Part 1

Side Story: In That Corner (Part 1)
[Exclusive Side Story only on Qidian App]

"There! There it is!" A young man with brown medium-length hair and a pirate headband pointed to an island not far away and shouted.

He was standing on the edge of the deck of a three-masted barque, and the rolling waves beneath swallowed up most of his voice.

A man wearing a black eyepatch stretched out his hands and held onto the ship’s railing. He looks to be at the prime of his age.

Frowning, he said to himself in surprise and disbelief: "I don't remember such an island along this route..."

This isn’t the first or second time their ship sailed along this route.

"This shows that it is normally hidden and only appears at a specific time. There must be treasure on an island like this!" The young man who was shouting excitedly replied, "Captain, in the words of that weird monk, our jiyuan has arrived!"

[TL Note: Jiyuan is good fortune, chance, and opportunity in Chinese]

He spoke in Loen, and the made-up word "jiyuan" was pronounced using two Loen words mushed together.

"That monk’s mouth was full of words and sentences that we don’t understand. Listening to him is fine but I wouldn’t take his words seriously." The man with an eyepatch said as he raised one of his hands up to brush his slightly messy, light yellow short hair, “and I often tell you guys that treasure is always accompanied by danger.”

With that, he pointed to his right eye, which was covered by the eyepatch:

"This was the price of my lesson."

The young man wearing a pirate headband said sincerely: "But, Captain, isn't this the purpose of our adventures? It’s for the treasure!"

They are a group of treasure hunters hailing from different places. Of course, their occasional side gigs include being pirates. They would borrow food, drinks and items from passing merchant ships.
After all, ideals cannot replace bread on the table.

The captain was silent for a moment and then said: "Let's organize four or five people to go to the island and scout it out. The others get ready to sail away at any time."

The young man's eyes lit up: "Agreed? Captain, you agreed!"

The captain replied with a humph: “Weimer, if it weren’t for the lack of choice, someone of my age rarely stays in the treasure hunter business willingly.”

He seemed to be in his thirties, but his blue eyes showed the vicissitudes of life.

"Alright, alright," Weimer raised his hands in defeat, "I’ll listen to you."

After saying that, he immediately returned to being excited: "Well then, I'll go and call old Kerton!"

Old Kerton is the First Mate of the ship. He believes in the “God of Knowledge and Wisdom” and knows several languages. If he’s not tagging along on an adventure like this, chances are the treasure
will be treated as garbage and thrown away.

More importantly, old Kerton is also pretty strong in a fight.

When the ship arrived at the wharf that seemed to have been abandoned for a long time and docked, an exploration team composed of four people had gathered beside the gangway.

They are Captain Gray, First Mate old Kerton, boatswain Parvey and senior sailor Weimer.

"There’s no one..." Parvey looked into the distance and murmured disappointingly under her breath.

The weather on the Berserk Sea is great today. Due to high visibility, the not-so-large port was laid bare in front of the visitors’ eyes. The place is extremely quiet, as if it has been dead for many years.

"It’s would be scarier if there’s actually people!” Weimer replied.

If there are inhabitants on a hidden island such as this one, there’s usually a deeper reason.

Parvey is wearing a white shirt and brown wide leg pants with braces. She has beautiful pale blue eyes and a slightly androgynous appearance.

She gave Weimer a glare and said: "Do you want to stay behind and clean the deck?"

Weimer shrugged his shoulders and spoke no more.

As a female, if she can become a boatswain and manage a crowd of unruly sailors, it means her threats never stop at just being words.

As the two bickered, Captain Gray, who has finished surveying the surrounding areas, gave an order:

"Let’s get on land."

He then immediately advised: "We will follow the old rules. When we first explore, don't touch anything, just look and listen."

"No problem!" Weimer took the lead in rushing off the ship and running along the gangway onto the dock.

As he ran, he jumped up from the gangway excitedly and glided to the ground like a giant bird.

The resulting noise he made resounded through the port, with some echo here and there.
Behind him, Gray, old Kerton and Parvey went down in turn, all being very cautious.

"If you continue being so reckless and presumptuous, like an uneducated wild dog, I will tie you up and hang you in the stern to catch sharks!" Skipping a few steps, Parvey walked quickly to Weimer
and warned him with a low voice.

Weimer nodded seriously and then muttered: "Boss (Big Sis), with your personality, you should join the Church of Storms rather than believing in the ‘Evernight Goddess’..."

Parvey did not respond. She glanced around and followed Captain Gray and First Mate old Kerton as they moved slowly forward.

The port isn’t that big. There is only a lighthouse, two simple docks, five warehouses and several buildings serving as residences, hotels, restaurants, bars and a police station. It didn’t take long for the four visitors to make a full round.

With the exception of “no one is here”, everything seemed normal here.

Standing by a house on the side of a street, Weimer looked inside through its window and saw a dining table. He did not speak for a long time.

His expression became somewhat heavy and serious, even for someone of his personality.

In the house, on the dining table, there is a cup filled with brown and black liquid as well as two pieces of moldy toasts on a plate.

Next to them are several neatly folded newspapers.

It seemed as if the host was preparing to have breakfast when he had to rush out of the house in a hurry, even before he could read the newspaper.

And after that, he never returned.

If there is only one such case, it would have been pretty normal. After all, accidents are unavoidable. However, similar scenes can be found throughout the entire port, which inevitably made people feel creeped out, and their imaginations running wild.

It seems that in a particular instance, all the local residents, no, all living beings just evaporated.

"It hasn’t been long since their disappearance..." Captain Gray's voice was slightly hoarse, which
broke the silence that pervaded among them.

Parvey answered back subconsciously: "Indeed, if the port had been abandoned for a long time, the food would not be just moldy."

It seems that it has only been a few days or weeks since whatever eerie incident or phenomenon happened at the port. That is, of course, assuming that it really did happen.

Old Kerton stopped surveying his surroundings and nodded to Parvey’s comment: "Yes, that’s what the plants here ‘say’ as well.”

This First Mate has obvious wrinkles at the corners of his mouth. His hair is mottled with black and white and has a little natural curl. He is wearing a white robe and a pair of bronze framed glasses on the bridge of his nose.

"Huh?" For a second Weimer did not understand what he was referring to.

He then looked towards the place where old Kerton had just examined, and quickly understood the reason behind his comment.

There aren’t many weeds growing around the port. A very scarce number of simple or complex colored mushrooms can be seen growing on the wooden buildings, as if they had always been there.

It was made obvious that nature had not yet had enough time to reclaim this man-made establishment.

Seeing Weimer's sudden realization, old Kerton did not bother to explain, he turned to Captain Gray and said solemnly: "I'm worried that unexpected things may happen if we stay here for too long."

"What unexpected things? Are you saying we can also disappear out of thin a-" Before Weimer can finish speaking, a bronze colored hand grabbed him by the cheek.

The hand pushed his head and pressed him against a wall.

"There's no next time!" said Parvey in a low voice, staring at Weimer with anger in her eyes.

Weimer nodded difficultly, signaling that he understood.

After Parvey let go of him, Weimer murmured:

"This is not like you, Boss (Big Sis). You didn't hit the wall directly with the back of my head..."
Parvey rolled her eyes with a cold laugh: "I was afraid if we made too much noise we will ‘wake’ this abnormality that is hiding here."

Captain Gray did not pay interaction to the two’s interactions. He took out his silver pocket watch, snapped the lid open, and took a look:

"In another 15 minutes, we will return to the ship. If everything is normal, prepare for a second exploration tomorrow."

"Okay!" Weimer was the first to agree.

The four kept a good battle formation, walked around the building in front of them, and approached the edge of the port.

A rather stained and dirty steam train is parked here, and a railway track extends into the distance, deeper into the island.

Parallel to the railway track is a cement road.

This is exactly the same as what Gray and others imagined. After all, the port bears the responsibility of loading and unloading goods and passengers, and needs convenient land transportation to connect other towns and cities.

However, to their surprise and bewilderment, the length of the railway track is only one or two hundred meters, and at its end stands a fair sized town.

Even though they are still at the edge of the harbor, the four people could see what’s inside of the town with their naked eyes.

"This..." Weimer could not express his feelings in words, so he could only swear in a low voice, "If I were the owner of this island, I would definitely tie up the bastard who proposed such a layout and hang him in the stern to catch sharks!"

Based on their experience with many other ports, this layout is simply abnormal:

The town a few hundred meters away should either be closer to this side and form a port city, or it should be several kilometers away and be a completely separate location, not something like this!

"There might have been some deeper meaning for it to be constructed like this." old Kerton frowned and said, "This may or may not have some degree of connection with the local eerie disappearance."
After he finished talking, there was no reply for a time.

A few seconds later, Weimer looked at the town not far away and said: "Captain, do we want to go and have a look?"

Captain Gray nodded: "Yes, there are twelve minutes left."

They soon started following the cement road to the town.

On both sides of the road, weeds are flourishing and mushrooms are dotted here and there. The

closer they are to their destination, the denser the plants.

Before long, the four treasure hunters came to the edge of the town.

There was a wooden board with a word written in Loen:

“Utopia”

"This place is called Utopia." Weimer read the sign and looked at old Kerton.

Old Kerton slowly shook his head, indicating that he had never heard of it.

And neither did Parvey and Captain Gray.

They observed the situation inside the town while standing at the edge of it, and confirmed that the street was also empty, so quiet that it seemed as if even the wind could not bear passing through here.

Step by step they walked forward, the four of them saw an "Iris Hotel", the "Utopian Telegraph
Office", and many other buildings.

However, without exception, the interiors of these buildings all showed signs that the owners left hurriedly and never returned:

Cups with some water in them, dry clothes that were once in the process of being washed, tableware that has been laid out on a dining table, musical instruments that have not been put away, books that have been read halfway through, and carriages parked at the roadside with no horses in sight…Together these things reconstructed the imagery of a bustling town, right up to the point of the occurrence of an eerie phenomenon.

“Why do I keep feeling that something else is missing…” with the town square coming up in their sight, Weimer couldn’t help but whispered.

[End of Part 1]