Ferd’s eyes are serious when he said that that was a normal conversation. I immediately turn my head sideways to look at the crew's faces. Some of them nodded to me and some of them gesture with a thumbs up.

“Crap…they are serious…”

Feeling a little bit defeated inside, I press the communication button again with reluctant. I don’t have any time to spare for trivialities and also, Merissa already told me that they are odd people so I should have at least expected this.

PUSH

“Um…Hello again…”

“There it is again, that angelic voice!”

“Come on now guys. Don’t scare her off.”

“Merissa cannot utter such beautiful voice after all!”

“Wha--?! Lies! Merissa’s is very cut--! I mean, I don’t like hearing that bitch’s voice!”

“Please, listen to me! I’m sorry for suddenly requesting this but, please, cooperate with me! The girl riding the phoenix flying around that giant devil is my little sister!”

I went straight to the point and told them about Hibiscus. Everything went silent from my request that it made me overly anxious because I know that they are contemplating an answer to my request.

There are seventy-four of them out there. Some responded, some didn’t but I know that they listened. Will they cooperate or not?

This is for our own survival. If all of them rejects at the same time, I don’t know anymore. I am not confident enough to think of the worst case scenario and countermeasure for it. Rather, I feel like I am being suffocated from the anxiousness.

If things go wrong, the only thing I am going to expect to go well is Merissa rescuing Casablanca. Hibiscus seems like she won’t last long in that state and eventually, she will exhaust herself. That’s the only chance that I could think of to rescue her.

“Ummm…everyone...”

“Hmmm…I don’t know. If payment is involved, I might have immediately agreed but…”

“Ah. We really can’t do free service.”

“That’s right, especially for a stranger.”

“Hate to break this to you kiddo but, we pirates expect payment.”

“Aww…can’t we do something about it? She sounds sincere.”

“She is Merissa’s friend. That woman did us a favor or two regarding our ship’s problem.”

“That’s right! After all, she is just one of machine maniac that we could rely on when we have a major ship problem.”

“She is not Merissa! Also, those favors are buried underneath her unorthodox acts! If you guys can bear her lies with the seventy-sixth Ether Point Core, then all of you are fools!”

“Hahaha! Are you still brooding over the fact that you can’t best her!?”

“S-Shut up!!”

“Well, if she is a stranger to us, why don’t we have her introduce herself to us? That way, she won’t be a stranger anymore!”

“That’s a really idiotic but profound reasoning. Also, she is asking us to cooperate with her that means she has something in her mind to defeat that thing.”

“That’s true. We are clueless about that thing and we need someone to coordinates our movements to get past this!”

“Question is, does she have any knowledge about naval warfare?”

“I have! I have knowledge about it”

That’s not a lie!

I am knowledgeable about naval warfare because of a game that I played when I got addicted to online gaming. I Learned such things about nautical miles, ammunition types like torpedoes, cannons and such, and lastly, about naval formation.

I don’t think of those will apply to their ships specs but I at least could bend and arrange a good fleet formation for them.

There will be setbacks in my command but I at least need them to listen to me so I can guarantee Hibiscus’ safety and to prevent them from shooting her down.

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“Hmm…I don’t know…even if your claim is true, we still haven’t seen your face. We don’t want any anonymous person ordering us around.”

“That’s also true.”

“Ah yes. Why don’t you open your channel to us to so we know how you look like?”

“That’s a good idea! While you’re at it, show us something sexy!”

“Ohh! Ohh! Show us your belly button!”

“You guys are sick! What if she’s just an old man with a voice of a young girl?! You’re going to fry our eyes!”

“The more reason we should see her, right?”

I immediately snap my sight to Ferd with a pale, petrified and horrified face. They started carrying the conversation all by themselves when I said I have knowledge about naval warfare and now I have to show my belly!

“Ferd…what does that mean?! What is this channel they are talking about?!”

“Hmm? A live streaming of you, they demanded it after all. See that big screen at the top, you will be broadcasted there and every ship captains will see you.”

“I didn’t sign up for this!!”

“We are pretty much certain that you will immediately get their trust. All of us here scored you and the two elves a one hundred points!”

BOOM!

The ship shakes and trembles as a current of the wave hit us. When I peek outside from the control room, Emby’s flight is slightly lowering in altitude and Hibiscus is barely hanging on him.

No good…!

“Ferd, please open the channel now!”

“Sure do Miss Gao.”

The large screen at the top starts buzzing. It seems that it is connecting to channel they are talking about. How does that even work?

Their technology is far advanced than I thought…

Is it because they manage to imitate and scrap the Etherian culture and knowledge? Were they able to copy them perfectly through the years of trial and error? I wonder how big Merissa’s contribution for their technological advancement.

I shake my head to wear off the thoughts and focus on what is happening right now.

I grab the hem of my shirt and…

Err…pull it up towards the screen…

This is rather embarrassing…! Just thinking how many people would see me like this already made me flushed.

I expose my belly as I raise my shirt and stops midway where they cannot see anything further than that.

At the same time, the channel connects to the ship captains. The large screen shows my face and right now, I realize how I am fiercely blushing…

But…there was no response after a minute of connecting to them. Everything went silent that it made me worried.

“Umm…hello…?”

“Okay kiddo, the belly button thing was a joke but you caught me off guard there!”

“Wow…I mean…wow…that’s a smooth and thin waist…”

“Holy shit, that got me hard!”

“Sick perverts, that looks like nine or ten years old to me!”

“Hey, forget about that! We really don’t have a choice now but to heed her request, right?”

“Yeah, I guess I’ll let her do her thing.”

“Merissa did trust her. I will do the same.”

“No argument here.”

“Payment, huh…I guess we don’t get to be rich if we are dead so I concede.”

“Lady, o also confirmed that those who are staying silent that they also going for it. The majority of yes to your request is…seventy-four!”

“That means that no one opposes you.”

“Hahaha! If Merissa told you that we are easy to please, she is right! Hahaha!”

“Kiddo, you can tuck that shirt back now. We don’t want perverts fawning over you.”

“Ah…! Everyone…thank you even though that was a really odd and awkward conversation!”

“After all Kiddo, this is going to be Merissa’s debt!”

“Gramps, that’s too shrewd of you…”

“Name’s Gants, nice meeting you kiddo.”

The voice of the old man that always calls me a kiddo is actually an old man. That was a good guess…

I don’t know…

I feel like he pulled off a string to make those who are staying silent to agree. If that is the case then I should be thankful for what he did and should be wary of him in the future. He sounds like a sketchy and stealthy old man to me.

I better keep him in my beware list.

Anyway, they agreed to it and I should be happy with that.

“So kiddo, what’s the plan?”

“Eh…?”

I turn to look at Ferd…

“Miss Gao, you are being asked for what plan you have devised.”

“Uh..yeah…!”

Crap!

I almost forgot!

Adding the factor that those aren’t normal ships, I guess I will try to stick to the basics…

“Okay, listen up! The plan is dividing all seventy-five ships into four fleets! The fleet will comprise of three forty and one thirty-five! This ship, Iowa will be included in the thirty-five so arrange the ship equally in your own judgment from fire power to speed and gather at the designated point!”

Ferd brings out a table top screen with the map of the sea we are in right now with the model of the devil in the middle of the ships. The ships are scattered everywhere and don't have any devised formation.

With the table top screen, I can convey positions and formation for the ships to the other captains as I confirmed that everyone has them.

“We will be using a circular formation for easy rotation! Our goal is to support my sister that is fighting right now. Of course, you can try to take down the giant devil but that would mean that you will provoke towards you so rotating with the ships in the rear would be ideal!”

I move the red dots that indicate the ship's position and placed each fleet in a respective direction of north, south east and west. Our ship will be staying at the rear where Casablanca fell. It’s a bit tricky but I have to make sure that when Merissa comes back, we will be there for her and Casablanca.

I stack circular lines of ships with ten ships at the first row, eight at the second row, six at the third row, five at the fourth row, four at the fifth and sixth row, and three at the seventh row with the total of forty ships.

Our fleet has varied numbers since we are just thirty-five.

“And so, not only we are going to assault the devil with torpedoes and cannons but we are also going to support my sister that is flying around in her dumb bird! Any question?”

“You’re really good at this kiddo! I guess me only responding means that they understand it.”

“Well then, let’s move out!”

The tide of the battle is about to turn over.

My orders were faithfully carried and the ships start assaulting the giant devil with their respective cannons, torpedoes, and lasers. In the middle of it, they realized that the stratagem that I drew is super effective as they take a turn in firing at the devil and rotating after a certain amount of time.

With the rotation, each ship is given time to for their Ether Point Core to cool down at a tolerable temperature before ravaging another volley of attacks at the devil again. I already saw the strategy as abusive…

Hibiscus is fighting the devil with Emby through tearing it with their Astlan’s Ira but since the devil has a super regeneration, it couldn’t leave a permanent damage but it kept the devil at bay.

But that doesn’t mean we aren’t doing any much damage to the devil.

Slowly but surely, it is exhausting its magic power because it was maintaining the whirlpool that surrounds us. It will either die from our attacks or its magic will run dry dispelling the whirlpools giving us the chance to escape.

But I cannot rely on the latter because if that happens and Casablanca and Merissa aren’t back yet, I have to hold off everyone from retreating which I more or less doubt they will listen to me.

Also, there’s something I need to apologize about, for all the captains out there…

That wasn’t even naval warfare strategy anymore…more or less…it is something foot soldiers that fight on the land would do.

Or at least, in my memory…