The Stargazing Witch & The Dungeon Planet
Chapter 59: Destination Set

Chapter 59: Destination Set

“Cause you see, I got a deal for you.” My words echoed in the minds of the terrified crew.

Being a pirate tended to mean one would biome dull to certain occurrences, but the fear of death was something even the most experienced individuals could find hard to overcome. 

 I dropped the puppet and its partially melted body smack onto the ground.

The loud clang was heard all over the silent ship. It was safe to assume that anyone in the crew–besides the captain–had no more thoughts about attacking me. Wasn’t sure about the captain though, he for sure had a few screws loose.

I started to explain my very favourable deal. I completely crouched down to face the man who was on the floor again, and now with a leg and arm broken, he had trouble getting back up.

“My interest has been piqued, and so I will travel with your crew to Jelannax colony and once we are there, it will be your last chance to sell the scrap you picked up on this journey.”

The man in pain, focused on my cold black metal helmet, “What’s the catch?”

I clapped, “That this will be your last pirating adventure.”

I was being really generous with my offer if I had to say–giving space pirates a way out that wasn’t death or prison. Obviously, I wasn’t doing this out of the goodness of my heart, but the situation was complicated, to say the least.

…My goal was still to return home… but another chance to stop Dominous Hood was in my reach… and if I didn’t do anything… Dammit!

I could be speaking out my arse and there was nothing I could do, maybe the security was already good enough, maybe Dominous Hood wouldn’t even attack.

I can’t risk it.  

I wouldn’t stop until I squashed every single one of them. I already learned to not underestimate their weapon supply and with their unhinged desire to just keep collecting more of them, there was a high chance they would appear to collect these limited luxury items.

The man scoffed, “What's in it for us?”

I was beginning to wonder if this man’s sense of fear died years ago.

“Well, for one, I won’t be killing you. Two you get to sell your shit and still make something of a profit before you turn over a new leaf. Three, you get to actually enjoy the last years of your life relaxing and not in a prison cell.”

I didn’t want anything to go wrong on this trip to Jelannax. If I was just going home, I could afford to take some risks. I would’ve been able to locate my location in space and fly to a transport tunnel and just go home, whether I just killed the crew or gave them to the authorities would’ve depended on how they acted.

But going somewhere Dominous Hood was likely to be, then yeah, I needed to be sneaky. Going there onboard a pirate ship actually had benefits as I could sneak into the colony.

“What makes you think you could even pull that off?” The left eye widened as he grinned.

Yep, this bastard is completely insane.

“What part?” I laughed, “Killing you? That’s the easiest option.” As I spoke a fire dripped off my body and flowed onto the floor, then it kept on pouring out like a waterfall.

The flames washed by the crew at the door, and they jumped up in fright.

“Or maybe you are wondering if I can be sure you will do as I tell you to do once we part ways?”

Flames filled the hallways of the ship as they spawned and grew even faster.

“To answer that–”

Then the flames filled every nook and cranny of the ship.

“–would be tricky.”

Monitors around the control room began to scream alert as fire energy filled the ship waiting to go off and burn everything inside.

“It’s not like I have no way to ensure that, but to be honest none of them are perfect, and the ones that are close to have annoying costs. I don’t feel like paying for space bugs.”

The man began to sweat, he knew the control that was required to perform what I was doing was ridiculous. I don’t know if it was because he was worried he would die or that something important would be burnt to a crisp.

…You know what, I’m going to guess the latter.

“We can work out the fantastic minor details later, but that’s the deal.”

I tapped the air waiting, as I did, the temperature in the ship slowly increased.

“So, you do agree?”

“Fine…”

That took long enough.

Finally, that insignificant issue was solved.

I had the flames disappear but now there were a few more things to do.

The following few hours were spent topping up my knowledge of the auction and its surrounding events. But before we did that, I did spend a second to grab the rest of the crew floating in space. I couldn’t be bothered to order them around so I just created Starlight cages and chains around them and yanked them inside. I also removed the bomb from the loudmouth lady. 

The auction was to take place over four days. However, only on the last day would the items created by Craftalot be up for sale. 

The first three days were the ‘hype’ days, where items were brought by the guests and sellers who came to drop by were sold. Due to the scale of the event, these first three days were a great opportunity if one was lucky to sell something valuable.

Besides that, they couldn’t give me much more details about the event, with the exception of the two items that had been shown off but I decided to look at those later.

With all those matters settled I went to find a spot to be alone. 

The pirate crew had to deal with a few things before the ship could begin moving. Most of those issues were caused by me, but that wasn’t my fault they were using a lousy ship for their illegal activities.

I sat down and took a moment to rest. Staring at the stars I internally sighed as the pain in my soul flared up again. The lingering pain from the crimson’s beast was still here.

Despite Espoiramissa's assurance that it would only last for ‘one to fifty days’, five months had passed and the pain was still there.

Damage to the soul should heal huh? Haha, yeah right.

Barely anyone knew how the soul worked, so the only ones I could turn to were my own experiences and Espoiramissa.

Espoiramissa, for their part, did teach me about souls, but at the same time far from enough information.

My own experience with souls came with my training of soul pressure, something I naturally picked up–didn’t know the name of the technique until Espoiramissa told me it but it was something I developed thanks to many creatures on Espoiramissa being able to use it to some level of it. However, that knowledge wasn’t helpful for my current predicament. 

My other experience came from the wound I received… all those years ago. That bastard arrow.

I gritted my teeth.

Ergh… coming back around to fuck my life again?!

Just remembering that moment brought me to unstable levels of anger. 

That arrow stripped away everything my soul had and brought me back down to level 1 with no Vocation. My soul didn’t shrink all the way back down, which was a blessing in disguise as it allowed me to gain a few more skills to start with. Without those I might’ve died, but the same logic applies if I was able to keep my old Vocation and Levels.

My base soul size was always on the lower side, but after the training I did, and what I thought was my soul adapting, it increased from the scale 3 size soul to about a 5 or 6–from the 1 to 10 scale. But who knows anymore, maybe the expansion was just the result of a failed healing process. 

I demanded to Espoiramissa.

Couldn’t you have told me about that? Or was another one of your games to get me to pay a price for my treatment?

Espoiramissa didn’t respond.

Fucking great.