Right now every single person of the troop is with me in the formation room. The reason for that is simple, they are going to be useless in the battle that is going to occur. After all, if they do end up getting close enough to board us, it would be easier to just shoot their cannons at us. Right now having them out there is just going to be increasing my work. Better that they are here with me, where it is safer.

Right now the major problem that I am facing is the fact that this is not going to be the standard battle, involving my cannons or anything else. The ship is too fragile right now for it to be able to survive an actual battle. Even a single shot might just end up ruining this ship. That is simply a risk that I will not be able to take.

That means that I am going to get to try something that I have never really done before. I am going to be trying the dance. Well technically it is called as advanced airship maneuvering, but everybody calls it the dance.

You see, airships and the way to control them is usually quite restricted. After all, if you were to twist and turn the ships as you wanted it is going to end up with everything inside of it flying around like a ping pong ball, especially the people.

That is why you have basic maneuvering, which kind of makes traveling in a ship kind of like travelling in a ship of the sea. (This is not to say basic maneuvering is not more complex than advanced maneuvering. It is just more stabler and less likely to cause the ship to careen out of control.) basic maneuvering certainly makes the act of shooting cannons easier than with any other style of ship control.

While most ships do tend to have protections for when we are using advanced maneuvering, we do not have it. As far as I know, every ship of the guard corps has such a protection. Even my crappy ship before had formations to root everything to the floor, though it had begun to fail much like everything on that ship. Well, the gentle sword does not have that. Maybe my master did not expect that I would be facing such a heavy opposition, maybe he simply did not have the time to put it in, but it has ended up screwing things every where. We have had to fasten down everything using the standard method, which would be ropes.

That is another reason that the troop is in here with me. The formation room does not have anything that might end up flying into the air if and when I have to tilt the ship. Also, when the rope does end up snapping, there is nothing pointy here is hay might result in somebody blinding themselves accidently.

Well, this is as reasonable a compromise as I can make, since holding down my cannons like this has nearly made them useless. I could try and shoot them, but it is going to blow a hole through the ship's wall which would just work to damage the already weakened ship. If I am dancing, I will not be able to aim anyways.

Well, it is a reasonable tradeoff, since this would mean that this will greatly reduce the chance of them actually harming us. Well, this is about the best that I can do. After all, how exactly am I going to be aiming these cannons. The coordination matrix is nearly useless without further work.

As for what we are doing right now, we are all waiting down here with enough tension in the room that it can be cut with a knife. Right now the shadow and its patrollers are looking for us somewhere up there.

As for why I am saying it seems to be, is the fact that my mana sense is barely able to catch it. I could use my sensory formation to sense it better, but that would also mean that the other side is going to detect me. If I was at my peak, I wouldn't have needed the sensory formation to at least tell that there was something up there. Right now all I can feel is the flashes of the sensory formation activating. I can't tell where it is nor give a direction to it. All I can tell is that sensory formations are being used. It is like seeing a blob, where I should be seeing a bullseye.

Being blind like this is more scary than I have expected it to be. Every time that I hear a leaf rustling outside, I imagine it to be a ship landing onto the ground next to me. Why the hell is the forest so windy.

They are looking for us in a grid like pattern, with every patroller having a region assigned to them, which will allow them to use their crappy sense formations more economically. This is the case at least according to trevor who has confirmed to me that it was their general operations. Their patrollers are spread apart looking for us. This is another place where the stinginess of the pirates have benefitted us. Their sensory formations are really very crappy.

And they are active sensory formations of the worst quality at that. (The reason they are called this is due to how much mana they release when being used ) They are active sensory formations of the kind that only enhance the five senses. Of these five senses, only two are of a real threat to us right now. That is sight and hearing.

We have somewhat managed sight by camouflaging ourselves. The troop has been particularly busy doing that as well by covering the ships with branches and leaves after they completed the patchwork of the ship.

It is not a good camouflage in any way, but it should be able to fool a ship looking at us from five or ten kilometres away. If we are lucky, they might even end up passing us by without finding us. At least that is the hope, that the camouflage will be able to fool any ship looking at us for the next half an hour or so.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

As for hearing, we are trying to be as quiet as possible. Right now, none of us are even twitching for fear that somebody would be able to hear it.

That is the only benefit of this search party. If we manage to fool them for this period then most of their ships will be away from me and I will have a free shot to the mayfire castle. If I were to go there at my full speed, I would at least be in the general vicinity of the place.

Honestly, with the way that things are going my hope of finding allies near the mayfire castle is decreasing. If the mayfires were active, they would have already revealed their presence here. The bloodfire gang wouldn't certainly have been able to function with such activeness. Right now there is no use in thinking about. The mayfires are not weak. Even if they are not able to leave the castle, they should still have control over a decent chunk of the place.

(After about ten minutes.)

Right now the ship is silent enough that I would be able to drop a pin and it would be heard at the other side of the ship. The reason for that is quite simple. Right now we are being looked at by somebody.

You are always able to tell with sensory formations. If not actively like me, then unconsciously at least. Right now though, their sensory formation is visible to me like a fire in my vision. They are pretty close to us, about two kilometres away though I can't really confirm that with a lot of confidence.

Still, I can feel thoughts pop up, causing my back to become slick with sweat. Anything that we do right now might end up screwing it for us. The camouflage has an already decent chance of failing. Right now I have no way to tell how our present situation is going to end up.

If we do end up being discovered things are not going to be pretty. Up there are at the very least ten ships. Granted, these ships are the kind that will fall with a single shot. All they need to do is shoot me once and at least one of those shots is going to end up screwing with me, I tell you. (Knowing my luck it is going to be the first shot that is going to do me in.)

All of this is not considering the fact that the archer can be on any one of those ships. If he is there, then I am screwed. Thankfully their brawler is not here or things would have become really bad for me.

After all, a brawler would have had five cannons at least. Even dancing I would not be able to handle that many cannons, especially with the archer at the helm of those cannons.

Looking into the eyes of the soldiers opposite me, I can see their fear and panic make way into their eyes. With trevor it is more the patience of the hunter, who is keeping his entire body still just to spring into action as would be needed.

With the other two, it is the fear of a prey and is more reactive in nature. I have to be thankful that the two have not unlocked their mana sense or I am sure that they would have already done something by now.

Not that being completely still like this is going to help us. Very few ships tend to have formations that are able to enhance a person's hearing to such an extreme degree. It is just such a finicky sense, and so prone to overloading a person's mind that it is not very useful. There have been more than a few cases of people losing their hearing when they crank it up to such an extreme degree.

Still, that is a risk that none of us want to take. By the way, with every second that I am speaking, the mana signature is becoming clearer and clearer, clearly indicating that the ship is getting closer.

Now it makes me wish that I did not have my mana sense. Every second, it is taking all of my will not to just connect to the formations and bolting away.

Fuck off, I am stopping this log. The more I record, the more I can feel myself slip into a panic.

(A few minutes later.)

Well, it looks like we have managed to fool the ship for now. They will return soon enough, but we will not be here by then. Right now, the mana signature of the ship is blurring again, which can only mean that they should be going away from us.

Right now we are all getting into position. This means that I am connecting myself to every formation here. Once the ship has gone a decent distance away I am going to activate the ship at its maximum throttle.

The speed of that is enough that I hope that I should be able to leave them in the dust, that is especially if they have to turn back to come in our direction.

Right now the main threat that I will be facing would be the ships that are still in our path. While even they would not really be able to keep up with us, they will still pose a threat. Especially because I have to assume that they are going to have the archer in there somewhere.

They might not have, but it is better to assume that.

"In a minute captain.", it is trevor that speaks.

His voice is barely a whisper but in this silence it seems like a thunderclap. Well, I was the one to tell him to time it for me. I will need to warm up the propulsion formation after all.

It is a bit of a risk, but I hope there is no way that just that bit of mana would be enough to be a real risk. It would be more risky for us to not be able to achieve our maximum speed immediately. They might have cannons in the back of their ship after all.

"Now"

Trevors voice interrupts me, as I release the propulsion formation to go at its maximum speed.