Lord of the Mysteries

On the ocean, pirates had three iconic common interests—liquor, women, and gambling. Alger Wilson merely took out his silver pocket watch, flipped it open, and knew where he should go first.

At quarter past eleven, the brothels and bars hadn’t opened. Only the gambling dens would have easily gathered a bunch of people who wanted to make a fortune.

Alger was more familiar with this port city than his tiny hometown. He proceeded without stopping at all while he navigated his way, smoothly turning at every corner until he arrived outside a casino that was located in a secluded alley.

According to what he knew, the owner of this casino was a gang leader with a deep background. He had an inexplicable but indistinct connection with the important figure at the governor-general’s office. It was the first choice for many pirates to purchase and sell their stolen goods.

Because of this, pirates often appeared here. They might exchange their loot for gold pounds in the morning, but they would lose everything at night and get thrown out.

Alger pulled on his thick brown coat; pressed down his cap, a piece of fashion wear that came from the mainland; and pushed open the half-closed door. Under the watchful gaze of the bouncers, he entered the casino.

Casinos were prohibited within the Loen Kingdom. They could only be attached to bars as rooms, but in the kingdom’s vast overseas colonies, not only were they legal, but they were also a mainstay industry. Among them, Bayam of the Rorsted Archipelago and Alethe of East Balam were the most famous in the area. Many tycoons would specially visit them from Backlund or Midseashire’s coast for a big day of gambling.

Surveying the area, Alger saw a variety of card games, as well as dice-derived turntable games.

As it was still early, there weren’t many gamblers, and Alger quickly “scanned” them all.

Suddenly, his eyes lit up, and he instantly recognized the identity of a disguised person.

He took off his hat, walked up to a Texas Poker table, and patted his target’s shoulder. He bent down and whispered into the man’s ear, “Blazing.”

Danitz happened to be flipping the corner of his card with his right hand, so he almost jumped out of his skin from the slap and nearly sent a fireball towards the guy behind him.

After he had been attacked by Steel Maveti, he knew that he shouldn’t seek out information with his true appearance, as he could be targeted by greedy pirates.

Although most pirates weren’t strong and didn’t register as a threat to Danitz, he still didn’t want to reveal himself, lest it set back the plan of hunting Steel Maveti.

However, to his surprise, the disguise he took great effort to don was exposed just an hour after he left home.

He turned his head quickly to the side and glanced through the corner of his eye at the person who had “greeted” him.

When he saw the signature seaweed-like dark blue hair, Danitz relaxed a little and turned to observe if the other players had heard the greeting.

The gamblers were all carefully studying their hidden card, either folding or continuing, with none of them paying attention to what was happening over at his side.

“Why are you here?” Danitz asked casually.

He and Alger had met at the previous private meet, and he knew that the other party had a ghost ship and a dozen sailors. He was quite a powerful but unknown fellow.

According to Vice Admiral Iceberg’s judgment, if such a small and weak pirate crew was able to retain an ancient ghost ship, it meant that they were backed by a powerful faction. Perhaps they were members of the Church of Storms, or perhaps they were related to a particular Pirate King or secret organization. They usually disguised themselves as ordinary pirates and gathered information for who they were really loyal to. It was easy to wipe any traces of themselves clean at scheduled times, and at times, do things inconvenient for the power backing them. For example, silencing others or plundering certain special items.

quite a few pirate crews like this, and no one would particularly be bothered about such

head and asked in

with

thought you had a brain,

a thing be so

want

Do you want to consider this

other secrets. Maybe someone wants to

knows? Dogshit!” Annoyed by his

like a creation made by

still insists on teaching language to all of you?” Alger asked with

sight of a bunch of illiterates under her command, so

said, “It’s much more difficult than

Every time we dock at the

with the topic. Looking at the dealer, he said to himself, “Help me keep an eye out

Blood’s second mate?” Alger looked down at Blazing’s left arm, which

“For the key?”

brain has already been eaten by

to seek revenge on him?” Alger guessed from the other’s tone and

as though he was concentrating on his new hidden

before saying, “The last time your captain appeared was seven days ago, near Sonia Island. This was confirmed by a telegram. The Golden Dream

a new helper? If it’s just you alone, then you aren’t a match for Steel even if he were alone. And as you know, he’s always attended to by

Danitz’s response was

“Call!”

that Danitz’s attitude was a tacit agreement. He pinned his hopes by asking since it was a riskless

the exposed cards and answered simply,

little fame at sea regardless of if they’re a pirate or an adventurer… Unless they belong to a specific secret organization, or it’s their first time traveling the seas. Of course, it’s also possible that Danitz doesn’t wish to answer, for fear of exposing a secret. That’s most probable… Someone belonging to a particular organization, first time traveling the

the table and asked, as if

emphasized the word

turned his head in surprise and blurted out, “How

to air dirty linen. Furthermore, the passengers of the White Agate had just arrived last night. The people who had witnessed the developments had all signed confidentiality agreements, so how could

Alger smiled without answering.

he understood the value of Emperor Roselle’s

was a revival of some ancient customs that led to the fall of a

chuckled and said, “I’ll help you keep

can

is an unoccupied house. Write the information on a piece of paper and throw it in,”