Before she could think clearly, the mustached servant had picked up a miniature leather suitcase from the side and opened and displayed it in front of everyone.
Hitzfeld thought he was a very calm person, but his eyelids still twitched when he saw what was in the box.
The box has two parts, the left half is filled with six bundles of dark gold banknotes, and the right half is a contract document.
Regardless of what the contract is, just these banknotes - dark gold is the symbol of Sera banknotes - are probably no less than 6 Sera.
"This is your travel expenses." Baron Qingfeng said calmly.
"This is a ship called the Norayesan. Sign here and it will be yours. As long as you can ensure that it is used to search for my granddaughter, you can do whatever you want with it."
"..."
"..."
No one spoke in the church for a while.
Hitzfeld was fine. After all, he had seen big scenes before, especially the tomb in Blo Canyon where he had seen the ground full of gold, silver and treasures. He could still handle this.
But opposite her, the white-haired young man who looked a bit like a child and the pink-haired girl...
To put it more abstractly, their eyes were almost bulging out of their sockets as they looked at the box.
"Why doesn't anyone say anything?"
After a brief silence, the baron frowned, "Too little? Oh, I understand... I don't know how many people or things you need to bring, so I only prepared a medium-sized sailing ship with mechanical power..."
Hitzfeld opened his mouth.
Medium sized sailing boat.
According to some common sense she had read about shipbuilding, a medium-sized sailing ship could accommodate at least 300 people and carry enough fresh water and food for them to eat for more than a year.
"I originally wanted you to get me an iron battleship, but it is a military-controlled item. If you want to move it, it will be impossible to hide it from His Majesty..."
The old man was still nagging: "Airships and planes are even more impossible. After all, you are going to the sea. It is not impossible to send you to the northern seaport from the sky first, but the Sang is still in Wayne. This operation will only waste time..."
"Your Excellency the Baron." Hitzfeld had to interrupt his self-blame, "If we finally decide to accept this mission, these things will be enough."
She could see that this distinguished old gentleman might have a lot of experience in the aviation industry of this era, but he knew nothing about other things, even many things that should be common sense.
"Cybot!"
Xixi Luo winked at her fellow nun, who quickly trotted back to the front table and brought back another small suitcase.
He opened it, pulled out a folded piece of parchment from it, pulled a table from the opposite side and put it in the middle, then unfolded it with a "snap".
It turned out to be a map...
Hitzfeld recognized the content at a glance.
Sarah had seen the map many times, so she could confirm that no map was more detailed than this one.
This is a hand-drawn map.
Although there are still many territories and parts of the ocean around are covered by gray fog, for the exposed parts, the illustrator even marked the direction of ocean currents and the reefs in several specific places in the North Sea, which shows how much homework he did.
"We are here now." Xixiluo pointed at the map and said, "This is Wayne Port."
"The Crystal Sea is here." The finger moved upwards, "It's relatively close to the edge of the gray fog."
Gray fog is not an image, and it is not used to describe unexplored areas on the map.
According to Hitzfeld's understanding, gray fog is truly gray fog.
They surrounded Sarah and covered the land, sea and sky outside. Although they were harmless, it was difficult for people or ships that went far away in the gray fog to return.
Otherwise, a civilization with steel ships would not have been able to detect the continent on the other side of the sea so late, and would not have needed to follow any specific route during the journey.
"The Crystal Sea is actually very similar to the Gray Fog," the young man said. "They are both restricted areas... it's probably okay if you go in a little, but if you think it's safe and go in as you please... then there's a high chance something bad will happen."
"The Crystal Sea is actually more dangerous in this regard." Sister Cybertron added, "Because many people have returned from deep into the gray fog, but those who have returned from deep into the Crystal Sea..."
She glanced at the Baron and didn't continue.
"This is the Northern Parish, Amelian."
Xixi Luo pointed to a city-state on the upper level of Wayne and continued.
"Amiren is more than half a month away from the nearest land to the Crystal Sea."
"The terrain there is difficult, there are no trains, and cars are difficult to drive. It is impossible to drop an airship there, so we still have to go by sea."
"The Northern Parish will be our last supply point and also the closest reinforcement we can count on in case of trouble."
"excuse me."
Hitzfeld interjected.
"Besides how to get there and discussing the situation around that place, I think the intelligence about it itself is more important."
She suspected that the two men were blinded by the sight of money.
Crystal sea.
A place where no one has ever returned from.
For a mission like this...is it so easy to get the money?
She is a detective.
Not an explorer.
Not interested in going on an adventure at sea with money-obsessed idiots.
The white-haired young man and the pink-haired nun looked at each other, then looked at Baron Skye, who was holding his chin and squinting his eyes to look at the map carefully.
"I don't understand why the Security Bureau, Puslint, and the Library all recommended you to join this operation..."
The young man looked at Hitzfeld.
"But since I've chosen you, there's no need to hide these things from you."
"Seibot and I were not in the capital some time ago. Instead, we went to the outskirts of the Crystal Sea and set up 136 anchor points to monitor the ocean currents and climate change in those waters."
“Here are the data.”
The pink-haired nun took out a thick stack of information from the box and placed it on the table.
Hitzfeld, Sisyphus, and Baron Skye all took some and looked through them.
“Is there anything wrong with this data?”
Baron Skye couldn't wait any longer and was the first to put down the documents in his hand.
"It's a big problem." The young man shook his head.
"From the comparison results, we can find that the ocean currents have undergone extremely obvious changes after entering the Crystal Sea."
"And after gathering all the data together to complete the change model——"
"Snapped!"
He uploaded a photo of a sketch.
"We think this might be the culprit."
Everyone looked towards the table and immediately saw what was depicted in the manuscript.
There was no doubt that it was a rough sea.
The sky was covered with dark clouds, and a thick, monster-like snake stretched across the sky and water, as if twisting and dancing in the storm.
Chapter 6: Small Wishes
"Waterspout."
Sixus opened his thin lips and uttered a relatively unfamiliar word.
There are strange and evil things in the world, but in terms of real destructive power, they are far from being like nature.
A tornado is one of the more famous natural disasters. It can only stir up air currents on land, and at most mix sand, dust and debris into the air currents.
But at sea, it can roll up the sea water and transform into a tornado, which actually increases its destructive power.
However, waterspouts are rare, the sea is vast and uninhabited, and even experienced sailors have rarely seen one, so basically no one mentions it.
"The Crystal Sea got its name because of the wonders that occur at certain times - the sea surface is as smooth as a mirror and the water is as pure as blue crystal when the wind is calm."
Torres-Shishilo said in a deep voice.
"To achieve this state, there needs to be no wind on the sea surface, which is in itself a counterintuitive and very strange phenomenon."
"We think that to achieve this spectacle, all the undercurrents need to cancel each other out underwater, and at this point, they have reached a delicate balance."
"At this time, any ship that goes deep into the heart of the Crystal Sea may break this balance, which may disrupt the wind... and the undercurrent below, causing a super storm or even an extremely terrible seaspout."
"Bang!"
A soft sound.
But it was Baron Skye who slumped back in his chair, his face pale and even his lips bloodless.
"Master! Master!"
The man with a mustache massaged his back and patted his chest, and kept making faces at the people standing there, urging them to say something more.
"? What happened to the Baron?" The white-haired young man scratched his head, not quite understanding what was going on.
"Ahem!" Sister Cybertron beside him punched him on the back with her fist: "Actually... uh... not necessarily... because our data measurements are not complete yet, and we don't know what the true interior of the Crystal Sea is like."
"Maybe... well... I mean maybe... people who go deep into the center won't be swept away by the storm... They may just be trapped by the storm and can't get out..."
"Ah!?" The white-haired young man finally reacted and hurriedly explained:
"Yes...yes! I think so too!"
Hitzfeld frowned and pondered.
Although there is data to support it, it seems quite reliable.
But... is there a place where "just because a foreign object breaks in, things go out of control and a storm starts brewing"?
The undercurrent can be explained this way, but what about the wind?
simply put.
There was a storm, possibly a tornado, she believed.
But she didn’t believe that Crystal Sea could achieve “intelligent recognition” and turn on the hair dryer special effect as soon as someone entered.
"Have you done any land survey?" she asked the other side.
"What?" The two priests were stunned.
"Land survey." Hitzfeld looked calm.
"If there are really frequent superstorms and waterspouts inside the Crystal Sea, then the aquatic creatures living in it will definitely be swept up into the sky."
"The Crystal Sea is not far from the land, and there is even an edge area right next to it. As far as I know, a waterspout close to the land has a certain chance of throwing the aquatic creatures it rolls up across a distance of hundreds of miles to the land. If this is true, then over the years, there must be a lot of predators gathered in that area. Because animals will change their habitats according to the amount of food... This can also serve as evidence for your inference."
"We don't need to enter the Crystal Sea. We can find out by just going around from the land... Why, didn't you investigate?"
After some questioning, the pink-haired nun lowered her head and the white-haired young man blushed.
"Who would pay attention to these... trivial matters!"
"This is a deduction based on rigorous logic. Only by following this rule can we ensure accurate solving of the case. But unfortunately, some people only see money."
"You impertinent one-eyed detective—Ah!"
The white-haired young man suddenly screamed, straightened his body, covered a certain part with his hands behind his back, and then was pushed away by his companions.
"terribly sorry."
Sister Cybertron bowed deeply.
"We will all become companions soon after all... I will discipline him!"
"Ms. Hitzfeld."
Baron Skye stood up again.
"What do you think?"
For a moment, the breathing in the church became lighter.
