Even after it had been decided that they would move against the island one way or the other, they didn't rush with any of their plans. They were going to study all the possibilities and ask for as much information from Graham as possible.

  "We can study the island for a few more days too," Marcus said to Dan and the other sitting around the big table, "Getting first-hand intel is the best choice we can make. Plus, we need to have more than one person to get our answers from."

  "I get you," Old Raily said slowly, "It is only natural to question what he had told us. Who knows, this might not be an island where slaves are kept for mining those mana crystals, but a place where criminals are sent to finish their sentences. It's not that high of a possibility, but it's still something we need to take into consideration."

  Dan found himself pausing at that. He wasn't that naive that he took all Graham's words at face value, but the fact that the island might as well have been a prison was something that he would be lying if he said he had considered. Yet, it was a perfectly valid possibility.

  "How are we doing that though?" Robert beat Dan to that question. "How are we going to find someone to talk to amongst the slaves? Are we going to drop one of ours at shore and have them make contact? That's too dangerous."

  "I'm still thinking that over," Marcus said as he tapped the table, "I don't want to take that much of a risk really."

  "We will find a way to achieve that the safest way possible," Dan said as he looked at the man, "We don't have much of a deadline, let's take our time coming up with a safe and reliable way to check what Graham had said."

  Seeing them agree to what he had said, Dan continued explaining the obvious next part of his plan.

  "Of course, we should focus more on Graham. No matter how untrustworthy of a source he could turn out to be, he's still all we have, and even if he's lying he would still mix some truths there. So we should question him some more after he wakes up again."

  The meeting then advanced some more before they went their separate ways. Dan fell into deep thoughts as he walked, his mind was again taking him down some weird tangents, of weird possibilities and dark outcomes he didn't really want to entertain. Before he could realise it, he found himself quite close to the med-bay.

  Calming his heart, he took a couple of deep breaths before entering the med-bay. As expected, he was met at the door by Leonard who was sitting there and reading something on his phone. The Martial Grandmaster lifted and met Dan's eyes, his face breaking into a big smile.

  "Hey, Captain, how are you doing?"

  "Good, and you?" Dan went with the flow of the conversation.

  "It's good, a bit boring but I guess we should be happy for those after what we have been through just a few days ago, right?"

  "Dan, you're here." Dan didn't answer before Fleta peeked at him from inside one of the med-bay's rooms.

  "Yes, I had been around and decided to see if our guest was up yet." He lied a bit. "So how is it? Should we expect him any time soon?"

  "Probably in a bit." Fleta's eyes shone a faint green as she went and gave the man a once-over. "My skill mended him as best as I could, but that's hard on his body and used up its energy. With him being as weak as you can see, he's going to be quite tired for a period of time and that's going to show up in how he's going to be sleeping and waking up many times a day."

  "So you think I don't need to leave?" he asked in interest, "I could wait for a bit and he should be waking up soon."

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  Getting a nod from her, Dan went to the side as he sat down and passed the time by talking to Leonard and Fleta. And just like Fleta had said, it didn't take long for the man to start waking up. Dan didn't know how he did it, but Leonard was the first one who noticed that, standing up just as the man's eyes started fluttering and his body shook a bit.

  Fleta didn't let Dan enter and meet the man at first, she went and checked him up for a bit first before she eventually gave him the ok to talk to him. All that while, Dan wasn't just standing there without doing anything, as soon as he was sure that the man was waking up for real, he contacted Marcus on the walkie-talkie and once Fleta let him go in for the questioning, Marcus was already standing there with him.

  "Hello, Graham, how are you feeling?" Dan asked as he entered the room.

  "Hey, Captain," the man greeted weakly, though Dan did notice that his complexion appeared much better than previously. "I'm feeling good."

  "Great to hear." Dan smiled lightly. "Actually, I just had a few more questions that I wondered if you could help us answer? I hope you don't mind."

  "It's alright." Graham tried to sit up as he spoke, but one glare from Fleta had the man settle down into the bed. "You saved my life, answering some of your questions is the least I could do."

  "Thank you, I appreciate it," Dan said sincerely, "First, you said that that Deepdark was the only ship that worked as a link between you and the outside world, right? Did it have a set schedule, or was it coming whenever? And when was the last time it came over?"

  "It had a fixed schedule," Graham said, his voice low, "It came once each month, might be early or late by a day or two, but a month was the average date. It was here a bit less than two weeks ago."

  Dan nodded as he listened. Knowing that was good, it gave them a deadline to work towards. That was if the island didn't have a way to contact the mainland that is.

  "Does the island have a way to contact the Deepdark or their people at shore?"

  "I doubt that." Graham shook his head. "The first attack from those bugs hit us not long after the Deepdark left, if they had a way to contact it, it would have returned to help. And I did notice how stressed some of the guards were starting to be with how frequent the attacks were becoming and how many of them were dying and getting injured after each attack."

  That was another piece of good news they came to know. Dan found himself quite happy with how the conversation was going and how much intel they got from it. He knew that the most critical questions were still coming through, they had decided to leave them till last because they were pretty telling honestly. Thinking of that, Dan looked at Marcus who gave him a short but resolute nod, his approval to go on, so he took a secret deep breath and asked:

  "Do you know how many guards the island has left? What tiers are they, and if their defences faced any big breaches due to the Harvesters' attacks?"

  Dan watched as the man opened and closed his mouth, as if he hadn't expected those questions. Dan could get why that was the case, those questions didn't really try to hide what they were aiming for. They were pretty straightforward and someone asking them could give the impression that they were aiming to attack the island, or at least considering it.

  Graham this time sat up in his bed, no matter how much Fleta grumbled at him, he just fixed his eyes on Dan. Dan could feel the fire burning within those eyes, as if he had got a new purpose in life.

  "Yes, I will tell you everything," he said, seeming to be speaking to himself more than anything else, "At first, there were around 70 guards on the island, most of them were tier 4 with a few in tier 5. Their captain, de facto leader of the island, is a tier 6 offensive Class of some kind. I'm not sure what it is, but he uses a sword and I saw him holding on easily against the monsters that attacked us. The number of guards fell drastically after those huge bugs started attacking us though, I think after yesterday's attack, there shouldn't be more than 30 to 40 guards, and many of them are injured."

  "How many of you were there?" Marcus interjected for the first time, "Just 70 of them were able to keep you at bay?"

  "There are a few hundred of us." Graham smiled bitterly. "But we were but low-level farmers or the like, those 70 guards along with their superior weapons and armours were more than enough to deal with us. We were quite lucky that they were stingy and didn't decide to brand us with some Oath skills or the like, or I wouldn't have even been able to talk to you about any of this. I guess us being in the middle of the ocean made them complacent."

  "What about the island's fortifications?" Dan brought the conversation back to something he had asked before. "How are they after all those attacks?"

  "They are almost all done." Graham chuckled. "That's how I was caught in the crossfire, they were having us make a makeshift defensive line to hold them back, but they attacked before we could do much. I think that the guards are quite stressed about their situation now, those bugs are straight from hell, but I sometimes wondered if they might have been the answer to our prayers?"

  Dan was still listening when he got an idea from what Graham just said, a possible answer to what Marcus had been worried about before, how to get their people onto the island without being noticed. They could aim to get them there when the Harvesters are attacking!

  Thanks for reading and giving the novel a chance everyone~~