Jules Mayfeather

Back on the island…

Underground in another part of the prison, there is a man who was being beaten up nearly to death by two other guards.

Edgar stood on the side watching. Raising his hand the two men stopped beating up 'Fred'. His face was covered in blood, broken, with one eye bruised and bloated, his nose was broken, and most of his teeth were gone or shattered.

"You going to talk now? Or should I have one of my men pull out your nails one at a time?"

Fred spat out a mouthful of blood. Looking dead at Edgar he said, "fuck you."

Edgar sighed softly. He absolutely hated it when people have such strong personalities and never gave up.

"Use a slave contract on him."

One of the men nodded and grabbed a piece of paper.

Fred, realizing what was going to happen, crawled backwards while facing them. The other guard simply pinned Fred, grabbed his hand and placed his palm all over his face to cover his palm in his own blood.

Placing down the slave contract on the ground they pinned Fred's palm on the paper leaving a bloody handprint and the contract was complete.

Fred could feel it, it was like an invisible chain was restricting him.

They could have used a slave contract from the very beginning, but Edgar preferred first beating them up first before using a contract.

"Tell me: why are you here?"

"I am here to save my sister. I know she's here."

"Oh… that explains a bit. Turn yourself into a mermaid."

Fred gasped as he involuntarily turned into a mermaid. His legs were replaced by that of a fish's tail and his eyes were now clear like glass.

Many humans and fishmen like to use the term 'mermaid' even for male mermaids who are actually referred as 'merman' because the word 'mermaid' is both a gender and a species name.

He was choking, gasping for air and flailing his arms and body.

Edgar enjoyed this. He had done this several times to Jules and it never got old.

After suffering for a while Fred turned back into a human and was able to breathe again.

"What's your name?"

"Free'd."

"Hm… what an ironic name. Well, Free'd, you're too late, your sister is not here anymore. She's gone."

Hearing that, Free'd was shocked. Did that mean his younger sister was dead?

"Is she…"

"Don't talk."

Free'd was now unable to open his mouth.

"I'm bored. Put him in a cell or something and make sure he's prepared for the next tournament." Edgar left the prison.

Free'd was being dragged by the two guards.

Inwardly he was hopeful, praying, and thinking, as thinking is now the closest thing he has to freedom.

'Thank god they didn't ask me more questions. Please… please, Jules, please be dead. I cannot imagine life as a slave for you. Especially when you know about the location of 'Nightmare' we cannot let anyone have it.'

Meanwhile…

On another ship there was Sky, his crew, and an additional person on board.

"Phew, looks like no one noticed." Sky said.

Jay Jericho were both staring at the beautiful woman in front of him. They asked her questions but she didn't answer back, not because she couldn't but because she didn't want to, she only answered truthfully to Sky.

Jules was very beautiful. Standing taller than the rest of the crew, with bountiful breasts, with a six pack and a strong body due to how hard she had trained. Her blonde hair was long and beautiful that reached her waist.

"Right, everyone, this is Jules Mayfeather… huh, that's weird."

Jules was shocked Sky knew her name, she never mentioned her last name to anyone, not even to the ones who captured her as they could care less.

"What is?"

"You all have names starting with 'J' Jericho, Jay, now Jules."

"..."

"Captain, question?" Jay raised his hand.

"Yes?"

"Why did you bring a slave with you? I mean we've stopped by so many other islands and they all had slaves for sale, most for cheap, but why her? Is it because she's a mermaid?"

"She has a talent for potion-making. I was going to kill her at first, gouge out her eyeballs for the money, but her talent is priceless."

Jules stared at Sky with no emotion in her eyes. It was common for humans to pluck out the eyeballs of mermaids, but what confused her is when he said that she had talent for making potions.

"Ohhhh..." Jay and Jericho looked at each other fully understanding the situation.

"Okay… I've never owned a slave before, what do I do?" Sky asked his crew.

Jericho and Jay looked at each other. They had never handled slaves either.

"I guess you can do anything with her?"

"Right… well I guess we know who is now in charge of cleaning the ship from now on." Sky took out a bunch of cleaning utensils from his inventory and handed it to Jules.

"Do you know how to clean?" Sky asked.

Jules nodded ever so slightly.

"Can you talk?"

She nodded.

"Then why don't you."

"Because I have nothing to say to you humans." Jules said in an angry tone. Her voice was very pleasant to hear.

"Oh, good, and here I thought they cut out your tongue. Get to cleaning."

All three crew members stared at her, cleaning the entire ship by herself. It was somewhat weird to have a slave with them, and a beautiful mermaid to boot.

An hour later the entire ship was spotless. Jules wiped the imaginary sweat from her forehead.

"Sky, I'm thinking we should have bought a slave a long time ago, even if it was solely for cleaning." Jericho said.

Everyday or every other day they all took turns cleaning the ship: cleaning the dishes, cooking good, getting rid of the garbage, cleaning the toilet(bucket), changing the beds, mopping the entire ship, and so on, and it was indeed an annoying and disgusting task.

"I kinda agree with you. I'm just glad I don't have to wash dishes anymore."

Jay and Jericho nodded in agreement.

Jules placed down the mop after finishing and walked towards Sky.

"Get rid of the curses you placed on me."

"Oh, crap, that's right. Dispel." Sky forgot Jules was still cursed by him.

{Successfully dispeled ⅞ curses}

{Unable to dispel 'Sloth' as sloth curse is too powerful}

"Oh no." Sky muttered.

His sloth curse is evolved and is at level five, while his dispel curse was unevolved and at level six.

When testing out the curses on live fishes he realized he can never get rid of the sloth curse until his dispel curse reaches the same level.

Even as the one who casted the curse on her he could not get rid of it. There are only three ways to get rid of a curse: using dispel, using an item that dispels curses, or killing the caster.

"Jules… it looks like I cannot get rid of the slowness curse on you."

Jules' eyes widened in shock, horror, and anger. That one curse was more problematic than all the other curses combined, it was slowing her down by 70%.

"Good news is I am a fast learner so I can improve my dispel ability quickly. I should be able to get rid of that curse within… two months."

Jules' eyes widened once more and breathing became heavier. If she weren't bound to Sky she would have done and said unimaginable things.

"But first, healing touch."

Sky healed her and the wound on her shoulder was gone. Sky was so infatuated with owning a talented slave that he forgot to heal her.

Jules could care less about Sky healing her, he was the one who stabbed her in the shoulder.

"Question, how much experience do you have with making potions?"

"None whatsoever."

"Well perfect time to learn. First, join my crew."

{Jules Mayfeather has forcefully joined your crew}

Jules was bound to Sky but she did not have the benefits of the system like the rest of the crew had.

Jules thought that the man in front of her was extremely strange and every minute spent with him solidified that idea.

'Identify.'

{Jules Mayfeather}

{Level 3}

{HP: 4,100/4,100}

{Mana: 2,000/2,000}

{Str: 400 Dex: 400 Spd: 400 Int: 400 Mind: 400 Vig: 400}

{Passive skill: Mermaid body: 100% movement speed on water. 100% weaker to lightning attacks. Cannot breathe on land. 100% stamina increase. Able to take the appearance of a human}

{Human transformation: An ability all mermaids are born with}

{Talent: Potion maker: Can learn potion related skills 200% faster. 100% chance to

{All skills have been bound}

{Enslaved}

'System, how can I check her abilities and real stats?'

{Click one of the stats to show her real stats. One thing to note is that all stats that are bound are colored in red, same goes with skills that are bound}

Unfortunately the author is unable to color words.

Sky did as the system instructed to reveal her real stats.

{Str: 2,430 Dex: 1,666 Spd: 900 Int: 2,100 Mind: 804 Vig: 3,000}

{Mermaid's song: An ability all mermaids(female only) are born with: lvl 9: Able to hypnotize the opposite sex by singing}

{Ice trident: lvl 9}

{Rejuvenation: lvl 8}

{Voice mimicry: lvl 8}

{Bubble shield: lvl 8}

{Summon sea-horse: lvl 8}

{Stamina absorption: lvl 9}

{Inspect: lvl 7: Very accurately inspect the quality of an item}

{Dash: lvl 9}

{Water slice: lvl 9}

{Eye of truth: lvl 2}

'Woah, she's already the strongest person in my crew. How can I unseal her stats and abilities?'

{The slave is bound to you. You can do whatever you want to its stats and abilities anyway you want by using voice commands}

"Voice commands? Okay, I unseal all your stats and abilities."

{All abilities and stats have been restored to Jules Mayfeather}

Jules felt a different restriction on her body had been uplifted just now. Her abilities and stats are back to how they originally were.

"That was easy. Of course you can't harm us or others without my permission. I'm just doing this for our safety." Sky said.

Jules clenched her hands out of anger. She knew she could easily overpower Sky in a second but can't.

Sky took out a set of potion making utensils and placed them on the floor. Most of the utensils were flasks made out of glass, some herbs and powdered herbs on the side.

He had bought the set with the idea of finding a talented alchemist in the future.

"Get to making potions. This is everything you will need… probably."

"I don't know how."

"I know, I don't even expect you to get it the first one hundred times, I just want you to get the experience."

Jules sat down and tried to figure out how alchemy works. Sky sat there watching her.

"Sky, should I set sail to a portal?" Jericho asked.

"Please. Oh, that reminds me, activate."

The two cards Sky held turned into red and green scrolls and shells.

{Shells: 220.4m}

"Jericho, good news! We need only 280,000,000 more shells to pay off your family's debt."

"AWESOME!"

Sky examined the scrolls. He got two red scrolls and three green scrolls.

{Red scroll: Flight}

{Red scroll: Lightning bolt}

{Green scroll: 15+ int}

{Green scroll: 15+ str}

{Green scroll: 15+ vig}

Sky was surprised, both red scrolls were abilities he did not have. In fact both abilities are two of the most sought out abilities out of the 27 abilities one can receive from red scrolls.

Some of the most sought out red abilities are: rejuvenation, flight, lightning bolt, fireball, and mana pilfer.

Other red abilities such as: dash, dispel, and others are also sought after but many have to put years of hard work to improve to be useful in combat. Rejuvenation, flight, lightning bolt, and fireball are some of the abilities many people don't need to practice much for it to be useful in the beginning.

Sky ripped all the scrolls receiving all of their abilities at once.

{Learned: Lightning bolt: lvl 1: 150 damage: 10% chance to stun enemy: five second cast time}

{Mana cost: 100}

{Learned: Flight: Able to fly: Flight speed scales with speed stat}

{Mana cost: 10/s}

{Int: 316}

{Mana: 3,630/3,630}

{Str: 215}

{Vig: 315}

{HP: 5,550/5,550}

'Are you sure you got the right numbers this time?'

{Looks like we have a petty player}

"..." Sky.

Sky out on all his useful clothes.

{Silver ring: 500+ HP. Wards of vampires and werewolves}

{Thunder-storm sweater: 1,200+ HP when worn, 800+ mana when worn: Passive skill: 10% of total physical damage dealt to enemies heals the wearer. Mana, or ranged based attacks do not count}

{Blue-gem beetle boots: 80+ spd stat, 800+ HP, 300+ mana when worn: Ability: Triple jump: Can jump up to three times. Consumes stamina instead of mana}

{Ring of 100 levels: 500+ HP. Doubles EXP earned until wearer reaches lvl 100}

{False Warlord's shirt: 1000+ HP, 500+ mana, 10% increase loot when killing}

{Galva gloves: Damage: 1,000} {800+ HP when worn. 1,000+ mana when worn. 100+ Mind when {Ability: Mana pilfer: steal the mana of others. Rate of mana you can steal from enemies depends on wearers Mind stat} {Mind/s}

{Mind pants: 500+ HP and Mana. 400% mana regen increase}

{Golem helmet of greater damage absorption} {2000+ HP when worn} {Ability: Absorbs 20,000 damage: 2 hour cooldown}

{HP: 12,850/12,850}

{Mana: 7,230/7,230}

'Now are YOU sure you got the numbers right?'

{Please stop}

'Never.'

{...} System.

Sky took out the trident he got from killing Rosa.

{Trident of missile seeker: Red+}

{Damage: 1,000}

{Scales with Str C-grade, Dex B-grade}

{Missile seeker: lvl 9: 1,000 damage: Shoots out a ball of mana that follows enemies}

{Mana cost: 100}

{Requirements: Dex: 200, Str: 160}

{Dex: 124}

While Sky's strength stat met the requirements his dexterity stat did not.

With a sigh Sky placed the trident back in his inventory, he will take it out again once he can use it.

"What was that trident?" Jules asked.

While working on the alchemy set she noticed out of the corner of her eye Sky had put on brand new clothes. She could care less about the clothes but the trident Sky pulled caught her attention.

"Sorry, Jules, but it's mine."

Sky ignored her and teleported to the top of the ship's mast. There he could see the portals and see which ones gave the best loot.

"..." Jules.

Looking down he began to notice it was getting crowded. Jules was in the ship's deck working on her alchemy skills, Jericho was cooking, Jay was aiming his gun at birds and fish.

In fact when Jericho's mom and sister were with them it was very crowded.

'We need a bigger ship if I want to recruit more crew members. First I'll deal with Jericho's debt, then I'll focus on getting a better ship. Now that I think about it I think the merchant even sold ships, but that one powerful ship I saw was worth over one-billion. Man, I need so much money.'

The thought of sending Jules by herself to kill did cross his mind as her being in his crew he could benefit from it, but while she was the strongest one in the crew, there are others who are stronger than her, and he felt safer and better with her.

Meanwhile…

Edgar was eating high quality meat with some high quality wine in his room. His wife sat beside him and did not eat, she was sitting there with her eyes closed, afraid to move or speak.

*Knock* *Knock*

There was a knock on the door.

"Get it!" Edgar ordered her very angrily. He hated it when he was interrupted during dinner time.

His wife quickly ran to open the door. Another man quickly entered the room not even greeting the wife, he looked a lot like Edgar. This was his older brother, Donald.

"Donald! When did I give you permission to come to my room, especially when I'm eating?!" Edgar said angrily. They might be blood related brothers but Edgar was the one with authority.

"Sir… I have something to say, something important." Donald was desperately trying to say something but couldn't find the words.

"GET OUT! I don't care! Come back in an hour after I'm done!"

"But, sir."

Edgar stood up and flipped the entire table across the room along with his food, plates, and drink.

"OUT!" Edgar screamed loudly and angrily. If Donald were not his brother he would have sentenced him to death by now.

Sam seemed hesitant to leave, but left the room. He stood outside like a dog waiting.

"You! Woman, go get me more food."

Meanwhile…

{Entered jungle dungeon}

Sky heaved a sigh of relief. Not once did they ever encounter another exterminator group inside a red dungeon which was a blessing.

"Jules, stay behind."

Sky, Jay, and Jericho went on to clear the dungeon by themselves like always.

While they were clearing the dungeon they saw a familiar building in the middle of the jungle.

"Sky!" Jericho exclaimed happily and pointed at the building.

"I see it." Sky understood her happiness, she could sell the items she had been saving.

Sky opened the store to reveal the merchant.

They could sell it to other merchants, but people cannot be trusted and they usually don't carry with them tens of millions of shells eager to buy scrolls and items from exterminators.

Selling it to the Caribbean is an option, but they buy items worth 60% of their worth. Unless if one is under a contract with the Caribbean they buy it for 75% of their total worth.

With the system's merchant they buy items at 100% of their total worth.

"SKY!"

"Hey."

Jericho placed down the cards she had been keeping with her. Every time she had something to sell Sky would transform it into a card to make it easier to carry.

Sky offered to carry it in his inventory but Jericho refused and was stubborn.

"That's quite a number of stuff you have there, little lady."

"How much can I get for it?" Jericho asked.

"Well the mask of minor illusions is worth 3,000 at most, and the-"

"Wait, why is the mask worth 3,000? I bought it from you for 800,000 shells."

"I know, right?" The Merchant shrugged his shoulders.

"But, I haven't even used it for battle once. And I thought you guys bought stuff at 100% of their total worth."

"This is what happens when you buy stuff off of me and try to resell it. It's logic."

"No, no it isn't."

Sky now understood the feeling millions of gamers feel when buying and reselling expensive stuff from the same merchant for less than 1% of what they spent.

"Anyways… seven red scrolls, thirteen red grade items, plus a ton of monster carcasses, it all adds up to… 89.9 million shells, but I'll round it up to 90 million since I'm feeling generous."

{Received: 90,000,000 shells}

{Shell: 310.4m}

"Woah, that's a lot." Jericho gasped.

Sky looked at items were sale not expecting anything good, but something caught his eye.

{Freezing cannon: Shoots cannonballs that freezes things upon impact} {Can be found inside of purple dungeons/portals}

{Cost: 120,000,000 shells}

The cannon had been transformed into a card to save up space.

"You're telling me I can find this kind of stuff inside purple dungeons?" Sky asked the Merchant.

"Indeed you can."

Sky did not want to buy it as the price was too steep. They were 190 million shells away from clearing Jericho's family debt, and the sooner he can pay back their debt the sooner he can get the rewards, which consists of 1 purple scroll, one purple grade item, and 100,000,000 exp.

Sky did not find anything else in the shop, not even a good quest.

While they were clearing the dungeon Sky felt some air escaping from the ground. Sky knew what it was, a hidden room.

Clearing the ground they saw a hole leading to another room.

{Hidden boss room discovered}

Sky had actually seen this before in red dungeons but never entered. He knew he wasn't capable of clearing a hidden boss with his measly stats. What was worse is that he did not even know how strong the boss was until he entered the room.

What he knows is that hidden bosses found in red dungeons are stronger than any other boss found in red dungeons, but they're not as strong as bosses found in purple dungeons.

Same logic applies to hidden bosses in green dungeons, stronger than green dungeons but weaker than red bosses.

There is a difference, however, the rooms are also working against them.

'Should I clear it with Jules since she's strong? But with the sloth curse on her her speed has slowed down considerably, and not to mention I don't know if she's capable of fighting on land as mermaids can't fight well on land.'

Sky had an important decision to make. He could be greedy and risk it, or wait until he becomes stronger.

Looking at Jay and Jericho it was clear they knew what he was thinking, but the decision lies with him.

"Sorry, guys, we'll clear the hidden boss some other time."

In the end Sky had no good reason to risk it. He had five months to clear Jericho's debt, which was plenty of time.

Ultimately his decision would prove to be correct he just didn't know it yet.

Jay and Jericho nodded with his decision.

They proceeded to clear the dungeon quickly and move on to the next one.

And the entire day had gone by in the blink of an eye. And every single successful dungeon run they were closer to clearing Jericho's debt.

Meanwhile…

Donald, who was waiting patiently outside the entire day, heard the door open. Edgar's wife opened the door.

"What do you want?" Edgar asked grumpily.

He had made Donald wait outside the entire day as a form of punishment for interrupting his meal.

"Sir, the Caribbean is asking for you!" Donald stood up and walked towards him.

"What? Why?"

"Apparently the mermaid you gave away had some important information on her that they wanted. They are requiring you to give her up, they're even sending a ship here to pick her up."

Edgar stood up and punched Donald on the face.

"And you waited until now to tell me that?"

"But, you-"

"Why do they want her? What information does she know?"

Edgar knew if the Caribbean wants the information there is a high chance it's something valuable.

"I don't know. I asked but they said not to worry about it."

"FUCK!" Edgar threw all the furniture in his room on his windows and walls, shattering everything, making a loud noise.

Even his guards ran to his room to see the commotion. Once they realized it was another tantrum they returned to their original posts.

"AND I JUST HANDED HER TO SOME KID! When are they getting here?"

"Tomorrow morning."

"Find that kid, get the mermaid back! And ask her brother if he knows what she could possibly know that'sso important."

Donald nodded and ran outside.

Edgar, who was still angry, looked at the dark corner of his room.

"Are you still there?"

"Always." The shadow moved slightly.

"Find that mermaid."

"I cannot do that. If I leave you how can I protect you? Without me tomorrow you might find yourself with a spear on your head."

Edgar hated that he was right.

"Fuck my luck!"