Pirate Kingship

RUSTLE, RUSTLE...

They suddenly felt a slight tremble underfoot, instinctively halting their steps.

Soon, a group of thumb-sized, golden ants emerged from the ground like a fountain of gold.

Streaming rapidly across the ground in a fan shape, they surrounded them.

Stones, grass, trees... Anything that stood in their path was almost instantly devoured clean.

They were far more fearsome than the most terrifying army ants in the tropical rainforests.

Everyone had no doubt that even an elephant would be reduced to a pile of bones in a very short amount of time in the face of these ants—and perhaps not even the bones would remain.

Clearly, this was the rule:

"Everyone must pay two Gold Coins to the Gold-devouring Ants guarding the beach in order to land on the island, and each Gold Coin must weigh no less than 40 grams."

Although Byron had been spending money like water lately, what he lacked was substantial funds; he could still afford the modest entry fee.

Still, he felt the pinch even after obediently handing over the money.

Himself, the hired help Violet, Bruh, Alfred, Gus, Eight Fingers, Wayne Dote, Jacqueline, and the fifty Marines—a total of 58 people.

Two 40-gram Gold Coins per person amounted to 116 coins, totaling 4,640 grams of gold. Rounding up, he had just handed over nearly 5 kilograms of gold.

And that was just for setting foot on the island.

It was hard to imagine how much staggering wealth one would have to pay to safely reach the treasure cave, unhindered, using gold as a pathway.

Moreover, Byron was seriously skeptical about whether Silvergold Island would regurgitate the gold and silver it had swallowed.

"My hard work robbing, adventuring, and managing businesses for primitive accumulation is just too slow," Byron mused. "Using other people's money for one's own ends is the way of the capitalist era. When will God grant me a sucker whose wool can never be fully shorn? Ideally, it would be someone they could dispatch with a knife after they had served their purpose. There would be no need to repay them; that would be more than perfect. 'The valiant, in their fury, draw their blades against even stronger foes!' This saying is about noble people with a 'rob from the rich to give to the poor' mentality, like me. Of course, I'm that 'poor'."

The rules ascertained by their predecessors didn't lie.

Even an uncanny, bizarre entity knows the principle that if you take money, you do the job.

After taking the money, the Gold-devouring Ants retracted like the tide.

If they could follow these Gold-devouring Ants back to their nest, they might find a treasury as rich as a Dragon Nest. But instinctively, as a Pirate, Byron felt that this kind of retail transaction, akin to collecting admission tickets, was a drop in the bucket. It was likely not enough to achieve the magical effect of Silvergold Island's continuous wealth growth.

[Hidden: The Mystery of Wealth Growth on Silvergold Island] showed no response, which also indirectly confirmed the correctness of this speculation.

Once the danger was cleared, they immediately searched every cabin of the Albatross, the Adventure Team's ship before them.

"Report, Captain, the forecastle holds nothing."

"Report, Captain, the hold is empty."

"The gun deck has nothing..."

But after searching the entire ship, they found not a single corpse from that year's Adventure Team, nor any messages they might have left.

They only found some of the ship's equipment.

Like the sailing ship itself, it seemed as though it had gone through a hundred years of decay and would fall to pieces at the slightest touch.

It appeared that during the interval Silvergold Island vanished from the Material World, time on the island flowed much faster than in the outside world.

Gus did find a well-preserved Miracle, the [Echo Conch].

But the conch could only record the most recent three months of sound. After eleven long years, no information about the Adventure Team remained.

Byron activated [Echo of History] to search once more. In the captain's cabin, already decayed and covered in mushrooms, he finally found a Sailing Logbook hidden inside a bronze box.

Based on the signature, it belonged to the captain of the Adventure Team, Andrew Lancaster, a Third Order [Storm Knight], who by blood should be Byron's cousin.

In the Kingdom of Hightins, the Navy had always been Lancaster's private force.

According to naval warship management guidelines, all officers were required to independently record a Sailing Logbook. This included ship captains at the school level, officers at the ensign level, and even officer cadets.

Although only this one survived, it was enough for them to get a glimpse of the whole picture.

Byron couldn't wait to open the Sailing Logbook.

The first entry was from the first day of the Albatross's adventurous voyage.

"Silver Era 1461, June 11th.

The weather is clear, southwest wind force 4. We set sail on a great treasure hunt.

I, Andrew Lancaster, will bring back the great pirate's treasure, help the Red Rose defeat the rebellion of the White Rose, and become a hero of Lancaster!

Course: North Sea Region, coastal route, port side Qiangfeng - close-hauled sailing...

Although we set off today against an annoying headwind, there is good news after all.

Little George's wife is eight months pregnant. By the time we return from our voyage, the child should just be arriving.

We have already agreed that when I return safely, I will become that child's godfather.

The girl in love with Freeman came to see him off today. The two young people had agreed that once they received their share of the treasure from this voyage, he would go and propose to her stingy father-in-law...

It's a beautiful day for everyone."

Byron shook his head. "What a terrible day it was, dear uncle. May your souls rest in peace."

Then he skimmed quickly through the irrelevant parts of the voyage recorded in the middle of the Sailing Logbook.

"Silver Era 1461, June 15th.

Weather overcast, southwest wind force 5.

Today is the day Silvergold Island reappears after seven years, and we are ready.

Before departing, I made extensive use of the 'Key of Omniscience' to research information uploaded by other Adventurers. This is a valuable quality for an excellent Adventurer.

It was also on this day, listening to the cicadas on a nearby island, that I suddenly realized I might have discovered an interesting phenomenon.

Retracing the appearances of Silvergold Island, no matter which year or where it surfaced, it always coincided with the local transition from spring to summer.

And it matched the local cicada's chirping, always appearing along with the piercing sound of cicadas.

Of course, I personally didn't feel this discovery had any special significance."

Upon reading this, Byron's expression gradually became serious.

Because the last piece of information the Adventure Team passed on before their death, using their contract creature seagull messengers, was:

"When you hear the sound of cicadas, no matter how tempting the treasure in front of you, you must evacuate at the first opportunity!"

"Cicada chirping, cicadas again," Byron thought. "The danger on the island could very well be related to the cicada sounds from outside."

He continued to flip through the pages.

"We had just landed on Silvergold Island when a red macaw came near the Albatross. It kept watching us while we were organizing our equipment.

This garrulous red macaw—I don't know where it heard the story—was quiet for a while. Then, it began to repeat a fairy tale in our ears.

Although we were pressed for time, I still took the trouble to record this absurd yet very interesting story.

I'll tell it as a bedtime story to my little Tommy when I get home; maybe he will like it."

Byron saw another familiar name, that of a cousin who had already died at the hands of the 'Touch of the Kraken'.

He casually turned to the last page of the Sailing Logbook with handwriting.

It was a fairy tale written in a very hasty scrawl:

"In a place very far away, there is a country called Xilaralavia.

Anyone who wants to go there must first learn the way from the blind, and only those who have no feet can reach it..."

Just from the first sentence, an absurd and bizarre atmosphere immediately hit them.