Chapter 548
As Jamal’s eyes widened, Ian nodded calmly. "That’s what I think, too. They didn’t just eat all the passengers of the ships they attacked. They used them as advance troops to spread their influence."
Resting the coral branch diagonally under his seat again, he glanced between Lucia and Thesaya. "Seems like you’d already guessed."
"I examined the corpses you dealt with earlier, Agent of the Saint," Thesaya replied, exchanging a glance with Lucia. She then shot a quick look at Jamal and continued, "I couldn’t have missed that salty smell. From what I saw, most of them came from the sea."
When did she have time to examine that mess?
Ian, smiling, took a sip of wine and said, "So you’re saying some of them weren’t."
"There were monsters mixed in, weren’t there? They must have expanded their forces after landing until they finally reached the main road."
Ian nodded. It was, in fact, an obvious picture. That was likely the role of the man-eating coral he had destroyed in the first place.
"But I didn’t know Bukikia could extend its grasp all the way to the land," Lucia murmured then, her brow slightly furrowed. "Why didn’t it do that in the Black Land? The area near the Isolated Sea was completely clear."
Her words were enough to make Jamal’s eyes widen. Before Ian could answer, Yog’s laughter echoed in his mind.
—To ask something so obvious... You must be drunk, Lucy.
Lucia paused, then nodded as if the answer had clicked. "Right. That place was already a demonic realm everywhere. There was no need to expand any further as their domain was already solidified."
"Exactly. And it probably wouldn’t have worked there anyway. They had numbers, but really, they weren’t much to speak of," Ian replied, glancing at the stiffened Jamal.