Starting from Zero

Book 4, Chapter 34

The Beast Bone

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Alert: Minor offensive content against Japan.

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"But what??"

"We can't transport the corpse because it's too big!"

"So it's not here?" Zirai asked.

The old designer slowly turned around. "It's sitting over the mountain yonder. You need to move it here on your own. The cave is guarded by some monster recently and I never tried to enter the place ever since. If you can chase the monsters away and move the corpse here, I'll help you build a large warship. You won't even need to pay for the keel."

"Right on it!" I led everyone and rushed towards the mountain's direction.

But the old man stopped us from behind.

"Not yet! I'm not finished. The beast's evil power still remain on the corpse so it is too dangerous to approach. Use this to purify it before touching anything!"

He took out a crystal bottle from behind his back. "Take this holy water to banish the devil. Just spray some of it on the corpse."

"Got it!!" Zirai snatched the bottle away and dashed out of the boatyard.

He called it a mountain but the place is actually a big dirt clump, not any larger than a small park. It took less than 30 minutes for us to climb over the terrain.

There's the cave. We don't see anything at the entrance besides some twisted grass and weed.

"Where are the monsters?" Coin watched around the area.

"Maybe they're inside." I told everyone to stay on guard. I also drew my weapon to prepare for any encounters.

We reached the entrance. There's a lone passage leading towards deeper inside. After a dozen meters we entered a large stone hall. A series of blue magic lamps hang on the wall around us, making the hall bright as day. The bone carcass of an unknown monster is located in the far end.

From the remains I can tell the thing was at least 300 meters in length when alive. Even Lucky would feel like a kid compared to it. The corpse lies in a coiled position inside the cave. The breast part should be somewhere around 200 meters long, which means our ship will come out around a similar size when finished. We should be able to put several crystal cannons on a ship like that.

"WHO DARES TO DISTURB MY SLUMBER?!"

A loud, aged voice boomed around us, making us jump.

Zirai looked around without finding anything, so she just spoke towards the ceiling. "Who are you?"

"I am the divine beast, Bi-Lin." (*)

"And where are you?"

"Right in front of you!"

"In front??"

"You claim that you do not see this magnificent body of mine? Your joke is appreciated, young one."

"You mean, you're this, skeleton?" I figured it out first.

"An apparent answer."

"But aren't you dead?"

"A divine beast never dies!"

"But, but you're only bones left!" Yuri exclaimed. It silenced the "divine beast" for a brief moment.

"My...body was badly damaged so I gave it up."

"So why are you still here?"

"The hatred!!" The voice suddenly became excited. "I demand revenge!! It shouldn't have come to this!"

It's becoming more violent. Even the cave began to shake, a number of falling rocks forced us to dodge for cover.

So the "monster" the old man mentioned must be this soul or spirit or whatever it is.

"Hey easy. Calm down, please!"

I need to do something or we'd get buried alive! "Just, you know, tell us who did this to you, maybe we can help?"

I immediately regretted that. Whoever killed this thing must be way powerful beyond our imagination, which means there's no way we can help!

"It was a snake with nine heads. It claimed to be a god spirit from the land of pirates east of here."

"Land of pirates? You mean Japan?" Zirai yelled. "You fell against the snake monster from Japan? Is it strong?"

"Humph! A petty creature. Do you know about the four symbolic beasts on this land?"

"Oh I know. Vermilion Bird, Black Turtle, White Tiger and Azure Dragon?"

"The Azure Dragon of the Eastern Rain, and the Vermilion Bird of the Southern Flame are my disciples. The nine-headed snake couldn't even beat these two kids back then. However, that cursed abomination and those eastern pirates lured me into a deadly trap. I managed to get away alive, but those wounds they inflicted on me could never be healed, so my only choice was to stay here and wait for perish. Ahhhh... the hatred!!"

It's getting agitated again. I quickly interrupted. "I read about the snake monster in Japan stories. But it only has eight heads if I remembered right?"

"That's because I bit off and ate one!"

"Aha! So that's how things went." Zirai snickered. "I thought those Japs don't know how to count." (**)

I pushed the topic:"Your excellency, we are actually planning to fight with Japan and stop their intrusion upon our land, now we need a keel bone to construct a ship. That's why we came here for the body you left behind."

"If that's what you're going to do, just take it. These bones are of no use to me anymore."

So generous!

"But what about your soul?"

"Just make sure you don't break up the bones and keep it whole when making that ship or yours so I can remain. I may even help you protect the ship."

"Much appreciated! We will be moving it now."

I summoned Lucky, Rosa, Loong'er and Phiona to help with the bones. Tank would help too but he's still on cooldown for using that cannon skill. Zirai also summoned her titans and Skyfire to help. With some extra effort from Passerby's Roachy, we barely managed to move the giant skeleton remains.

It's already afternoon when we finally got the bone to the boatyard. The old man walked around and inspected it in delight.

"Good stuff! So the legendary beast is real."

"Well, get to it will you?"

"Of course, of course. Shall we settle on the extra requirements and payments?"

Yup, this is very expected.

He took out some paper roll. "Tell me how you would like the ship, and I'll give you a final price for it."

I gave him a troubled look. "Truth is, this is the first time we're trying to make a ship so we really don't know what to look for. Can you give us some pointers?"

"Oh that's no problem." He gave me a small handbook. "It's a purchase guide, just read the instructions."

They even prepared something like this!

I read it aloud so everyone can hear it.

"First, determine your desired ship keel according to the size and functions of the ship you're expecting."

"We can skip that one." Hawk said.

I turned the pages. "Once the keel is set, choose the materials. There are usually the following available choices:"

I passed all the cheap ones and began to read through the more sturdy ones.

"These are pretty good materials so let's pick among them.

Teak Wood, average protection, light weight, so you can put a lot of stuff on the ship. Problem, easy to burn.

Iron Lumber, high resistance against both impact and fire, very heavy.

Sun Wood, average protection and weight, resistant to spells, won't catch fire.

The last one is Crystal Wood. Very strong, average weight and good spell and fire resistance. But several times more expensive than the other choices.

Okay, which one?"

"It would be best if we can choose the crystal one but...?" Zirai seems unsure about the cost.

"How much money do we have?" Rose asked the simple question.

"I have a million crystal pieces on me." I checked my inventory.

Hawk opened his too. "I have 550 thousand here, collected by everyone."

"1.55 million that is." Rose turned to the old man. "How much if we use Crystal Wood on this keel?"

He glanced over the structure. "So I won't be asking money for the keel... From the size of the breast part I'd say 500 thousand crystal pieces."

"But Bi-Lin asked us not to break it apart." I quickly added.

"As a whole?" He considered for a moment. "It's possible but the final product would reach beyond 300 meters. And you'll need to pay 600 thousand for mere materials."

Rose continued: "How much for labor work?"

"That depends on how you plan the cabins. It costs more if you build something complex. But 500 thousand crystals should be enough for even the most difficult layout."

Rose did some mind-calculation. "I guess we have enough fund to use full crystal wood. We should make it best as possible since Bi-Lin gifted his valuable bones to us. We won't find a second chance like this."

Zirai jumped: "Rose is right! Here, I have 50 thousand, take it."

I spoke to the old man. "Okay, Crystal Wood please. Next is...let me see. The cabins. First, do we need lounges and storage rooms? We need them if we're to go for any long-distance sails or crews will die. Opinions?"

Zirai jumped again. "Of course! We're going to travel all the way to Japan right?"

"Sure. One storage room and one lounge cabin please."

"How many crew do you need? You should decide on those rooms after telling me the number of sailors that are going to live on the ship. One lounge cabin is only enough for 20 people, and one storage can hold supplies enough for a hundred people to survive 10 days."

"Hm. Let's think about that later. Go for the next items." Hawk suggested.

"Next, paddle chambers. They must be symmetrically placed on both sides. Each paddle chamber holds a long oar which needs four sailors to operate. How many levels of chambers we can build depends on the draft length between water level and ship's rail, and how many chambers we can put in each level depends on ship length."

"What is the draft length for our ship?" Rose asked him.

"More than 8 meters, or 9 meters at most. That means five levels of cabins. Be sure to leave enough space for the cannon rooms though."

"How many cabins on each level?"

"For something with this size...125 rooms should be no problem."

Rose considered for several seconds. "Three levels of paddle chambers, 125 on each side of the level. That's 750 chambers in all, 3000 sailors."

I read further. "Cannon emplacement. They share the same positions as paddle chambers, while you can also place cannons on the deck, or build a front cannon room on top of the bow of the ship." I looked at the old designer. "Can you make the front cannon base rotatable? We're going to put the crystal cannon there."

"Of course."

"Then...fill all the rest of the space with cannon rooms."

"They all use small sized firelock cannons, mind that they're way weaker than that crystal cannon you have. You still have two levels of windowed chambers, plus a row of cannons on the deck. 100 rooms each side of the level, one cannon in each room, each cannon will need 3 sailors. That should be 600 cannons and 1800 sailors."

"Next is...mast. We need one or three or five vessel masts."

Coin spoke:"Well of course we put five of them for a ship so large."

"Five it is. Next is sailcloth. Three choices, Lug-Sail, high downwind speed but cannot leverage any side wind. Lateen (triangular sail), average downwind speed but can have a boost when there's side wind. Or combination of them, so we can use any types of wind but of course it will be expensive."

"Obvious choice." Zirai said that without hesitation.

I can see the others nod too. "Composite then. So, rudders. We need to decide their number and positions. That's beyond me, any advice sir?"

"They usually go behind the tails of ships but since your ship is bigger than average, I'd suggest you use separated rudders. Two in the front and three at the buttock, so you can control the whole thing better."

"Let's do it." I kept reading. "Do we place a ramming horn or figurehead in front?"

"I don't think we're going to ram people using this giant with all the cannons. Let's use a figure." Hawk said.

"We choose figurehead. Outer plating? We have iron plating, mithril plating or crystal wood pads."

"Mithril. It doesn't catch rust and can withstand spells." Elfy said after reading over the descriptions.

"That should be all. Can you help us settle up the lounge rooms and storage? And give us the final price."

The designer read through the long paper roll. "You have 3000 paddlers, 1800 cannoneers, 300 sail settlers, 200 support crew. That's 5300 sailors, so you need 265 lounge rooms and 159 storage rooms to last for a month. Let's see...you still have a lot of spare space on the ship."

I thought this over. "Make it 400 lounge rooms, and build 40 additional double rooms. Fill the remaining areas with storage."

"Alriiight...Give me a moment to finish this up. Oh and, you also need a captain room and a chart house."

"Just give us the best plan."

"Right on it."

He even needs some more people to help measure the ship. It doesn't look like he's going to finish anytime soon. We have nothing better to do so we all moved to the harbor to enjoy the view.

That's when we saw King Conqueror's ship coming back.

We saw the Ocean Might drifting towards the port in a strange angle while giving out thick smoke. I said drift because none of the broken paddles or tattered sailcloth seem to be working anymore.

We ran to the docking area and asked about the situation.

When the ship went close enough, we can see countless holes on the ship's hull. A number of sailors are running wild, I also saw King giving out orders to put out all the fires. Their mail mast is almost burnt out!

We watched in shock as the massive battleship bumped into the buffer ropes around the dock and finally came to a halt. More workers on the dock joined the fire fighting as well, and a group of boatyard NPCs ran towards it with all sorts of ladders, hammers or wooden planks. Guess Ocean Might needs one hell of an overhaul this time.

I decided to help too. The ship is damaged like this in a fight against the Japanese after all. I can't repair ships but putting out some fire is no problem.

"Loong'er, come out. Can you control the sea water?"

"That's my job!" (***)

"Nice. Can you do something about the fire on that ship?"

"Surely!"

She dived into the sea. The area quickly turned dark. A small-scale rainstorm completely extinguished the last ember, before sunshine returned as fast as the rain came.

Loong'er didn't return when everything's done. She instead began to swim and dance on the water surface. I think I should let her into the water more often in the future.

Since there's no more work to do, King Conqueror came down from the ship and walked to us.

"Did you get your ship?"

"Not yet. That's a battleship we're talking about, it takes time." Coin complained.

"Battleship? So you're going to beat Japanese pirates too?"

His face is blackened by all the smoke. He wiped it using one of his hands, only to make it look even funnier.

I looked at the broken warship. "Do you end up like this every time you fight them?"

That's too much damage to my liking.

He forced a chuckle. "Not every time. We encountered a big fleet today. Seven of them, and we only had one. We sank a ship, damaged another, before we escaped."

Zirai spoke with excitement: "Are there no other guilds fighting with you?"

"There are, but only few of them. Besides their ships aren't gonna hold themselves against those Japan ocean warships. Not everyone can afford these babes you know."

"I see..."

We became silent. Must admit, the Japanese have way more money to spend right now. We have a bigger land but everything becomes scarce when "averaged" to individuals.

"It must cost a ton to repair your ship." Zirai spoke.

"Ah, nothing to worry about. We seized a lot of stuff from previous fights, and we get EXP too. Worth it."

"Wait, what? Exp? The Japanese count as monsters too?"

"Nonono, of course they're players. But you still get EXP by killing foreign enemies. A lot I'd say. Players are considered as high level monsters so these battles level you up even faster than grinding by normal means. You know, if you kill a ship, everyone on board dies."

"I see it now." Elfy sighed. "I was wondering why you're so passionate about it. So you get both fame and wealth out of these fights huh?"

"Right-ho! Ha-hahaha!"

King let out a hearty laughter, as if he already forgot about his precious, now badly damaged Ocean Might.

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(*) I found little English reference about this creature. Something about "the mentor/master of the four symbolic beasts."

(**) They're talking about Yamata no Orochi, the "8-branched giant snake" in Japanese mythology. However it is often considered to have 9 heads in Chinese illustrations because of two reasons:

1: It is confused with Xiangliu, a Chinese mythology creature with 9 heads;

2: Language issue. The correct Chinese translation for Orochi is "the giant snake with 8 forks". And someone believe that "8 forks" means "9 heads" .

The confusion still exist even today.

(***) In some Chinese mythologies and stories (such as Journey to the West), eastern dragons are not majestic or very powerful creatures. Rather, they're more like “local officials” who are responsible to control local weather and obey orders from other higher-ups.