"You have quite a good relationship with everyone... I kind of thought that the hero ’Dark Star’ is a cold, heartless killer who took pleasure in hunting down criminals with worst possible methods..."
"Seeing you joke around with the others was really an eye-opener for me..."
Rio shook his head at the ship captain’s words.
"I am no ’Hero’ in the first place... it would be more accurate to call me an ’Assassin’ for hire. I got hired by the awakener’s association to get rid of all those chaotic folks..."
"Also, they are all quite close to me so I prefer staying calm and relaxed around them..."
Rio was calm and relaxed when Ashtel and others were around, but now he has reverted back to his usual emotionless state; there are no expressions on his face, and even his eyes look like that of a dead person’s with no light in them.
The ship captain even felt nervous talking to Rio, as he had heard a lot of stuff about Rio from the rumors.
Older folks usually like stable, calm, and collected people like Ashtel; due to this, most of Rio’s loyal fans are just younger people; even the ship captain’s daughter was just a ten-year-old kid.
"By the way, as the ship captain... shouldn’t you be in the main control room right now?"
Hearing Rio’s question, the ship captain smiled and replied with a rather proud look on his face.
"Hehe, this one is a modified ship actually... I had them install a powerful AI system on board; it can control most situations, and there’s usually no need for the Ship Captain..."
"I will go back to the control room once I give you a small tour of the ship-"
Before the captain could finish his words, Rio shook his head and denied immediately.
"No no, I am just a simple travelling bard. if the captain of the ship gave me a tour, my cover will be blown apart. I can take that tour myself; don’t worry..."
The ship captain wanted to boast about his ship to Rio by giving him a tour of every place, but Rio denied it, so he could only sigh and give Rio the necessary documents and tickets.
"Mine is a commercial ship; we carry a lot of cargo. most of the people you will see on-board are just normal folks who are either staff or here for work purposes..."
"Mr. Ashtel has already prepared documents for you; these are the fake identity paper, in case you need them and this is your room’s key..."
Rio took the key and stuffed the documents in his space ring.
The number on the key was 234. And that was Rio’s designated room; after handling the documents to Rio the captain gave a salute and spoke in a solemn voice.
"Although you might not consider yourself a ’hero,’ you have saved countless lives. As a citizen of the nation, I deeply respect you, Sir ’Hero.’"
Before Rio could even reply, the captain left without looking back.
"Err... that guy, he’s done a lot of research on me..."
Just by looking at a person’s facial expression, the changes in their aura, and their soul fluctuations, Rio can usually tell what the other person is thinking.
As long as the other party is not equal in rank to him or higher and doesn’t have a legendary skill to block Rio’s detection, it’s easy for Rio to use his mastery over the ’Soul’ attribute to determine others’ thoughts.
The ship captain was just an ordinary person; Rio knew that the ship captain felt quite complicated when he asked for an autograph. He likely felt worried that his daughter was idolizing a person like Rio.
He likely has done research on who Rio is and what he’s like.
’Hmmm... a daughter-con perhaps?... Forget it! why am I sticking my nose into other people’s personal life...’
Rio shook his head and stopped thinking about the matter; he walked through the empty corridor, and as he walked, his presence became thinner and thinner with each step.
In a matter of seconds, Rio was invisible.
Not only was his presence gone, but he also controlled the light elementals to deflect light particles from his body so that no one could see him, and then he took the tour of the ship.
Rio walked to the cafeteria first and saw many staff members relaxing in the place.
’This ship is nice... all staff members are in a relaxed mood, likely because the captain is not the type to put unnecessary pressure on his subordinates...’
Rio walked over to an empty seat and sat down beside the window.
Looking outside from the window, Rio could see the vast ocean with dark blue water in every direction.
’Come to think of it, this is my first solo trip to another nation...’
Rio has been to the elf kingdom before and has even visited the dragon valley that is usually inaccessible to most people in the world, but on both of those occasions, Rio was with his team.
Lia and others were with him, and this is the first time he’s going on this kind of mission all alone.
’Sigh... this is life; everyone has a ’path’ in life and you don’t often get to walk side by side with everyone for too long...’
Rio wasn’t sad or disappointed; in fact, he felt nothing at all. He just found himself contemplating ’life’ more whenever he was alone.
’This ship really is something though...’
To distract himself, Rio brought out the documents given to him by the ship captain and found that they contained a lot of information about the ship and their company.
Rio had heard that most commercial ships are very expensive things; barely anyone can afford to have one.
Most citizens of the nation are just living on the basic national income, and there are rarely any people like the ship captain who dare to bet their entire life savings on a ship that is prone to many dangers on the sea.
In Rio’s previous world, commercial ships sailed the oceans and carried massive amounts of cargo safely from one country to another.
But that was only possible because that was an ordinary world.
The current world is different; there are powerful monsters and disasters everywhere on this planet, and the sea is not a place for faint-hearted people.
Monsters the size of entire cities wander around freely in the ocean, and worst of all, most of them are quite intelligent.
These flying ships basically sail through one or two fixed routes that are regularly maintained by the world alliance and kept safe.
Even if they want to wipe out all monsters from the ocean, clearing the entire ocean of monsters is a task that will take an insane amount of money and will destroy the fishing industry completely.
And even if you somehow complete this task, underwater dungeons might still open and release monsters again, so it’s pretty much a useless idea.
After reading through all the documents, Rio visited all the nice places inside the ships and finally found a spot that he liked.
On the very top of the ship, on the roof of the cafeteria, was a spot that was empty.
Rio found the place after wandering for a while and sat down while leaning his back against the base of the pole on which the communication devices were installed.
While sitting in this place, Rio could see many robots working on the deck along with the staff members; he could see the vast blue ocean spreading far and wide till the horizon.
He could feel the warm sunlight, and he found himself feeling relaxed as the unique salty breeze of the sea caressed his hair and ruffled it.
’Is this what ’L*ffy’ feels when he’s travelling on his beloved ’Going M*rry’... this feeling of adventure is really something nice...’
Rio was in a rare happy mood today, so he brought out his sword, which was transformed into a metal flute.
The powerful sparks of ’sword intent’ flashed all over that ordinary-looking flute as Rio placed his mouth on it and started playing a calm tune.
Although Rio did not know sh*t about music and tunes, he had the all-powerful, almighty ’Sword Intent’ that had reached 99 percent proficiency.
’Sword Intent’ allows Rio to use anything and everything as his ’sword’ or ’weapon’; in other words, Rio can even use the flute as his ’weapon.’
The moment Rio’s ’Sword Intent’ works with the flute, he can produce melodies and tunes from it without even knowing anything about music, as he can use the waves produced as attacks.
The tune produced in such a way won’t have any real skills and will fail miserably against a genuine musician, but Rio didn’t care about that.
He just wanted something to go with his current happy mood, and so Rio ’The Travelling Bard’s’ first musical performance began.
Rio wasn’t keeping himself hidden anymore, so the staff members also heard the tune and felt refreshed as all of their fatigue was blown away by that sweet melody.
The staff members didn’t know, but the sea monsters and airborne monsters were all scared off by the horrific presence of Sword Intent, and the journey became much smoother for their ship.