Ricardo was struggling to push one of the ends of the wooden wheel that was used to raise the net, by means of a pulley mechanism, very similar to a rudder, but the axis of the wheel was perpendicular to the ground unlike the rudder.
Ricardo's hands were bleeding, and the blood was leaking from his gloves, his trembling feet struggled to continue to draw the necessary strength to push the wheel. For every step he took, the web was closer to the surface, but his hands were closer to losing their skin.
Cadix woke up, he was supposed to help the sailors, but he just watched in silence as they worked, he saw Ricardo with his hands bleeding under his gloves fighting against the wooden wheel to be able to raise the net.
Ricardo met Cadix's gaze and wanted to ask him for help, but the only thing he could do was look at him, all his strength was being spent on his hands, so he couldn't cry out.
Cadix didn't seem to mind his pleading look for help, he just stared at Ricardo in silence, as if he enjoyed his suffering.
'This is your obsession, to see me destroy my fucking hands, sick of shit' Ricardo thought while he looked at Cadix's lazy eyes.
In the end, Ricardo decided to look away and concentrate on raising the net, if he continued to pay attention to this idiot, he risked letting the net escape.
The process of lifting the net had to be done quickly, because otherwise the vast majority of fish would have escaped and all the work would have been useless, many times Ricardo wanted to let go of the wheel, but he could not give up, the fate of the entire boat depended on this fishing.
The captain had told them that they only had to fish one more time, if they couldn't get the net up with fish, they would have to start all over again or resign themselves to starvation.
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Luckily, Ron finally joined the task and the net was able to be raised successfully, it was carried up to the deck of the ship, but when they were about to open it, Taras's scream stopped them all:
"There's a 'Momoto' trapped, don't open it, or they'll kill us all!!" Taras shouted, his experience as a fisherman had taught him the hard way what that creature was.
The sailors stopped suddenly and moved away from the net that hung above the deck.
Inside the net was a black wooden box, it was very finely decorated with a nice pattern of oxidized silver and bronze. The wood of the box seemed somewhat worn with time and the corruption of the sea. Various barnacles and crustaceans had clung to the edges of the black box.
"What do we do then? We can't throw it back into the sea, the fish are in there!" Ricardo shouted in desperation, climbing the net again was torture for everyone on board.
*Piuu*...*Piuu* Two shots answered for Taras.
It was the captain, a fairly normal pistol was fired from each hand, shooting at the box.
"No blood came out, it's not a 'Momoto'… Open the net at once!!" William yelled.
After giving the order, the captain approached the rail, raised the pistols, threw them into the sea and watched as they sank. The rest of the crew did not understand why, but the order was given to be carried out, so there were no questions, and they went to work.
The box, along with a mountain of fish was lowered, almost all the fish were the same, except for two that seemed bigger than the rest.
"Ricardo, don't trust what the captain said, just in case, get away from the box when they open it" Taras murmured to the young cabin boy, the fisherman still hadn't lost his caution.
"Before we get closer to looking at the box, does anyone recognize any problem fish?" Ron asked, looking at the mountain of fish.
"The largest, fat with scales, is poisonous, you have to throw it away, the other big one I never saw, the rest are 'Tikilias', they are quite common around here and can be eaten" Taras said, putting some strings away from the box.
"It's a 'Flup', they're worth a fortune, they're delicious, I ate them at my brother's wedding" Ricardo said proudly.
The sailors' eyes widened showing a look full of greed, if it was the meal of a nobleman's wedding, that fish would be worth more than a ship.
"We're going to eat it..." Said the captain who kept looking trying to see his guns sinking, he didn't need to turn around to know what the sailors thought of him.