“Okay. Do I kill them?”

If that black square meant they were pahipiti, did that not mean their intentions were clear?

“I will go get Kalou Saha,” the teen said and bowed, hastily running off.

When he returned with Kalou Saha, the ship had stopped about 2000ft (600m) away from them.

“Please, could you wait?” Pelou Saha asked while catching his breath.

“Why?”

“We can talk to them.”

‘They want to talk to thieves?’

Ferrudion shrugged his shoulders. Either way this situation was new and interesting for him.

“Shout? Can they hear?”

The ship seemed too far away for them to hear anything without a magic to help them.

“We can put a few flags on the mast. Then they send a boat with someone to talk.”

“Okay.”

Ferrudion watched as a few mortals hoisted a square blue flag, waited, switched it out for a blue flag with a white stripe, waited, and so on. After a series of twelve flags, he watched the other ship respond by adding a blue flag underneath their black flag.

And indeed, just as Kalou Saha had predicted, soon a small boat was approaching theirs.

Unlike the ships, it did not move through magics. It had neither a rotor nor a magic to remove friction. Instead twelve mortals moved it by pushing through the water with slabs of wood. Two other mortals simply sat in it, doing nothing.

Ferrudion recognized their souls. One was a soul matching Kalou Saha and the other was the second strongest mortal soul he had encountered here: the soul ten times as strong as Kalou Saha's.

The mortals moving the boat were weaker than Kalou Saha and Kalou Dan but still stronger than most other mortals on this ship.

“The strongest is coming.”

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“The soul stronger than mine?”

“Yes.”

Kalou Saha bowed to him, the angle a bit steeper than usually and said,

“Please, can you protect our lives?”

Ferrudion instinctively wanted to agree, but he forced himself to consider what his parents had told him about mortals.

“Father said a good god makes his followers stronger and protects them. Mother said weak mortals are too short-lived to care for. Are these mortals weak or strong mortals?”

He had not seen many mortals before coming here. To be precise, Ferrudion had met three mortals and they had all been as strong as the water, on the cusp of becoming lesser gods or at least deities.

‘Whatever. I think I like these mortals. And I am a greater god. I can do what I want.’

Having come to that conclusion, Ferrudion looked at Kalou Saha and shook his fist twice.

“I can. I intend to.”

~~~

The pahipiti arrived. The two strong ones used managy to jump up unto the deck of the ship while the others stayed in the boat.

Kalou Saha bowed to Ferrudion before going there to meet them, and Ferrudion decided to follow him.

“Greetings strangers-gam,” Kalou Saha addressed the pahipiti with a bow.

They were a man and a woman with the woman being the stronger one.

Kalou Dan stepped up behind him to do the same.

“Cut the shosha and bring me your salaloteymme,” the male pahipiti said.

“Strangers-gam, we paluhisou the flags with the intention of talking. There is a soul-seer on board.”

Ferrudion grinned.

‘They intend to use me to scare these thieves off.’

The female pahipiti guffawed.

“A soul-seer? On your ship? Are you not ameypanne from the Ironforest Kingdom?”

Ferrudion recognized the name. This was indeed were those mortals were from. They had showed the area to him on the map.

“We are from the Ironforest Kingdom, but we are not all amipanu. My nepenu is amahopitu.”

Ferrudion had trouble following their conversation as it contained a few words he did not recognize, and the pahipiti spoke the language with a strange accent.

“Amahopitu? Then give me your nepenne as well!”

“The soul-seer has agreed to protect us. But we do not want to be shu!oputa with all the pahipiti of your arm. If you leave, we will give you a little lotimu from our sala.”

The woman grinned.

“Show me your soul-seer. Or better, soul-seer, show me your strength!”

Ferrudion pondered for a moment.

‘A mortal challenging a greater god?’

He grinned back.

Then he sent out tendrils of his soul not only to the two pahipiti standing on the ship, but even those 2000ft (600m) away.

『“The strength of a greater god.”』 He transmitted his idea of the strength of a greater god to all one-hundred-and-three pahipiti.

The man and the woman collapsed, and Ferrudion felt all but one of the mortals' souls violently imploding.

It had been an idea, not a concept. Still, the idea was too vast for those puny mortal souls to hold.

The pahipiti in the boat immediately fell silent while the one on deck wailed for a while before likewise stilling. Only the woman next to him held on, groaning as she ground her head against the planks.

Ferrudion felt fear radiating from Kalou Saha's and Kalou Dan's souls, but he was busy observing the female pahipiti's soul. It shook violently but had yet to implode.

While the other souls had already finished dissipating, it seemed to slowly stabilize.

‘Interesting. Maybe I can send her a full sentence?’