The following day I was primed and ready to go on my adventure on my new ship! With all the resources I had collected I had a good store of stuff to mess around with and as time had passed, I had even made Alfia's cure even though I wasn't exactly in a rush to send it off to Hera.
Though... I really wanted that Grimoire from Hera so maybe I should chance it, to have Hephaestus deliver it for me?
Either way with Tamamo, and Tina with me we went onto the Thousand Sunny and as I ran my hand across the wheel atop the ship for astehtics I could feel it. I could feel the will within the ship itself and my consciousness spread out to meet the will of the mermaid monster I fused into the ship.
A giggle rang out in my mind as the will gave me a sort of hugging feeling before retreating back into the ships more standard form but it could feel their presence as I began mentally ordering the ship to move through the water at a good pace.
'Huh maybe I can get to Orario also via the river using the ship... But then again having my scent anywhere near Orario is asking for trouble with the beastkin that Hera has.' I thought before I shrugged and began mumbling the Hoist the Colors sea shanty under my breath as I raised a hand with the ships large sails unfurling at my mental order.
"Jake, I can already tell you are having entirely too much fun." Tina said jokingly as she sidled up to me with my hand naturally falling into her head to pull her against my waist.
I gave an estatic grin as I patted Tina's head and said. "Tina... A wise man once said, a man on a boat is a happy man. Now I am that happy man and I got some beautiful ladies along with me as well!"
Hearing my words Tamamo who came upstairs to the wheel giggled as Tina snorted knowing I was just being a goober but that didn't stop her from continuing to hug my waist as we sailed out into the Lake of Melen and into the monster-infested waters.
Now in the deeper waters of Melen I mentally ordered the ship to send off its platforms that had lied on its side and with a splashing noise two semi-circle platforms splashed into the water where we could comfortably fight monsters with a good bit of room while forcing the monster to climb onto the impromptu arena's.
"Alright, if we can. I would like for us to capture a couple more Kelpies, so that way we can fuse the infant dragon and the surviving Green Dragon into them for more powerful mounts." I spoke more seriously.
Tina gave my leg a good squeeze before she leaned back and matched my tone as she looked into the clear but empty deep water below us while saying. "Kelpies here in Melen are kept by the Mermaids so we will need to deal with the Merman on their own turf with the monsters being stronger than us with them being a level three monster."
Her observation although true didn't mean we couldn't deal with a merman or even three. No what I was honestly more worried about, was native-born monsters with more intelligence using mermaid healing to fight us in attrition rather than just a straightforward battle.
The sounds of splashing water rang out and I looked over to the side and saw a large swordfish and thrown itself over the arena's floor and was floundering as it has stuck its sword bill into one of the cracks of the fold-out arena. "I got it." Tamamo said excitedly as she hefted up her spear and then she hopped down onto the arena and first she dodged the powerful tail swipe from the monster before she stabbed into the monster's head making it go still.
"It's funny though... These native-born monsters instead of dungeon monsters don't even have magic stones and so their bodies don't poof into dust leaving drops and such." Tina noted with a wry look to her face while I nodded in agreement.
And with my connection to the Thousand Sunny, I could feel monsters brushing up against the boat trying to figure out what it was and of course whether there were people atop it,
And soon enough more came atop the other side's platform so I gave Tina a quick boob squeeze making her squeak adorably as I couldn't grab her butt with how short she was and I said. "Alright, Tina kill them all. We only want more mermaids or Kelpies to capture and there are some weighted nets on your platform as you can see."
I got a wonderful lidded look from her slightly glowing eyes that promised fun times in the future before Tina took out her own sprear and dove in and began slaughtering the fish like weaker monsters on the otherside while I used my connection with the ship to urge more monsters to climb up atop the ship.
But after a while of killing weaker fish monsters that weren't really all that special even if I kept all their bodies as I wanted to try to fuse them into make the ultimate sushi or something stupid like that. I saw another ship floating towards us and emblazed upon its sails was a large pair of measuring scales.
And as the other ship came closer I saw their own captain/helmsmen call out. "Hello! Are you new to Melen too? We just got here and wanted to know if you had any advice with how nice your boat is?"
'That red hair and those scales on the flag... Oh that's Alise Lovell from the Astrea Familia!' I thought before I nodded with a small grin as I called out. "Not much for advice as this our maiden voyage haha! But if you want, we can go together as our goddesses I think are friends as they are from the same Pantheon with my goddess being Lady Hephaestus!"
Before Alise could respond the door leading into the hold or another room on their smaller ship opened up with their very goddess strolling out. "Ah, you are one of Hephaestus's children? Were you in Melen during in that... Unpleasant event back in Orario?"
I grimaced and knowing that I couldn't lie to Astrea with her being a goddess, not that I even would with how she was a goddess of justice. I said with an honest frown.
"I am afraid not. I was one of the people that got roughed up during that and I came to Melen to avoid all the trouble of the Zeus and Hera Familias." I spoke honestly and less loudly as our ships came but a few meters apart from one another as we sailed in the same direction with only the small arena's each boat had acting as the shield between the main ships.