The Informal Tomb Raiding Diary: She is the occupant of the tomb!-Chapter 204 - 205: No More Pretending, Cards on the Table
Lu Xiaodao is quite talented; he found the welding gun and used iron plates to seal the ventilation ducts on the lower level.
Captain Jack used a wrench to attack me. I didn’t even notice when he had hidden that thing; I picked up the fallen wrench and weighed it in my hand.
"What... what exactly are you... monster?" Captain Jack’s eyes on me had completely changed. Despite his pain, he was still curious about my species.
"Have you heard of Cybertron?" I asked with a tone of nostalgia.
"What?" Captain Jack was taken aback.
"Cybertron, my home planet." I looked at him with hope, wishing he could remember my beautiful homeland.
"You’re, you’re an alien?" Captain Jack seemed to miss the point, perhaps because he had a childhood lacking imagination.
"You could say that. You should have heard of us: Autobots, Decepticons, any impressions?"
Captain Jack suddenly realized what I was talking about, anger surfacing on his face having been duped.
"You see, rationality limits your imagination. I told you, but you don’t believe me."
"Who exactly are you?" Captain Jack asked through gritted teeth.
"T-800. Surely you have impressions of that, the Terminator as you call it, synthetic skin, metal skeleton!"
Captain Jack seemed agitated by me, lying on the ground and no longer looking at me.
"Alright then, my story isn’t interesting. How about you tell one, like the story of Painted Skin."
After Lu Xiaodao welded shut the ventilation ducts, I dragged Captain Jack back up to the upper cabin and tossed him into the dining room.
His hands were unnaturally bent—obviously a sign of having been subjected to violence.
The crew didn’t know what happened, assuming I had tortured Captain Jack.
I couldn’t accept that accusation; facing their groundless indictments, I loudly defended myself, saying I hadn’t gotten to the point of torturing him, breaking his hand was simply because he rashly used a wrench to bash my head.
I tossed the wrench onto the ground, and immediately someone changed their expression. They recognized the wrench, and probably knew Captain Jack had secretly stashed it.
I thought they might have been counting on Captain Jack to make a decisive move and rid them of the trouble that was me.
Some, emboldened by their numbers, tried to approach me with aggression. No matter what, Captain Jack was their backbone; treated like that, the crew couldn’t help but be angry.
Impulsive ones ignored the leader’s gun and charged straight at me.
"Stop! Don’t touch her; you, you’re not her match." Captain Jack’s broken hand hurt fiercely, possibly causing him to nearly faint from the pain, but he managed to support himself to stop the crew from committing suicide.
"Alright, everyone settle down, listen to Captain Jack tell us a story." I brought the shifted topic back.
The crew exchanged glances, not knowing my intentions and wondered why storytellings were necessary under such conditions.
"If you refuse to tell—or tell in a way I find unsatisfactory—one of them will be thrown into the lower hold until they’re all crammed inside if you continue to not cooperate." I dropped the pretense, initially wanting to mingle among them as a normal person, but now that my secrets were out in the open due to them trying to throw me to feed the Sea Demon and bashing me with a wrench; it’s time to let them know how a non-human mimics humans to do evil!
"No, you can’t!" Captain Jack shouted.
"Button up his hand; we need to have a long chat, starting from the beginning."
The leader followed my instructions, retrieved emergency supplies from the infirmary, and performed bone-setting for Captain Jack; he was a survival expert and knew what he was doing.
"Anyone wanting the same treatment should come forward now, to avoid unease while listening later on." My gaze swept across the crew; they shivered with fear seeing the Sea Demon but seemed itching for a fight when seeing me.
"Don’t! Don’t approach her, she’s... she’s not human! Wao—" Captain Jack let out a beastly wail as if his tail had been trodden upon.
His arm was still in the leader’s hands, yet he was claiming I wasn’t human, so naturally, the leader wouldn’t treat him well.
Upon hearing Captain Jack’s accusation, those who initially suspected me to be a witch instantly retreated, pressing themselves against the wall, some inadvertently huddled together.
"Is it necessary? You won’t find much courage when your head rolls off a bowl-sized scar. Fear can’t solve the problem, let’s stay strong and listen to Captain Jack narrating the eerie... events on this fishing boat..."
Boom boom—
I was setting the atmosphere when the dining room door was suddenly knocked on, startling some crew members.
Chen Qinghan pulled the door open and walked in; the crew relaxed upon seeing him, letting out sighs of relief.
"What’s going on?" Chen Qinghan saw Captain Jack was hurt, and the crew looked traumatized, puzzled, gazing at me.
"The lab workers and the medical staff aboard the ship are all dummies. Those locked up in the warehouse shed their human disguises and escaped; Captain Jack claims they’re hiding in the lower hold. I asked Dao to weld shut their passageway in the ventilation shaft, now we’re here to listen to Captain Jack and his foreign version of Painted Skin story."
After the leader handled Captain Jack’s broken hand, he stood up and approached Chen Qinghan and me: "I’ve wanted to discuss this matter with you before. Those imprisoned people claimed they’re just ordinary fishermen and tourists who encountered a shipwreck at sea. They thought they were saved but once on this ship, were locked up in the cells. Every now and then, the captain would take a few people from the cells, claiming to contact their families and send them home."
"Oh?" I didn’t believe ’Shield’ would have a conscience reviving it; I conveyed my skepticism over the claims.
"But once, one of them had acute enteritis, and the person who went to the cells to treat him was the former cellmate who supposedly was sent home."
The leader said the person no longer recognized his cellmates, with a blank expression and silently left after administering the shot to the sick individual.
Those in the cells assumed he was controlled, like through hypnosis, making him work aboard the fishing vessel for free while keeping the ship’s secrets.
"Listen, quite chilling; Captain Jack, I believe you have an even scarier version." It’ll take several days for the fishing vessel to return to the nearest shore. While sharing a vessel with unidentified creatures, listen to their tales, gain some insight, and familiarize ourselves with Shield’s working environment!
The leader administered a painkiller to Captain Jack, his expression became less grim, and he gradually calmed down.
"Alright then, I’ll tell it." Captain Jack looked at me, finally deflated; he must have realized that resisting would only result in more sacrifices. Clearly, he’s someone who understands adjusting to circumstances.
Captain Jack said he was the third captain of this fishing vessel; his duties involved just picking up people, dropping them off, and ensuring the boat avoided other ships, keeping to international waters as much as possible.
The supplies needed on the ship, other ships would deliver them at sea. In other words, this boat had never docked ashore, at least in his five years of service, it hadn’t stopped at the port of any country.
