Without incident, Kruxe made it to the docks, the wooden platform built over the sea holding firm and thankfully making no squeaky noise as he stepped onto it and quickly went on his knees.
From that one observation he had back at the clinic's balcony, Kruxe knew that wherever he was could at best only be a town.
With that knowledge in mind, it was no surprise to Kruxe that the pirate ship he was heading towards was docked a few meters away from the pier where he was now at.
This meant that between Kruxe and the ship, there was water, and he could only curse at the ship's helmsman for docking so far.
"Or perhaps the seabed wasn't deep enough," Kruxe thought as he remained bent and once more straining his eyes to try discerning the features of his surroundings.
With there being no crates or giant stuff he could hide behind, Kruxe was out in the open, his only companions the cold wind which blew at him and the darkness which he cherished at the moment.
Confirming his still unspotted state, Kruxe looked back to the ship, and this time looked all over its body seeking its anchor but not finding it.
"It's too dark, it might even be on the other side of the ship"
With these thoughts, Kruxe looked to water, first looking at his right hand and amazingly making the pistol disappear, and then with a gulp, he quietly sent his legs over the pier and then gently lowered himself into the water.
"Cold"
"Cold"
"Cold"
Kruxe cried within himself.
That the water would be cold wasn't a surprise to him, but there was no way expecting it to be cold could have dampened the chilling feeling that flooded his body.
Completely letting go of the pier, Kruxe let out a misty breath, and then looking at the ship looming in the distance, he began swimming towards it, making his strokes as silent as possible.
With his most recent experience at sea, Kruxe quickly forgot about the cold water as he kept his focus on the vessel ahead of him, moving his hand and his legs, and within minutes, he soon found himself beside the breathless beast.
Now at his destination, Kruxe swam across the length of the ship, looking for its anchor, and with the light of the cannons that occasionally lit up, it didn't take him long to determine that it wasn't on this side.
"It should be on the other side, there is no way they didn't drop anchor," Kruxe thought as he observed the relative stability of the ship.
"But then again the sea is calm" Kruxe mused.
Not wasting any time, Kruxe started another round of strokes, swimming his way to the other side of the ship, a slight shiver leaving him as he swam into darkness.
Unlike before when the occasion fire of the cannons gave him light and an idea of his surrounding, now he was just in pitch darkness.
Placing his hands on the ship, Kruxe made sure to properly calculate his swimming route, not wanton to get lost in the darkness, and then with a prayer he began swimming forward, blindly reaching out his hand from time to time, searching for the anchor.
With the ship towering at the height of about 9 meters, and the 15 meters radius around it being water, illegally boarding the ship was a far from easy task.
Without even putting much thought into it, Kruxe abandoned the idea of trying to scale the hull of the ship, the risk of someone hearing as he climbed or him slipping and making a splash was too big and so with that option out of the bag and his limitations, he could only default to the using the anchor chain to climb.
With the ship stretching over 70 meters, Kruxe had to first make a thorough search of one end of the ship, where the anchor should be before then swimming for the other side.
As he swam to the other end of the ship, Kruxe could only hope that the anchor was on this end and that he hadn't missed it while searching the other end of the ship.
Soon Kruxe arrived at the other end of the ship, and without delay went about with his search, a smile climbing his face when his hand hit something hard and metallic.
Quickly he held onto the metal object, moving his hand up and confirming that he was indeed holding onto a chain, one which went up, and soon he began climbing.
To Kruxe's frustration and disappointment, he found himself spending close to a minute trying to figure out how to scale up the anchor.
Though the plan had been easy to make, executing it was a whole different issue.
With persistence and some thinking, Kruxe soon found a way and began stably ascending the anchor chain.
By the time Kruxe was almost done climbing up the ship, he was already letting out heavy breaths, one he was having difficulty controlling due to the cold wind blowing on his very wet self.
Kruxe took some time to reorient himself, and then he completed the climb, the chains leading into a small round opening at the top of the ship, and the railing of the ship being a hand away.
With just a stretch of his hand, Kruxe could pull himself up and finally check out the deck of the ship but he didn't, instead freezing up as his heartbeat picked up.
"Man, this sucks, and am getting hungry." A thick disgruntled voice that could only belong to a man sounded from atop the deck, and then not long after it sounded once more.
"Group 1 fire."
Immediately after the disgruntled voice's words, a canon blast sounded, one which had him chuckling.
"Your carelessness may get one of our own hit" a different voice sounded though this one was a little lazy.
"It's just a cannon, they'll survive a hit, and it's their fault for leaving me back here, I should be with them on the field"
"Perhaps you would if you weren't so out of control and destructive."
"Destructive is good"
"Except when have specific targets for this mission and the last thing we want is you accidentally killing them."
"Urgh, How about you, why did they keep you back then."
"To keep an eye on you, and most likely for letting Buchgi go get himself killed" the lazy voice grumbled.
"Ahhh, Buchgi, letting himself be killed by some central continent dweller, that's just pathetic."
"Have some respect for the dead, he was your crewmate" the lazy voice said in a low and disinterested tone, getting a snort from the other voice.
These voices came from above deck, and all through their conversation, Kruxe's breath went tight.