The Lucky Star is a perennial passenger ship in Joshshire, and Heel Bundy is the owner of this ship, and like most young people in the Kingdom of England, he had sailed at sea in his early years, but he had better luck, made a fortune, and knew how to advance and retreat, and returned to his hometown in Joshshire, and started a passenger business while others were still dreaming of making more money.

Although both Joshshire and Saab were in a state of economic downturn, and almost all industries entered a depression due to the general environment, the river shipping industry remained thriving compared to other industries, thanks not only to Saabshire's thriving mining industry, but also to the Josh people who had migrated to work in Joshshire.

Joshshire was a huge swamp, and the early years of Yoshshire were settled by bankrupt city citizens who could not pay their taxes, freedmen who had lost their employers, and serfs who had fled their lordship.

These people gathered in Josh County to form a village, and these villages all depended on this swamp to survive, and they used their geographical advantages to resist the tax collectors sent by the kingdom and the armies of the lords of the surrounding counties, which also made the Josh County a fierce and unscrupulous person.

It is no exaggeration to say that at least five out of ten people in Josh County have participated in one or even more robbery, the other four are gangsters, and the remaining one is considering joining the gang or should be a robber.

Even after the county of Josh broke away from the state of the three and began to be directly administered by the kingdom and had its own lord, this bandit habit still did not change in the slightest.

The roads of Joshshire are definitely the most dangerous roads in the entire kingdom of England, because there are a large number of robbers waiting on both sides of the road, waiting for those fat sheep to pass by on the road, so as long as people have a little spare money in their pockets, they will not choose to leave Joshshire on the road, and choose a safer ship, even if the ticket is very expensive.

Heel Bondi saw this and spent a lot of money to hire a professional technician to convert the Lucky Star into the fastest steam paddle steamer on inland waterways, and to take the route from the wide river town of Migne to Joshburg.

While other ships took a week to complete the route, his paddle steamer took only two or two days, which increased his shipping revenue by as much as two or three times, and because his boat was smoother and faster, his tickets were much more expensive than others, but this did not affect his business, and the Lucky Star remained the most profitable boat on the river.

This time, Bundy, who had heels on his heels, was also ready to pull a boatload of people as usual to start a new round of sailing, but to his surprise, someone had booked his boat, and what was even more strange was that there were only a dozen people on board.

Although the Lucky Star is not as capable of carrying thousands of people as those sea passenger cruise ships, here, on the route between Migne City and Joshburg, his passenger ship that can carry 500 people at the same time is already a giant existence, so few people will be willing to charter this ship in its entirety, and the vast majority of people will only book a suite as their own exclusive cabin.

But with such a large ship chartered as now, only a dozen people boarded the ship, this kind of thing has never been seen before.

Although heel Bundy was curious about what was happening at the moment, he knew the rules and knew what to ask and what not to ask, and he recognized a man from the crowd, who was Willis, the leader of the Wolves in Migne.

When doing business in Migne, you may not know who the mayor is or who the councillors are, but you must not know the leaders and leaders of several major gangs in Migne. Although the Wolf Gang is not the largest gang in Migne City, its strength can also be ranked in the first array, and it is directly in charge of a part of the city, and it is one of the few gangs with a real chassis.

Willis the head wolf is definitely a legend in Mi Jiancheng, a poor country boy from Joshburg joined the gang, and in less than a year became the leader of the gang in charge of an industry, and then when the leader of the gang was unexpectedly around, he single-handedly killed the other leaders of the gang and became the only person in charge of the gang.

After that, he changed the name of the gang to the Wolf Gang, and quickly expanded, eliminating and annexing several other gangs in the surrounding area, and became one of the largest gangs in Migne.

It is precisely because of his legendary rise that many people from Josh County worship him very much, and if they want to join the gang, the Wolves are always the first choice.

However, such a gang leader who has made a name for himself in fighting is standing on the deck of the ship with injuries all over his body, and he is very deferentially lowered in front of a woman, and any discerning person can tell which of the two is in charge and who is subordinate, and this person who makes the leader of the wolf gang bow his head is also very famous in Migne City, the proprietress of the Jungle Hotel.

This proprietress who is known for her beauty is regarded as the mistress of the leader of the wolf gang, so the Jungle Hotel can become the safest hotel in Migne City under the protection of the wolf gang, but now it seems that everyone has misunderstood, this woman is not a mistress at all, but more like the owner of the leader of the wolf gang.

Compared to these famous figures in Minne, the other five people who boarded the ship together seemed much stranger, these five people didn't look like a group of people, three of them were dressed like mercenaries or something, while the other two were more like nobles, walking together more like bodyguards and employers.

Heel Bundy saw from experience that none of these five people were residents of Migne, because it was impossible for such a nobleman to exist in Migne, and even if there were mercenaries, they would have already joined the gang, and those who did not want to join the gang either became food for the beasts in the mountains, or were forced to leave Migne.

Heel Bundy is not an observer, mainly because in addition to being the owner of the Lucky Star on the surface, he is also an intelligence collector of a secret agency in the kingdom, and needs to record the movements of the ship's passengers every day for the investigation of that secret service.

It's just that, apart from the speculation about the identities of those people, there is really nothing worth studying about those people, because after those people got on the ship, they stayed in the cabin and never came out, and the people of the wolf gang were responsible for bringing them in for dinner.

In fact, the heel Bundy didn't know that his self-thought hidden observation technique had not escaped the eyes of Leo and the others, and Leo and the others were not prepared to delve into this matter, after all, they had to consider something much stronger than dealing with the eyes and ears of this secret department, and more importantly, they had to solve this person, who would drive the ship.

The Mines River is normal in Saabshire, but when it enters Joshshire, it becomes odd.

Due to the marshy terrain of the county of Josh and the tidal tide of the groundwater, the course of the Mines River changes depending on the season, which makes it difficult to transport the river.

For example, today the boat can sail on a wide river and eventually reach its destination, but the next day he chooses to take the same river and finds that the river has been blocked, and even if it is not blocked, there will be some unexpected reefs.

In order to sail on the Mines River in County Josh, the person at the helm needs to have a deep understanding of all the changes in the water pattern of the river, and also needs to have some relationship with the villages and towns along the river, which is the main reason why the transportation on the Mines River is basically completely controlled by the Josh.

So even if Leo and the others knew that Heel Bundy was secretly watching them, they didn't teach each other a lesson, they just stayed in the cabin, and didn't give each other a chance to observe.

After most of the day, the passenger ships drifted over a relatively turbulent section of the river and entered a wide and gentle channel, and the surrounding mountains were gradually replaced by endless plains and meadows, which also represented their official entry into Joshshire.

Originally, everyone thought that the boat would continue straight along the wide river, but Bundy, who was heel, quickly turned the rudder and steered the boat into a small channel that was just narrow enough for the Lucky Star to pass through, and then docked in a small lake with a small river view.

"What's going on?" Willis, the leader of the Wolf Gang, sent someone to call Bundy over and inquire about the situation.

"Sir, you can't drive on the river at night. Heel Bondi looked very nervous in the face of such a big man in Migne, and quickly replied.

"Evening?" Willis turned his head to look at the sky, although it was almost evening, but it was not yet dark, it seemed that there should be a few hours before evening, seeing such a sky, his face was gloomy, and he grabbed the collar of the heel of his shoe, and said, "Are you a fool for me?"

"No, it's not!" Bundy shook his head and said in a panic, "You are also a Josh person, you should know that Josh's swamp is active, but you may not know that Josh's swamp is active in the evening, and if we continue to sail during that time, we are likely to encounter a reef formed by the swamp activity." And ......"

Speaking of this, he suddenly hesitated, as if he didn't know whether to say the next thing or not.

Willis showed a hint of fierceness in his eyes, and asked in a deep voice, "Is there anything else you haven't said?"

Although heel Bundy secretly worked for the secret department of the kingdom, he was actually just an ordinary person, how could he withstand the coercion of a gang leader like Willis, sweat immediately broke out on his forehead, and he quickly replied: "It's Papa, if you sail on the river at night, there is a high chance that you will meet Papa." ”

"Papa?" Willis didn't expect to get such an answer, he was stunned for a moment, and then he looked up and laughed, and the other gangsters from Josh County around him also laughed, only those who were not from Josh County looked dazed, not knowing what everyone was laughing at.

Someone also explained what Papa was, and after hearing the explanation, the others also looked at the heel Bundy with strange expressions, as if they were looking at some kind of freak.

Papa legends have been around for a long time in Joshshire, but these are in small villages, and other towns scoff at them.

Papa is a native slang term for Joshshire, originally meaning a curse, but now it means a monster in a swamp.

In the past, many people have seen some monsters in the swamp, but they can't tell what the monsters are, and most of the rumors are from taverns, so these rumors about Papa are considered to be the hallucinations of some drunkards, and even the most superstitious Josh people will not take Papa seriously.

"It's true, it's really Papa!" The ridiculed heel Bundy seemed to care about this, suppressed his fear of Willis, and said quickly: "I've seen Papa, I've seen Papa twice, and once all the people on the boat were killed by Papa, and the second time I was lucky enough to find a place to take refuge in time, so I didn't die at Papa's hands." ”

"You must have met a river pirate in disguise, right?" said Willis angrily.

It is true that boats are safer on the Mines than carriages on the road, but this security is only relative, and some thieves and robbers see that there is less trade on the road, so they also hit the river with their ideas.

They made reed boats out of a special type of reed that grew in the swamp, and rowed them in the dark close to the freighters docked on the river to rob them.

It's just that, after one or two such things, the captains of the freighters have also learned to behave, and most of them will estimate the distance and sail into the docks of the town before dark, and the few who must sail late at night will try to maintain their speed, so that the reed ships will not be able to get close.

Those river pirates did not want to rob ships during the day, but it took very good and fast ships to do it, but if there were such ships, why would they do this kind of trading that would lose their heads at any time, and the freight and passenger transportation directly on the Mines River line were enough for them to make a lot of money.

Before, Willis saw that the ship did not continue to sail, but docked in this small bay, and his first thought was that the owner of the ship was in collusion with the river pirates, and wanted to do something to them at night.

But after thinking about it, I felt that something was wrong, because the shipowner knew their identities very well, and it was not certain who was a wolf and a sheep in front of them, so the shipowner should not be so stupid to want to unite with river pirates to rob them.

But now, after listening to the owner's account, Willis thinks that the owner of the ship may really be a madman, who would take some untrustworthy legends seriously, and even if Papa is true, wouldn't it be safer to dock the ship at the dock of a nearby village than to dock in this remote river?

"No, it's not the river pirates! we were parked in the village, and the river pirates didn't dare enter the village!" Feeling Willis' distrust, Bundy hurriedly explained.

"You were attacked in the village?" Willis was surprised, because it shouldn't have happened.