling from the mast results in only two outcomes: minor injury or death. Severe injuries are incurable, and with no one to care for you, death is simply an inevitable consequence that will come later."

Eric looked at the still-bleeding wound and the exposed, pale leg bone. "You mean he's beyond saving?"

The first mate nodded. "If you can't completely cure him either." Eric paused for a moment, then stopped casting the divine spell.

He was not skilled in medicine and could not heal such a large wound. Even if he managed to stop the bleeding, it would only prolong the sailor's suffering.

He then went on to treat the other sailors who had sustained minor injuries.

The storm moved away, and the sky gradually cleared, but it also grew darker.

The captain, who appeared next, also had several bruises and cuts on his face.

He led his crew in a brief prayer for the two who had died and the critically wounded crew member who had never regained consciousness. Then he ordered all three to be thrown into the sea, to return to the embrace of the sea goddess.

The sailors calmly accepted it all, and after the sea burial, they immediately threw themselves into cleaning and repairing the ship.

"The compensation will be sent to each of their families." The captain, seemingly worried that Eric wouldn't be able to accept such a hasty and cold-blooded sea burial, made a point of explaining this to him.

Eric felt the captain was being unreasonable; he was nothing on the ship and had no say in their actions. At the same time, he could understand that it was difficult to preserve bodies at sea, and that burial at sea as soon as possible was the best option for maintaining morale and preventing the spread of disease.

"May they rest in peace," he said, clasping his hands together.

"May they rest in peace." The captain prayed to another god, his hands waving from top to bottom like waves.

"May life rest in peace, and may nature find its tranquility." Kasha placed his fingertips together, palms down, and then clasped them together, in a naturalistic way, to pray for the sailors thrown into the sea.

The storm had just passed, and the captain had many things to do, so he said goodbye to Eric and left.

“That’s also a druid from the Nature Church.” Eric gestured with his gaze toward the navigator standing at the bow of the ship.

Kasha nodded. "After transforming into a seabird, one can more keenly perceive weather changes beyond one's field of vision through the sea breeze and the flow of elements."

“Elements… water elements?” Eric looked at the now darkened sea. “There should be water elements everywhere on the ocean, right? Can you really feel the change?”

He knew that druids could be divided into two types: physical and magical. Kasha, whose main combat power came from the animal characteristics after transformation, belonged to the physical type, while the navigator who could sense the elements belonged to the magic type among druids.

“The trajectories of elemental flow will be different,” Kasha said, then added, “though I can’t see them.”

Eric wanted to laugh, but he didn't. "I can't see either."

He sighed as he recalled the captain's orders before the storm and the navigator's advice, which he hadn't heard but could guess at.

One misjudgment claimed three lives, but given the scale of the storm, it could be considered a stroke of luck amidst misfortune.

He recalled a sentence he had heard at the Sunset Harbor pier.

"Sailors are expendable."

Kasha glanced at him, then at the navigator at the bow, and found that he was also looking at her.

Their eyes met, the navigator druid waved, then spread his arms wide, transforming into a giant seabird, and flew into the air, his back to the setting sun, sailing alongside the ship beneath him.

Eric and Kasha returned to the cabin. Barnabas had already finished his inspection and found nothing wrong; only some cabinets had been knocked over, and the passengers had only been startled and bumped into.

"The cargo hold... is in more trouble. They were rushing to pack it up before I arrived, and I don't know how well it's going."

Eric looked down at the deck beneath his feet and tapped it with his foot. "What's at the bottom?"

"You mean the hold? Yes, a lot of seawater came in when the storm hit, but you can rest assured, that's the most important place, and the rotating sailors have gone there to help pump out the water."

Eric nodded, and finally asked, "Is a storm like today common at sea? Or is it common on your voyage?"

Barnabas thought for a moment, then nodded. "It's fairly common; we encounter it once or twice on every voyage."

Eric pursed his lips, not asking whether the journey from Wimmer Harbor to Sunset Harbor counted as one voyage, or whether their current journey from Sunset Harbor to Goddess Bay counted as one voyage.

"Okay, you can go ahead and get busy."

"Your Highness, your dinner is ready in the dining room. You may..."

"I see."

Barnabas left, and Eric and Kasha arrived at Natalia's cabin door.

"Your Highness, are you still awake?"

"You're awake. Come in."

Eric pushed open the door and entered. Natalia, leaning against the headboard, looked at the two of them. "How's the situation on the deck?"

“Three sailors died and have been buried at sea. There are no problems with the ship, both above and below ground; it is sailing normally,” Eric said.

Natalia paused for a moment, then asked, "Are storms like this common?"

Then she saw a look on Eric's face that was a mixture of wanting to laugh and not wanting to laugh.

"Hard to say."

"...Hard to say?"

"The weather at sea is unpredictable. Has Your Highness forgotten that there were hardly any clouds in the sky before this storm arrived?"

Natalia lowered her gaze slightly and slowly nodded. "It seems so."

“You don’t need to worry too much. The storm won’t capsize this giant ship; that has already been proven,” Eric added.

Natalia forced a smile. "From now on, I truly believe this."

"How is Your Highness feeling now?"

She didn't immediately grasp the focus of his question, "Are you alright?"

Then she suddenly realized that after spending the entire afternoon in the storm, swaying back and forth, feeling dizzy and disoriented, she hadn't even gagged once despite the violent commotion.

...She overcame seasickness?
"Don't you feel that way?"

"there is none left……"

“Great.” Eric gestured outside. “It’s dinner time.”

Natalia opened her mouth, then subconsciously glanced at the bread wrapped in paper on the table.

"Have you already eaten?" Eric noticed her gaze.

"No."

Natalia glanced at him quickly, a hint of hesitation flashing across her face. A kind of unspeakable regret, like tiny salt crystals on bread, quickly melted in her heart.

"I was wondering if I could eat anything else."

Eric smiled. "We can see what happens. If you can't eat anything else, you can have some freshly baked bread."

Natalia nodded silently, got up, and followed him and Kasha out of the cabin and into the dining room.

"Is it just us?"

"Your Highness seems to have forgotten that we were given priority for dining."

Natalia paused, then pursed her lips. "I forgot."

Eric glanced at her, unable to guess her disappointment, assuming she was just suffering from seasickness and fright, which was why she seemed listless.

The three sat down at the table, where the food was already laid out.

Eric glanced at the food, then at Natalia, who glanced at the main part before quickly looking away.

"It feels too greasy, I can't eat it."

Eric expressed his regret and then asked her for some bread.

"Can you finish this?"

As Natalia looked at the whole loaf of bread Eric handed her, and then at him, she was about to say something when she noticed that Kasha, who was next to him, was also watching her.

Although there was no special expression on her face, Natalia instantly felt exposed and quickly picked up the bread.

"be able to eat."

"Your Highness, please eat as much as you can. Although I don't want to bring this up at this time, this should be considered Your Highness's first meal of the day."

Natalia glared at him, then took a big bite of bread.

"Well!"

I choked.

"There's no need to rush... have some water."

(End of this chapter)