Several hours after the land was first spotted, non Qi masters also could finally see a couple of small islands in the distance. They were too far for Nick to discern what kind of shore these islands had, but it did seem there were forests on the small hills further inside.
From the description he got from the captain, Nick already knew that most of these islands had yellow sandy beaches and the green line he saw was not a forest, but jungle. Everyone could tell from the temperature and the humid air they were in tropics already for quite some time.
After a short discussion, the captain and officers came to an agreement on "Queen Elizabeth's" current position and ship turned towards west.
When Nick saw the captain come in with a smile on his face, he complained,
"Are we there yet? I'm almost out of spices and the water is unusable for quite some time already."
"Hahaha, kid, don't worry. In three days you'll be able to finally cook me a real meal!" The captain was in a good mood.
"King White, please don't forget our deal. I need all the books on herbs you have around here so I can discover more new spices. Also, even if your guys rob wares from the Mainland continent, are you certain you'll have enough stuff in the base?" Nick was playing the moody artist again, "From what you told me it's just a small village."
"You'll see. Paradise city may not be a city if you judge from the amount of citizens, but it's definitely one if you look at the resources we have!" Captain proudly stated, "Enough with the chit chat! Give me something to eat and drink. Only few more days left, hahaha!"
After completing the cooking chores, Nick went down to the cargo hold and informed the others. His heart was clenching every time he came, but there was nothing he could do about it, not for now. At least Steven had fully recovered and Clayton also was stable. The latter already was continuously practicing Qi for dozen days while still pretending to be unconscious. During all this trip Nick tried to smuggle in some medicine or herbs, that could keep their friends fresh in case they managed to escape.
Other passengers were not as lucky. It was obvious that many of them won't make it even to the slave markets and getting to land won't help either. It was already miracle they were still alive after sleeping in their own urine and excrements for thirty days, while not getting a proper food and drinking only stale water.
But the pirates have brought captives from the Mainland continent many times, in fact, for centuries and it seemed they had some understanding on the limits of human tenacity. Or maybe they just filtered out the weakest ones which won't fetch a good price.
Although pirates were in a rush to get back to the Paradise city, they still got closer to one of the islands and sent a couple of dinghies to fetch fresh water. Nick had to cook a soup for the crew using it, but the pitiful captives didn't get even a mouthful of fresh water, not to speak of the soup.
On the second day there could be seen more and more islands on the horizon. And, when on the morning of the third day the excited pirates spotted one particularly large island, everyone cheered and sang, and the captain ordered to bring out alcohol. Despite all the drinking and singing, the crew orderly followed commands and it could be seen this was not their first return after a long trip.
Finally they arrived at the Paradise city.
The closer they got to the island, the bigger it looked. It had tall and majestic mountain on the far side, covered in green jungle. It was probably a dormant or died out volcano thanks to which the island was formed in the first place.
Nick was standing on the deck, observing the beautiful view. On any other occasion he would've been fascinated, but now he tried to simulate multiple scenarios on how to solve the predicament they were in. Then he saw a weird sight – there were some ship masts sticking out from the jungle and on few of them had even sails fluttering in the wind.
The confusion was soon cleared as it turned out the land they saw was, in fact, a long peninsula and formed a huge natural lagoon where the pirates were anchoring their ships to protect from the strong winds and waves. The lagoon stretched into the island all the way to the feet of the volcano mountain and thus the island itself was in a form of an enormous horseshoe.
It took two hours for the "Queen Elizabeth" to reach the entrance to the lagoon that was located on the west side of the island and during this time they had already been greeted by several small and quick sailboats which were carrying the excited and cheering colleagues of the crew.
Suddenly Nick got stupefied by the sight and forgot all his calculations and possible schemes – the whole lagoon was full of anchored ships! There were over thirty of them, maybe even forty! Smaller and larger, merchant and warships – the port was richer than that of the Aurora city!
"How is it?" A deep voice startled him. Captain came up and watched the grand sight in satisfaction.
He was one of the rulers here and had right to be proud, apart from being a robber, murderer and rapist, of course.
"Impressive." Nick honestly said and nodded. There was no need for any theatrics, anyone would be astonished by the sight, "Probably it's quite safe to pass the storms in here."
"Indeed, Paradise city – the safest natural harbor in the world. From now on it will be home for the biggest vessel in the world as well, hahaha!" Captain heartily laughed.
"King White, how come I don't see the Paradise city?" Nick furrowed his brows, "There are few small buildings at the docks, but those are probably warehouses."
"Actually the Paradise bay is already a part of the Paradise city. But if you want to see the housing, you're in for another surprise." Captain continued to laugh, "I bet you've never seen anything like that in the royal kitchen, hahaha!"
Nick didn't mind the captain's words at all. If he himself was the owner of such an impressive place, he probably would've been similarly arrogant.
"Queen Elizabeth" was anchored in the middle of the bay among the cheers of every pirate on the docks, shore and the surrounding ships. Crew started to organize unloading and, since Nick already had his backpack on, he unceremoniously jumped in the same boat the captain was taking. The receiving pirates were surprised for a second by the blond youth in dirty white shirt and blue trousers, but since king White didn't mind, they couldn't care either.
When Nick got to the shore, many of the crew members who got to the docks earlier, were on their knees, kissing the yellow sand and hysterically laughing with tears in their eyes. Their colleagues were gathered in a huge crowd and congratulated them on their return while shouting and cheering.
King White proudly jumped off the boat and the ground trembled as he landed.
"Where the hell is Black?" He shouted.
The crowd instantly fell silent. Only this huge man and the king Red could call the third king like that.
"What's wrong with you? Why are you yelling?" Suddenly a figure of a woman, dressed all in red with her hand on the sword hilt came through the crowd and positioned herself right in front of king White. She seemed to be in her late forties, was quite tall – around one meter eighty, but her movements still looked quite agile, like she was a cat or mongoose.
"Hahaha, I was just too excited from winning the bet!" King White didn't mind and laughed, "Anyway, where is he?"
'Seriously? This whole endeavor was just because of a bet? These people are sicker than I thought!' Nick was shocked once again.
The almost forty day sea voyage was just the tip of the iceberg. The planning could've taken a year or even longer. And that was ignoring the human resources which were pulled out from the Sun kingdom – several of these pirates worked undercover as sailors or even officers in the Evans family.
"He'll be back tomorrow or the day after." King Red plainly stated, "How many did you get?"
"There are a bit more than two hundred, but the good ones are few." King White grinned and after artistic pause continued, "But three of them are virgin princesses – two royal and one from the Evans family, hahaha!"
King Red lifted her brows in surprise, but then said in an indifferent tone, "Oh? The emperor will love that."
Then she ignored everyone and turned to go back.
"Alright! We'll celebrate in three days when the king Black comes back!" King White shouted and the whole island trembled. Then he motioned to his subordinates, "I want the ship unloaded till dark! Move the captives to the others, except for the princesses. I want master Sten to look at them, they seem to have some inflammation – we can't send them to the emperor in this condition."
After king White gave the orders, he proceeded towards the mountain and Nick silently followed him.
'Damn! Looks like there is an alchemist here and, since they call him 'master', most likely he is a Qi master as well. He will definitely 'fix' the girls straight away, the inflammation is no big deal – it only looks ugly. And they are going to send them to the emperor! The only good news is that they would be left untouched and alive for a while. Is the emperor some kind of a pervert or just has a huge harem?' Nick thought to himself.
While walking, Nick observed the pirates. Since it was hot outside, most of them were half naked and wore head covers. Many had simple straw hats, but some wore red bandannas – probably the sign of belonging to the king Red's crew. There were others who had strange paintings on their heads and faces. Almost all of these people had one thing in common – they were dark tanned, almost like they were born with black skin color.
There were also few women in the crowd, they looked big and sturdy and, if during the voyage Nick saw every pirate allow frivolities with the captives, no one dared to even look the improper way at these 'ladies'.
'There are definitely strict laws around here. I need to find out more!' Nick thought.
When they came closer to the mountain, it was time for Nick to get another shock. It was as if the mountain in front of them opened a huge mouth to show an enormous natural grotto inside. And in that grotto were stacked tens, maybe hundreds of two and three storey buildings. It looked like they were separated in to three blocks and the houses in each of those blocks were mostly in white, red and blackish color. In the depths of the grotto there were three bigger houses, almost mansions, also in those respective colors. The pirates obviously had divided their base according to their ruling kings and each of the three kings had their own small palace as well.
"Really, a paradise city." Nick involuntarily said out loud.
"Hahaha, you like it?" King white looked at him and pointed at the big white house, "My shack is over there. I'll get you your spices and then you can roast me a pig. I want a whole pig roasted! I've been starving for two months!"
He shouted loudly in the sky.
"Fine, but I want the books as well. I need to study those before the banquet." Nick emotionlessly said.
"Banquet?" King White almost stumbled. In the city of pirates a term like that was probably used for the first time.