Somewhere Between the Sea and the Sky.

Episode 3: Chapter 8.

"—four, five, six..."

"I think we can take them."

"Easily."

In the end, Yunho was right. The smoke they saw belonged to an enemy camp, and they looked like low level thieves. Their camp was good, it had food and shelter for the night, but also... loot. They probably took everything they could from the abandoned island, and they were about to get robbed by some unexpected pirates. The three of them were hiding behind the bushes that surrounded the enemy camp, trying to find the best way to attack. They were armored, bigger in number and knew the area well, but that wouldn't save them.

Yunho started to move, still behind their wall of plants, until he found one of them close enough to it. One move was enough, the soldier covered his mouth and pulled him into their hiding spot.

The man didn't look scared, just angry.

"He's gonna tell them we're here." Mingi huffed.

"No, he's not." Wooyoung said.

And after that, he took him from Yunho's arms and hit his head with the handle of his whip. The guy collapsed a few seconds later, completely failing at his only task of alerting his mates.

"That makes... just five left." The soldier laughed.

"How many of them can you guys take?" Mingi asked.

"All of them, probably." Wooyoung replied.

"Alright— Leave some fun to us, sir." Yunho spoke, offended.

"You two have fun, then." Mingi sighed. "I'll start looking into their tent, just in case."

"Right, there's probably more of them there." Yunho nodded.

"And good stuff, food for sure." Wooyoung added.

Then, they looked at the others and took a deep breath. They made sure the guy they already took care of wasn't fooling them, then they showed themselves to the guys on the camp. As expected, they instantly took out their weapons, mostly swords and daggers.

"Who are you?!" A man shouted at them.

"Who are we, you ask?" Wooyoung laughed a bit.

Then, with just a single move, he got his whip tangled into one of the guys' legs, pulling him towards the pirates. The fight was on. While his crewmates threw themselves into the battle, Mingi tried to avoid the enemies and get through them. Which was... easier than expected. Wooyoung was too flashy, and everyone wanted to kick a soldier's ass. Even without the jacket, the uniform was there. So, Mingi easily got into the huge tent at the other side of the camp and, surprising as it was, it was empty.

He took a deep breath before looking around him.

There was a table with a map, something similar to the Captain's cabin, but the map was self-made. They were studying the island, it seemed. Why would they bother? He moved on from the table and found some wooden boxes and sacs; the first ones were full of food, but the sacs looked weird. The shapes were uneven, some more bulky than others, the pirate couldn't hold back and opened one of them.

Were those... relics? Some kind of ancient runes and artifacts?

Mingi was probably in front of everything that was left of the island's previous life.

He started looking through the strange loot until he found something different, some kind of gemstone. It was bright blue, and there was something engraved on the center of it, some kind of symbol.

Oh.

Mingi approached the map again.

There were some similar symbols drawn over different places of the island, but none of them was the same as the one in the blue gemstone. Was it some kind of puzzle? Was the island hiding its true treasure from robbers and pirates like them? Mingi didn't doubt a second to take both the gemstone and the map with him.