"It's still fresh…" Odeta muttered, straightening herself. "Someone passed through here not too long ago…"

I turned to Emilia who was still polishing the sapphire in her hands without a care in the world, "Emilia… Could it be one of your people?"

She snapped out of her trance upon hearing her name being called, "Huh? What? What happened? Are there more gems for me?"

She's still stuck in her money mode huh..

I pointed at the footprint and her brows furrowed, "What is that? Is there someone else on the island aside from us?"

"That was what we wanted to know. Do you think your ship is already here and you have people looking for you?"

"If they are, it wouldn't make sense for them to go in the opposite direction of where I was. Additionally, it looks like whoever was walking through here was trying to hide their tracks and only missed that one spot, I doubt my men would even bother with such a thing."

I tapped my chin with a finger, "In that case… What is the likelihood that this island is being used as a hideout by a group of pirates?"

Emilia frowned, "To be honest… Relatively high."

Odeta punched her fists together, "Does that mean we get to beat some people up?!"

The both of us turned to look at Emilia.

The Nekomata considered for a moment, "Our original plan had been to scale the mountain to get a better view in the first place. Since they would see my ship anyway, we might as well go and wipe them out while we're at it."

The Amrap beside me punched her fist into the air, "Oh yeah! Time to beat some pirates!! I can finally have a worthy opponent here to challenge!"

Only you would get excited over beating up pirates… I'm guessing the Tunnel Stalker didn't count for her since I did most of the work?

Emilia suddenly started giggling to herself, "Ehehe~ I bet those pirates would have tons of loot they stole from passing ships~ They must also have collected more stuff that drifted here than those Sirens too! That means I get to claim them for myself after we beat them!"

Correction, looks like I am the only one feeling nonplussed over the prospect of beating up pirates I guess…

Wait… If they raided merchant ships here… Then they very well could have taken the sweets they were transporting too right?

That means… The pirates must have sweets too!

"We better hurry up and go there before they eat all the sweets!"

*

Odeta continued leading us along the trail that the supposed pirates used.

Emilia even stored away her gems for the moment and had a serious expression on her face with a hand resting on her katana.

I took up the rear and followed behind them. Since we were expecting a fight, I had called out a few of my Shadow Summons to spread out into trees to follow us while also looking out for any potential traps or ambushes.

We did come across a few traps like a pitfall trap and an alarm bell hooked up to a trip wire but Odeta spotted these easily and we managed to avoid them without setting either off.

Eventually, the path led upwards towards an outcropping on the side of the mountain where we could clearly see what looked like a settlement of sorts there.

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At first I thought we simply ran into a village of locals who were simply living here but Emilia did a guts pose, "I knew it! Pirates!"

I tilted my head at her, "How can you tell?"

Odeta was the one to answer my question as she pointed to what looks like a red flag pinned to the sides of one of the huts.

"See that treasure chest picture on the flag, sister Aster? All pirates have that symbol on them!"

I squinted my eyes and sure enough, what looked like the drawing of an opened wooden chest with three abnormally large coins peeking out of the opening could be seen. Just under it was a pair of wings which I suppose was just this group's own symbol.

"All pirates use that?"

Emilia nodded from beside the Amrap, "It's a sign that the pirates use to tell ships that they are after their cargo and if they surrender, they will be spared. If the chest has one sword stabbed through it, then they expect their target to surrender immediately or they will not hesitate to sink their ship. If there are two swords stabbed through it however, then they are not interested in taking prisoners."

"Do the flag colours mean anything?"

Both of them shook their heads.

"Huh… Then there could be pirates out there flying false flags in that case too, right?" I asked, genuinely curious.

The Nekomata turned to look at me in shock, "There's no way anyone would be stupid enough to do that."

"Eh? Why?"

"The sea is God Yokmii's domain and to sail through them you have to respect the rules placed upon it. God Yokmii respects shows of force and power and anyone who lives their life on the sea will find great misfortune should they resort to underhanded tactics like that."

Hmm… And I suppose this wasn't even something like a superstition since gods actually do exist in this World and they can affect the World directly too.

"Huh… So what about those Nekomatas who snuck onto your ship to sabotage it? They were using underhanded tactics weren't they?"

Emilia's brows instantly furrowed, "Exactly! Those outdated, backwater Nekos that are worse than even alley rats! They have no respect for God Yokmii at all just because they centre their lives in the forest! I bet they're all-- Mnnfff!"

I had to cover up her mouth as her voice started to get louder and louder, almost giving us away to the pirates.

At least she had the decency to look apologetic when she calmed down.

She coughed, "Ahem… My apologies… But yes, that's exactly what I meant. They're lucky they don't live a life on the sea or God Yokmii would definitely curse them. But they definitely would want to stay away from the sea for a while."

"So err… What's the plan?" I asked, looking at the small outpost ahead of us. "It seems like they built it up on that cliff away from the forest so that people can't sneak up on them. There's also only one path leading up there too and they have a good view of everything around here."

Odeta punched her fists together, "We charge in through the front door of course! They won't be able to stop us!"

"Umm… I'm pretty sure their archers would shoot us down before we even got halfway there, Odeta… And even if we somehow manage to reach there, they would have raised the alarm and we would be faced with even more of them…" I pointed out.

Unexpectedly, Emilia actually took Odeta's side, "Actually, I agree with Miss Odeta's idea for this. The pirates here seem to be a mix of Mahuns, Inugamis and Wrunchs so they won't be able to match my speed. I can cover this distance quickly and get their attention first. Then Lady Aster and Miss Odeta can hit them from the back when they are distracted."

I swivelled to face her, "Are you serious? We don't even know how many of them there are. What if you get swarmed before we can get to you?"

Odeta chuckled, "Wahaha! Sister Aster! There's barely a handful of huts there! I don't think there's more than those goblins we fought earlier!"

"Uh-huh… And what if they have a few really strong people there? Maybe stronger than any of us? I think we should be more cautious about this…"

Like seriously, these pirates aren't monsters you know? It's not like we know how strong each individual pirate is just by seeing them from here. At least the monsters have fixed stats.

"Lady Aster is a real worrywart I see. It'll be fine! We still have your really overpowered Shadow Summons to back us up! You don't need to worry about using them here since we're going to kill them all anyway!"

"But… What about the possibility of there being a really strong pirate?"

Odeta and Emilia looked at each other before looking back at me.

"Lady Aster… If there was some pirate there that could be stronger than a Tunnel Stalker, then everyone within a thousand leagues of here would have heard of their name. Since no one else even knew of these pirates, I believe we're just dealing with a small group targeting small and inconsequential vessels. They might even just be scavengers or even deserters from other ships."

Hmm… I suppose Emilia would know more about this than I do… Heck, even Odeta has more experience dealing with groups like this than I do.

I guess I'm just being quite paranoid since there's a possibility of us running into another Off-Worlder considering I've met several of them so far and they've all had quite problematic personalities…

Oh well… I suppose the worst comes to worst, I'll just call up every single Shadow Summon I have and throw it at them before picking up these two girls and booking it back to the Sirens.

Yep, that sounds like a perfect plan!

In that case, let's go and gut some pirates and take their sweets!

They better still have some leftover from whatever raids they did or they'll regret it!