The city-state of Muya, the 'Ears Up' hotel.

Barrett sat at the table in the corner, enjoying the food in front of her. From time to time, I heard the story of the innkeeper and the complaints or cheers of the surrounding guests about a certain episode of the story.

It was the third day of Barrett's return from the Dark Realm, and he had done almost nothing for the first two days except for handing over his mission in the floating city above him.

Barrett didn't check how much soul energy he had gained on this trip, nor did he take stock of the extra loot in the Spatial Ring, he just went to the hotel he was very familiar with again, asked for the guest room he often stayed in, and fell asleep with his head covered.

It was nearly two days until the unbearable hunger and thirst in his stomach woke him from this sound slumber that seemed impossible to wake up, and screamed loudly for him to replenish his food.

The white shrimp from Falling Star Lake, the shrimp back is opened, smeared with garlic and pepper, and then drizzled with a little olive oil, each shrimp is grilled to a fragrant aroma, and you don't even need to peel off the shell when eating, you only need to twist off the shrimp head. Barrett has always believed that seafood and garlic are a natural match.

There is also a new batch of soft-shell crabs from the Four-City Alliance, although they are frozen (the surface of the crab hardens after a few hours of shelling, so it can only be frozen in advance), but the taste is just as delicious. The soft-shell crab wrapped in bread crumbs and egg wash is fried to a golden brown and crispy color, and the whole body can be eaten. There's also a bowl of special basil spicy sauce on the plate, and for spicy diners like Barrett, the fried soft-shell crab dipped in the hot sauce is even more appetizing.

Of course, for Barrett, who hasn't eaten food for a long time, it is naturally the large pieces of meat that are the most satisfying. The above seafood is just a small side dish for him, and the whole two kilograms (don't worry about the unit of measurement) of charred steak on the large plate in front of him are his main meal this time.

The chunky black pepper steak was topped with a few pieces of broccoli, roasted onions, and baby tomatoes, but Barrett didn't even look at them. He cut it down with a knife and saw the layers of the steak. The outer layer is charred and the inside is reddish, and there is a little bit of white, which is the beef fat that has been roasted and has not been lost.

He swallowed the piece of meat from his fork in one gulp, and let out a sigh of satisfaction. The dark meat on the outside of the steak is crispy and slightly salty, and the red sauce on the inside is delicious and slightly light, and the slightly salty part and the slightly light beef juice are combined by chewing, and the taste is simply wonderful.

After swallowing the beef in his mouth, he picked up the oak wine glass that was poured to the brim next to him and poured a large sip of sweet ale wine, which made Barrett feel that it was good to be alive!

While people who have been hungry for a long time should not overeat, Barrett doesn't care. He relied on his good constitution and ate with an open stomach. After shaving rid of two plates of seafood and chunks of steak, and pouring three glasses of ale, he still felt a little satisfied, so he ordered a small pie filled with quail eggs, spinach, savory mushrooms, and marinated chicken breast.

Barrett leaned comfortably against the wall in the corner, sipping on his small and delicate pie and listening to the innkeeper tell stories of his adventures that he would almost never finish.

"In my life, I have encountered many hardships and desperate situations where there is almost no way to escape, a lot!" Leslie, the innkeeper, lit the pipe in his hand and bit the corner of his mouth, "It's not that I'm bragging, any of these desperate situations can reduce you people by at least ninety percent, at least!"

"Is it okay to be tied up by some woman and play with my penis?" one adventurer asked suddenly, "I wish I could have encountered that kind of situation, 'desperate,' he gestured with his finger in quotation marks, "and I didn't want to escape from it." His words caused a burst of laughter in the hotel.

"Of course you can! Go to the clothing store called 'Beautiful Experience' diagonally across the street, where you don't have a problem with any kind of 'desperate situation'. The innkeeper said with a smile. He is obviously accustomed to the ridicule and sarcasm of the customers in the store, "Of course, the premise is that your waist and the wallet around your waist can support you to get out of that 'desperate situation'." ”

"It's a pity that I'm only satisfied with one of them. The adventurer who spoke before shrugged his shoulders, "For the former, I'm at the mage level. He sat down in his chair and made a somewhat obscene sprint with his waist, "And the latter, I'm a goblin." A helpless expression appeared on his face, "So for him to go to the 'beautiful experience', I would prefer to be like you, and meet that kind of free form in the wild...... , 'Desperate situation', you know what I mean. ”

"Seriously, it wasn't a good experience. The innkeeper's expression was a little more serious, "If you've heard that story from beginning to end, you know that the thing that trapped me is not a gentle and beautiful real woman, but a ......."

"Hey, we all know what it is, stop being verbose, tell your new story. A red-bearded dwarf shouted impatiently.

"No problem, a new story starts right away. As it is often said, 'What dwarves and women have in common is that they can't make him/her wait too long'. There is some truth to this kind of statement. Although the boss said that he would start immediately, he still took an unhurried puff of his pipe before he slowly began to speak.

"This story is about adventures at sea, have any of you ever been out to sea in a boat? Only a few people raised their hands, "Obviously, not too many." This is normal, after all, our continent is a whole piece, and the vast majority of people live far from the ocean, and some people have never even been out of the village in their entire lives. ”

"Almost all people, including otherworldly beings from other planes, regard the continent beneath our feet as the main body of the material plane, but in fact the ocean is much larger. On the blue sea, which is as beautiful as silk, there are various small islands dotted like stars. The innkeeper described it in his characteristic voice and tone.

"Those magnificent islands are home to many strange populations that don't exist on the mainland, as well as many rare mineral deposits that have yet to be explored, but unfortunately, those places have rarely been visited since ancient times, except for the mages, of course. They are no longer interested in what is in the main material plane, and the more mysterious multiverse is where they yearn for it. ”

"I was employed by a young navigator whose name was Clyde Barents. Some of you may be familiar with this surname, but yes, Clyde's ancestor is the familiar foolish navigator William Barents, the guy who led the fleet further north in the permafrost tundra to cross the upwind sea. The island of Barents, in the Kingdom of Fersey, was named after that guy's surname. ”

"Does the young man you speak of want to be like his ancestors, through a sea full of icebergs and strange hurricanes?" asked a bald-haired and bearded adventurer.

"No, no, Clyde wasn't as crazy as his ancestors. The innkeeper shook his head, "He only intends to sail westward like those ordinary navigators from the Kingdom of Fusai to perfect the navigation charts that only have coastal routes in people's hands." Although the west is still full of dangers, it is much better than the north. ”

Clyde had set a two-year time frame for his voyage to light up a large expanse of the ocean to the west of the continent. In fact, I suspect that in the Floating City, there are already maps of the entire main material plane, including all the oceans, but the mages don't bother to tell us about it. The boss lowered his voice and said a word, and then returned to normal.

"The fleet consisted of four ships, two large four-masted merchant ships, and two three-masted frigates. The sea is no better than the land, and humans are not the masters. It is home to a wide variety of sea creatures such as Fish-People, Naga, Merfolk, and Aquatic Elves. He took out an ugly statue of a fish-man from under the counter, imitated the funny appearance of the fish-man, and spoke an incomprehensible fish-man language.

After that, the innkeeper set aside the statue of the fishman and continued, "There are many difficulties in long-distance voyages, and fresh water is one of them. Even if you fill all the cabins with low-quality rum and rye beer mixed with water, there's no guarantee that there won't be a shortage of them for the rest of the journey. After all, it was a two-year voyage, and you wouldn't always come across islands with fresh water to resupply you with. However, Clyde has a mage friend who travels with the ship, which can solve this problem very well. ”

"Clyde's flagship is called the Lemon, and he does carry a lot of lemons, and he has a storage bag with nothing else in it, it's all lemons! If it were me, I'd rather bring more honey. ”

"In addition to the sailors who were responsible for taking the ship, raising the sails, and lowering anchor, many adventurers were also recruited on board. After all, when we encounter a nameless island that needs to be explored, we adventurers are still needed. Although we can't sail a boat, we still have a lot of skills in dealing with monsters and monsters. ”

Leslie, the innkeeper, received a chorus of approval. Barrett nodded in agreement and swallowed the delicious little pie in her mouth.

"I was one of those adventurers, and I happened to wander into Dragon's Throat Bay in the Kingdom of Fusy, and don't ask me why I didn't take the risk, but wandered around. That's another story, a heartbreaking story, and we'll tell it another day. ”

He took another puff of his pipe, "It took us about two weeks to leave the waters of the Kingdom of Fusai completely. When the westernmost island of the 'Seth Islands' slowly disappeared from the sea, everyone knew that the journey had only really begun. ”

......