Through the lens of the spyglass, Kay saw that Darkport was much less populated than their last visit.

“Looks like a few of the ships are gone.” Lauren commented, “There’s a new one that I don’t remember from last time too, but it looks like a recent capture.”

“Why do you say that?”

“The obvious battle damage, plus they’re still unloading it.” She pulled at his arm until he could see the ship she was talking about through the glass. “That one.”

“Oh, yeah. I see what you mean.” Kay folded up the spyglass and put it away. “… I don’t like having to wait like this.”

“Well, you’re in charge, so you can’t go raring off on every single mission we need to complete. You’ll have to get used to waiting.”

He rubbed at the back of his head as he frowned. “I understand; I just don’t like it.” He looked over at Lauren and grinned, “I’m still practicing all the things I need to get better at to be the best leader I can, but sitting around waiting on someone else to risk themselves is aggravating.” He huffed a sigh, “It also doesn’t help that the safety and security of the people that I’ve been entrusted with are dependent on someone else succeeding.”

“That’s one of the curses of leadership,” Eleniah commented as she stared down her own spyglass at the port. “Which is why I’m glad I’m not the one in your position.”

Kay slowly turned his head to look at her, “I’m going to get you for that. You’re the one that put me in this position!”

“No, I gave you the option; I didn’t make you choose to lead an entire growing nation.”

Kay gave her some harsh side-eye. “Vengeance will be mine.”

Eleniah opened her mouth to reply, most likely to return the banter when she suddenly stiffened in place.

“What’s wrong?” Kay asked immediately.

“That flag from the ship they’re unloading…” Kay saw her scowl underneath her hands, holding up the spyglass. “That’s the flag of a merchant family I know. They’re some of my cousin’s royal suppliers, and the owner is a good man.”

“Well, we’re going to be taking out the pirates that attacked their ship, so let’s see if we can return their cargo and people once we’re done here.”

“… Thanks.”

The next few hours were spent waiting and watching the pirate port as they waited for the group that had gone out on Kay’s orders to return. They managed to find out that a lot of the ships were empty for some reason, with huge swathes of the pirates they’d been expecting to see missing.

Eventually, the group returned and reported success.

“We’ve completely blocked off their passage out in multiple places,” The leader of the group of Earth Manipulators and Earth Mages reported. “They aren’t sailing a ship out that way unless they have as many Earth Mages as we did and several hours of time to work in.”

“Fantastic work,” Kay congratulated them. He looked over at Commander Mapsight. “Commander? Are we ready to go?”

“Not quite yet.” He replied, “I sent some of the adventurers we brought with us to sneak closer and see if they can get any information about what’s going on down there. If all the pirates we were expecting are just over one of these hills having a party, and they’ll all rush back when we attack, we need to know that.”

“You trust… No, sorry. I’m not going to be that leader that’s always micromanaging his people. Let me know when we know more.”

Mapsight grinned at him and nodded.

A few more hours passed before the adventurers returned. They gave a quick report to Mapsight, who looked surprised. He quickly ran over and started filling Kay in.

“I guess that the Shatterplate Order should have come with us. Their vampyr has been here recently enough to turn a few people.”

Kay frowned. “So they could still be here.”

“No, one of the adventurers was actually crazy enough to just walk up to someone and ask what was going on. They pretended to be from a trading group coming into the port and whoever they talked to actually believed them. Apparently, the vampyr came by, pretending not to be a vampyr, and set themselves up as some new rich guy in town gathering a crew. They ended up turning everyone who came to join into thralls or newborn vampyr and using them as a distraction to steal something from one of the captains here. The whole town thinks they’ve run off with whatever they took, and the distraction of getting attacked by weak vampyr and thralls kicked off a multi-directional war between all the different crews that didn’t trust each other. One of the captains that hated one of the others said that the attack was the second captain’s secret plan, and that set off the whole town.” Mapsight shrugged, “They wiped themselves out.”

“So, we have a lot less pirates to deal with, but there may or may not be a vampyr running around and or some of their servants.”

“Correct.”

“Are we ready then?”

“We are.”

“Let’s conquer a pirate port then.”

The military of Avalon was still fairly small, at least in comparison to the American military back on Kay’s homeworld. In fact, comparing it to that made Avalon’s army seem incredibly tiny. Mapsight and other people more experienced with militaries in this world had told him that two hundred people were still fairly small, but that was in comparison to places like the Bannerthrust Empire, which had a military of tens of thousands. Compared to other places as far along in their development as Avalon, which is to say very early in their existence, they were doing fine.

With an additional hundred-odd adventurers, either from Avalon’s state-sponsored adventurers led by Meten, or just random other adventurers that had been drawn in as Avalon grew that had been hired to take part in this subjugation, they had just under four hundred people.

“Where do you want us?” Kay asked, gesturing at himself and the group of Blood Guard with him.

“I’m going to be treating you like you’re another group of adventurers, basically.” Mapsight told them, “Meten and Eleniah are going to stick with me and head after anything or anyone that needs a tier five smashing them to bits. You and some of the more powerful adventurers will be doing something similar, just with less important targets.” He gestured off to his left. “For now, stay on my left, close to the center.”

Half an hour later, they marched on Darkport.

As the small army got closer and closer to the pirate town, people eventually started to notice. Someone stumbled out of a building and started vomiting. When they looked up, they saw the approaching force and ran off deeper into the town. Soon a small crowd of people was gathered at the edge of the outermost buildings.

At Commander Mapsight’s command, the small army came to a halt just outside the range of someone with a standard missile weapon. It was always possible one of the pirates had a Skill or item that could hit them from that distance, but it was a small chance.

“This area is claimed by Avalon!” Crucius Mapsight shouted out, using a small enchanted item that he’d had shipped from Tumbling Rapids to make his voice louder, “This settlement is a known haven for pirates and thieves, and thus, as the appointed commander of the military of Avalon, I command you all to surrender! You will be given a fair trial under the laws of Avalon, and those of you innocent of any crimes will be freed! Those who resist will be killed, and this settlement will come under the direct rule of Avalon and Lord Kay!”

Kay could see the pirates muttering to talking to each other. A few of them ran off, but the rest just stood there and stared.

“How long should we give them, sir?” Mapsight asked him.

“Let’s say… half an hour.” Kay decided, “There can’t be that many people left to spread the word to, not after what apparently happened over the last few days, so we don’t need to wait too long.”

A little less than that later, a man with light blue skin and what looked like scales, at least from the distance Kay was at they looked like scales covering his skin, climbed to the top of the closest building. “Well, if it isn’t the folks who cut off one of our best trade routes! Come here to finally get rid of us, have you? Well, you can all go fuck yourselves! I’m Dances Under Waves of Blood, one of the Head Captains, and I say Darkport will never surrender to a bunch of goody-two-shoes landlubbers!”

A chunk of the pirates standing underneath the pirate captain’s building perch cheered, the loudest being the ones that had followed the captain into the area.

Kay winced at the translation that came through. He wasn’t surprised that there was some kind of derogatory term for people who didn’t sail from people who did but having it translated as “landlubber” made the guy sound like some kind of cartoon pirate. He was a pirate, but he was an actual murderous bandit of the seas, not some watered-down version for children’s entertainment.

The slight amount of pity that Kay felt for the man that stemmed from the spotty translation faded away as the Head Captain kept ranting.

“And once I’m done eating all your leaders for dinner, we’ll pass what’s left of you around to my crew to have fun with!” He laughed heartily and began describing the kind of “fun” he meant.

Kay slowly turned his head to the side. “Lauren?” He lightly said the name of the Captain of his Blood Guard.

“Sir?”

He gestured at the gloating pirate with his chin. “Deal with that.”

“My pleasure, sir.”

Lauren had been a scout when Kay had met her, with only a handful of Classes under her belt and only one of them at tier three. Training under a Class Line Progenitor and then ending up in a leadership position had shifted her focus quite a bit, but her main combat style had only been augmented. She held out her hand, and a rush of blood from her own storage container formed into the shape of a bow. In her other hand, blood solidified in the unnatural way that the magic of Shape Blood changed the material into a large arrow. It looked almost like a small harpoon with an incredibly pointy and large head to it.

With one smooth motion, she fit the arrow onto a bowstring that formed from the ends of the bow even as she drew, and she held the bow at tension for far longer than someone without magically enhanced muscles could.

Avalon’s army had stopped well out of range of someone without a Skill or some equipment to make sure that they hit at long distances. Lauren’s personal fighting style had centered around sniping.

The blood arrow took the Head Captain in the throat mid-word, and with a choked gurgle, he slipped down the roof, landing on a couple of his former subordinates that hadn’t understood what was happening fast enough to move.

“Commander.”

“My lord?”

“I believe we’ve given them long enough.”

Mapsight nodded and turned towards the main body of troops. “All troops, advance!”