"Thank you," I said, giving the worker his well-earned coins, and hurried to the ship I needed, which was already being loaded.
"Hey, captain on board?" I whistled loudly to get the attention of one of the sailors and asked him.
But it was not him who answered me, but a guy of about twenty who appeared very quickly, a shinobi, at least a strong chunin, although he did not have any hitai-te from any village with him.
"What do you want?"
"I heard you're sailing to the other side of Kanzoku. I need to get there, I want to arrange passage," I replied clearly and to the point, noting in passing that I could sense the chakra of two other shinobi on the ship, one of whom was a jonin.
The owner was clearly not skimping on security.
"Captain Ieru is in the tavern right now," the guard chewed his lip thoughtfully for a moment, then nodded toward a nearby one-story building with a sign depicting a beer mug, clearly deciding to pass the decision on to his superiors. "He's a gray-haired, bald old man with a luxurious beard. You can't miss him."
***
Shrugging, I headed toward the indicated establishment, where other people were trickling in. Despite the early morning hour, the spacious hall was packed with people, but contrary to my subconscious expectation, the vast majority of them were not improving their health with alcoholic beverages, but were enjoying breakfast, and judging by the mouth-watering aroma of scrambled eggs and something meaty, the food here was quite good.
The ceiling lights and fairly large windows provided enough light for me to immediately spot a couple of shiny bald heads, only one of which belonged to a powerful man with a luxurious snow-white beard, which the guy had mentioned.
I couldn't bring myself to call him an old man — even sitting down, he towered over all his neighbors by a head, and standing up straight, he would probably be taller than me, and his face had surprisingly few wrinkles.
The only thing that gave away his age was the color of his beard, which had turned completely white. In addition, the captain possessed chakra. His reserve was small, roughly equivalent to that of a strong genin or weak chunin, which explained his excellent appearance. However, I wasn't interested in that. Making my way to his table, I sat down in a free seat.
"Captain Iero?"
After giving me a sharp, appraising look and paying particular attention to the hitai-te on my forehead, he grunted softly and pushed aside a mug containing some kind of invigorating herbal decoction.
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