The captain’s lips were turning blue, and both eyes had lost focus. He didn’t revive even when the woman shook his shoulders in response to his abnormal reaction.

“His body is cold,” she stated, but she still paid attention to people who were frantically distributing the loot. Then, the captain slowly opened his mouth and moved his tongue side to side. His saliva splattered all over, and he started to eject lumps of spit as if he was doing it deliberately.

I pulled the woman toward me before one big blob hit her face. It might have been possible for her to avoid it, but there was something she hadn't noticed. There was something small hidden in the saliva that looked like a bug. In fact, long and thin insects crawled out of the muddy ground where the captain’s saliva fell. Their outer shells were thick, and they had several pairs of legs like crustaceans. They were fast. It was still possible to trample and kill them, but I couldn’t ruin the start of the long-awaited quest like that. It wasn’t time to kill them yet because the process had just begun.

“Blargh!”

This time, the sound was loud, and the captain had a difficult time throwing up. The people around the loot turned their heads towards him,...