Chapter 492 - Another Captain (Patreon)

After a silent reminder of his need to prove his worth on their upcoming journey, Sami finally made his way above deck. There were even more sailors up here, and they were even busier than the ones below deck. All across the rigging, men were climbing up and down to check the sails and knots like spiders building a net. With a now-practiced eye, Sami scanned their work, but could spot no slackers, nor careless behavior. Everyone was dutifully operating his station, and making good pace as well. Soon, they would be ready to set out to sea.

Since it looked like they wouldn't need his help, Sami decided to not bother them in their work. Finally, after he had checked the ship from bottom to top one final time, he could feel at peace for a few moments. All he had to do now was stay nearby and keep an eye on them in case some decision needed to be made.

Thus, he leaned against the railing on the forecastle's starboard side and idly stared out into the harbor as he waited for his men to finish up their work. In a rare blessing of fate, Saniya's sky was almost cloudless today, and not a drop of rain was falling. The deep-lying morning sun illuminated a band of clouds from below to turn them into a red island archipelago floating in the sky. Atop the red shimmering waters around the Suyana's hull, countless ships were already traveling back and forth along the Mayura River, Medala's busiest trade route.

Atop many of these ships, as well as down in the harbor, Sami could spot others working hard for their daily bread, just how they did on his own Suyana. Meanwhile, he himself could take it easy without getting called out for his laziness by anyone. It was a strange shift in status, one which filled him both with pride and unease. At the same time, the view down onto the docks also evoked some memories in Sami, memories which reminded him of just how far he had come.

When he had first arrived in Saniya all those years ago, it had been in the cargo hold of an ice ship from Vallunaraju. He had been the lowest of servants back then, his status a mere half step above a stowaway. After his arrival, he had been forced to work harder than anyone, pushing massive blocks of ice into the ice houses all day until his arms burned like fire. Otherwise, he would not have received as much as his base salary, just barely enough to survive for another day. Now, a few years later, he was the captain of his own ship. Even though most of the ship wasn't truly his own, the achievement still filled his chest with pride.

Of course, Chanca was a captain as well, just not on Sami's Suyana. Originally, they had planned to buy only one ship. However, the provocation from the northern fools had really rubbed Chanca the wrong way. On top of that, problems had arisen when they had tried to define their roles on the one ship they had planned to buy. Sami thought he would be fine with the role of bosun, or maybe a ship's carpenter, or the like, since he was only a junior partner in their enterprise and didn't mind a minor role onboard the ship.

However, Chanca insisted that both of them were investors, so both of them should be captains. Even more, the gangster's son-in-law didn't intend to do any actual work, so he much rather left the role of captain to Sami. Yet at the same time, Sami's prideful friend would also never allow himself to be seen inferior to anyone, so he couldn't let himself serve in a role beneath the captain. Thus, rather than work out who would be the captain between them, his friend had simply decided to buy a second ship and give the title to both of them. After all, while Sami was limited by his finances, Chanca didn't have such concerns.

Reminded of his fellow captain's existence, Sami looked over to Chanca's brand-new vessel, anchored right next to his own. Although they had begun around the same time, the sailors next door were not half as far with their preparations than his own.

Well, at least we won't have to rush anything, Sami thought.

Chanca's 'Kallpa' was a sister vessel with an identical size and make to his own Suyana. Both ships had been built at the same time, in neighboring dry docks, and they had been sold to the same man, on the same day.

Now Sami and Chanca had what could be called a fleet of their own — albeit a tiny one. It was a fact which seemed to have escaped Chanca's notice so far. Otherwise, Sami was convinced his friend would switch his own title to admiral immediately. Surely, he would add a big hat to wear, and maybe a custom-made fake uniforms, like the big men of Saniya's navy sometimes wore during the big award ceremonies. After all, one of Chanca's wise saying stated that the most important people were the ones with the biggest hats.

As he idly thought about his strange friend's strange behavior, Sami's mind drifted further and further away from their upcoming journey, and from his own responsibilities. Much unlike himself, he hadn't even thought about checking on his men for a while. Only a sudden voice reminded him of his duties again.

"Captain, there's trouble!" a shout sounded behind Sami, more annoyed than concerned in its tone. "Looks like the fool has begun to create problems for us. Again."

The words finally reminded Sami of his responsibilities. As he tried his best to hide his guilty conscience behind a stoic mask, he turned away from the harbor and towards the quartermaster of the Suyana, as well as the highest ranking officer on Sami's crew.

An old man with weather-beaten skin and a permanent scowl on his crooked face had come up behind Sami while the captain had been distracted by his own thoughts. The old sailor's clothes were rough, but orderly, which proved both his low status in the world, as well as his thorough and orderly character, traits he very much shared with his captain.

"Qawa, what's the problem?" the captain asked the quartermaster on his ship.

Just like most everyone else on the Suyana, Qawa had been hired by Sami over the past month to fill up their crew with proper sailors. After all, just he and Chanca could hardly run the two ships by themselves.

In the process of recruitment, Sami had spoken to countless people. There were all kinds of folks eager to get a hire on their ships, and Sami had done his best to sort them into groups of useful or useless people. Unfortunately, most were the latter. Many eager to board were fools or do-nothings, who were looking for easy work with good pay.

Since Sami was a new face at the harbor and had come here with a brand-new ship, they probably thought that they could take advantage of some rich merchant fool and cheat him out of some coin without doing any actual work. Those sorts were the ones who most readily gave compliments and made the brashest claims during recruitment.

However, they had severely underestimated Sami's own determination for success, as well as his poverty. Due to his own heavy investment in the ship, he was careful with every copper he spent, so he quickly sorted out the most useless among his prospective sailors. Of course, his inexperience would still prove problematic in the process. He had to learn the business as he went along, and as quickly as possible. Thus, while he was busy interviewing potential recruits for his crew, he also paid experienced, known sailors from around the harbor good money to impart their experience.

Among them, Qawa was the one who taught him the most. From the grumpy old man who had been a fisherman half his life and a sailor for the rest, he had learned how to read a map, how to read the weather, and how to read his crew, even though the old man himself could barely read in the first place. Even so, he had much wisdom to impart, and his meticulous and direct personality appealed to Sami as well.

Thus, since this old inhabitant of Saniya harbor was working for him as a teacher already, the young captain simply asked Qawa directly to help him sift through the applicants in between lessons. With his help, Sami had managed to weed out all the wastes in advance, and even found a few hidden gems during recruitment.

Of course, all of Qawa's suggestions had been double-checked through Chanca's own connections, to make sure the old sailor was trustworthy. In the end, the only crooks who made it into their fleet were some of Chanca's own followers, members of Ekkoko's gang who were there to guarantee their boss' investment.

Over a month of working together, Sami had determined that he could trust the old sailor, and had since then begun the difficult of convincing the old man. Although it had taken a while, Qawa had finally agreed with the comment: 'If I have to die, it may as well be on a shiny, new ship'. Apart from Qawa's trustworthiness and competence, Sami also particularly liked his quartermaster's fearless mouth, which would just spout whatever he felt like, much to his captain's amusement, just as he did today.

"Captain, the fool is making trouble outside again," the old quartermaster repeated in an exhausted tone, huffing as if his complaint was made in regards to the nightly howling of the neighborhood's stray cats. "I suggest we stop them before they start a brawl and half our fleet gets locked up by the local guards before we can set off."

Oh, sounds like my fellow captain is having far too much fun, Sami thought. 'Fool' was what Qawa would usually call Chanca, so Sami was already quite sure he knew what was going on. Still, just in case he was wrong, he decided to ask his quartermaster for more details.

"Did it really look that bad?"

"Not quite, but you know how the fool is," the old sailor replied and shrugged as if his answer was obvious. "He can kick off a brawl for any reason, or none at all. Maybe some fop will look at him the wrong way for a moment, and then the whole dock will be ablaze. We should prevent the fire before it happens, I think."

Although Sami thought Qawa's assessment of Chanca was a bit much, he also couldn't disagree. His friend really tended towards an 'act-first-ask-later' approach in life.

"Fine then, seems like I should go take a look, at least," he admitted, but not without adding a warning for his first mate. "But stop calling him 'fool'. He's your captain, too."

After all, it was necessary to maintain strict order at sea. That was something Qawa himself had taught Sami. However, the first mate only scoffed at the rebuke.

"He's only my captain at sea. I'll start respecting him once we set out. So long as we're still docked, he is only a fool to me."

This time, Sami didn't remind Qawa again. It was useless to argue with the stubborn old man, and he wasn't entirely wrong anyways. Sami wouldn't care about Qawa's attitude at port, so long as he acted appropriately at sea. In that regard, he had full trust in his quartermaster.

As they talked, Qawa and Sami made their way to the port-side stern of the Suyana. From here, he could overlook the pier behind their ship. Under the sounds of more salutes from his men, Sami made his way to the railing. Rather than reply to the numerous voices, he focused on the impressive sight of Saniya's civilian harbor.

Before he had scored his job with the TaSa manufactory, he had sometimes worked day jobs in the harbor to get by. Since that time, the harbor had grown to at least thrice its size over the course of only a few years. Even so, everything still felt cramped and improvised, as capacity struggled to keep up with the massive demand for ever more transportation. Even the advanced systems of pulleys and levers installed all along the docks were not enough to service all the ships eager to enter port.

However, Sami had no time to marvel at the busy port. Rather, as soon as he looked to the north, to the group of ships docked next to their own, he immediately spotted the problem.

Yepp, that's them, all right, Sami thought, and watched Chanca in an argument with two people in front of the neighboring dock. There they are again, the bearded fools.

To be honest, over the past month of hard work, Sami himself had almost forgotten about the two jokers from the stock exchange who had insulted him and had then revealed all their clever plans for no reason in particular.

However, it seemed like Chanca had never been able to let go, even though he had barely talked to them back then. At the very least, Sami didn't think it was a coincidence that their own ships had ended up docked right next to this merchant fleet, which had been newly acquired by these bearded merchants from the Kingdom of Northern Medala. Considering the arrogance of flying an enemy kingdom's flag in the southern kingdom's capital atop their masts, figuring out their identities hadn't taken any genius deductions on Sami's part. The northern kingdom's triquetra on yellow was in plain view for everyone to see.

Although they were fools, at least in one regard, the two hadn't lied: They were certainly rich. Their fleet consisted of five galleons, any of which looked far more impressive than their own two-ship mini fleet. While Sami and Chanca's ships were more slender, offering a compromise between speed, tonnage and combativeness, the five northern ships were pure merchant vessels, wide and bulky, to maximize the size of their cargo hold. Their flag ship alone looked like it had more than twice the tonnage of Sami's own Suyana.

On the dock in front of this impressive fleet, Chanca and the two fools currently stood opposite each other, and it seemed like they had been locking heads for some time already. By now, the bearded fools were screaming at Chanca with red faces, while his friend stood before them with his arms crossed, sporting a cocky grin to make his face seem extra punchable.

Clearly, he was making trouble for them somehow, and was having fun while doing it. Maybe the pulley next to their ships was out of order again, or the port authority had shown up with new documents again to delay their departure. Sami wondered how much of his time over the past month Chanca had wasted just trying to figure out what these people were doing, where they had docked their fleet, and then plotting to trouble them for talking back to him at the stock exchange the one time.

Although Sami didn't really know what Chanca had in store for these guys, Ekkoko was just about the most influential man at the harbor. Surely, the underground prince of Saniya could create all kinds of trouble for them with only a few words. Clearly, Chanca was having fun annoying their new neighbors — just how Sami had predicted — and clearly, the fools were powerless to stop him. Why else would they yap at him like two blustering dogs?

Although the northern crew of the northern fools had begun to assemble around them to increase the weight of their words, Sami wasn't worried about Chanca's safety in the slightest. Already, he could see some of the dock workers forming into groups in the distance, many of them surely on Ekkoko's payroll.

If these bearded fools really dared to attack the young master of Saniya harbor, these workers would rush in to defend their territory, and teach these foreigners some harsh life lessons in the process. Thus, Sami simply relaxed as he turned his head towards Qawa, whose face had taken on an even more sour look in the face of Chanca's escapades.

"No need to care about them. Chanca has it under control," Sami said, and patted his quartermaster's shoulder. "Just get us ready to set sail. The tide is about to turn. Once he's played enough, he'll stop on his own, and then it's time for us to set out."

"Aye aye, captain," the old man said without hesitation. Despite his own feelings, he was always impeccable when it came to his duties.

As Qawa left to convey his captain's orders to the rest of the crew, Sami stopped looking at the conflict in the distance as well. Such minor issues were hardly worth his time, not when Chanca was far better equipped to deal with them. Instead, Sami once more stared out into the harbor, though his eyes barely registered the bustling of the ships this time.

Instead, he looked farther, beyond the delta of the Mayura River, past Rapra Castle and beyond the horizon, out into the open sea. Somewhere out there, a brand new path into the future was about to open up for him. It filled him with anticipation and dread, in equal measure.

Hermit's Notes: Gonna be two chapters today. There's more action in the next one, I promise.