Starting from Zero Chapter 99

"Is that the moon emblem we saw before?"

It looked crescent from the ground but it's clearly a round shaped object when looking up here. The crescent part is golden, while the rest of the emblem is silver, which is very close to the platings around the ship and easy to mislook.

The designer smiled. "This emblem changes with the moon's position. When you see a full moon in the sky, its shape will also turn full moon."

"Oh that's interesting." I put my hand on the emblem. It feels chilly, but nice to the touch.

Next, we moved to the front deck. I saw the three big rotating platforms I asked the designer to build. Now there's problem, if we put the crystal cannon here...it will be a easy target!

"Can you make some protection for our crystal cannon?"

He gave me a puzzled look.

"I mean, make a cover or something and only leave a small opening for the cannon's barrel."

"Oh sure, I'll tell them right away." 　　

We gave the orders and moved on to the cabins below. The interior is very different from the outside. The outer deck of the ship gives people a feeling of solemnity and sturdiness, while the inside is decorated like a most luxurious palace, especially that 40 double rooms I ordered -- they look like president suites! Well, I paid big, so this is not that surprising.

When we stepped into a cannon chamber, the old designer exclaimed: "There are only cannons here. Where are the shots??"

"We don't have enough money for those! Each cannon comes with 10 free shots anyway. 6000 shots are enough to fight one battle for now, so I'll think about buying ammo later."

"This is unacceptable!" He seems more excited than me. "You're ruining my art! If this ship sinks in the first fight, it will put a big stain on my boatyard's name!"

He walked in several circles before speaking to me again: "Go tell your sailors, bring my message to the siege shop and take another 54,000 balls here. But you must pay me later!"

"We can do that?" 　　

"What, you don't like it?"

"Oh nonono. Of course I'm glad with it!"

I quickly ordered the NPCs to go fetch the shells. The designer went off to check up on the crystal cannon shield.

Now I can only sit on the edge of the port and watch the sailors moving the explosives.

Someone touched my shoulder. I turned my head and saw a player wearing typical Spellsword gear. That sword will runes written all over it is just too obvious.

"What's up?" 　　

"You saw the Ocean Might?" 　　

"King Conqueror's ship?" 　　

His eyes lit up. "Yes! Where is it?"

"Gone." 　　

"Gone??" 　　

"Yeah, it left an hour ago. I heard the Japanese sent a fleet to us, all ships are there now."

"Damnation!" He dropped his sword on the ground and knocked his own head. "Arrrgh I missed the ship again!!"

Another late arriver I guess.

He suddenly stopped his actions, picked up his sword and rushed onto Bi-Lin. I watched in shock as the crazy man ducked into the wheelhouse.

What the hell does he want? I don't want anything bad to happen to my ship so I followed.

Before I reached him, he came out of the room and grabbed me. "Do you know how to drive a ship?"

"No!" 　　

He pushed me away and began to drag random people around, asking them to pilot the ship.

Retard. The only pilots are all away carrying those cannon shells. Of course you can't find anyone here.

He gave up and went into the wheel room again. When I saw him messing around the levers and buttons I quickly dragged him back.

"Who the heck are you?? Don't play around my ship alright?"

"Your ship?" He paused for three seconds before returning to his actions. "Perfect. I'm from the Anti-Japanese Association. Now we officially take over your ship for military purpose. Move along."

Shit. He thinks he's a police or something? Take over my ship??

"Hey! Cut that out! Just wait here if you want to fight the Japanese. Our ship will be leaving soon enough!"

I thought that's pretty reasonable. But he only gave me a "humph".

"You girls are always buying their perfume or mangas or something. You don't know anything!"

He may have his good reasons but I'm not happy with that.

"Watch your tongue mate! I'm not a 'girl'! And second, what makes you think women don't fight?"

"What he said!! " Zirai showed up. "What's your problem huh?! You want to know if I can fight? Let's try it out!"

"Wait, you two?..." The man looked at us, obviously shocked by our looks. "I don't have time for you losers. Get lost, I need this ship!" He isn't changing that attitude.

"WHOS THE LOSER??"

Provoking Zirai over such matters really sets her off you know.

She grabbed him and tossed him onto the outer deck with a shoulder throw.

"Someone tie him up onto the front rails! No one questions me like that! Hey you over there! Get the cannon in place NOW!"

The unfortunate guy is soon bound onto the railings by a bunch of sailors. Okay, now we have two figureheads. 　　

I decided to leave him there and went to watch the workers load our crystal cannon. The designer finished that cannon shield. Skyfire and Lucky acted as temporary crane lifts and put the shield over the cannon. The cover perfectly hid the cannon inside. Now our ships looks like a real battleship! With a main gun!

As we discuss about some of the details of the cannon shielding, another stranger ran up the ship. And I heard Zirai yelling again.

"Hey who the fuc are you?? Can you all stop playing around other people's ship?" She's still mad at the previous encounter.

The newcomer however, is not aggressive like the last one. "Sorry sorry, may I know who's the captain?"

"That's me. What do you want?" I walked to them and inspected him. He looks like a Dread Knight...or something close.

"Oh hi, I'm War Chant, a Dread Knight. Is your ship going to fight the pirates? I missed my trip so…!"

Zirai changed her tune the moment she heard this. "Oh please wait here! We're still loading supplies, we'll leave as soon as we finish!"

"Thank you very much!" War Chant gave us a bow. Then he asked: "Um, on the railing...is that?..."

"Oh, him." Zirai rolled her eyes. "He tried to steal our ship!"

"Really??" Chant jumped. I would too if I heard someone just trying to take the biggest ship under broad daylight. "Well- you know, he's my friend. His name is Wuyuu, we fought pirates together before. He's just a straight head, trust me, he didn't mean to steal your ship for real."

"I know." I interrupted. "He's too excited right now. We won't be leaving the port if he keeps meddling with us. I know he wants to leave as fast as he can, so tying him up like that will make things faster."

"I agree!" Chant nodded. Huh.

We soon heard from Hawk that each chamber is filled with a hundred balls now. Still hasn't reached our goal (200 shots per cannon) but that should be enough for now! 　　

This means everything's ready. I climbed onto the central tower and gave the order. "Set sail, my friends!"

Whoosh! The five giant sailcloths were spread open, while a series of smaller sails expended on the sides. Those sail operators swung themselves from one post to another like monkeys. Impressive.

"Oars out!"

750 long oars reached into the water. The ship moved ahead suddenly, almost throwing me off the platform. I never know ships can start off so fast! Did I place too many oars?　　

Two men wearing sailor hats approached me and introduced themselves as chief and second officer. I gave the simple sea chart from Gale to them.

"So this is our destination, captain?"

"That's right. Let's move!"

"Yes sir!" The second officer walked to the command stand and started to shout orders to everyone.

"Port, 40! "

"Port 40!" The wheelmen responded aloud. The giant wheel is actually operated by two sailors. Surely one man is not strong enough to turn that 2-meter helm wheel.

"Reef the right sail! Turn two!" 　　

"Reef the right sail! Turn two!" That came from the sail operators.

"Left oars, lift!" 　　

"Left oars out of water!" All the oars to the left were retracted. I can already feel the ship making a sharp turn.

The wheelmen released the helm after several seconds. I saw the wheel spinning to its original position like a motor.

"Helm reset!"

"Down wind three! Return sail!"

The left oars reached out again and began to propel the ship forward. 　　

I turned to the officer. "How long till we reach there?"

He looked up at the wind wheel. "Around two and half hour." 　　

The clock now is...almost two in the afternoon. It will be at least 5 pm when we got there!　　

I took out the pigeon and wrote a message to Gale. "On the way. Arriving by five."

Now the only thing we can do is waiting.

From the high tides on both sides of the ship, I can tell that the ship is traveling real quick. But since there's no reference objects on the plain sea, I can't really feel that speed.

A strange idea suddenly popped up in my mind. "Chief mate!"

"Yes sir?" 　　

"Are there spare ropes on the ship?" 　　

"Yes. What for, captain?"

"To tow the ship!" 　　

"Towing??" He gave me a puzzled look.

"Just give me the ropes. Three long ones, strong ones too." 　　

"Yes sir!" 　　

He carried them to me soon. I asked the sailors to tie the ropes in front of the ship and asked Zirai to summon Skyfire. I asked Skyfire, Lucky and Loong'er to carry one end of each rope.

Then it's simple. Lucky and Skyfire drag the ropes from the sky, while Loong'er swims in front of us.

When I gave the signal, the ropes tightened in an instant, giving the ship a huge boost. All players on the deck fell and rolled over until they hit something. The working NPC though...it's like nothing ever happened. 　　

Yuri climbed up from my body and rubbed her waist. "Be gentler next time!"

Big Pot pushed me away so he can crawl out. "I know we're in a hurry but let's not kill anyone before we even get there!"

Zirai removed Big Pot from her leg. "Why not, it's a lot faster!"

Merciless also found his way out of the human pile. "You have a flying beetle right? "

"Yeah! Let's make it even better!" Zirai urged me.

"He can only fly for short distances, unlike Lucky and Skyfire." 　　

"Oh." Zirai is hot-headed but she knows reasons.

Our ship sailed on the water surface with unbelievable speed while breaking apart countless water drifts to the sides. It almost feels like flying. 　　

About two hours later, the lookout on top of our heads made some flag signals, before the second mate reported to me: "Captain, we spotted something adrift on the water ahead."

"Adrift?"

I ran to the front rail and looked down. Those are definitely remains of broken ships!

Everyone joined me. A huge number of splintered wood pieces are floating. Those artificial plank designs suggest that they came from other ships. I called back Lucky and Skyfire and un-summoned Loong'er as well. We must be near the conflict zone now, we may run into trouble if we keep up the speed.

"Drift net out!" Hawk shouted to the back side.

The sailors quickly brought out a large net with a long stick attached to it. We watched them bring up some wooden pieces from the water. Some of the pieces even have fallen equipments on them.

"Weird. Are these equipments all happen to fell on these boards so we can pick them up?" Yuri asked when watching us collect the loots.

War Chant explained: "You lose your items in naval wars too. Every time something fells into the water, the system will attach it to a randomly appeared floating piece like this. We're seeing a lot of pieces without anything on them, which means some ships are totally destroyed."

"A lot of them." Passerby moved his head along the trail of the remains float on the water, which extents several kilometers away. "I'd bet this is the ambushed fleet from Goddess Alliance."

"Someone's there!" Rose is first one to notice that a player is hanging on one of the planks.

"Get him up!" I order the second officer.

He yelled backwards. "Halt the ship! Release the life boat!"

Bang! A hatch in the back of the ship bounced open. The lid fell and stopped just above the water surface, creating a transport slope. A small wooden boat slid off into the water with three sailors on it. They skillfully drove the ship to the floating player and carried him back aboard.

Hawk asked the officer: "How many boats like this do we have?" 　　

"219, not including that one." 　　

"That's a lot." I'm shocked. "Well the designer never told me about it."

"This is regulation. Every vessel should be equipped with enough life boats to evacuate the entire crew. This is not optional." 　　

"I see." 　　

Hawk spoke to him: "Send another 19 boats and search around. There must be more people close by!" 　　

As he said, out boats saved 30 people or so after a while. The most surprising part is that I saw Gale and Red Moon among them! Red Moon is out cold. Not sure if that's a bless. As for Gale...he's also unconscious. The ship doctor gave him some medicine to get rid his "Weakness due to prolonged sea water immersion" debuff and woke him up.

I quickly asked: "What happened? Your people don't look good."

"You finally came! Do you know what we ran into?"

"Some sort of Japan union fleet?" 　　

"Yes! But they have something we never seen before."

"What is it?"

"Well, they have three odd-looking ships among their ranks. Be careful, those things beat us up for good! Let me talk to your second officer so he knows how to avoid them!"

When the NPC arrived, Gale continued: "The enemies have three special battleships, the 'Kamikaze', the 'Nagashima', and the 'Kirigakure'. (*) 　　

The Kamikaze is a large ship carrying many small boats. Those are not life boats, they're demolition boats loaded with explosives! They are fast, small and hard to hit. They took down many of our ships!

The Nagashima is an artillery ship, with a strange cannon located on its head. That thing shoots farther than any weapon we ever seen, and the ship's fast, no one can catch it! The ship attacks us from far away and we can't do anything to get close.

The Kirigakure...I'd call it a submarine rather than a ship. No one can see it. It always appears behind out backs and hits us hard. But it can only attack when it reveals itself. Otherwise we'd been wiped out already!"

The room went silent, because no one knows how to deal with something like those. One thing is for sure, we need to take them down first, by any means possible. 　　

I talked to Zirai: "Find Passerby, Big Pot and Violet and go take care of the crystal cannon together. Shoot at the three ships the moment you see them!" 　　

"Will do!" Zirai rushed away.

Then I ordered the second officer: "Tell the cannon crew. Enemy suicide boats are first priority. Don't let any one get close! We have 600 cannons for goat's sake! Okay, everyone on deck! We have one hell of a battle ahead!"

As I led everyone leave the room and walk to the outside, a giant force sent me flying from one side. With a "BAM", I broke the side rails and fell into the sea.

Before I reached the water I heard faint orders from the second officer: "Incoming cannon shots! Battle stations!"

All crew instantly received the situation and rushed to their assignments. I crawled back onto the deck, soaked, with my disguise wizard robe torn to pieces.

"Fuck, so much for 'unlimited durability'."

Everyone around me watched as if they're looking at a monster. I can pretty much tell from their expressions that they're asking: Why are you not dead??

(*) It means "To hide in the mist". You probably heard about this word if you ever watched Naruto.

Chapter end