“What are you on about?”

“Well, I'm just saying. It seems like they respect you already. They listen to your orders, Greed has experience with leading the pirates already… It would suit you to become their leader.”

“I don't think the men will follow me, I'm an outsider.”

“You're also a fucking dragon. What are they going to do? Say, oh we already have a leader. What better leader than a dragon?”

“I guess you're right… I can lead them.”

He starts calling them all together to listen.

“LISTEN UP YOU LOT! As you are without a leader now! I have taken it upon myself to lead you sorry saps! From this day onward, you can call me captain! Anyone who wants to take my position is more than welcome to try but remember.”

He was in his human form. Shape shifting into a giant dragon scares any thought of rebellion out of everyone. He continues to speak.

“NOW! I am not like Gold! For one, I won't let my men die under my rule! I will also have better pay! Speaking of which, she didn't store her gold on this island! Has anyone seen her go off in a direction by herself or with a smaller group!?”

A pirate steps forwards… I recognize him, it is Defus! He yells out.

“Yea, I helped her row to an island before! She told me it was for hiding something important but to forget about it once we left… I forgot to forget though!”

The crowd bursts out laughing at his statement… Somehow… That last line is the exact definition of how I imagine Defus. We still have so much do to. We need to start rebuilding the fleet of ships. We will leave the ships we still have for them to use for now… Each of our ships are equal to about 3-5 of their ships in power. The black swords and turtle are the exceptions though. Loaded with firepower and defenses. Each of those ships could possibly take down 10 of the enemy ships by themselves… I'll start the process of expanding my fleet soon enough, with several ideas and plans taken from Greed. Greed riles them up more.

“Alright you lot! We'll go find her treasure, getting back to what being a pirate is about! This time, we'll split the pot down the middle with everyone! Each of you should get your piece!”

Cheers ring out. He knows how to speak their language… The language of gold. I know I made the right decision by making him the leader… Speaking of which… I need to go speak with the kobolds. Firstly, to ask them to come to our party. Secondly, to find out who the leader was during the last battle of the war against the pirates. I also reconnected all of the portals to a single hub in our main base. The process of going through portals to get to the ships, to get back to the base or another location was too hectic. With simplifying the process. I can shave off a few minutes every trip I take somewhere.

Entering the kobolds village… It just feels different… Almost like a war has been raging here as well. Some of the kobolds see me and start yelling out.

“Master.”

“It is master. Master is here.”

“Master! Look, it is master! He will know who to pick!”

I see what they kobolds have been doing since Shikki has died… Holding a bloody match to find the next leader of the kobolds. Several of them are missing arms or have heavy wounds all over them… Why did they not tell me about this process? I gather them all together and start treating the wounded. I call out, asking for someone to explain what is going on. Several of them answer the question by speaking one after another.

“Ahh, this is trial by combat. The next leader will be chosen through battle…”

“Yea, yea! That is how we have always done this! With how much stronger master has made us, we needed to switch the method to fighting with weapons since magic was too strong.”

“We will find our leader, then business will go back to the same. We will continue to serve you master but we need a leader who isn't you to function.”

...What do I do… I can't look down on their ritual, the leader should be the one everyone views as the leader. I still need to ask, to see who the leader of the- before I can finish my thoughts a kobold comes rushing over and hits another across the face with a club… The rest of the kobolds get back to their fighting. I guess this is just how they do it.

The fighting has been going on since the day Shikki died. I guess the conclusion of the leader being picked will be happening soon. I tell them about the party tomorrow, it seems they are too caught up in this battle to care about honoring the dead.

I head back to the fortress after telling them it is mandatory… Coming through the portal, I head to visit Leon. After speaking with the group I found out that Leon is alive and okay… At least as okay as you can be as a ghoul. I start walking towards the medical bay and as I get to the hallway the doors burst open. A female gnoll comes rushing out. Screaming now.

“Your sick! Gah, what is wrong with Leon!”

She is holding her mouth as she rushes past me… What is wrong with Leon? Did he attack her? I start to run towards the doors more panicked now. Entering the room, I am hit with the pure smell of blood… HE DIDN'T! I look at him, his mouth and some of his chest is covered in blood from biting into something living! I look beside him at what he has killed… A pig is going into death twitches as his throat was just bitten out by Leon. He looks up at me as he takes another bite out of the freshly killed pig. He talks as he bites down on the pig.

“Ah Kite. Took you long enough to come by. Sorry I couldn't be on the battlefield yesterday. Preoccupied with being turned into a ghoul and all that.”

“Yea no big deal. Just get bet… Uh, never mind… I guess this is on me… Your ghoulification was different than everyone else who was changed… I'm not even sure I can change you back… You might be a ghoul from now on.”

“I guess that isn't so bad.”

He rips more flesh from the pig and continues talking.

“I could be dead... I could have been turned into a ghoul and then fought against you. I'm glad I didn't though, could you imagine the damage I would have done to the army if she could have controlled me…”

“I will find a way to cure you Leon… I will… I promise.”

“Just make sure you keep some animals around for me to eat… I don't want to know what happens if I run out of food.”

“I'll have the chefs keep some raw meat around for you to eat.”

“Oh! Make sure that it is full of blood. Blood is like my seasoning.”

“A...Alright… Get bet-… Just come talk to me once your allowed out of here… Also, there is a celebration tomorrow for us winning the war. We will also be honoring the dead.”

“Alright, I'll be there… Kite just know… My becoming a ghoul… It isn't your fault, don't blame yourself… I dropped my guard… It won't happen again. No, it won't ever happen again...”

He looks at the scar on his arm made from the process of trying to cure his ghoulification… It only worked so well… He is different than a normal ghoul… Not only did he retain his cognitive thinking, the process of changing into a ghoul wasn't nearly as hard on his body. He has scars yes but… Most of his skin is still in tact, as a normal ghoul has huge portions of flesh and skin missing. If a normal ghoul had 50-60% of their body changed, Leon has 10-20%.

I've decided to start the process of making a memorial for those fallen. I shape and pull the mountain near the fortress… We don't have the ability to name all of those fallen in combat… So I've just decided to make something that is beautiful to commemorate this day of remembering those who have fallen… It will give those who have lost a loved one somewhere to grieve… The design I decide to go for is just a simple cross… I don't have much expertise with shaping stone with control nature into anything to intricate… I'll also leave one on the island for the pirates as they have lost men as well…

The good portion of the pirates left aren't fighters… Around 1000 of them are the families of the fighters… Families broken up by death from this war… Everyone has suffered loss, I just hope none of the pirates hold a grudge against me for leading the army to fight against them... The time it takes to make the pirate one is far longer. I take one of the heaviest stones I can carry and put it in a void bag. The lack of a hand to carry anything... Shape things and just the usefulness of having 2 working hands is made very apparent through this process... I will eventually have to look at my hand and that scares me... To know that I might never be able to use my hand for some reason. Their memorial stone comes out slightly less beautiful than ours did… I had more materials to work with for ours…

I really need to practice controlling my spells better… Control nature is very difficult to shape with… I know that if I practice, I will be able to do it better though. The more I practice, the more intricate I can make my stonework look… I could also sculpt into the stone work with a little manipulation… I do just that, carving into the memorials a phrase stating that they are. Each says “In memory of those who have fallen in battle.”

The day is almost over already… So little was done… Most of which wasn't even done by me but by my men. It seems like all I have done is prepare for tomorrow. I still… It feels like something is missing… I've been thinking of an idea for awhile now… Something like a giant chocolate bar that all of my men could eat… I go to check on the chocolate buckets and glasses… The worst news has come from the test… The chocolate is not flowing…

The ones filled with beer seem to be producing excess beer from them… If I put them all in an area and have the excess siphon off into more containers. I'll have an endless supply of beer from now on… This should work with every type of liquid. It seems to only work with materials that are in a constant state of liquid… Because the chocolate is normally a solid it doesn't seem to work with the enchanted buckets… This sort of ruins my plans… What am I going to do with this chocolate then? I'll need to find another way to easily produce solid materials like this.

If I just serve chocolate… Not nearly everyone will be able to have all of it… If I add some of the sugar we had gotten from raiding the pirates the first day to bread… Then spread the liquid chocolate over it… It might become far sweater and go further than just serving the chocolate by itself…

I will still have to make several hundred loaves of bread just to serve my men… Making a giant loaf of bread might work better than making several smaller ones… It would take a giant oven to cook it all at once… Even if I can't complete it tonight, it would still help to have for later so I start making it. After a few hours I finish making the giant oven, with it being made outside near the blacksmith. We can use a wood fire to heat it from underneath. It will be far easier to ventilate than the inside of a building as well.

I make a pan to cook the bread on as well… It is a comically large scaled oven and pan. I get the ingredients to make this sugar bread, then start the process of cooking it… I expect the outside to burn slightly from the sheer size of the bread, it will have to in order to cook all the way through. After about an hour I check the giant bread… The outside is slightly burnt as expected… Even so, the sugar makes even the burnt part tasty.

I cover it in a thin layer of the chocolate (Mixing in a portion of water to dilute it and make it go further as an ingredient) and serve it to my men. They eat it voraciously and enjoy it… I guess it was a success and proceed to make a dozen more of these giant loaves of bread for tomorrow. Using up almost all the remaining sugar and chocolate we had gotten from the process of making them… I will need to find an alternate method to replicate those materials later as they are scarce in this part of the world.

I head back to my room and Leaf is sitting in bed reading a book. I had brought a piece of the sugar bread for her to try out. I know that she likes chocolate from the months she spent inside the tree when I said in it for the year. She greedily eats it as the thought of using chocolate to make something else taste better had never crossed her mind. We try to have sex but I am still too sore, she has to do all the work that night and I don't get to use any of my fancy moves I've learned from my passed lives.