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25.03% Out of Space / Chapter 168: Awakenings

บท 168: Awakenings

A snap of a cervical vertebrae cracked loudly in the sudden silence and a limp body with an expression of surprise still on his face slumped down onto the concrete floor. Hitsu patted his uniform, dusting it as he made sure his medals were not dirtied or damaged in any way.

Cesar and the remaining two men stood rooted on the spot as they recognized the person, and the voice that spoke walked into the line of sight. "Remember I told you before that if you can't help, at least stay out of the way and not bring more troubles to everyone?"

Tyrier stood before the fear stricken men, "I told you I will kill you if you become a burden to me. And it appears that my words did not get through into your thick skulls."

"N-no, wait how did you know?" Cesar yelped in panic as his eyes widened in fear. "W-we are doing nothing!"

"Nothing?" Tyrier raised a questioning eyebrow and using the tip of his shiny boots, he toed the daggers laying on the floor. "While it might not be a crime to owe bladed weapons, but these surely are something you are planning on using on some stupid plan of yours."

"No! wait!" Cesar looked around wildly, seeing all the exits out of the alley blocked the men in the same uniform and he recognized them all! They were all the fearsome mercenaries who fought against that crazy Hero to a standstill! "I can explain!"

"It's too late for explanations," Tyrier replied, "In fact, letting you live for the past few seconds talking here is already good enough for you." Tyrier gave a gesture and three shadows darted in.

"NOO!" The terrified men yelled out, only to have their mouths covered and strong arms gripping over their necks. A sudden twist and a crack, and all three died with terror frozen in their faces.

"Damn, this sucks," Hitsu said as they laid the four bodies out in a row. "I thought we were on vacation?"

"Stop grumbling," Tyrier replied as he walked out of the alley and gestured to a black uniformed officer in the distance. "You there, you know who Lt Joseph is? Good! Tell him it's done, that's all. Thank you."

The officer nodded and tried to peek into the alley, but Altied blocked his view and smile, "Somethings is best to be arrogant of." He advised to the police officer, who gave a brief nod and left.

"Come on, let's clear the bodies and wrap it up." Tyrier said, "Tonight, Lt Joseph gonna treat us to a big meal for this shit he dropped on us!"

"HOORAAHH!" The men of Claymore One cheered as they melt into the shadows in the alley.

-----

Far Harbour, Civic Center

Lt Joseph nodded as the police officer whispered into his ear and he thanked him, thinking that he needed to treat those Claymore One guys to a beer or something later. He knocked on the double wooden doors and pushed it open and entered into the large reception room.

Princess Sherene gave a charming smile as she saw who has entered and waved for him to take up a seat in the informal setting.

Lt Joseph glanced around the room, noting that the Islanders were all watching him and gauging him. He walked over to the refreshments table and took a cup of tea, stirring some sugar and cream in before heading over to the group seated around in a loose circle.

"This is Lieutenant Joseph Tokin," the Princess introduced them to the gathered Islanders. "He was Lord General of the Army of Goldrose."

"General," Dijon rose up and gave an Islander salute, which Joseph waved it off.

"I am no longer a Lord General," Joseph grinned, "I'm just a humble soldier now."

"I see..." Dijon nodded, "We heard about your exploits with the Hero and also your efforts in saving the freed slaves. For that we thank you."

"I'm curious, Fleet Master Dijon," Joseph said as he sat down, "Why would the Isles go into so much trouble just to save a few slaves?"

Dijon leaned back on his chair as he studied Joseph and the Princess. He steeped his fingers together, before giving a nod and bluntly said, "For manpower."

"Manpower?" Joseph looked at the Princess who also had a clueless expression on her face.

"Yes, manpower." Dijon smiled, before explaining. "Look, the Isles are just several large islands, my nation lacks the land to grow crops or even cities."

"Look at how aggressive the Empire is going. The Two Nation Alliance is what is left on the mainland, not counting you and your merry band of rebels." Dijon said, "Sooner or later, the Two Nation Alliance will fall apart, and what is left is just remnants of royalty and rebels which frankly, the Empire can just sweep everyone away once they have control of the whole mainland."

"Once they have the mainland, where do you think they will turn their eyes to next?" Dijon continued, "They will surely turn their eye on the Isles, and while we have a mighty fleet, we can't fight with a population 10 times our size!"

"That's a reason why we need more people," Dijon answered Joseph's question, "We have unsettled islands ripe for starting new towns and ports, money and transports are all not an issue. Just we lack the people to settle down."

"I see..." Joseph looked at the Princess who gave a slight nod, confirming their theory of why the Isles need the slaves.

"Well, why not we take a break for now?" Sherene stood up and smiled, "Let me show you to your rooms and let you all settle in, we meet up for dinner later?"

Dijon nodded and as he stood up, the rest of his Captains followed him and Princess Sherene led them out of the reception hall, showing them the way to their rooms while Joseph remained behind, deep in his own thoughts.

-----

UNS Singapore, Command Bridge

"So what we suspected is true?" Captain Blake said to the image of the Princess shown on the main screen.

"Yes," The real time imagery nodded, "So far that is what they are telling us, there might be another reason they are not telling us. But it is believable so far."

Blake nodded, "How about the trade deal? Did they accept our offers?"

"They need some time to verify the quality of our goods, and also time to appraisal them," Sherene replied. "They decided to stay longer than stated before, extending it from three days to a 5 day week now or longer."

"I see," Blake scratched his chin. "We have enough supplies for them?"

"Yes," Sherene nodded, "I predicted that they might test our resources by purposely overextending their stay, so I had stockpiled enough food to last them for at least a month."

"Great thinking!" Blake smiled, and Sherene turned away from the camera blushing. "Now, must of the ex slaves appeared to want to stay than follow them to the Isles, and that will probably raise some tensions."

"Don't worry," Sherene winked, "I know how to sweeten the pot for them, so they won't make much noise over the lack of manpower to bring home."

"Haha, thank you for your hard work!" Blake replied.

"Well, you better reward me when I get back!" Sherene winked again and blew a kiss to the camera, before ending the call, much to the crew's amusement. Commander Ford laughed and winked at Blake, mimicking the Princess's actions and blew a kiss to him.

"You buggers..."

-----

Somewhere north of the Colony

A small quake rocked from inside of a smoking mountain, radiating out to its surroundings. Creatures ran and fled as the volcano shook, its smoking peaks boiling and vomiting out magma down its slopes.

A low rumbled came from the insides of the volcano, and something stirred in the depths of the glowing red river of magma and a dark shape slowly raised out from the molten earth. It crawled out from the magma and the liquid earth cool as it hit the surrounding air, turning its body rock hard.

The creature shook its body and flakes of hardened crust broke away and it crawled its way out towards one of the many cave tunnels and before long, it emerged from the top of the volcano. The air shimmered around it and it sniffed the air, around it before spreading its wings out and sending the rest of the hardened crust breaking away from its body.

It gave a roar as it tasted the air, having slept for hundreds and hundreds of years. It was awakened by something and it stretched its serpentine body as it perched on the volcano peak. Its large yellow eyes narrowing as it spotted creatures and animals run away in fear from its appearance.

It leapt off the peak and spread its wings, allowing the hot air currents to fill its wings membrane and it glided lazily in a circle before it tilted its body down and darted down towards a wind wolf who tried to dodge to the side, but the agile dragon snapped out its claws and latched on tightly in a death grip, sinking its claws into the hide of the wolf which yelped and cried in pain.

The dragon gave off so much heat, that the wolf's hide started to char and its fur burst into flames. The wolf yelped and screamed in pain, desperately trying to escape from the claws of the dragon carrying it in the air but soon its struggles weaken, as its body boiled and cooked from the heat of the dragon.

The dragon landed on a flattish peak of a mountain and started to feast on the cooked flesh of the wolf, relishing the taste of a fresh kill, after hundreds of years of hibernation. As it finished its meal, it found a comfortable place to sleep off the meal. The dragon roared out a continuous flame, scorching the terrain around it till the rock melted and form a bowl shaped depression. Quite the ground hardened, the dragon nodded in satisfaction and curled up into the bowl and dozed off.

Simmering waves of heat could be seen rising from the body of the snoozing dragon, and none of the creatures nearby dare to return to their nests and dens, as they fled in fear of a new boss monster that appeared.

-----

UNS Singapore, R&D Laboratory

Senior Spaceman Mason tapped some keys into the computer with the ship carpenter, Amar hovering over his shoulder. "We give it a double planked hull. Adding two straight beams called coamings that run the length of the chart house, day room, and engine hatch, and are integrated to the hull. These beams will add strength and help seal water out since they rise up from the deck. This will give us the strength without excess weight, and laminating the wood would help too."

"We have the machinery and glue to bond the wood, making it stronger," Mason added for Amar's benefit. "We can use the foam sealant that the Singapore uses to repair breaches on its hull. It is highly heat and water resistant, and we have tons of that stuff laying around."

"Fom see-land?" Amar looked confused, to which Mason ignored.

"Now that we have the design, we just need to work out the model and test it!" Mason continued. "This I need your help to make a model out for testing!"

"You hoomans are amazing," Amar peered at the screen, looking at the detailed lines of drawings and plans. "If I have no idea what is happening here, I might think you people are demons!"

"Hahaha," Mason laughed, "Your magic is just as strange to us as our technology is to you. So no complaints!"

"Talking about magic," Mason jolted up, "I think we can further strengthen the hull here with magic reinforcement runes! This way we will not need the use of steel to brace the internal bulkheads."


ความคิดของผู้สร้าง
Neobear Neobear

Advance chapters are available on Patreon (18 Chapters Ahead)

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บท 169: I Spy with my Eye

Fleet Master Dijon took a swig of ice cold foamy root beer and munched on a large triangular piece of bread which the locals called a 'pit-za'. The taste sweet and sour with the salty gooey cheese and slices of meat sausage tastes heavenly, as Dijon finished the third slice of the round bread that was cut into six slices.

"Fleet Master and Captains, the magical wards are in place." The Fury's ship mage bowed to the gathered men and settled down at a corner of the reception hall, where Dijon had requested from the Princess for their personal use.

"Good, now no one can listen or scry into our meetings, so let's start!" Dijon wiped his greasy hands onto a table cloth and gestured for his Captains to report their findings. "It's over two days since we landed, what do we know of these... rebels?"

"Master Dijon," The Captain of the Man 'O' War, Boar, spoke, "My men tested the weapons the rebels were offering and so far, they are quite impressed. Especially with the repeating crossbows! Its range might be shorter and power weaker than our steel crossbows, but the rate of fire of it is crazy! One man can fire off more bolts than a file of five men armed with steel crossbows in a turn of a glass!"

"I strongly advise we purchase some repeating crossbows back and hand them over to Weapon Guilds for them to learn and discover how they work!" The Captain of the Boar added, "It will greatly increase our fighting strength if we can have the men equipped with such weapons!"

The rest of the Captains nodded and voiced their approval, for they too have seen and played with the repeating crossbows. Dijon nodded, "Do it, see what the Princess wants to trade for those crossbows. Next?"

"The quality of their refined steel is must tougher and durable compared to ours," A greying sailor with large gold loops in his ears spoke up, "I tested the few bars of sample steel they offered us and made this." The sailor brought out a long package wrapped in soft leather and handed it over to Dijon who curiously unwrapped the bundle to find a shiny curved cutlass.

"This is?" Dijon asked the old hand as he lifted the cutlass up to admired in the light.

"I forged this with the steel they gave us," The old Smith replied, "'Ca-born steel' they called it. I tested it and it proved to be at least two times stronger than our current steel we produce. It is almost like mithril!"

"I see," Dijon stood up and gave the cutlass a few experimental swings and sweeps. "Tourn, draw your sword!"

The broad-shouldered Captain of the Talon, stood up and drew his cutlass out, and with a loud "AHHH!" He chopped downwards at Dijon who parried with lightning fast reflexes.

A loud clang echoed in the hall, and a piece of metal snapped off from the cutlass held in Tourn's grip. His cutlass has broken off in the sharp attack with Dijon!

Dijon nodded in a pleased manner as he examined the blade surface for any imperfections, barely finding any nicks. "This is good steel indeed!" He handed the cutlass pommel first to Tourn who took it and started to swing the cutlass around.

Dijon picked up the broken sword and observed the blade, seeing where the two edges had met and the force of both swords broke the poorer quality iron-steel. He nodded again, "Well?"

"If they can supply us with a large quantity of this 'ca-born steel', it will definitely increase our fighting strength." The old smith said while the rest of the Captains muttered among themselves and nodded.

"Good! This is a wasted trip after all!" Dijon grinned widely, "The Princess had offered us these materials in exchange for grains, raw ores, processed wood, and most importantly, shipbuilding techniques."

"For raw materials and food, it is a good deal in exchange for the repeating crossbow and 'ca-born steel'." Dijon said, "But in exchange for shipwrights to teach them how to make ships?"

"Fleet Master," A Captain spoke up, "We shouldn't offer them the shipwrights! Their weapons and steel we can trade for and the Guild Masters will sooner or later unlock the secrets to their production means. Therefore trading our ways to make ships will not be worthwhile to us!"

"Yes, we agree too!" The Captains voiced their thoughts, "Why let them profit? We can just sell ships to them!"

Dijon nodded, "Than its settled, we will not agree to not teaching the rebels how to build ships, rather we will offer them our older ships for sale."

"Next, what else is worthy to be traded?" Dijon asked as he picked up another slice of cold pizza.

-----

UNS Singapore, Command Bridge

"So those Islanders doesn't wanna share their shipbuilding technology, but rather offer us some old ships for sale?" Captain Blake frowned as he watched the live feed of the Islander meeting going on at Far Harbour. "Damn, those money grubbing bastards... I hoped the lure of better steel and a repeating crossbow would be enough to entice them to share their technology..."

"Oh well, not every day is sunday~" Blake sighed, "Princess, squeeze them hard in exchange for the carbon steel and the crossbows. I think they are also interested in canned food and glass."

The image of the Princess on the side of the video feed nodded as she too was viewing and listening in to the ongoings in the reception room, as they have bugged the whole area, with both audio and video devices. Magic wards? Ha!

"Not getting any shipwrights is still within our plans, but raw resources are important, our current output from the new mines are still below our needs and the Isles can provide us enough raw resources to cover the deficits."

"Luckily, the harvest is doing fine, and there will be less spoilage of harvest since the tractors with the combine harvesters were introduced!" Sherene smiled happily, as she was glad that food will not be many issues for the winter months.

Blake nodded, glad that he pushed hard at Chief Matt and his team to produce a sort of simple combine harvester, that is powered by the same V9 engines the aircraft were using. Dozens of the large spinning harvesters were deployed to all the farms, vastly improving the rate of harvesting crops and preventing the rest of the crops from over riping and spoilage.

"I guess the Fleet Master will speak to me tomorrow after they are done with their discussions," The Princess tiny portrait spoke. "I better go prepare my notes if I want to counter their offers! Bye, ~!"

Blake grinned at the casual way the Princess signed off, thinking that she is started to be more and more carefree and badly influenced by the media the Entertainment Broadcasting team is throwing out. He looked up to see his bridge crew turning away and hiding their smiles as they acted busy. He sighed, wondering if it was the media team or his crew was badly influencing the Princess.

-----

Sawtooth Mountain, Holding Camp

Kaga Whitetail was feeling conflicted, as ever since she reported the manner to the soldier, the ones that were involved in the conspiracy went missing! She wandered around the Camp's common area trying to see if she could find them but for the past two days, she couldn't even see a shadow of them!

What had she done! She berated herself and started to question her own beliefs. Are the so-called hoomans, demons that require sacrifices? If so is that why those who opposed them had gone missing?

She suddenly felt very lonely and afraid of this place, despite the number of people around her. She had no friends here, as everyone kept a respectful distance from her due to her spirit powers as the beast men treated her as an elder, while the elves normally don't get close to a beastman.

As she was feeling down, her senses suddenly felt someone was spying on her and she spin around, trying to locate the source. Something had triggered her six sense, and she felt a chill down her spine as she looked around, her fluffy ears twitching as she scanned her surroundings.

"-kawaii!" Her twitching ears heard something strange and she turned to the direction the voice came from and saw two short eared hoomans crouching suspiciously behind some crates outside the fence of the camp.

She narrowed her eyes and glared at the two people who suddenly noticed her looking their way and they both ducked down, trying to hide from her sight. Already feeling unhappy, she stormed her way to the wire fence and glared at the two men trying to squeeze themselves behind a stack of crates but failing terribly. "YOU THERE! WHAT ARE YOU UP TO?!"

"Ahhh! Gomenasai! Gomenasai!" One of them was like praying and bowing, wearing a pair of strange artifact on his face, that covered his eyes. The other was trying to crawl away with something black and blocky in his hands.

"Are you a thief?" Kaga asked, speaking in common, as she couldn't understand En-ish or whatever they are trying to say.

"Ahh... n-no... w-we no thief!" The weird guy with the strange round contraptions around his eyes spoke back in halting common tongue.

Kaga observed them both and found them to be wearing a similar uniform, like what most of the rebels do. "Are you workers here?"

"Work? Y-yes yes work!" The strange dou both looked at her like she was some goddess, making her feel conieous of her body, and she turned her body away from them hugging herself.

"You... what are you two doing! So suspicious! I going to call the guards!" She yelled angrily as she blushed.

"No- no! We no su- suspicious! We work!" One of them showed a sort of card that was clipped onto his breast pocket of his uniform while in his hand he was holding some strange black item.

"What is that?" She asked curiously, pointing to the black object.

"O-oh this...? Both of the men looked at each other and suddenly they gave out a silly laugh. "No-Nothing!"

"GUAR-!!"

"SHHHHHH!!!" Both of them quickly hushed her, "Ok ok, this is a camera!"

"Cam-el?" Kaga looked confused at the En-ish word. "What does it do?"

"It- erm- pictures?" The guy with the eye thingy spoke hesitated.

"Pik-cure?" Kaga was even more confused.

"Look!" The guy turned the object around and showed the back of it by the fence. Kaga leaned forward and saw some runes lit up and suddenly an image of what appeared to be her incredible likeness appeared on the surface.

"WAA!" Kaga hissed, her tail and ears standing up as she glared at them. "EVIL! You steal my spirit!"

"N-no no!" No steal sp-spirit!" The guy cried in surprised, "Picture!"

"Look!" He turned and pointed it at a nearby tree and clicked something before showing it to Kaga.

Kaga hissed in warning as he pushed the evil artifact towards her, and she saw an identical image of the tree inside the artifact! "What magic is this!?"

"N-no no magik!" The two laughed and seemed to wipe tears and sweat away in relief as Kaga calmed down. "This- take picture!"

"It can capture anything inside?" Kaga looked suspiciously at the screen and tapped hard at the object with her extended claw nails.

"Don-t break!" The guy holding the artifact hugged it close to his chest, saying some weird language, "Antique, DSLR Nikon D850~!"

Kaga leaned back and looked at them with disgust, "You two are weird..."

"No- weird!" The two of them yelped, "We take picture- of you!"

"What? Why?" Kaga narrowed her eyes in fright, wondering what they want to do with her 'pik-cure'!

"Catgirls!" The two guys spoked in unison, "REAL CATGIRLS! WOOOO!"

"Eh..." Kaga looked frightened by the two and she slowly backed away from the two strange men, "My mommy told me... not to speak with strangers..." And she turned tail and ran off in fright. "Crazy hoomans!"

"Ahhh~ Nekomimi moeeee~~~!"


ความคิดของผู้สร้าง
Neobear Neobear

Advance chapters are available on Patreon (18 Chapters Ahead)

https://www.patreon.com/neobear

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Donate/Support me via Paypal now!

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I will be taking a week break for Chinese New Year next week. So see you guys on the 11th of Feb!

Happy Chinese New Year~ !

Stones and reviews please!

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