The Legend of the Fishermen of Sicily

It was definitely not Leo who was deliberately late.

Rather, it's because there are too many unexpected situations.

Even if the King of the Sea were to enter the water, he couldn't save the fish's lives.

With the support of [Weakness Strike] and [Beginning of Mastery], Leo's attacks are sure to be successful.

I went out late yesterday and didn't get my gear until after 2 p.m. I wasted some time looking for sea urchins, but I still managed to catch more than forty fish.

His efficiency in catching fish depends entirely on the cycle time of a single dive.

Normally, the time from the start of the dive, through locking onto the target, blending into the environment, observing the enemy, silently approaching, firing, and ascending, until resurfacing, is 50-60 seconds.

The longer you stay underwater, the longer you need to rest on the surface. If you don't rest long enough, your blood oxygen levels won't recover properly, which can be life-threatening.

In addition, underwater throwing consumes more energy than diving, so Leo will rest for 60-70 seconds before going down again.

In fact, given Leo's age and physical strength, this time could be shortened considerably.

But Leo promised Solberto that safety was the top priority and he would never risk his life.

Therefore, a fishing cycle takes about 135 seconds. Every 20 minutes, he will also be forced to get on the boat and rest for 10 minutes to keep his body in the best condition at all times.

Based on this calculation, the fish catch per hour is 15-20.

The quest worth 30 reputation points was easily completed in less than two hours.

In the evening, Rio returned to Malzamemi.

On the beach, they ran into Rosalia, who had come out early to wait for them because she was worried.

Rosalia was very surprised to see that Leo brought back fish instead of sea urchins, especially since there were quite a lot of fish.

When she's unlucky and can't find sea urchins, she'll also fish, but the underwater resistance is high, and her harpoon has some problems, so catching fish depends entirely on luck... She can only bring back a dozen or so at most in one night.

However, considering that Leo is young and strong, and such a good swimmer, it's reasonable that he brought back so many in one day.

Rosalia, who had experience selling fish, advised Leo that since it was summer, he should clean the dead fish as soon as possible and soak them in water to keep them fresh.

These small-scale fishermen don't bring back much each day, and they don't keep ice at home. To save costs, they use traditional methods to preserve food, as ice is only provided by large ships.

Upon hearing this, Leo quickly carried a large net full of fish back to the shipyard.

He didn't cook before and had no experience in handling fish, but he was still quite capable. However, cleaning so many fish was still quite a challenge for him.

In addition, the shipyard had been in disrepair for years, and the lighting equipment was practically useless.

As darkness falls, once the knife is cut, it's impossible to tell whether it's the fish bleeding or the person bleeding; it all comes down to how much pain it's in...

Leo wanted to take a shortcut and only removed the internal organs, leaving the rest alone. But then that damned system came out to cause trouble again!

You have received a mission: Erase names.

The body itself isn't the problem; the problem is a body that retains its shape. A complete body is too easy to identify. According to Sicilian custom, their faces, fingerprints, loose threads on their clothing, and the bite of their teeth must be thoroughly cleaned.

[Quest Reward: Reputation +5]

Since Brother Tong has spoken, let's do it!

Under the dim light, Leo painstakingly processed his murder evidence—smoothing the fish to a point where even their own mothers wouldn't recognize them.

After finally completing the cosmetic procedures for over forty fish, I received a system notification that the task was complete.

Tongzi is at it again, releasing a limited-time task: "Clean up the crime scene".

Leo then transformed into the Snail Fairy, fetching buckets of water and cleaning up.

Although I gained nearly 40 reputation points in one day, it was already past midnight by the time I finished.

He ate something quickly, went to bed, and when he was about to leave in the morning, he realized that it was not a good idea to just let it go like that.

Fishermen will store their catch according to type, which makes it much more convenient for both villagers and merchants to buy.

Yesterday was Leo's first day at sea, and he tried to catch any new fish he saw, just like unlocking a fish encyclopedia in a game.

There are more than 30 species of fish among the 40 fish, which vary in size and price.

Leo and Aesop had only recently started working together and were still in the honeymoon phase of "trying hard to make a good impression on each other."

To reduce the other party's workload, he classified them according to several major fish families, but he didn't have enough containers, so he could only classify them into four or five types.

He had left in a hurry, but halfway there he suddenly remembered that young master Angie was waiting for him, so he went around to the other side of the coast, which delayed him a bit more.

Worried that Aesop would be getting impatient, Leo then ran all the way to the dock.

He was the focus of the fish market today even when he wasn't running away, but running away has attracted even more attention.

Everyone watched his and Aesop's every move closely—it was as if time had turned back to that quiet morning when everyone first witnessed Rosalia's madness.

Aesop wasn't in a hurry. Leo was an early riser, and even if he arrived late, he was still earlier than many others. In the meantime, he managed to find out the reason for the villagers' strange behavior.

Before Leo could even steady himself, he asked impatiently:

"Did you find the sea urchin?"

Almost everyone in the fish market perked up their ears at the same time.

"No," Leo said breathlessly.

In less than a second, the fish market regained its former vitality.

The sounds of bargaining, chatting, and joking rose and fell, and if you listened carefully, you could hear that some people were laughing particularly happily.

"What's in these baskets you brought?"

"fish."

"What kind of fish?"

"Um, there are quite a lot, take a look."

"That's quite a lot..."

These two voices gradually drowned out the other sounds and became the main theme of the fish market.

Some people, unwilling to listen with their ears, quietly moved closer to Aesop and Leo.

Aesop picked up two cleaned sea bass and weighed them in his hands:

"These two can only sell for 6000."

He picked up another one, then suddenly let out a questioning nasal sound, because there were other kinds of fish below:

Rainbow wrasse.

Aesop put the fish on the scale, wanting to find the other wrasses inside to weigh together.

But when he looked through them, he found that none of the fish were the same.

He wanted to ask Leo what was going on, but when he looked up, he was startled.

Suddenly, several people appeared around the previously empty truck, each of them standing on tiptoe, craning their necks, trying to peek into the basin.

Ignoring the gossipy villagers, Aesop said to Leo:

"You brought quite a variety of fish, five or six kinds."

Leo pointed to the several stacked basins that Aesop hadn't yet looked at, and said apologetically:

"Including those over there, there are more than thirty kinds. I'm really sorry."

This is already the first time I've categorized it!

More than thirty kinds?

One of the villagers couldn't help but exclaim in surprise, and several more people appeared next to the truck.

.......

"Grey wrasse, parrotfish, black sea bream, light gill..."

From common edible fish to reef fish and ornamental fish.

From 30 centimeters, to 20 centimeters, and then to 5 centimeters.

From silver, to white, and then to all sorts of colors.

The fish baskets that Leo brought were like a treasure chest.

Later, when Aesop reached out his hand, everyone around him held their breath in tension.

"Did you really bring these back from the sea?" Aesop asked for the third time to confirm this information.

This doesn't seem like the work of fishermen at all; it's more like a scientist who wanted to study the biodiversity of the Mediterranean and had someone capture a batch of samples.

"Of course." Leo secretly memorized the price of each type of fish, so he would have a target to target when he went out today.

Something exciting happened at the fish market, and the children were the most excited.

The first row closest to the treasure chest was completely occupied by the children.

Longo, who had come to join the fun, looked up and asked Leo:

"Did you go to the netting area yesterday?"

The villagers who came to watch the spectacle started answering for Leo all at once.

"These fish have holes in their heads; they were speared in the sea."

"It doesn't necessarily have to be in the sea; it could also be a fork in the sand."

"Impossible. You can only catch sea bass and juvenile grouper in the shallows. Look, there are even gillfish in his basket. How could gillfish come to the shallows?"

"Diving for fish? It's been ages since anyone did that..."

"Yes, Bianchi hasn't gone fishing in a long time either."

The system is sometimes outrageous, and sometimes very reliable.

In Sicily, the fastest way to make a name for yourself is indeed by fighting your way to the top, but it doesn't necessarily have to be by force; strength will do too.

Powerful strength can make a person's name grow wings and fly to any place in this land.

From today onward, Marzamemi will have another nickname for Rio besides "the new outsider"—"that kid who's really good at fishing."