Chapter 122. Recruiting Sailors
The easiest way to recruit sailors was to go to the capital of the Kingdom of Britain.
In Pendragon, the capital of Britain, there was a Sailors’ Office. Here, seafarers were officially recruited, and each individual was meticulously registered and managed.
In front of the office stood shipowners, merchants, and adventurers.
Yul and Lucian visited the Sailors’ Office, waited for their turn, and then filled out the paperwork with the clerk.
“A voyage request form. Do you have a captain’s commission from the royal court?”
“Here.”
“Confirmed, Captain Lucian Beltaine. Please write down the purpose of the voyage, the duration, and the employment conditions. Shall we also post a recruitment notice?”
“Yes. Please do.”
On Lucian’s official mission submission form, he simply wrote: ‘Exploration of the Great Azure Ocean route and maritime resource survey.’
‘If I said I was exploring the Sanctuary, a different world where ancient humans fled, and finding the Humanity Disc where great heroes are recorded, I’d only be met with ridicule.’
Thinking that, Lucian gave a wry smile and signed the official document. The deadline was roughly three years. The report had to be completed within that time.
“We’ve received the documents. We’ll submit the recruitment notice to the Sailors’ Guild.”
“Please have them gather at the designated location within a few days.”
“Understood. The contracted sailors will each need to complete their own paperwork.”
“Very well.”
After finishing the conversation with the clerk, Lucian secured rooms at a good hotel nearby.
They rented a nearby tavern for the gathering and planned to conduct the recruitment there.
A few days later.
A large number of sailors gathered at the tavern.
The purpose was to interview them and have Yul use his divinity to judge their character.
“There are a lot of people.”
The Kingdom of Britain was a vast island nation. Accordingly, both the demand and supply for sailors were high.
There were also many sailors from foreign lands. Hairy Northlanders. Dark-skinned Zaharians from the Middle East. There were also groups of blond-haired people from the Former Empire. Some were Caucasians who looked like Mongolians, though Yul did not know where they came from.
There were many non-human races as well. Sun elves, tiger beastfolk, forest elves, and even gnomes.
Once Lucian judged that enough people had gathered in the tavern, he stepped forward and shouted.
“Greetings!! I am Captain Lucian Beltaine!”
Today, Lucian wore a luxurious uniform that only captains who had received a royal commission were allowed to wear.
And unlike usual, he didn’t speak politely. For the captain of a large ship, carrying excessive politeness would be foolish.
“What’s this? Look at that peach fuzz. He’s just a kid. I’m leaving.”
“He still smells of milk.”
Some people left the tavern immediately upon seeing Lucian, a captain in his early twenties.
Even so, most of them stayed.
The reason was simple—the pay offered in the recruitment conditions was generous.
Yul, the financial backer, had poured in enough money for this expedition to build several frigates, and that sum also included three years’ worth of wages for the crew.
“This is the captain’s commission issued by the royal court.”
When Lucian held the document up high, everyone nodded.
A captain’s commission was not something just anyone could receive. One had to be well-versed in navigation and trained at a government-recognized institution.
“The objective is route exploration, but we won’t only go to the Great Azure Ocean. We might go even farther than that.”
“More importantly, the recruitment conditions said an interview is mandatory. When does it start?”
Someone asked, and Lucian answered.
“It will begin shortly. Once you pass the interview, you will be officially employed.”
Lucian and Yul divided their roles for the interviews.
Lucian would conduct the interview directly, while Yul would stand behind the applicant, observe them, and send a signal if they passed.
Lucian sat down at the interview table and pointed to the first person.
The oldest participant among them was a man in his fifties.
“Name.”
“Blanc Muhari. Just call me Muhari.”
He was enormous and had a rough, intimidating face. Scars covered him here and there. His skin must originally have been pale, but it had tanned dark from years at sea.
“You’re from Aldnoha in the Kingdom of Frangia. Ten years aboard the Dane Spire, ten years aboard the Exile of the Five Swords, and ten years aboard the Oak Prow. Quite a veteran. You even have experience as a boatswain.”
Lucian had completely abandoned his usual tone and spoke like a commanding captain. Yul was quietly impressed. It was the first time he had seen Lucian speak so bluntly, but it felt natural.
“You’re the only sailor here in his fifties. Did you know that?”
“Yes.”
“If you’ve swallowed seawater for thirty years, isn’t it about time you retired? You must have earned plenty of money.”
“When I came back from my last voyage, my wife and son had both died from illness. The distant relatives I met were all strangers, and they only cared about my money. So I came here. I plan to die at sea.”
There was a common joke: no sailors in their sixties existed. That was how short-lived the profession was. He might have boarded this ship aiming for his final voyage.
Yul folded his arms and looked at the sailor’s soul from behind.
A steadfast soul.
A soul that seemed forged from basalt, tempered by the sea. Yet what lay within it was loyalty and a sense of duty.
Watching from behind, Yul closed his right eye to give the OK signal.
“Good. You’re hired. Muhari, you’re now the boatswain. Your salary is fifty ducats a month. The advance payment will be deposited at the Sailors’ Office.”
“I’ll work hard.”
“Ah, then stand behind me and help set the mood. My face isn’t exactly intimidating.”
“Haha. Don’t worry. I’m good at scaring people.”
After hiring Blanc Muhari, he stood behind Lucian, glaring fiercely at the interviewees.
Yul continued examining the incoming sailors.
It was the first time he had used his divinity to inspect humans so closely, and he realized something.
Most human souls were not yet completed with firm convictions like Blanc Muhari’s.
Most of them are still being formed. Some don’t even have a clear shape, and the colors are different, too.
Still, one thing he could clearly discern was each sailor’s stress threshold.
Once that threshold was reached, it seemed they would become capable of rebellion or wrongdoing.
Those with extremely low thresholds were immediately filtered out. Yul selected those with reasonably high values—life on a ship was full of stress.
The red ones are full of selfish intent.
The type who would stab even their comrades the moment an opportunity appeared.
‘The blue ones are the sincere ones.’
Basically decent people, though, like rough sailors, their souls also bore jagged marks, sharpened through hardship.
‘What’s that pitch-black guy? This looks like a total villain.’
Yul roughly categorized the sailors by color in a conceptual sense.
He couldn’t fill the entire crew with only blue ones.
Because quite a few sailors with exceptional abilities happened to be red or black.
‘Still, this is a pretty healthy ratio.’
If the crew leaned too extremely in one direction, problems would arise as well.
In the final hiring ratio, humans made up six parts and other races four.
As for officer-class personnel such as navigators, Lucian planned to recruit them separately through his connections from his days at Weimar Wigma.
* * *
Ten years ago, a new island appeared in the Great Azure Ocean.
It was born after a colossal wave—what humans called the Great Catastrophe. The currents surrounding the island were violently fast, and the difference between the crests and troughs of the waves was so extreme that approaching it was extremely difficult.
Simply reaching the island was enough for a sailor to have their navigation skills recognized.
An island located in such treacherous waters.
Pirates had a name for it—Hero Island.
Though it was wrapped in the grand title of “hero,” in reality, it was nothing more than a rocky island where certain pirates gathered.
More precisely, only the pirates who had once belonged to the legendary pirate crew Grimtide, which existed ten years ago, came here to hold meetings.
In front of Hero Island, a ship with blood-red sails approached.
It was the Bloody Siren.
Standing at the prow and looking toward the island, Carmen recalled ten years ago. Back when she still had both arms, when her family had fallen, and she had been on a slave ship, sold away.
A pirate ship had appeared to raid the slaver.
By coincidence, that ship belonged to the Grimtide Pirates.
'Is that when my life started getting twisted?'
She bit down on the cigar in her mouth and chewed it.
If she hadn’t joined the Grimtide Pirates, then she would have died.
If Captain Brix hadn’t protected her, it wouldn’t have been just her arm she lost—her head would have been gone.
“Captain? Are we getting off?”
“What are you dawdling for. Move.”
Several pirate ships had already anchored around the island.
As Carmen climbed into a boat and headed for the shore, she frowned. The position of a nearby pirate ship was terrible.
“That idiot Nathan Crowley parked his ship like garbage.”
The ship had been wedged diagonally against the reef, blocking other vessels from coming in.
“Hey, Carmen! The reef positions shifted a bit! It’s not like I wanted to park it like that.”
“Bullshit.”
From afar, a young man with his hair tied into a ponytail waved.
He was someone Carmen had known back when they were in the same pirate crew. After the pirate band had collapsed, he had gone independent and sailed his own ship—just like Carmen.
“Carmen, Carmen. Do you know what’s happening right now? Every ship that survived the Outer Ocean is gathering at Hero Island.”
“Hero Island my ass. It’s a pirate island.”
Carmen replied cynically as she stepped off the boat. At the same time, Nathan Crowley stepped off his own.
“All the famous pirates showed up today. 「Long John Dark」, 「Whitebeard」, 「Black Priest」,「Sea Crow」and 「Calico Triple.」”
“And there’ll be nameless riffraff too.”
“Well, after the Grimtide Pirates broke apart, everyone split off and spawned their own crews, didn’t they?”
Though it was never recorded in proper history, the aftermath of the Grimtide Pirates’ collapse had spread massively among pirates.
The death of Captain Brix.
The sudden arrival of the Great Catastrophe.
And then the pirate extermination order was issued by Robert Melbourne, the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Britain.
As a result, pirates scattered everywhere—disguising themselves as ordinary captains or growing new pirate crews through plunder at sea.
There was one reason this had been possible.
After the Great Catastrophe, every maritime power except Britain had been swept away.
There were simply no other enemies left.
If the legendary archmage Ian Beltaine hadn’t stopped the catastrophe, such a situation would never have been possible.
Carmen chatted idly with Nathan as they climbed the rocky island.
At the very top stood a massive stone table.
“Hey, come sit! 「Blood Hand」,「Windcatcher」.”
From afar, the oldest among them, Whitebeard, gestured.
Around the stone table sat the captains, each with two or three of their most loyal subordinates standing behind them.
Carmen and Nathan also took seats at the table.
Whitebeard nodded when he saw them and continued.
“Now then, the reason we gathered this time is because the three maritime nations are beginning their full-scale expansion into the seas.”
The pirates already knew they couldn’t stop those powers.
“So let’s talk about what we’re going to do from here.”