Chapter 1464: Laughter and Joy (Part 2)

In this kind of darkness, the lights on the ship became the only beacons; aside from the sound of the people around him breathing, all that was left in his ears was the howling sea wind and the surging waves.

Lorenzo leaned against the side, hunching himself into a corner, and looked out at the murk beyond the porthole.

After his previous experience on the Silent Sea, this slightly eerie darkness was something Lorenzo had long since grown used to; compared to that voyage, everything now felt far more comfortable.

No Demons, no extreme cold, no reverberating corruption—this was just a somewhat unsettling trip by sea, nothing more.

Withdrawing his gaze from the porthole, he saw that the lights in the cabin were dim, most of the space sunk into gray shadow; the atmosphere was tranquil, with only calm breathing echoing through it.

Relying on a Demon Hunter’s keen vision, Lorenzo easily made out the people leaning in the dark; it was already deep into the night, the hour when one should be sleeping, yet no one had returned to their rooms. Instead, they had all, as if by tacit agreement, gathered here in silence.

Bola, Red Falcon, Eve, Selyu, Blue Jade… there were many familiar faces in the room. Everyone occupied their own spot: some tilted their heads back as if lost in thought, some had their eyes closed, pretending to nap.

Lorenzo guessed they all wanted to say something, but no one took the lead, no one had the heart to break this quiet; they could only sway along with the faint rocking of the cabin.

All of a sudden Lorenzo found this scene quite nice, unexpectedly peaceful.

“This reminds me of our trip back before.”

Lorenzo spoke calmly, a faint light flickering in his eyes.

In the dark, Bola’s voice sounded. He thought for a moment, then said, “You mean the return from the Silent Sea?”

“Silent Sea? Return? Tell us!”

Another voice chimed in then—it was Shao Liangxi, thoroughly curious about all of this.

“All I remember about the trip back is that I was either unconscious, vomiting, or dizzy to the point of vomiting.”

A few stifled chuckles rose in the silence; hearing Bola say that, Blue Jade spoke with a hint of laughter as well.

“Yeah, you were a complete mess back then—multiple injuries, blood loss, plus the harassment of corruption… we honestly thought you wouldn’t make it.”

“Guess I’m just hard to kill.”

“Sounds like that voyage was really awful.” Red Falcon said at this point.

“Mm, you should be glad you weren’t there. With your luck, you might have ended up stuck there too,” Blue Jade said.

“No way!”

“Don’t be too full of yourself, Red Falcon. Remember that story I told you before?” Lorenzo reminded him.

Once Lorenzo spoke, Red Falcon’s voice weakened a bit, though they could still faintly hear him muttering some crap about a “Lucky Red Falcon.”

“Must have been an unforgettable experience, right?”

Eve asked curiously. She still remembered what had happened back at the agency—that was probably the first time she’d met Watson.

A Ghost that had crossed who-knew-how-many years, hurrying non-stop toward the north.

Eve peered into the darkness, trying to find that Ghost who always lingered by Lorenzo’s side, but without a Demon Hunter’s sharp eyesight, she could only just barely distinguish one silhouette after another in the gloom.

“A terrible experience, a nightmare of an experience.”

Selyu spoke then, her voice as always, calm with a trace of icy coolness.

“You were in pretty bad shape too—curled up in bed like a little bear hibernating.”

Blue Jade chimed in again. On the way back from the Silent Sea, she had been like a medic, shuttling back and forth taking care of the others.

Hearing Blue Jade’s words, Selyu suddenly fell silent. Perhaps because she was wrapped in darkness, she didn’t bother to control her expression; an awkward, faintly shy look crossed her face—and all of it fell neatly into the eyes of the Demon Hunter opposite her.

Lorenzo felt like a voyeur, watching everyone’s reactions from the shadows.

“Were you hurt?” Eve asked with concern.

“No, not really…”

“She caught a cold, and with the corruption affecting her, she stayed down for a long time,” Blue Jade explained.

“A cold?”

Eve had never imagined that would be the reason. Maybe she’d spent too long in the Purification Mechanism, her threshold had gotten much higher; in the eyes of these lunatics, even getting shot was just a minor injury. As for a cold? That word didn’t exist in their dictionary.

“I don’t think I’ve ever really had a cold.”

Eve muttered. Maybe because she was a Ranger, her constitution had always been strong; she’d almost never caught colds, and this kind of illness felt very foreign to her.

“To be precise, she caught that cold because she was saving me.”

Lorenzo spoke up then.

At the climax of his battle with the Sea Serpent, Selyu had grabbed Lorenzo and hauled him out of his Armor.

“Saving you?”

Red Falcon cried out, genuinely surprised.

“Unbelievable. I always thought Holmes only ever saved other people. There was actually a time when someone saved you?”

“You bastard, I’m a human being too, you know. Humans run into trouble.”

Facing Red Falcon’s teasing, Lorenzo cursed with a laugh. Then, after a few seconds of quiet, he thought it over seriously and said,

“Honestly, I’ve been saved by quite a lot of people—like that time with Selyu.”

Selyu had pulled Lorenzo’s body out of the Black Angel, and Watson, who had rushed there, had yanked Lorenzo’s consciousness out of the Gap.

Even now, when he thought back on it, Lorenzo still felt a wave of lingering fear, and at the same time found it strangely wondrous: if the two of them hadn’t moved in such perfect sync, he had no idea what would have become of him.

“You’re not a savior, Lorenzo. You’re someone who needs saving too.”

A steady voice sounded; Shao Liangye spoke up at that moment. Lorenzo turned toward the sound, and through the darkness he saw Shao Liangye sitting with eyes closed, deep in thought.

“I know.”

Lorenzo answered. The others didn’t quite understand what the two of them were talking about; this was “code” only they understood.

He sighed and said to Shao Liangye,

“Honestly, when I hear you talking about ‘salvation,’ I get this damn sense of déjà vu.”

“Why?”

“Haven’t I mentioned it before?” Lorenzo said. “I used to be a Priest. My tenure was short, sure, but back then I saved at least a dozen souls a day.”

Lorenzo’s words drew another round of laughter. Red Falcon, barely holding back his grin, asked,

“I’ve always been kind of curious about your days as a Priest… how exactly did you save their souls?”

“How else? Repeat the lines from the Gospel to them, word for word.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Are all Priests of the Evangelical Church this half-assed?” Red Falcon swore.

“You don’t even believe in this crap, what are you yelling for?”

The two of them started cursing each other again, the bickering wrecking the quiet, peaceful mood.

“Savior…”

Selyu whispered softly, rolling the word around in her mouth.

It was a good word, full of hope, full of vivid life. When you heard it, it felt like someone came crashing down like lightning, sweeping aside all the darkness and opening a bright road ahead for you.

Of course, if you put it on Lorenzo, the picture changed into something like this: this guy humming some weird tune, hacking and slashing his way forward, then kicking a door open and asking you, hiding under a table, whether you’d decided what to eat tonight.

If you answered “I don’t know” or “Whatever,” this guy might casually grab an enemy who wasn’t quite dead yet and consult him for an opinion.

Thinking of that, Selyu couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

Laughter echoed in the darkness, but there was one figure that seemed a little out of place, lonely and mismatched with everything here, like a Ghost no one noticed.

She sat not far from Lorenzo, looking at him, then at the friends chatting all around. Watson seemed to really enjoy this atmosphere, although none of it had anything to do with her.

“It’s nice, Lorenzo.”

She murmured inwardly.

“Really nice…”

Before the thought had fully formed, a shrill alarm siren blared, dragging everyone out of their laughter and shoving them toward the darkness about to descend.