We are in a pretty fucked situation to be honest. Right now we are hiding in the forest under the cover of trees. I have to be thankful that the mayfires are not farmers. If they were, surrounding us would be crops instead of such a dense forest.

Then there would have been no way for us to hide out like this. After all, even the most useless of sensory formations would have been able to pick up a ship in the middle of a farm.

The forests provide a better source of camouflage. Right now this little bit of camouflage is the only thing that is keeping us alive. I wonder just how little of a fuck the mayfires give to farming. After all, such dense forests do not appear from nowhere. It might take centuries or a few decades if you are the druids.

Returning to the ship, things are pretty bad here. Our little trip in the forest has nearly wrecked the ship. the fact that we are not a ruin at this moment is already proof that my ship is way more durable than the average ship.

That is the reason that we managed to escape from the other side. They would have been destroyed completely trying to follow us in the forest and their sensory formations would simply not have been strong enough to actually catch us in the forest. Still, I had to travel a hundred kilometres at my full speed to leave them in the dust behind us.

Right now we have landed in the forest, presently hidden. Another thing that I should be thankful is that the trees here are old and strong enough. If this was a new forest, with trees younger than a few decades I would be leaving a trail of destruction that would have made taking such a risk pointless.

Well, the present situation of my ship is also due to the fact that these were not new trees, that would snap from simple contact. Most trees that I have collided with have managed to leave pretty significant cracks on the ship. The trees themselves are fine though.

The cracks are still fine. The ship will lose quite a bit of its durability, but it would be able to fly at the very least. The main problem right now is the holes in the ship. Airships are designed in such a way that there is going to be little contact with the environment outside. After all, without the suitable environment we will end up in a very uncomfortable position of being dead. Environment formations will help out in a situation like this but they are not really useful when you have hundreds of holes in your ship from which the air of your ship is leaking out.

Without patching those holes, we will only be able to fly for five minutes before the environment of the ship will become too dangerous for my troop and me. Right now, my troop is actually focussing on doing just that. They are cutting down the surrounding trees to make makeshift planks, that they are going to use to cover those holes. Once that is done, flying the ship is still going to be risky but at the very least I will be able to stay in the air for an hour at least. Also, there is a risk that the cut trees might be noticed, but trevor is out there supervising the other two. He has assured me that the trees will be cut with enough distance from each other that nobody will be able to really see it from that far up. As for the noise, there is no way a ship that far up will be able to hear this much sound.

You would need a mana sense at least as strong as mine and a sensory formation as good as the stuff that my master makes for that.

Other than that, there has been quite a bit of damage on all the formations as well, especially the sense enhancing ones. Thankfully my experience with the previous ship has managed to make this part of my work easier. I will be able to manage this amount of repairs quite easily. Right now, my major problem is the formation room. I mean the damage that it has faced is still fine. There is a small hole in the ship but it is still not that big. The major problem is that the shot has greatly reduced the integrity of that wall.

That means that any shot at the formation room that will connect is going to lead to the entire wall giving away. No amount of reinforcement is really going to help with that. If that sharpshooter were to attack us again, the wall is going to be a weakness that would mean my instantaneous defeat.

I actually have to ask about that to trevor. The man has all the detailed records on the soldar plains. All the documents that were considered to have sensitive information that I would not be able to keep hidden are all provided to trevor. This seems to include all the detailed notes on the many pirate gangs that exist in the area. Don't ask me why I wasn't provided with this documents, The head office can have a thousand reasons for it.

After all, a person that is so precise with a cannon has to be famous and their pilot was not particularly bad as well. I mean, I am no genius but I am pretty good at piloting. The other side was only a bit inferior to me. I am sure that trevor would be able to give me pretty detailed information on them as well.

Right now, I have completely shut down all the formations on the ships to hide ourselves from our enemies. You see, the way that our ship is powered is actually from ambient mana gathering formations. These formations can absorb the ambient mana around us and store it, which is used by us to power up our ship and our cannons.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

The main problem with those formations is that they tend to be very obvious to everybody even with a lackluster mana sense. It would literally be like a black spot on a white sheet. It is a bit of a risk for if we are discovered as we do not have enough reserves to even run our cannons let alone run away. Doing this is also greatly reducing the risk of being discovered in the first place though.

I am pretty sure that trevor doesn't actually approve of this, but it is for this reason that I am the captain. He doesn't have any idea how airship battles normally occur. At least that is what I am telling myself. Any second now I am sure that our enemies are going to make their way here and kill us in moments.

Well, there I go sending myself into a panic. It is not like these what ifs are going to be helping me. The only thing that I can do is focus and work on what I can work on. I have done enough recording for now. I will continue this log when trevor makes his way here. I after all have repairing to do now.

(After about half a day)

Well, we are yet to be caught so that is a positive at least. Not that it is really helping with my anxiety. The troop is half way through the process of patching the ship up.

Trevor is right now in the formation room with me. I was about to go and meet him in his office, but the work with the formations has taken longer than I had expected it to take.

"So who was it?", I ask the man.

"Who?", he asks.

"You know as well as me, what I am talking about. Who has attacked us?", I ask him, a bit more fire in my voice than I would have liked. This was a pretty embarassing defeat after all. If it was a brawler, it still would have been fine. I am in such a situation with a mere patroller.

"Well, I will be frank, we actually don't know who it is.", he replies. "We still have a pretty decent idea on him though."

"How can we not know. We have a near constant presence here.", I interrupt him. The scholars not having a record on somebody so close to home is pretty surprising.

"Well, this particular ship has never attacked a black mountain ship.", he replies. "All we know comes from second hand information, whether from their allies or their victims. As you can guess, this particular enemy of ours has quite the ability in stealth...."

"Get to the point.", I reply, snapping a bit. The man was about to go off on one of his tangents.

"Well, You were the one to ask.", he replies. "It is a pretty specific pirate gang, one called as the bloodfire gang and the ship that he heads is called as the shadow, headed by the archer. This archer is confirmed to be a captain of the bloodfire gang."

"So speak about the bloodfire gang. I don't know what a captain is for them.", I command him.

"Well, the bloodfire gang is a pirate gang. They are just like any pirate gang out there. The only really unique thing about them is that they have a very clearly defined hierarchy.", he speaks. "They start at the recruits, newbies thathave never gone any mission for the gang. Then there are the soldiers, who have gone on at least one mission. Then there is the sub captain, a soldier that has been given control over a patroller. This is followed by a captain, who are given control of a brawler and lastly we have the leader."

"Well, those are intersting titles over there.", I reply.

"Well they have no clear names for such a role. We named them for our convenience so they are a bit simple.", he continues. "To return to the archer, he is a captain of theirs. We have never really met him but the man is supposed to be very good at shooting cannons. The people that we have captured claim that he has never missed a shot in his life. We don't know how true that is, but with the performance of his that I have seen it can't be very far from the truth."

"Well, such a precise shot is very hard to believe. The man would have a made a killing in the bone pits. Why would he be here?", I ask. "And if he has a brawler, why was he in a patroller."

"Well, nobody knows. As for why he was in a patroller, that is his usual strategy it looks like.", trevor speaks. "He ambushes people using a patroller. After all, nobody is expecting a patroller to be capable of causing such damage. Any other ship would have been destroyed with that first shot. That is why he calls his ship as the shadow, it seems. it is rarely seen in use."

"If that is one of the captains, what about the others.", I reply. "If one of their captain has come into action, it must mean that we are facing the bloodfire gang in some way or the other."

"Captain, I can give you all the information that you need but I need the guarantee that you won't go about blabbing about them unless you meet them.", he speaks. "The reason that you weren't provided with all of these documents in the first place is that you don't have much control over your mouth. The head office was worried that you would go about leaking all this information, without suitable reason."

"Fine, I will shut down the log now and I swear that I won't speak about them unless we have to fight them.", I reply. To be honest I am not particularly shocked, the head office always does stuff like that.