"You could have asked for my name first, Cap'n," the woman said, pulling his sleeve back down. "Which is Amanda, thank you very much, Cap'n."
"Aye, I was more concerned that this place would still be full of dark magic after his trick," Bastian sighed and pulled his weary body upright. "But thanks. Amanda."
"He put the Dark Mark on you. Then you fainted and he gave the job to a friend. It's all very calculating, isn't it, Captain Black?"
Amanda licked her lips without the slightest shade of self-consciousness. It was very attractive, in a way. She was a nice mix of attitude and innocence.
"I mean that they always keep the good jobs in their own circles," she continued. "It's not feasible to get to the big fish unless you are already one of the biggest. And if someone tries to shake that order, well, look what happened to you. You're a ruin. You can't be a captain for your men anymore."
Captain Bastian Black contemplated this for a moment. He had a way of finding loopholes in any magic that was worded in a literal way. Thanks to those thousands and thousands of books he had read, he had managed to make his mind into the ultimate key - his solutions opened almost all locks.
"No men will sail under my flag," Bastian said. "But what about women?"
To honor the apparent intelligence of the wench, he had to say that there was no delay in Amanda's expression as her eyes widened and her jaw dropped.
"You can't be serious," she said, forgetting to call him Captain.
"How so?" asked Bastian, amused. "Is it a logical impossibility for a ruined man to be serious?"
"I mean…damn, smartass, us women don't really go around sailing, smelling like sweat and killing people."
"Are you saying it's not girly to do so?" Bastian asked, deciding to tease her further.
He was desperate, yes, but he had not lost the sense of wild hope that his transmigration had given him. He intended to make the most of this new life. To never give up until he had his brother kneeling before him, begging for mercy. Such a possibility really gave a ruined man some courage!
Oh, and the rum helped. He had been silently sipping a drink while they had started to argue about the femininity of piracy.
"No, but…you know. Most women prefer indoor jobs."
Bastian laughed. "What if I invest in a bathtub and some really good soap, hm?"
The mention of soap made Amanda flinch. He remembered that this was a world of scarcity, a place where even a single piece of soap could cost a fortune. He pitied the woman for having to sell her body in a seedy tavern, but on the other hand, it was by a stroke of luck that she had happened to be working today.
"You give yourself to those men?" Bastian asked, gesturing towards the empty chairs.
"No." Amanda sounded honest. "I just act as bait. Not saying it makes me better than them."
"Would you actually like to be better than them?" Bastian asked, trying to summon a fiery gaze to pierce through her insecurities. "Would you like to be special? Respected and feared?"
She bit her lip.
"I can teach you to read," he added.
Those were the magic words. Her eyes lit up with feverish hope. She seemed to battle something inside her mind.
"But just one woman won't do," she said. "Cap'n. We need a few more. At least ten to man the ship. Or…to woman the ship. Since Cap'n is a smart guy who likes words."
The inherent sarcasm had to be dealt with some other time. Now, they had to get more women from somewhere, preferably women who were tough as nails. Grown women with no children to miss them. Women who worked on the streets. Women who already were thieves. Such girls were hard to find even without the final requirement Bastian did not care to repeat out loud.
That they should be pretty.
That they should be as beautiful as they were vicious, cutthroat cuties with slim waists and ample bosoms, agile and stunning. What kind of a pirate girl harem was full of uglies? No. One of the key tenets of the humiliation Roy had constantly imposed on Seb had been that he stole all of his potential girlfriends. To have a horde of women walk all over Captain Gorgo before Bastian would take the life he was owed sounded about as close to heaven as anything could get. As the plan crystallized in his mind, he lit up like a torch with this hope.
"Well, we need to start searching for able-bodied women. Can you remember my requirements if I make you repeat them, Amanda?"
"Sure thing, I'm illiterate, not an imbecile," she said.
To be truthful, Bastian was a bit scared of this woman who knew a word like imbecile but had never learned to read. He said everything except for the appearance requirement and with each word, Amanda nodded eagerly.
"I think we need to check the poor part of town first," she said. "We will not have luck with the brothels, I can tell you that much, Cap'n. Those women already make a lot of money. But hardened women in poverty…they will jump at the opportunity to come along."
"You took much less convincing than I would have thought," Bastian said approvingly.
He stood up. After having his entire body ravaged by the black magic, it was no easy task. He checked himself in the mirror that was conveniently placed near the door.
Even Bastian himself was stunned as he saw himself in a visual form.
A handsome, slim man with sharp cheekbones and a black spot under his eye. He wouldn't ever have considered himself this good-looking. He was going to have an easy time finding women for what he was about to call both his crew and harem, but finding those who could stand their own in a battle was a different thing altogether.
Amanda pulled his sleeve.
"Come, Cap'n," she said. "The mistress of the house will whip me if she sees me with you."