Chapter 458 - 20 MINUTES AGO...

LET'S back track to 20 minutes ago. 

When Luo Yan realized that it was most likely mermaids who were responsible for the hypnotic and beautiful song, his mind quickly reviewed the famous lore about them.  One, they lured sailors to their death by using their beautiful voices.  And two, the ship these sailors were sailing usually ended up in a shipwreck. 

Since he heard the sound of people falling to the sea, he understood that this was the mermaids luring the players to the sea.  So, in this way, the players replaced sailors.  If you went with that logic, then wouldn't the next one be this ship capsizing?

Thinking of that possibility, he immediately looked for the ship's wheelhouse.  Because if there was a chance that the ship would capsize, then that meant that the one controlling the steering wheel were also enchanted by the mermaids' voice. 

It could only be one of the crew.  Since he doubted that that Captain Roger would be mesmerized by mermaids.  But one thing's for sure, they could only be NPCs.  So, that meant, that this NPC was also part of the script of this 'mermaid trial'. 

Because of the fog, Luo Yan couldn't see properly where he should go.  But wheelhouses of ships designed like this were usually on the quarterdeck which was near the main mast.  He tried to picture the whole ship in his head. 

There was the wide deck, then the tall main mast, after that was the entrance to the inside of the ship, then just behind that was an elevated deck where he was sure the wheelhouse must be.  Now that he had a clear target, his movement became more decisive.

He ran towards the direction of the entrance of the ship.  Since he and Luo Jin didn't really go far when they walked to the deck earlier.  He traced their footsteps, not caring if he bumped someone along the way.  Once he reached it, he started climbing up. 

It took a while to reach the roof.  He then dashed forward.  When he reached the end, he almost fell off because he couldn't see his way because of the thick fog.  It's a good thing that he managed to stop on time or he would be rolling on the ground now.  He still couldn't see the elevated deck on which the wheelhouse was located.  But he remembered that the distance between the two was not really that much.  So, he stepped back a bit.  And then he ran and jumped.

But because he couldn't see anything but the white fog, he didn't land properly.  His whole body hit something like a wall.  The impact of it shook his entire body.  It almost felt like he was swatted by a huge fly swatter.  He even felt his ears ringing.  But it only lasted for about five seconds.  Once he recovered, he quickly hugged the wall and looked for the door.  Because he was sure that he reached the wheelhouse.

Soon, he successfully found the door.  Luckily for him, it was not locked.  Once he entered, he quickly entered again so that the fog wouldn't follow along. 

Just like he guessed, he didn't see Captain Roger inside.  He only saw one NPC holding the steering wheel in a daze.  He walked towards the male NPC and waved his hand in front of his face.  Seeing that the other didn't even react, he knew that he was being affected by the voices of the mermaids. 

Speaking of that, it's surprising that the mermaids' song could still be heard inside here.  There's probably no place in this ship that was soundproof. 

Before taking care of the NPC, he decided to look around the wheelhouse first.  It looked like the wheelhouse of an ancient ship.  But there was one glaring difference.  There were two radar-like things attached near the steering wheel. 

One was like a normal radar with longitudes and latitudes and stuffs.  It showed a clustered of red dots on both sides of the ship.  But the other one was totally different.  It was almost like a video, showing the surroundings of the ship.  It's like the fog didn't have any effect on this radar.  So, with this, Luo Yan could see clearly what were those red dots were.

They were mermaids.  Beautiful and ethereal mermaids.  They had long aqua-blue hair, covering their naked upper body.  Their lower half was a blue-green fishtail.  Some of them were floating on the sea, while others were sitting atop rock formations.  But all of them were looking at the ship with glowing blue eyes.  If this radar could show the mermaids' voice, he could probably also see sound waves right now.

Luo Yan was actually glad that they're the game picked the pretty version of the mermaids and not the other one.  You know, something like the Harry Potter version.  Because just seeing those clustered together was like watching some kind of horror movie. 

He was thinking of what he could do to deal with these mermaids when an alarm suddenly sounded.  It's not that loud.  Just enough for the crew who was manning the wheel to hear it.  He looked quickly at the radar, the one that was like a CCTV.  His pupils dilated a bit because of what he saw.

Up ahead was a huge iceberg.  And the ship was heading straight to it.  He didn't panic.  Instead, he pulled the NPC from the steering wheel first.  He didn't receive any resistance.  Probably because the other was not in his right mind right now.  The next thing he did was to send Luo Jin a message. 

They had to first stopped those mermaids. 

He looked at the CCTV radar.  His brain was working on overdrive just to find a way to, at least, disrupt their song.  Then he saw that on both sides of the ship, there were pretty big rock formations near where both groups of mermaids were clustered.  An idea suddenly popped up in his mind. 

Using the other radar, he calculated the angles needed for Luo Jin to shot at those rock formations accurately.  Which was not that hard because of the latitude and longitude that were already shown on the radar.

He gave those angles to his younger brother.  And when he saw from the CCTV radar that Luo Jin managed to shot those rock formations, he sent another message to Luo Jin before holding on to the steering wheel.

And then, he steered it to the right.