Nami's point of view

I led the children back through the portal to our village. It is still an hour before the sunrises. I still call out as loud as possible.

“WE'RE BACK! WE'VE SAVED THE CHILDREN!”

People come rushing out of their houses. The children are years older than they were when they were kidnapped but everyone is making it to each parent. Everyone knew who their child was. Tears begin to form on everyone's faces as they hugged their children… The children just staring off into the distance… Some form of brainwashing must have been done against them… No one seems to care at the moment. Everyone is so caught up in the event it doesn't matter to them.

I'm the last one to leave. Three children still remained standing there… My three siblings have come back to me… Two years before my mother and father had been killed, my mother had more children. 3 of which died at birth along with her but the other 3 lived… I have my family back. I put my arms around them… Hugging them in tightly, their faces staring blankly out at nothing… The sun has just started to rise. I take them home and let them sleep in our parents old bedroom…

I fall onto my bed… I'm dead tired but I can't sleep. Everything that has happened… Even with all of that help it was still so close to falling apart. I begin to cry harder than I even have before. Ten years of getting stronger for one reason. Now that we've accomplished that reason I can be myself again. I cry so hard it soak's into my pillow… My younger sister comes into the room… She is holding her old toy she must have found. She crawls into bed with me falls asleep… I still can't sleep…

Sitting there awake… I start to think of how any little thing could have changed the outcome of that fight. If my gear was slightly worse… If my men didn't have new classes… If I didn't have an automaton to distract opponents until it was finally destroyed… So many things could have resulted in the loss of my life and the recapture of the children… All of that was avoided because of the work of one person… Kite… Our savior Kite.

Kite's point of view

I wake up the next day and immediately head to the ships. I fly about 1 minute to talk with the scouting boat left to watch the island. If they had done anything, my ship would have seen it. I land and ask a troop if anything has happened. Nothing I didn't expect. They were running around to each building. Checking the bodies of the deceased and surveying the damage. I didn't expect them to leave after a single attack. With 5 ships they should still be able to make it back to shore to the north. If they wish to retreat that is. The ships would be very cramped but they could manage.

If our estimates were right… There should be around 4300 pirates left… Give or take a few hundred we couldn't count who died on the ships. That is still far too many for them to back down. Gold might have killed people attempting to desert already to set an example. The biggest problem now is… With a lich, they could still have 5000 troops… Even more than that… If she can resurrect the dead with no drawbacks, we'll have to kill them and take their bodies with us from now on to lower the amount of troops she has. Controlling 700 corpses seems like a stretch on possibilities though… With how easily she handled the 20 corpses before… I would guess controlling 100 is no problem for her.

She might also not want to be seen as a lich… I doubt anyone besides her captains even know that she is a lich… Most humans would never serve someone who was willing to become a lich… So this could have potentially screwed her… We'll have to see how it plays out… Some men are walking around, keeping watch. Some are tearing down the out skirting buildings so they can't be used as cover. It looks like 1 ship is being prepared to set sail…

I give the troop a portal scroll and tell him to come back and warn me if there are any changes. I need to speak with everyone about the changes to their stats… With the fighting during the war… Some might have gotten far stronger from killing enemies… Especially the front line fighters. I had gained 2 master of learning levels and a few levels with the pirate… I imagine that the front liners had gained at least 50 levels from killing the several hundred pirates…

I call another meeting with my generals. Yawning, I ask how much everyone has improved. It is as I thought… Almost everyone had gained a huge portion of levels. Red had evolved into an 8 tails yokai. Which barely did anything. The stats I gained from her evolution were so minuscule I didn't even notice… From asking her about her previous evolutions… Very little was gained from them as well…

Gobber had… FUCKING DAMN! Gobber had gained enough levels to show how strong he is. Maxing out the 2 awakened classes at 100 and breaking through the third rank up barrier on some of his classes… As he is right now… I have no doubt that Gobber could kill 100 pirates by himself at this point. The other generals who were at the battlefield had also gained many levels. None of my generals still have a non ranked up class now… It makes me slightly sad that they are improving so quickly… I am rapidly becoming the weakest person in my army again.

Besides the levels everyone gained. We also gained a 6 month supply of food, hundreds of sets of gear that would fit an average human. Some other supplies… The most valuable of which was 4 crates of mana crystals… I still don't understand how they are made so I will have to go talk with Merlin about them eventually… I need to know how they are made. We also received some very rare items from the country to the north west. Sugar cane is very hard to grow in our country. Resulting in the price of sugar skyrocketing because of our war with the country that produces it.

Still in the meeting with my generals I start to speak about the changes to our position now.

“With the enemy being aware of us. We'll have to be far more guarded from here on out. Any attack now will be met with a counterattack. They will most certainly not charge at us like they had on the beach. We need to start thinking long term strategies now.”

Trice speaks up. “Hmm… Perhaps a few acid bombs to destabilize the main building.”

“...That would have worked earlier… When I check the fort earlier today, they were in the process of strengthening the building. All the extra buildings were torn down and it appears a second level of makeshift wood was added on top… Perhaps because of my method to destroy their food… The top part of the base must contain all the soldiers now… As it is still being built, now would be the best time to strike them.”

Trice continues to speak. “Hmm… I doubt they would drop their guard a single day after being attacked. The builders must be under heavy protection from mana cannons. Attacking now under the farce of them being under prepared would only lose us more men… I would suggest waiting until we can dig under their structure and place several charges to weaken the structure. We've already removed a huge portion of food, I expect to see far more deserters once their food runs out.”

Swift steps forward to speak now. “I would suggest that tonight we let the elementalists build some walls for our men to hide behind. Best case scenario they waste ammunition on destroying the walls. We can also use it to get closer to the main building and use it as a facade to start the construction of the tunnels somewhere else on the island. Perhaps we can sneak through the water channels underneath the plank structures the island is made of.”

Gargarz steps forwards next. “We should also send in some spies. As they are primarily a human force. I doubt they'll notice if a few fledgling children appear out of no where. You and Lance can possibly sneak into their base. Try to figure out their next plan and maybe raise the tension of the situation… Making people more willing to desert.”

Pokodo speaks next. “We can also offer to treat any deserters and feed them. I doubt they have the medical supplies or healers to keep up with the high demands of war. Especially one with such a high injury number. It might get even more people to desert.”

“Green and Brick, split up and start building defenses around the pirate base. Me, Leon and Lance can start work on infiltrating their base under the cover of night. I had my mask down for the fight against Gold and I doubt she will make any attempt to contact her troops now that she is… A lich… It would also help to throw out papers stating our goal. Not the destruction of all pirates but the stop of their planned attack against the southern country. Everyone who can write should start working on the papers we'll use to get our point across to the memories.”

Tonight… We will start the long game of weakening our enemy. Our main forces will be ruled out for this mission. I doubt we'll be able to convince all of them but… This plan is to convince the wavering ones to not throw their lives away. Using propaganda to our favor, perhaps even mentioning the fact that their leader is a lich. The day is spent preparing for the infiltration tonight. We pick up the generic sets of gear we had stolen from the pirates… I feel almost naked without my normal gear on. I look at Lance and Leon then say.

“Well… Let's hope this plan works… Otherwise we'll be surrounded by thousands of enemies.”

Lance and Leon both look far more excited by this mission than myself. Perhaps not realizing the implications of this mission. We could all die… We could be captured and used as bait to get all of our allies killed. We could be tortured…

We move under the cover of darkness to the outskirts of the main pirate building. The wall creation process has already been started by our elementalists. With any luck, tomorrow we will be able to fortify a spot on the island to fight against the pirates from. I have a few crews of elementalists digging the ground out towards the main building as well… It might take a few weeks but… Eventually we can potentially sink the entire building into the ground. I call out as we get close to sneaking up on the side of the building.

Since the main changes to the pirate base, we're going to install ourselves on the new top portion of the building. This part will most likely have the men who will be the first to desert this cause. Approaching in the darkness… I notice the base is far more heavily armed then it was previously. They must have dredged up the cannons from the ships sunk in the bottom of the harbor. The base will now be far harder to deal with now that it has the armaments from the ships.

We climb up a rope ladder made to reach the second level… This top portion of the base is far less impressive then the building it is built upon. The walls are less walls and more rows of planks with several man sized holes in them. Most of the ceiling of the second floor is non existent, the second floor isn't really a building but rather a living space for the remaining pirates. We climb the ladder before I hear someone from above yell.

“HEY! What the hell are you doing outside the base? Curfew was pushed forwards two hours.”

I think quickly.

“Uhh… Sorry sir, we were on the mission to get the cannons from the ocean floor.”

“Ah… Alright, as long as you don't break curfew again then.”

…We managed to get into the base. Now begins the spy mission.