Dragon Raja 5; Chapter 206: For Your Majesty (21)

Dragon Raja 5

Caesar took a quick look around and understood the situation. Rebalco brought her here instead of the medical bay because both nuclear reactors were wrapped in extremely strong leaded steel plates. This small space might be the strongest prison on the YAMAL.

After seeing Snow’s performance in front of the group of young snakes, Rebalko couldn’t trust this girl, and the crew members didn’t trust her even more. Some of them wanted to execute this dangerous girl immediately.

“Go back to your posts. I can pretend this never happened.” Rebalko’s voice was low and contained a hint of intimidation.

The YAMAL was once a military ship, and the discipline on board was modeled after that of a warship. The crew’s current actions were tantamount to an armed riot, and Rebalco had the right to execute the leader among them.

But Rebalko didn’t dare to do so. He was alone on the icy sea, facing internal and external troubles. If chaos broke out on the ship, the outcome would be unpredictable.

So although Rebalco seemed threatening, he was actually trying to appease the sailors. However, the sailors were obviously not easy to convince. They all stared at the Snow behind Rebalco and did not even pay attention to Caesar who had just arrived.

Caesar’s heart shuddered slightly. The looks of the crew members reminded him of the people in the Middle Ages who wanted to hang witches and burn them to death. They were both passionate and fearful.

He suddenly recalled something his psychology teacher, Masashi Toyama, had said in class. He’d said the human mind is like a balance: seemingly stable, but in reality, this balance is fragile. Once disturbed beyond a certain threshold, the balance collapses, and a person can become someone else overnight. The simple, rough, optimistic, and fearless Russians kneeling before Orthodox icons in the snow, praying for salvation, was actually different aspects of the same people. The appearance of the giant snakes shattered some of the crew’s beliefs, even those who, like Rybalko, had come from the Alpha Special Forces, mingling with the crowd.

“No, Captain, she’ll kill us all.” The chief engineer seemed to be the leader. He stood at the front of the crowd, his eyes locked with Rebalco’s. “She’s either cursed, or she’s curse herself. Don’t believe a word she says.”

“Mr. Gattuso, it looks like you have to say something.” Rebalco turned his gaze to Caesar. “You are the boss, you make the decision.”

“Gentlemen, calm down.” Caesar intervened between Rebalco and the chief engineer. “The Middle Ages are long over. No one would burn women as witches these days, and that child wasn’t a witch either. Everyone saw her save my friend Abbas at the risk of her own life. She’s on our side.”

Caesar himself felt that his words were a bit stiff, but this was also a difficult task for him. He was sure that he could make a girl born in the upper class of New York or London fall in love with him over a cup of coffee, but he had no idea how to convince a group of ordinary people. The heir of the Gattuso family had no chance to talk to ordinary people in his life.

The chief engineer looked at Caesar coldly and stepped aside. His broad figure blocked the stretcher behind him, on which was half a corpse.

Caesar was startled. He wasn’t afraid of the dead, but the state of this man was truly bizarre. He crumbled away bit by bit, like a weathered limestone sculpture, his stretcher covered in grayish-white dust. If this were a thousand-year-old corpse, this would be understandable, but the sternum had already ashed away, revealing a dark red heart. Judging by the freshness of the heart, this was definitely the body of a recent deceased.

“My brother Oleg,” the chief engineer’s voice cracked. “He was a living, talking, walking man just an hour ago. But as he was talking, he started bleeding. From his eyes, nose, ears, all the holes in his body, there was no way to stop the bleeding. He rotted from the inside and died a very painful death. He was closest to that Inuit at the time.”

Caesar suddenly remembered the scene of the young snakes turning into ashes, which was quite similar to the situation of this deceased person, except that the crew member’s transformation into ashes was much slower.

“Many of you were here, and you all heard the witch’s curse!” The chief engineer pointed to the snow in the distance and looked around at everyone around him. “No one can escape, not even you, Mr. Gattuso!”

He turned around and stared at Caesar, his eyes seemed to be burning with fire. For a moment, Caesar almost mistook them for a pair of golden eyes.

“Everything went wrong from the moment we found this witch. We sailed along the route she gave us, and we encountered an ice storm, that black ship, those swarms of snakes—too many coincidences, as if they had been waiting for us all along.” The chief engineer was like a fanatical priest preaching, his words sonorous and aggressive, far overwhelming Rebalco’s threats and Caesar’s persuasion. “Who can prove everything she said? The Sunset Land, the mysterious expedition team, the iron box oozing blood, the whale’s song… It’s like the treasure map left by the pirates in Treasure Island, leading us to that place. But are pirates leaving treasure maps to help others find the treasure? No, they can only lead you to the wrong place! This is a trap! We willingly stepped into it from the very beginning!”

He turned abruptly and pointed at Snow fiercely, “She was the one who killed that expedition team! She was also the one who made that so-called god! It’s us the ones the god won’t let go of! Because we’re going to find its territory!”

Caesar thought to himself that what you said was illogical, but it would be a shame if you, Chief Engineer, didn’t use your acting talent to perform Shakespeare’s plays. At this moment, King Lear and Macbeth are possessed by you, and it would be a shame if there were no gusts of cold wind to set the atmosphere for your performance.

But the chief engineer’s words obviously ignited the crew’s fear. They slowly approached Rebalko shoulder to shoulder. The chief engineer suddenly tore off his winter suit, revealing his muscular upper body, and faced Rebalko’s gun.

“My brother is dead, and she should pay for his life. If she dies, everyone on the ship can be saved. Let’s find a way to restart the nuclear reactor and return home. Forget about Sunset Land! No matter how much it costs, what is more valuable than life?” The chief engineer stared into Rebalco’s eyes, but his finger was pointing at Caesar. “Don’t trust these rich people. They are the same as that girl. They are monsters! Man-eating monsters!”

Caesar was getting a little annoyed by what he heard and began to consider whether he should pull out the Desert Eagle.     

He was also puzzled by Snow’s identity, but Snow had indeed risked her life to save Abbas, and Abbas had exposed his own weakness and activated “Indra” to protect the crew. But the crew didn’t appreciate it. They were terrified. If it weren’t for the overwhelming superiority of the Executive Department’s armed forces, they might have considered tying up the academy’s personnel and throwing them into the icy sea.

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