The stall owner, wearing a pure white smiling mask, put his arms around the two children's shoulders and made a voice as deep as the abyss: "I came to see your father for the last time.
"This is the father who brought you here... who put you on the gambling table and lost you to us. He is also the coward who broke the rules and left you here to escape."
Hearing this, the little girl immediately cried louder.
The boy's eyes were also slightly red.
But he still kept his head stubborn and tried hard to look at the middle-aged fat man who was dragged all the way and fell into a coma - or in other words, he might have been dead for an unknown period of time.
It was as if he wanted to imprint his figure in his memory.
"Old rules, then. Children."
The stall owner made a deep voice and slowly said word by word: "I've seen enough, just give him a farewell."
As he finished speaking, a tall and fat man walked out from behind. The fat man was wearing a large shirt, but even so... the buttoned shirt was tight, revealing his
Fat belly covered with hair.
His left hand holds a string of cables, while his right hand holds a hook.
He spread his hands and stood in front of the stall owner without saying a word.
The little girl let out a mournful cry like a bird and quickly looked away.
Annan whispered to Isaac: "What are the rules here? Do you want children to kill their fathers with their own hands?"
"It's not that outrageous."
Isaac also lowered his voice: "It's 'forgiveness or not'."
"What's the meaning?"
"This man has reached the point where he is willing to gamble his children, which means he is probably doomed. He is using his children to gamble on a chance of a comeback - to see if he can use his children to save himself.
."
Isaac lowered his gaze slightly.
Perhaps because of the dim surrounding environment, his green pupils showed a kind of indifferent green like a wolf: "Like that man...it is obvious that he has no debts, nor has he broken any rules, just for the sake of
Selling me for money - or in other words, just to throw me away and put me on the gambling table is very rare.
"Because the 'person' who serves as a bargaining chip must legally belong to him. In other words, only parents can bet on their children. Although there is no money that belongs to him to spend on me, he is still mine.
'Father'.
"As long as you are human, you should not do such a thing."
As he said that, Isaac sneered: "As for paying for his own life...it's just because he is a hopeless fool. After completing his original goal of throwing me away, he failed to recover in time.
hand.
"In other words, the gambling table has such a magic power. It can easily destroy a person's intelligence and rationality, causing him to howl into hell in hopeless madness. Even the curse of a transcendent person can
It’s hard to do this as easily as a gambling table.”
"...So, you said that man is dead?"
"These two children are obviously his biological children. And the fat man looks like a businessman."
Isaac stretched out his hand to support Annan's shoulders and pointed at the two children with his chin: "If I guessed correctly, that man should have lost the goods.
"In our case, the fleet is not allowed to pass through the controlled waters as long as it does not pay the pirates a fee. Generally speaking, it is a gold coin for everyone on the ship. This is not a small sum.
"Then, naturally there will be some caravans who will give the pirates a large sum of money in exchange for passage rights for a long period of time. And the cost will be reduced a lot."
...Annan raised his eyebrows.
Can this protection fee be paid monthly or annually?
"Because transporting goods requires paying large sums of money to pirates, there will be some captains who want to avoid this situation - so they will simply cooperate with pirates.
"When they are transporting goods, they will also deliver some things to the pirates in the controlled area. They will be used to compensate for the tribute money... Generally speaking, these are 'big jobs' that cannot pass the subway security check."
...a big job?
Annan was a little curious: "What about?"
"For example, the 'Portable Poison Bucket' that will continuously release poisonous mist when poured with water, the 'Explosive Dust', the powerful gunpowder used by the dwarves to blow up mines, and the Destruction Wizard who was tied alive. These are all in my
Something relatively common in the era.”
Isaac narrowed his eyes: "Now...there are also black fire, honey lips, some weird spells, and artillery."
"……artillery?"
"That's right. It is a weapon that can sink ships hundreds of meters away without pouring a curse, and only requires some gunpowder. In the past, it could only be placed on the shore, but now it can be miniaturized and installed on the ship.
.
"For extraordinary beings, bombardment at that speed does not mean much, but for these pirates it is a sharp weapon - because when they fight, their purpose is not to kill people, but to destroy the ship."
Isaac explained.
The ability of pirates to control a sea area depends on the number of their ships. As for the pirates themselves, they can be used as a resource... As losers, it is also a normal talent attraction behavior for their good players to join the winner's camp.
"If I'm not wrong...this guy must have been robbed by another group of pirates who got the news when he was smuggling private goods."
According to the maritime trade procedures of Denisoa and the entire Misty Continent - ships that cannot provide a "merchant ship certificate" and do not receive an official "armed license" have strict load capacity restrictions. And when leaving and docking
, all goods on board must be counted.
Every month, information will be sent to each other to confirm whether the information is consistent.
This is so that when key goods are lost, the great nobles of Denisoa can confirm the specific link where they were lost. They can then find the pirates responsible for the corresponding area and regain the goods from them.
Therefore, those ships that smuggle private goods must disguise the goods - generally speaking, a large number of empty buckets are prepared on the ship when drawing offshore. Then before transporting the apparent goods to the target location,
First go to another receiving point, put down the "private goods" and fill the empty bucket with ballast water. Then go to the destination port to unload the goods.
——In other words, as long as these pirates get the news, they will come over and steal your private cargo, but they will not touch the main cargo on the surface. These ship owners have no temper at all, and they have to fill up the water themselves.
.
Because these private goods have not been registered on the surface, they are "non-existent goods". As illegal goods, if they are robbed by pirates, they are in vain.
Even if another wave of pirates files a complaint against the mayor, there is nothing they can do.
Because there is no way to prove that it was another group of pirates who robbed the goods, rather than the shipping merchants who took it for themselves.
"So, no matter what the truth is... in the end, the ship dealer can only compensate for the losses."
If they couldn't repay the debt, they would have to pay it themselves - they would be executed as a deterrent.