Chapter 7 - Apparently It Could Go Worse.

♪

Hoo! Hoo! 

Grab your oars, Open your sails!

Sing a song to lift the spirit!

Check your bags, Hide your pearls!

Briny aroma is the only merit!

Moist wood be our ground,

Gull cries be our anthem,

As we sail through to the horizon! O- HO! 

♪

…

What the heck… I thought, confused.

A few minutes ago, I was stirred awake by the abnormally strong smell of alcohol. The first thought that came to mind is, Hey, did I end up in the hospital?

But after that, my senses slowly detected other pungent smells. First, it's the heavy salty smell. Next, it's the absolutely abominable smell of body odour. 

I tried to look around to see what was causing those smells when I noticed that I couldn't move my body. 

More accurately, I'd been tied up. 

On a pole.

I was definitely not in a hospital. 

Realisation cleared through my mind, and my brain finally registered the scene in front of me. 

I wasn't tied on a pole, but on a ship's mast. And beyond the deck under me, were the never ending blue sea. 

I'm not sure how to properly describe this but, this felt eerily too similar to a scene from the movie Pirates of the Caribbean. Above me I could see a fluttering big dark flag with a skull drawn on it and standing under my body were pirates dancing, partying, celebrating excitedly. Maybe it's the captain's birthday or something. 

This is the first time I saw a party this wild. Some danced like a madman, some were drinking to their death, some punched and kicked their friends for fun, and some puked around each other while laughing like a maniac. And they did it all with a weapon in hand.

What I saw was so surreal, I went dizzy yet again.

After a while, someone came out from the captain's quarters. Following the loud sound of the door closing, the wild party stopped abruptly, and silence spread across the whole boat. 

"Capt'n!", suddenly one of the drunks called out, followed by the others.

Hearing this, I looked up in reflex, meeting the eye of the person they call captain.

The captain was a big brawny man around his forties, with a braided long beard and an eyepatch. His eyes were fierce and in place of his right leg, there's a wooden peg leg, obviously lost from a past fight somewhere.

He stopped near the mast where I was tied up, and glared at me for a long time.

A few minutes passed, and his glare hadn't receded. I tried my best gulping down my fears, thinking on how to properly get out of this situation. 

The last thing I remembered before blanking out was the heavy suction force that sucked me into the abyss. So the fact that I was here, alive, with a sky above my head and sea below me means that somehow I fell into another world intact. And unfortunately for me, instead of arriving on the checkpoint first to check in with the designated Godly attendants and also for the memory erasure, I went straight unto being one of the world's residents. Tsk, there goes my plan to seek help from a God to safely show me the way back. 

Sigh… whoever the God of this world would be, I bet He won't be too pleased with me… I thought nervously. 

But before I could go and conjure up a one hundred pages long apology letter for the God, I must get out of this situation safely first.

I racked my brain and frantically tried to remember what I learned from a book back on my past life called 'Flattering Your Clients 101' . 

'Anyone would unconsciously wish that people around them would notice and congratulate them on their special day. Even more so if there was a big party celebrating the occasion!'

Remembering that, 

I hardened my resolve, looked at the captain firmly, put on my best smile, and confidently said, "Happy Birthday, captain!"

…

Apparently that was a wrong move, because I was now tied on the ship's bowsprit. 

"Waaaaaaaaaaiiiiiittttttt! Love and peace! Love and peace! We're both humans here! We can talk this out!", I shouted loudly in panic, pleading to the captain for my life.

"Shut yer stinkin' trap, ye knave! Did the height messed up yer brain?", sneered the captain. "Did ye not see that yer inches away from being fish food?"

"Wha-", but before I could finish my sentence, I finally noticed big hungry sharks swimming under me. I'd said it before, but seriously, the whole scene was just too movie-like, my head rang, and the dizziness kept growing, halting my ability to think clearly.

The captain eyed me menacingly and slowly threatened, "That be a right big shark swimmin' over thar. But, alas, if ye still won't shut up…", the captain took something from next to him, and continued, "Maybe d' axe can help ye."

Seeing the axe, I froze and shut my trap as instructed.

Noticing my obedience, the captain laughed heartily and turned to his mates. "Harrr harr harr! Would ye look at this, matey! The treacherous snake Vex Totem, d' old filthy fraudster known across all sea, turned into an itty-bitty sea-worm under the stare of me, Capt'n Deepsea Davey of D' Foul Deck!"

"YARRRRRRRRRRRRR!", cheered the mates in response excitedly.

"This be big victory for us, matey! In three days, D' Foul Deck will dock, n' reward gold 25.000.000 gallions do be ours!"

"YARRRRRRRRRRRRRR FOR THE GOLD! YARRRRRRRRRRRRR FOR D' FOUL DECK! YARRRRRRRRRRRR FOR CAPT'N DEEPSEA DAVEY, THE MOST COURAGEOUS OF ALL SEA! YO-HO! YO-HO-HO!♪", and then the crew started to sing and dance again, while the captain laughed heartily near my bowsprit. 

Hearing their confusing conversation, I forgot about my deal with the captain to keep my mouth shut and asked in reflex, "Who's Vex Totem?"

I'm sure I didn't say it loudly, but the moment that question came out of my mouth, the whole ship stared at me in silence. 

"W-who… Who Vex Totem, ye say?", asked the captain in irritable confusion. "Oh red sea barnacles, did ye brain already got eaten by d' sharks? Vex Totem is ye!"

Ye? Did he mean… me?!

Wait- wait a second! I moved my neck down as far as possible to check. And sure enough, instead of a thin body that I knew so well, I was face to face with a handsome body with beautifully toned muscles and shiny tan skin. Realising this, my brain finally caught up with my situation.

Waking up being tied to the ship's mast. The ongoing party that was happening on the deck. The angry captain who threatened me a bunch of times. His proud speech about conquering the treacherous filthy fraudster. Him calling me Vex Totem.

Of course, of course! Stupid Rex, why the heck are you so dumb? Of course I'm the reason they're partying, it's because they just succeeded in catching me or this Vex Totem, the guy whose head was worth 25.000.000 gallions! Not that I was sure how much 1 gallion was worth.

When I finally connected the dots, my head rang out once more, and the dizziness grew even worse.

Being obviously ill, plus the rocking of the boat, and also the awkward position of being tied to the bowsprit, I was definitely not in a good condition. I closed my eyes and steadied my breathing, trying my best to soothe the unbearable nausea.

Seeing me about to passed out, the captain barked and hit the bowstring with his wooden leg. "Why arr ye sleeping, ye scurvy dog! Do ye want to die, that bad?"

"Bah, unfortunately, I want me 25.000.000 gallions.", he said as he turned away from me.

As I was about to let out a breath of relief, he continued, "But if you lose some fingers or maybe one leg, they won't mind, do they?"

Following that statement, the captain snickered mockingly, grabbed his axe, and playfully pointed the tip in my direction. Seeing this, the crew cheered loudly and started to bang on their glasses, asking for my death.

The situation became heated, with the death chant, following every step the captain made as he slowly walked nearer and nearer to the bowsprit.

One step, two step, three step

When the axe went scarily close to my right leg, a loud bang sounded,

and the boat shook violently.