So no I didn't manage to get 40 of the blighters.
I did get 17 though.
Seventeen beautiful points in LUK and a healthy bonus of 5,000 Exp that shot me straight through Lv.34 and halfway to the one beyond that. I placed 5 points into STR and 10 into INT and moved on to one of the trickiest questions I've ever had to ponder.
'What to do with 1 ½ dozen shark corpses...'
One Week Later, Aboard The Marjhan
It's been mostly a quiet week since departing Centaurea. No storms, no pirates. It's given me some time to catch up on some books that have been piling up on my reading list. Ding!
Skill Lv up! Anatomy Lv. (19/50) → (20/50)
-Your understanding of the human body and all of its functions.
Ding!
Quest Complete!
Quest: Level up a [Skill] two times by the end of the day.
Reward: 250 Exp.
I dismissed the two notifications and flipped the page to the next chapter in the book I had borrowed off of Claire. "Section Eight: The Endocrine System..." I softly murmured. Just because I had completed today's daily quest didn't mean I couldn't keep going.
We have a new passenger onboard. A silent samurai type named Yukimura. He was originally one of the hunters stationed to The Taniwha, but seeing as how that ship isn't hitting the high seas anytime soon he's going to be joining us for the remainder of his contract. The man seems polite enough but he does have a bad habit of sleeping through most of the day. 'Kind of reminds of another One Piece swordsman that we all know in that regard.'
'Land ho!' A voice reverberates throughout the cabin. Our man in the crows nest has quite the pair of lungs on him. 'ETA four hours captain!'
I closed my book and set it aside with a small puzzled frown. 'Four hours? That's odd. Cherrytown should still be a day and a half out at least.'
Making my way out onto the deck I slid up next to Korka staring at a speck of an island on the horzion. "We're making good time I see."
The revolutionary briefly looks my way before turning back. "The weathers been kind. When we changed course to Mirifield I was worried that the winds might shift and delay us but-"
My hands raised up in alarm. "Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Back up!" I protested in mild panic. "What the hell do you mean we're sailing for Mirifield? I thought we were restocking in Cherrytown!"
"We were." My employer answers. "This is just a mild detour. We only had to alter course by 11 degrees. We'll head to Cherrytown afterwards. Why? What's got you so worked up about it?"
My jaw almost fell off in disbelief. "Mirifield is Fleet Admiral Sengoku's home town! Every person living in South Blue knows that! They have a giant statue and everything!"
Korka rolled his eyes at me. "Just because an island is the original home of someone dangerous doesn't mean the place itself suddenly is." Under normal circumstances he'd be right. Goa Kingdom for instance didn't become powerful just because it happened to spawn the entire Monkey D. family. In the case of Mirifield however, I have a retort.
"Except the Fleet Admiral had an officers academy built there! Marines from all across South Blue come to this island to prove they're worthy of wearing the 'Coat of Justice'. Do I need to remind you what organization you -and by extension me- work for!" I spoke with exasperation.
The Zoan-user had the gall to actually chuckle at my distress. "What? Haven't you heard of hiding in plain sight before?"
"Korka!"
"Relax Parker. It's fine. I've run this game before. Mirifield is a commercial hub like any other. We stay in the civilian docks, buy what we need to, and then leave a day or two later for Cherrytown. Now that I know you're a Storage-Human we may as well stock-up as much as we can. Especially on perishables." The man turned to me with a satisfied grin. "Besides. This way we can turn in the corpse of that water rat Pellora. Repairing ships isn't cheap you know. You've still got him right?"
Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. "Of course. It's not going to just disappear on me." I spoke, extracting the body from my [Inventory] and laying it flat on the deck just to make a point.
Korka lifted the tarp covering the 5.5 million bounty and whistled. "Perfectly preserved...blood on his jacket hasn't even dried...you're a real useful man to have around Jack. This is much more convenient than stuffing a body in the freezer and hoping it keeps. The cooks get all pissy at me when I force that on them you know." Shortly thereafter, The Marjhan pulled into port and the deckhands went to work tying off the mooring lines to the bollards along the pier.
"Alright. You fellows know the drill." Korka announced to the crew as he hoisted Pellora's wrapped body over his shoulder. "I'm going to go turn this in. You're free to leave the boat so long as you stay out of trouble and be back by the morning."
Over the next few hours I watched various people depart the ship, all of them enjoying the brief shore leave allowed to them. Two or three groups asked me to tag along for a trip to the saloon but I waved them off each time.
I'm sure going out for the evening could be fun. I'm just being paranoid and a tad silly. The vibe of this island just screams as the kind of place where I could wander into town with the innocent intentions of grabbing myself a drink and somehow get roped up into a wacky, zany, and possibly perilous side-quest. I turned my head over to the west where a mighty Marine tower encroached into the sky. Looming so high that it actually shielded whole districts of the surrounding town with its shadow. 'There is no reason they needed to make it that big. It's one thing to be excessive. It'sanother to just blatantly waste natural resources like that.'
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