Chapter 40: Island
After cleaning everything up I kissed my cute bodyguard goodbye. I walked outside and made my way upstairs and on deck.
I saw a few people walking around here and there wearing sailor suits. Some of them were busy mopping the deck and others were just relaxing.
I saw a guy talking to his friend on another ship that was right next to us just talking about the nice weather.
I moved up to the helm and saw Makoto talking to one of his crew members. When he saw me he had this annoying little smile on his face that just made you want to hit him.
"You seem happy."
"I'll be getting grandkids soon. Of course I am."
It seems he doesn't know about his wife's decision to put a contraceptive rune on his daughter. Maybe I should keep that to myself. He seems happy enough.
"Why does your crew look so relaxed? Shouldn't they be doing something? Like work?"
"By that argument, I should be working too. All of my ships are special. Almost everything is automated, even sailing. These guys aren't even sailors. They're movers. They move cargo around and stuff. Cleaning is the only thing they need to do. Thank the gods for your grandfather, otherwise I'd have to make the whole journey doing nothing but fiddling with my thumbs and doing paperwork."
"So what did you want to talk about?"
Makoto seemed to just now realize why I was here.
"Right, so you see. I actually have other ships out there. They're much faster than these and they constantly move around and one of them came back and told me it found something."
His ship 'told him?' Ok I'll bite.
"What did it say?"
"That there's an island. And it's civilized."
Civilized as in no barbarians or cannibal tribes? That sounds fun.
"And I assume you want to check it out?"
Makoto chuckled softly, "There's no way we can turn this down. From the footage that's been sent to me, this island even has a whole castle, and she is a beauty."
A mysterious castle on an island that lies in the middle of nowhere. That sounds like a proper fantasy setting.
"What are we waiting for? Let's go."
"I'm way ahead of you. My ships are going in that direction now. We'll be there in 30 minutes or less."
That was quick, "Why did you ask me to come here if you already had plans made out?"
"The boys were worried you two were going to go at it again and the moaning was a bit distracting. Also, I don't want to hear that from my daughter either."
Makes sense.
"So what else have your scouts discovered?"
"Not much, aside from wild life. A few Barb Tailed whales saying hello. We did get a few mermaids and mermaid wannabes get awful close but that's where the turrets come in handy. They send a few pot shots out and it usually scares folk away."
Mermaids. We get a few of those from time to time on our island. They're peaceful folk but they're stingy negotiators. I have a few mermaids and mermen listed on my demon shop but their prices are astronomical. That's not saying they're bad items, it's the polar opposite.
A guy was selling his [SLOW LVL1] skill for 30 Red Gold drops. The skill fits me perfectly, but 30 drops? Get out of my face with that mess. I've seen the same skill being sold by others many times but all they want are weird items in exchange that I just don't have. That guy is the only one willing to sell for hard cash. A real dilemma this is.
Occasionally some people like to give me fair trades though. I had sold a lot of goods over the years and gained even more. The problem is that most people don't trade in currency for whatever reason. They trade in goods.
"What kind of things are we hauling anyway?"
I haven't toured the whole place so I haven't seen everything this place has.
"Just the usual. Since we're going to a new colony that has already started calling itself an empire, we mostly have the usual items that would belong in such an environment."
"Mmm, alcohol?"
Makoto patted me on the back and laughed heartily, "You've learned well over the years, kid. Yeah alcohol. Among a few other things. Several casks of wine for the women who think they're fancy, whiskey for the men who think they're fancy and beer for the poor and the stupid."
As for the other items… I would assume rice, wheat, salt, medicine and a few other essentials. Being the bad guy is only profitable at first. Weapons and booze sell, but food and medicine keeps friends and allies… until it doesn't. That's politics in a nutshell.
"Do we know anything about this place other than it being crazy corrupt?"
"Not much… well maybe. Your aunt is the only one who actually came here and your grandfather didn't bother with so much as stepping on land. Hence why we're in the middle of nowhere. But they both mentioned something, they kept talking about Depth Crawlers. We'll talk about that later when we have the time."
Makoto assured me that he had scouts on the continent whose only job was to reconfirm anything we need to know.
His laidback attitude never fails to irritate me.
Oh well, I guess I'll find out when we get there.
…
30 minutes passed between the two of us just chatting. Until one of the sailors came over to let us know that they spotted land not far from here. Mokoto and I looked over in the distance and sure enough we could see it. It was a small island with no mountains or volcanoes in sight.
The island looked pretty normal actually. The only thing noticeable was the giant castle and city.
"I thought your ships said it was just a castle?"
"They must've missed it…"
I looked around out of curiosity until I saw something from the corner of my eye. There was something in the distance bubbling in the water. I patted Makoto on the shoulder to let him know but he was distracted with giving orders to the sailors.
I kept looking at the thing in the distance until something new happened. Something was rising out of the water. At first I thought it was a sea creature, but after getting a good look at it, I realized what it really was. It was a small fortress the size of a large mansion, and they meant business.
"MAKOTO!"
BANG! BANG! BANG!
A barrage of cannon fire came firing at us from every direction! I thought this was the only fortress but when I looked on our left and behind us I saw 1 in every direction. Soon there was another fortress ahead of us rising from the sea.
I looked around and braced for impact. There was nothing I could do. For the first time in a long time I had realized I had a weakness I didn't even know about. My magic is meant for organic material. It's meant for the living. I can't stop this cannon fire.
Makoto was in the same boat as me, his forte was with the sword and summoning his ships.
"Brace for impact!"
We all looked for shelter until we stopped and looked around. All we heard were splashes in the water. That doesn't make things any less menacing. All it means is that they missed or…
"I'm lowering the sails. Prepare to be boarded and try to give a warm welcome to our visitors."
As expected, "This isn't your first time I take it?"
He looked at me and smirked without saying anything. I watched the sails on all of the surrounding ships start to roll upward by themselves. Each sailor took a white flag and exchanged the current one with the white one to let the island inhabitants know that we surrendered.
"Tell your girlfriend that everything is under control. I'm sure she's panicking over your safety right about now."
I forgot about that.
I went down to the cabin and knocked on the door before heading in. When I looked over I noticed a person sprawled out on the bed laying on her stomach with her ass out to share with the world.
"You actually slept through that?"
I can't believe my bodyguard. You know, the one who has 'sworn to carry my burden' is actually sound asleep while we're about to get boarded by unknown strangers who seconds ago just shot at us.
She was busy drooling on her pillow looking as defenseless as a newborn baby.
"The problem is that you're not a baby. You're a grown woman, and the doors don't have locks on them. Weren't you just shy and embarrassed earlier?"
I sat down on the bed and rubbed her hair while she slept until I started to nudge this giant succubus awake.
Nothing seemed to be working so I did what anyone would do. I used [PLEASURE BESTOWEL] while rubbing her tail.
"Mmm… Ahh Jess… stop…"
"Lora sweety. We're under attack."
"I know… so stop…"
No, I mean we're actually about to be seized by unknown assailants.
"Wake up or you're about to get eaten by cannibals."
She finally opened one eye and started shooing me away groggily.
"You are so adorable. Okay, you win. Go back to sleep."
She's definitely going to hate me when she wakes up, but it's not my fault she chose sleep over her job, and who am I to disturb that cute face of hers? That would just be cruel of me as her employer.
I went back upstairs and onto the deck only to see a bunch of people scrambling around the place like headless chickens. When I went back to the helm I saw Makoto staring at something with his arms crossed. He didn't seem upset or angry, if anything he looked excited.
He looked over at me confused, "Where's my daughter?"
"She's a bit tired. She wanted to sleep in."
Makoto looked annoyed now. His emotions are constantly running around at this moment. He's a surprisingly emotional guy for his age.
"That little brat. Everyone is running like a bunch of idiots and my daughter is just sleeping like she has nothing else to do. Giving this company to her brother was the best choice I ever made."
"Actually no, tossing her your way was the best decision I ever made."
I didn't have a comment on that so I just avoided the subject.
"Any word on our host?"
At this point it wasn't unreasonable to call ourselves hostages.
"Check for yourself."
I was wondering what he meant when a hologram showed up in front of me. It was a screen, and on it were a group of people boarding a few ships.
They seemed to me moving quickly, "Is this live?"
"It is, and they seem to be very weary of our presence. They have already boarded about a dozen ships and they're still loading more."
"Won't we be outnumbered- Ah. Sometimes I forget we're not on earth anymore."
In a world of supers, numbers don't mean anything. Technology helps tremendously but unless the tech can match the strength of a super, the end result is the same.
That's not saying it's impossible, but from what we've seen from them so far… they don't have either.
"So you guessed it. Good. They lack the technology they need to take us down, so they rely on numbers. A thousand people is nothing, but a thousand people manning a gun? That'll be a little more annoying to deal with. Let's talk more about this once they come to say hello."
I look back at him and nod. I understood what he meant, he wanted to discuss our situation in front of our host. Just in case they got some funny ideas.
"Speak of the devil. Here they come."
I looked at the monitor and sure enough, every ship they had at their disposal was heading straight for us.
This is kinda fun honestly. Trying to debate on whether these guys are friends with benefits or enemies for us to rob and steal from.