Tōdō led Tokushima and Edajima to a warehouse district on one end of Nasta. Edajima had Tokushima carry the metal briefcase for him. Packed to the brim with gold and silver coins, the briefcase was easy to lug around on one’s back, but it was somehow harder to carry by hand.
“Sir, this is… this is really heavy.”
“How sloppy could you get? What’ll you do if you drop it and cause a scene for us? Just hang on to it a little longer! We’re almost there!”
Tokushima grumbled, hoping that maybe Edajima would’ve interpreted it as him asking for help. Well, what else can he do? He can’t exactly complain to someone who’s higher ranked than him.
“And how long is a ‘little longer’?”
“Now’s about good, Tokushima. We’re here.”
Tōdō replied, to which Tokushima looked up to see where they were. Towering above him was a colossal wooden warehouse that—by eye estimate—seemed to be as tall as a regular four-story building.
“Wait, this is it?! This is the warehouse we’re supposed to go to? It’s hella massive!”
Edajima commented further.
“I thought we’d only get to see such massive wooden structures at Alnus but here we are. Ah, but if the technology to build the large wooden Buddha at Nara was present back in the 9th century, it shouldn’t be weird that a civilization with more advanced technology should be able to build something as impressive.”
Behind him, the dark-robed boy who was watching over them provided more context.
“That’s because Tinaye is built on its forestry industry. Not only do we have a lot of good wood for building ships and buildings but we have a lot of manpower specializing in woodworking. Taking all those factors, wouldn’t it be natural that we’d have a lot of wooden buildings?”
“Precisely. Many thanks for the added context.”
Edajima bowed in thanks to the boy.
“Just doing my mission. Also, just to make it clear since you seem to be mistaken, do not mistake my cooperation for kindness. I was simply asked—although ‘hounded’ may be the more appropriate term—by the people of the Empire’s Privy Council to repay a debt. My cooperation is merely under the scope of fulfilling my debt to the Privy Council. If you cross the line of what I allow you to do, I will have you killed where you stand, no questions asked. Understood?”
Tokushima leaned in and whispered to Edajima.
“W-Woah… He doesn’t look like he could kill an insect but I could tell he’s telling the truth…!”
“Guess we’re dealing with a ‘looks one way but acts another’ archetype here.”
With a gleam in his tinted glasses, the boy asked for clarification.
“You heard what I said?”
“Y-Yeah, loud and clear!”
Tokushima replied, like someone placating a growling puppy. Edajima, however, had no intention of going along with Tokushima and tried poking the boy for more answers.
“But where exactly does this ‘limit’ of yours extend? It’d be great if we knew up to what extent we could act.”
“You’re only allowed to act within the limits of your objective here in Tinaye; anything else is off the table! You are here to retrieve that jurnaleest who was captured by the pirates and sold into slavery, yes? And you’ll do that by purchasing them from the slaver without fuss, yes? Am I right?”
“Yes, you’re on point.”
“So any other actions besides those are expressly forbidden. Finding out about our domestic situation, the comings and goings of our ships, their destinations, their captains—all of them are off limits. They’re essentially state secrets, and we, the Black Hand, are tasked with the elimination of any and all individuals who try to get their hands on them.”
“So you’re Tinaye’s counterintelligence organization, so to say?”
“Indeed. Also, I believe you’ll have all sorts of impressions once you enter this warehouse, but please keep in mind that any sort of inquiries or meddling outside of your objective will be futile. Understood?”
“Of course.”
“We promise.”
Both Edajima and Tokushima raised their right hands in agreement.
“Then let’s get going. I have many things to attend to.”
The boy turned his back toward them, but just as he was about to go, Tokushima called out to him.
“Ah, wait! What should we call you?”
“What for?”
“It just feels wrong to talk to someone whose name you don’t know. I mean, it’s fine if you don’t want to use your real name. We could just call you ‘Sir Black Hand’ or something…”
The dark-robed boy cringed as if he imagined himself being referred to by the likes of Tokushima.
“My name is Oux do Vi. Please refer to me as Vi.”
“Would Oux be fine too?”
“I shudder at the thought of someone I barely know referring to me by my given name. Please stick to my family name.”
“Alright, so you’ll be Vi, then… Okay, let’s go! We’re burning daylight, alright? Go on, go on!”
Tokushima then pressed on him to leave, much to Vi’s vexation.
“Go on, he says… I’m not the only one he made wait for nothing, the dumbass…”
Vi then led the trio to the door of the warehouse.
“Who goes there?”
A guard stopped them and asked them to identify themselves. They were a middle-aged Asura (a race of people with four arms and two faces) with a devious face and a sharp spear in one hand. Vi, unfazed, responded disinterestingly.
“You mocking me or what? I’ll have you killed if you don’t do your job properly.”
“No, hold up! I’m the guard. I ask any suspicious person to identify themselves. That’s the, uh, whachamacallit… the beauty in my job, okay? Just act along, will you?”
“I have no time for shit like beauty in your job. Oh, and how dare you call me a suspicious person.”
“Ah, wait… You’re that guy Boss Moi told me about. Yeah, he said you’d be bringing some customers.”
The guard turned to look at Tōdō, Edajima, and Tokushima with a scrutinizing look. They felt as if they were being judged whether or not they had money with them, how much if so, and whether their clothes and appearance were up to standard.
“Hmm. Whatever. Come in.”
The guard led Edajima and Tokushima into the warehouse. As soon as they went in, the various odors, smells, and stenches entered their nostrils in unison, causing them to pucker up.
“Oh, ugh… Wow!”
“The rumors didn’t lie, but… this is something else.”
The two scrambled for their handkerchiefs and promptly shielded their noses with them; Tōdō and Vi also teared up from the stench and quickly took their handkerchiefs out and covered their nostrils. Only the guard, who called the warehouse his place of employment, was unfazed.
“Hahaha! Indeed, this smell would be unbearable for first-timers! But you know, slaves are put in here for some time so that they could come to accept their fate.”
Inside this warehouse were rows upon rows of box-like cages where enslaved peoples were kept. At a glance, they could count around 200-300 of these cages, all of which contained more than one person. The kinds of people kept here weren’t discriminatory either; there were children, elderly, men, and women. What’s more, it wasn’t just the smell that came upon Edajima and Tokushima.
“Help! Please help me, and I’ll reward you! I’m a trader who was captured by pirates! I have a home, a family, and an estate!!!”
Cries begging for help and sympathy came upon them from all angles. Mixed with those cries were sobbing from people cursing their fate and the empty gazes of people who have accepted theirs. It was simply a herculean task for the normal person to remain calm in such an environment and Tokushima was no different from the normal person in this case. Unable to look any of the slaves in the eye, he turned away from them.
“Could we move along, dear customers? We may be free right now but there’s not a second to waste!”
“Ah, yes. Please lead the way.”
Edajima and the others followed the guard’s lead, wading in between the cages as they went. In such an emotionally stressful environment, people would eventually resort to small talk, not because they want to frolic but because they want to keep themselves sane. Tokushima gave in to this tendency.
“Sir. I feel like I’m about to break here…”
Edajima humored him.
“Oh, me too.”
Then, suddenly, a hand poked out from one of the cage’s slits.
“Please! Tell my son that I’m here! Please…”
The hand seemed to be from a man in his old age. Tokushima recoiled in surprise from the hand but due to the narrow space in between the cages, he tumbled onto the cage on the other side.
“Ow ow ow ow!”
As he groaned from the pain, another hand reached out from a slit in the cage behind him and grabbed the hem of his clothes.
“Help! Help me!”
“Huh?! Wait…”
Looking more closely, the hand is from a blue-skinned girl who was hardly 12 or 13 years old.
How the hell did she get here? What fate awaits her after this?
Thinking of all these things, Tokushima felt an overwhelming sense of justice overcome him, but he was stopped by his sense of reason. This wasn’t the place to give in to emotions. With that said, he promptly turned his eyes away from her.
“Oi! What are you doing to our dearest customer?!”
The guard finally noticed. He rushed to the cage and slammed his spear onto it, scaring the little girl and forcing her to run back into the cage.
Tokushima wanted to protest but he felt Vi’s piercing gaze over his shoulder. He must have been warning him not to meddle any further.
“Behave yourself, Tokushima. Remember what we came here for.”
“U-Understood. I’ll be fine.”
Shaking off his feelings of remorse and sympathy, Tokushima turned his back on the little girl’s cage.
The Asura guard continued to lead them into the warehouse.
“The slaves in this part are more behaved since they’ve more or less come to accept their fate.”
While the warehouse didn’t seem to discriminate based on race or sex, they actually segregated them based on how long it had been since they arrived at the warehouse. At a glance, there appeared to be 50-60 cages in this part of the warehouse.
“Boss Moi, sir! I’ve brought the customers you mentioned!”
The Asura guard called out to a figure standing in front of a row of cages. The figure turned around, revealing a well-dressed man writing on a parchment in one hand.
“Ah, thanks!”
It would seem that this person is the company’s head. A thin man in his prime, he seemed to be good at calculations.
Tōdō stepped forward and spoke first.
“We’ve come as promised, Sir Moi. Now, as stipulated by the agreement, we’d like you to hand over the individual we’ve requested.”
Moi, however, didn’t seem pleased at their arrival. In fact, he was making a pained face.
“I’m truly sorry, dearest customers. I understand you’ve gone through a lot of trouble to come this far but I’m afraid I’m no longer in a position to hand the individual you requested over to you. In fact, I’m not in a position to hand you any slave. Once again, I’m truly sorry, but I politely ask you to take your leave.”
“But this wasn’t the agreement!”
Tōdō pressed the Relena Company head for answers as he was turning them away. They’ve already agreed on terms and the price and everything; they even have the right amount with them. But for some reason, Moi ha Relena is turning them down in an unexpected change of heart.
“Why the sudden change in heart?”
“I’m really really sorry, but I’m not in the position to divulge that…”
The head won’t even give them a reason or an explanation. But they weren’t satisfied with going home empty-handed. Tōdō thought that this may be a negotiation tactic to raise the price higher than what was agreed upon.
“We can pay for extra if that’s what you wish.”
“Oh, I’d agree on the spot if this were any other time but unfortunately, I am in no position to agree.”
“Tokushima!”
“Yes, sir!”
Given the signal by Tōdō, Tokushima placed the heavy metal briefcase on top of one of the wooden boxes and opened it. As soon as he did, the tightly packed gold and silver coins started to spill out.
“Oooooh!!!”
Moi’s eyes glittered in envy as his drool almost formed on his lips. However, he quickly regained composure and reiterated that he could not make the deal. Rather than a negotiation tactic, it would appear that something has happened in the meanwhile that was forcing the company head’s hand.
“Why the hell not?”
“I’m truly sorry, but that is a secret.”
Tōdō turned his eyes toward Vi as if to ask him for assistance. Having some sort of desire to assist on top of not wanting the conversation to drag on, he vouched for them.
“Look, I just wanna go back to work soon, so hurry up and tell them why.”
“If the Black Hand has given me permission, then so be it: just a little earlier before you arrived, the Doge has issued a slave requisition order.”
Hearing this, Vi broke into a panic.
“Okay, that’s enough. That’s enough!”
“What’s this slave requisition order supposed to mean?”
But Edajima pressed for answers.
“It’s an order issued to slave traders to relinquish our assets to the government to be used for official business. It’s truly lamentable that we cannot refuse such an authoritarian measure. And to add insult to injury, not only are they going to take them from me without charge, but I have to ensure that they’re in good condition until they take them away!”
“Official business? What official business?”
“Not one more word from you! I’ll have you arrested for revealing state secrets!”
With Vi’s strongly worded warning, Moi finally closed his mouth shut.
“…”
Moi simply shrugged his shoulders in response to Edajima’s last question. Edajima thanked him for his troubles.
“My apologies for being unreasonable.”
“Ah no, please… It’s truly unfortunate that I cannot entertain your request knowing that you’ve come all this way with so much coin.”
Having failed to achieve their objective, Tōdō and the group were forced to turn back in defeat.
“Edajima, sir, what did he mean by ‘official business?’”
Having left the warehouse district, Tokushima asked Edajima knowing that Vi was still watching them from behind.
“Oh, Tokushima, I could imagine what the reason may be. Of course, it’s ultimately still conjecture.”
“So what is the order for?”
“This country’s economy is built on maritime trade, but with the pirate problem, they cannot do what they’ve always been doing. That’s why their navy is pushing to build and launch stronger ships: they must regain control of the seas to enable maritime trade to resume. However, the new ships they’re building are galleasses, which require a lot of manpower. Now, this is just conjecture, but I think the Tinaye government is intending to use the slaves they’ll procure through the requisition order as oarsmen for these new ships.”
Then, Tōdō joined in the conversation.
“Then what? What’ll happen to our American journalist friend?”
“They’ll be sent aboard a warship as an oarsman. That’s about right, yes?”
Edajima turned to Vi for an affirmative response.
“…”
Of course, Vi wasn’t going to say anything. But his obstinate silence was in itself an affirmation of Edajima’s conjecture.
Biting his nails, Tōdō expressed his fervent desire to finish their mission.
“We gotta do something to get that journalist back. If we don’t, we won’t be able to stop the White House from forcing their way into the issue!”
They could tell from his tone that MoFA was in a very precarious position.
“Judging from this country’s state of affairs, being sent aboard a warship is essentially the same as being sent off to war. Tied to the ship by chains and forced to row an oar until exhaustion, the fate of an oarsman is a cruel one. If the ship were to go down, they go down with it—they’re just as expendable as the wood the ship is made out of. If they’re fortunate to have survived and be taken captive, they’ll then be forced into service as oarsmen of the pirates’ ships, which will then come under attack from Tinaye warships.”
Tokushima, however, had an idea.
“But isn’t this actually a favorable development, sir?”
“How so?”
“‘Cause then the ownership of our American friend has now transferred to the Tinaye government, right? We could just approach them and request the custody of the American be relinquished to us.”
Tōdō reacted pleasantly to this idea. Edajima turned to Vi for confirmation.
“Well? Surely we can ask you to ask your bosses to forward this request to the government?”
“We can do that, right, Vi?”
Tōdō joined in, but Vi could only give respond with a difficult face.
“I… am not sure I could give you an answer there.”
“But why?”
Just as Tokushima was about to press for answers, Edajima stopped him.
“Stop right there, Tokushima. Let’s not be unreasonable. This is already a diplomatic problem, so for a mere officer on the ground of a counterintelligence organization, this problem is beyond his jurisdiction. Also, there’s the fact that the requisition order doesn’t seem to be public knowledge, so we must address this problem while recognizing that fact. Finally, he didn’t explicitly say that we can’t, so his reply is actually to our benefit.”
“Yeah, what he said. It’s now my and the MoFA boys’ turn in the sun. I don’t know how much time we got until those warships leave port but we’ll do everything we can!”
Tōdō held his chest up high, knowing that this development was precisely what he and his colleagues had trained for.
It was now evening. Droves of Tinaye government officials exited the building on their way home. In Tinaye, where people worship the four goddesses of the sea as their chief goddesses, they observe a five-day week. The weekdays are in the order of Eu, Zev, No, and Vo, with the final day, Ap, being the designated rest day. Tomorrow was Ap, and so everyone was hurrying home for the weekend. They flooded into the jetty in front of the building entrance and boarded their respective gondolas for the last leg home.
“Are you heading straight home for tonight, Sir Shamrock?”
As Shamrock exited the building, Captain Aron called out to him in his usual disposition as he approached the jetty with his gondola.
“Ah, no, I have somewhere else to be tonight.”
“Let me guess… you’re going out with Isla?”
Aron replied with a dirty smirk on his face. Shamrock, annoyed that that was the idea he reached, followed Aron’s gaze behind him. Sure enough, his secretary, Isla, was right there.
“Ah! It’s just you, Isla. Heading home already? Want me to see you off?”
Shamrock said out loud, hoping to give Aron the idea that he and Isla have no prior arrangement.
“Nah, I’m good. It’s the weekend—everyone’s gotta enjoy their own time at their own pace, y’know? And please, one more day of seeing this face and I bet even you will get fed up.”
“Oh? What sort of weekend do you have planned?”
“Don’t stick your nose if you know what’s good for you.”
Then, a gondola with some man on it approached her. It appears she was seeing someone this evening.
“Ah! Okay, be well!”
Seeing her off as she boarded the gondola and left, he boarded the gondola piloted by Captain Aron. Getting comfy in the soft cushion of his seat in the gondola, he watched as Aron pushed the gondola away from the jetty with his piloting rod.
“She snubbed you, huh? That was rough.”
“Hey, hey! I was the one who snubbed her! Weren’t you listening?”
“Oh, really now?”
“Oh yeah, definitely.”
Shamrock then ordered Aron to take him to the red-light district.
Nasta’s red-light district is located on a narrow island and is packed to the brim with resplendent inns and drinking holes. Life out at sea in this world is rough on the person. Adverse weather, marine monsters, defective ships, repairing broken things aboard the ship while out at sea, incompetent and harsh commanders, incompetent fellow sailors, those fucking pirates—a mix of these factors may lead to their fate being shipwrecked and marooned, or worse, being left to die in the big blue sea. For the men of the high seas, seeing through to tomorrow was just as certain as a drawing on the sand staying put for an afternoon.
This is why whenever they are lucky enough to have made it back to port, they relish the ‘now’ as much as humanly possible—or at least as much as their purses could permit. As for the women on dry land, knowing that the men, their precious source of income, may find their way to Hardy’s domain and never come back, they go all out to make sure these men of the high seas have a great time—and thus spend copious amounts of coin—while they’re still here. All across the district, hoards of men reply in kind with roars of cheers to the flirtatious calls of women. This kind of fervor could only be possible by the abundance of anxiety that tomorrow may never come, so to them they must have fun in the only time they could have fun.
“We’re here, oh Decemvirate, sir.”
Captain Aron announced as he docked their government-sanctioned gondola on one of the jetties at the red-light district. Shamrock came onto the jetty and after giving him some coin for his trouble, asked him that he may go home.
“Sir, If I may. Why did you come all the way out here to fulfill your needs?”
Aron looked confused, wondering why someone in government like Shamrock would come all the way here. Tinaye was no small economy, and for a man who has enough wealth and power to become a Decemvirate, it was not beyond impossible to contract the best of harlots to come to his estate and have his chefs cook for him a heart feast for days on end. His confusion was not necessarily directed toward the reason why a VIP like him would come all the way here, but why a very rich man like him would need to come to a commoner place like this.
“We have been waiting for you, Sir Shamrock.”
Just then, a voice called out to Shamrock. When he turned around, there were five young girls in dazzling attires lined up. They appeared to be 10 to 13 years old and were varied in their races. The beautiful young girls suddenly surrounded him and Aron and put on the prettiest and most alluring smiles. It was almost as if they were saying that they were all going to have a very good time.
“Ah! I-I see now! So that’s what it was, haha!”
Aron panickingly replied as he nodded in understanding of what was happening.
“I-I see now! You must have wanted to have some privacy in your business! Now, if it’s all right with you, I’ll take my leave!”
He hurriedly went back to his gondola and hurriedly paddled away.
“What’s up with him?”
Having no clue what had just happened, Shamrock asked the leader figure of the girls, the one with black hair.
“It appears that he understands your tastes fully, sir.”
“What do you mean?”
“That you prefer young, underaged girls, sir. I believe he thinks that you’re about to get naughty with all of us tonight.”
“Huh?! W-Wait, that’s not how it is! Hey! Heeeey!!! Come back!!!”
But it was already too late. Aron had already sailed away into the other side of the canal where his calls couldn’t reach him.
“Fuck fuck fuck! Surely he won’t babble about this?!”
As the words left his mouth, it came to his mind just how loose Aron’s lips were.
Shamrock has an appearance and a reputation to uphold, and while Tinaye doesn’t outlaw sensual relations with young, underaged girls, people consider it to be shameless and disgraceful. Such a reputation would be a drag on someone who isn’t content with just being a Decemvirate and has desires to reach a higher office.
“Why the hell do you even do this to me, girls…”
“Shall we take care of him, meow?”
The silver-furred catgirl casually dropped the threat with a blank-faced smile. If Shamrock were to nod now, she’d promptly disappear from their sights; tomorrow morning, the talk of the city would be about the corpse of one Captain Aron floating about in the canals.
“No no no. You don’t have to do that.”
“Then you’ll allow the rumors to circulate, yes?”
“No, we can’t have that either…”
“Sir Shamrock is so indecisive. He’s such a spoiled brat.”
The red-furred demihuman girl with covered eyes giggled with a snicker.
“And whose fault is this, exactly?”
“Why it’s our fault, of course.”
The black-haired human girl replied without hesitation.
“So do something about it!”
“So how about this course of action: we don’t end him, but we will have him keep his mouth shut about this incident. Will that be fine, sir?”
“Y-Yeah. Sounds good! If you can pull that off, then please!”
The black-haired human girl gently looked over her shoulder and called out to her companions.
“Patty.”
“On it.”
The chestnut-haired girl with mouse ears and the red-furred demihuman girl disappeared from sight.
“Hey hey… You sure this’ll work?”
“Of course. That mister… Sir Aron, was it? We’ll get him to promise not to talk about what happened here. Please understand, Sir Shamrock, that we have the capacity to satisfy your wishes.”
“Fuck me.”
Shamrock clicked his tongue. The girls going all out for him like this may be just their way of trying to flaunt their powers to him.
The silver-furred catgirl silently motioned the oar back and forth.
“Hup. Hup.”
The gondola she was piloting, which has Shamrock and the other girls on board, was making its way up the Aleppo River which feeds into Nasta Bay. The current of the Aleppo wasn’t that strong so rowing upstream was not a difficult task. Sometimes, there were dislodged logs from forestry operations in the mountains upstream, so as long one kept a look out for those they should be able to navigate upriver.
“What’s with your attitude back there?”
Shamrock asked the black-haired girl, to which she tilted her head to the side in perplexion.
“My attitude? What do you mean?”
He was referring to her and her companions’ deliberate show of affection to make Captain Aron misunderstand their relationship.
“You don’t need to show off what you can do, you know? Why did you make the situation more complex than it had to be?”
“I heard that you employed the Black Hand on the attack on Her Drunken Highness. If you asked us, we would have been able to complete the job without you needing to worry about them being caught.”
It seems that what she’s trying to say is that they could have used her and her companions without putting the lives of government personnel in danger.
“Everyone is suited to doing some things better than others. I have jobs for you to do so I want you to focus on those.”
“But we could stand our ground in a fight, meow.”
“Indeed. We’re by no means inferior to the Black Hand. The fact that they weren’t caught in their escape was but a matter of sheer luck.”
In the end, Shamrock’s men were able to successfully get away from the pursuing marines and reach safety without being caught. This was due to Odette, who was tracking them down from the sky, underestimating the altitude she had climbed up to. She communicated with the pursuing marines using hand signals, so when she climbed up too high, the marines weren’t able to properly see her hand signals. Because of this, they lost track of Shamrock’s men. In other words, Odette’s lack of experience in coordinating with other people led to Primera’s attackers managing to get away.
Be that as it may, how things went was by no means the result of the guidance of either Shamrock or Isla, so it was ultimately just sheer luck that they got away.
“Having good luck is in itself a merit of one’s abilities.”
But Shamrock confidently dug his heels and insisted on his decision.
The gondola the girls rowed in shifts climbed up a tributary of the Aleppo, which meanders and splits like a mesh until they finally reached a certain sandbar island in the middle of the river. The silhouette of the sandbar island poking up amidst the dark night sky had unnatural boxy angles; it appears that a fortress was built atop it.
“There’s a saying that the area beneath the lighthouse was the darkest place. I guess it really was true.”
“Tinaye’s security forces do not know this place exists. No one would expect their enemies to set up their base of operations right under their noses, right?”
“Yeah, they’ll be so infuriated when they find out. But hey, Nasta Bay is heavily monitored. How the hell do you get a boat out from here?”
“The Aleppo has many tributaries and branching rivers, many of which empty into the sea without ever passing by Nasta Bay. We have our own lookouts in those places so if ever we’re found out and Tinaye authorities launch a crackdown, this place will be empty before they even get here.”
Up to this point, whenever the silver-furred catgirl felt that someone was in the area, they waved their torch in the air and let out a sharp and loud whistle. There will almost always be a whistle from somewhere being sounded in reply. This was their extensive early warning system in action.
“Fweeeeet!!!”
Now, as they approach the sandbar island, the catgirl lets out a piercing whistle. This time, however, the heavy-looking black wall they were facing parted into two. This was the primary way of gaining entry into the fortress. Beyond the wall, a canal stretched further inside that allowed their gondola to continue. With the wall behind them, the catgirl continued rowing their gondola forth.
“Woah, cool! You’d think it wasn’t built recently!”
Inside the fortress, firewood from torches burned bright, making it appear as if it wasn’t the dead of the night. The fortress may have looked big and imposing from the outside but from the inside, it looked rather cramped. Still, there was enough space for a considerable number of workers to work on iron, cut logs, and do other laborious work. Looming behind them were numerous, numerous towering ships that were currently under construction.
This was no ordinary fortress. It was a shipyard.
The girls took to bringing the gondola toward the wharf.
“Heeey, Shamrock! I’ve been waiting for you!”
When Shamrock set foot on dry land, a man called out to him. This man was Drake do Mojito, one of the Seven Pirate Chiefs at the head of the pirate group blockading Tinaye.
“Haven’t seen you in a while! Working real hard in that job of yours?”
“Yeah, so so. I’m just glad to see you in good spirits! Is everything moving along smoothly?”
“Oh yeah! Once these babies are out at sea, the Tinaye Navy will be history!”
The ships Drake pointed out behind him were similar to the Odette.
“The fact that these babies have launched is all thanks to the supplies you provided us with! I oughta kiss you!”
“Nah, it’s you who made these beauties out of the scrap heap I sent here!”
“Scrap heap? Those are new ship-grade materials!”
“That’s because those old geezers at the arsenal are so adamant on insisting that creating multiple copies of parts and using the best is the most optimum way of doing things. They don’t give a shit what happens to the ones they deem to be ‘substandard’ or ‘useless.’”
Shamrock spoke with emotion, almost as if he had some attachment to what had been cast aside.
“And those rejects are what our pirate ships will be made out of! Cast aside as useless failures and impertinent losers, we’re all rejects who have banded together for a cause! Just like those kids of yours!”
“Oh yeah, it’s such a funny thing to think that those kids became pirates to scare the living shit out of those old geezers.”
“Yeah, but they alone aren’t enough to truly beat them. We must go all out in making them suffer. They’re the so-called ‘gifted ones,’ after all! We’ll need some novel trump card for that.”
Drake emphasized “gifted ones” with a mocking tone.
“Isn’t that what the secret weapons are for? Oh yeah, how are the kids I sent here the other day doing?”
Prompted by Shamrock, Drake pointed his chin off toward one side of the arsenal. There, many children had gathered, practicing explosion magic with the guidance of mages.
“They’re practicing this late? Shouldn’t they be sleeping?”
“I don’t really lord over them. I’m a believer in self-determination and initiative, y’see? And since the kids were all cast aside by their masters for being ‘giftless,’ they know that they ought to put more effort into practice.”
“But you better not push them.”
“Yeah, I don’t. They’re just focusing on mastering explosion magic for now.”
“Keep it up. People end up becoming better at one given thing if they focus their energies on mastering that. I just hope they can master explosion magic and be able to cast it effortlessly. After all, soon, it’ll be their time to claim this new age.”
The ships, which had already launched, were already fitted with black lateen sails and were already fitting out. While they may have been made out of generally the same parts as the Tinaye warships like the Odette, there were clear differences. One such massive difference was the absence of ballistae on the deck; in their place, there were gigantic black cast iron tubes pointing outward and lined up along their broadsides.
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