Dragon Raja 5; Chapter 171: Leviathan’s Song (8)

Dragon Raja 5

“Damn it!” said Caesar.

The direction the child escapes in will soon lead him to encounter Schneider and the crew protecting him.

Abbas and Rebalco immediately chased forward. They both realized the consequences of this situation. In the dark space, the sound of rapid approaching was so loud that if they were crew members, they would open fire without hesitation.

Just before they reached the spot where Schneider had stopped, they heard loud shouts in Russian, followed by a crisp gunshot. Abbas saw with his own eyes the small, black figure running wildly stumble and fall to the ground.

Abbas’ heart sank, but he couldn’t blame anyone. The crew member who fired the shot probably thought it was a young polar bear.

The crewman approached the child with his AK47, and when he realized it was no longer a bear, his face turned pale. However, when he was less than five meters away from the child, he suddenly smelled something burning… The child raised his head, his eyes ferocious, and in his hand, he tightly grasped a long-handled grenade!

“Get out of the way!” Caesar, who arrived later, shouted.

The burning smell was the fuse of the grenade. The child used this grenade as a last weapon to die with the enemy. He was not shot, but the grenade exploded the moment he fell to the ground.

Everyone leaned forward simultaneously, not just out of instinct but also because they ran out of time. They could only watch this miraculously surviving child die without being able to do anything.

At the critical moment, Abbas rushed forward, kicked the grenade out of the child’s arms, and rolled out with the child in his arms.

    ***

“You’re lucky,” Caesar tossed the grenade, its fuse removed, to Abbas. “It’s been stored in a low-temperature environment for so long that the ignition mechanism failed. Otherwise, you’d be a corpse right now.”

In the large cabin of the YAMAL, once used as a gambling parlor, two people sat across from each other at a card table, an open bottle of whiskey between them. The surrounding card tables were empty, but the table lamps above them were on, a star-like pattern stretching as far as the eye could see.

Just from this huge casino, one could imagine the glory of YAMAL when it was a gambling ship, but now it is more like a stage after the show ends and the crowds disperse.

Abbas placed the grenade neatly in a corner of the gambling table, smiled, said nothing, and just raised his glass to Caesar.

“With my knowledge of weapons, I could tell at a glance that this was an M24 high-explosive grenade produced in Germany during World War II. It will explode three seconds after the string is pulled. By the time we realized he had pulled the string, about two seconds had passed, and it was too late to rush over to rescue. But you still rushed over, because you can’t know in advance that it’s a dud,” said Caesar.

“I wanted to save him, so I rushed over.” Abbasid paused, “The man at the wellhead was his father.”

Caesar was slightly startled, and suddenly realized that he had overlooked something. When Abbas took the child out of the well, he first went up to the surface and then used a rope to hang the child out. When Caesar came up to the surface, the body that had been lying at the well mouth was gone.

Abbas moved the man’s body because he didn’t want the child to see it.

“How do you know?” Caesar asked.

“As for race, that child is Inuit, and the man at the wellhead is also Inuit,” Abbas said. “The man who endured the injury of a frozen leg and risked his life to save the child must be his son, right?”

Field expeditions heading to the Arctic like to hire Inuit because they are familiar with the Arctic and have excellent cold resistance. If a scientific expedition member wearing high-tech equipment leaves the team and acts alone, it would be difficult for him to survive more than three days, but an Inuit can live in the polar region for a month with a few sled dogs and a sharp long dagger.

“When you’re in danger, the Inuit can even serve as your sled dogs.” Early European expeditions to the Arctic heard this saying. Back then, finding an experienced Inuit guide significantly increased your chances of survival, and you might even discover a new island and name it after yourself.

But for the Inuit, Arctic exploration was just a dangerous job, which they did to support their families. When the explorers returned to the European continent and proudly announced their discoveries,

For most Inuit guides, one of the goals of working hard is to prevent their children from having to do the same job.

“Didn’t I tell you I’m an orphan?” Abbas suddenly talked about a completely unrelated topic.

“You told me that you grew up in an orphanage.”

“I’ve always wondered who my father was, why he gave birth to me and then abandoned me, or perhaps he had other unavoidable reasons. Perhaps he’s already died in some unknown corner of the world, and that’s why he never came to find me,” Abbas said. “Just like the father of the child in the well.”

The tone was very calm, just like the gossip of two men after drinking, but it was also filled with a hint of sadness.

Caesar was stunned for a moment, and then said nonchalantly, “If he’s like my father, would he think it’s better to not have this person?”     

He knew very well that Abbas was not a “heroic warrior” and his heart was clear without a trace of gloom, but he just didn’t want the conversation to seem too heavy.

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