"Captain," Rose's voice suddenly dragged Dan from his deep thoughts, "We made it."

  "Thank you," Dan said as he jumped to the pier.

  The island had one, and with it under their control, it was much easier to drop down, at least they didn't have to tread through the ocean water just to get to the shore.

  Half running to where he knew they had established a temporary camp, Dan prayed that things wouldn't be as bad as his frantic heart was making them to be, he just hoped that Marcus wasn't in a critical condition. He had received some updates through the walkie-talkie, but didn't know how bad the situation had gotten.

  As Dan closed in on the area, he saw how messy things were. Here and there, people were shouting as they directed the few slaves on shore. Further in, Dan could hear someone using a megaphone as they shouted instructions to the kidnapped slaves. They were told to keep to their dormitories, that things would be arranged and resolved in the morning, while also warning that if anyone was found walking outside at night, they would be treated as hostiles and dealt with accordingly.

  Dan knew that they were just talking big while in reality, they didn't have enough people to keep the whole island on lockdown. The enslaved kidnappees didn't know that though, the entirety of their knowledge must have been that someone had attacked the island and dealt with the guards that were controlling it. They of course wouldn't dare to go against the instructions of such people, making the crew's work easier.

  Reaching the base, Dan's eyes locked on the laid-out form of Marcus and Fleta who was sitting next to him.

  "How is he?" he asked directly.

  "Stable," Fleta answered straight away, "His injuries are still there, and it's going to take a while for him to completely heal, but he's out of the danger zone, don't worry."

  Dan finally let out a sigh of relief, his heart calming down. He truly had a new appreciation for Altruism, that skill had been heaven-sent. He didn't miss that if Marcus didn't have that skill, the one lying there wouldn't be his injured form, but the lifeless body of Leonard.

  Altruism worked by taking 75% of the fatal damage suffered by someone who was under the umbrella of Marcus's Class, Guardian of Peace. That was the spell's effect at tier 1, at tier 2 it didn't drop the percentage like Dan expected it to, but instead added another effect to the skill; it magically kept the transferred fatal wound stable for 10 minutes, allowing the owner to get healing for his wound. Dan knew that it must have been the reason why Marcus had survived.

  There was another thing that he noticed, something that the skill was missing: it didn't deal with the pain. That meant that Marcus had to suffer through the pain of having his heart stabbed for so many minutes before getting help.

  Dan again looked at Marcus as he thought of that. Seeing the short security officer lying there unresponsive gave him many conflicting emotions. Eventually, he took a deep breath and brought all his emotions under control.

  "How is the overall situation? Any other injuries?" he asked.

  "Everything is good, most of the fights were done at long range, while most of the guards were close-quarter combatants." Fleta shook her head as she stood up. "The few amongst us who had some minor injuries used Linda's healing potions to fix themselves, it all went well."

  "Good, good." Dan was glad that they had gone for buying those alchemy books and all those recipes, they proved to be more than worth their expensive prices.

  "Captain," a voice suddenly came from beside him.

  "Oh, Raily." Dan was met with the Mended Veteran's serious expression, he felt himself calm down even more as he saw him. "How are you doing, and how did everything go?"

  "Good." Old Raily nodded reassuringly. "Everything went well on our side."

  "Good to hear." Getting the assurance he needed, Dan focused on another matter. "Do you think there's a chance some of the guards are still hiding out there?"

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  "Possible." Old Raily didn't deny it, looking into the dark mountains behind them. "They know this island better than we do, and there are still those caves. Who knows if some of the guards are hiding there."

  Dan frowned as he heard that, he wasn't looking forward to following those people into one of those caves, who knows what kind of traps would be awaiting them there?

  "Don't worry," Old Raily comforted him, "We already broadcast to the kidnappees that if any of them were found walking outside at night, they would be treated as hostiles. I doubt any of them will take such risks, which would make things easier for us. You should also have the Voyager keep an eye on the island, I doubt anyone would be able to stay out of her notice."

  Dan had to admit that he hadn't considered having the Voyager keep an eye on the island, when he heard about Marcus getting injured, he headed to the shore as soon as he was allowed to by Robert and the others. They only let him go to the island after they were sure that it was under their control and that all the fighting had stopped.

  Glancing one final time at the unconscious Marcus, Dan controlled the surge of complicated emotions that filled his heart as he turned to Old Raily and said:

  "We will have a meeting soon. Call Robert and Jackie, we need to see what to do about the kidnappees."

  "Okay." Old Raily nodded.

  Things after that went smoothly, Fleta and Marcus took one of the tenders back to the Voyager. With his state stable, they could finally take him to the med-bay for treatment and rest. Dan himself would have headed back to the Voyager, but with Old Raily and Jackie needed for the next conversation, and both of them being on land, he had to stay there. They even called Robert to join them from the Voyager. The man had been a bit hesitant about coming ashore for some reason, but eventually agreed to it.

  "Okay," Dan said as he looked at everyone, "With you all here, we need to talk about what to do next. We managed to deal with the guards and liberate everyone, but unfortunately, our involvement doesn't just end there, we need to do much more."

  "We will start with a headcount," Robert said, "We will also question them to make sure that none of the guards are hiding amongst them. After all, I doubt any of them would decide to hide the guards, and we can also use them to find the troublesome elements amongst them; who says none of the slaves were just as much of devils as the guards? That all needs to be dealt with."

  "After dealing with all that," Old Raily said slowly, "We will have to work on a plan to get them to the Voyager, assigning them rooms and all that."

  "Leave that to me," Jackie cut in. The bosun had been the one responsible for the deckhands and most of the matters on deck, it wouldn't be hard for him to make those arrangements. "I will also see about getting them something to wear, I caught a few glimpses of what they are wearing now and they could barely be called clothes."

  "We should also have them go through Fleta," Dan added, "Check them to see if they are healthy and aren't suffering from any illnesses or the like."

  "Also make sure that all the shops on the Voyager are closed off," Old Raily suddenly said, "Especially the jewellery and liquor stores, see about moving those stocks to the vaults, they are the major source of income for us."

  "Makes sense." Everyone nodded.

  After they had spoken some more about how to deal with all that and ironing out a few more details, Robert spoke:

  "There's something else that needs our attention."

  "What is it?" Dan looked at his chief officer with interest.

  "The mana crystals," Robert said as he glanced at the huge mountain behind them, "Those are extremely valuable and useful magical materials, they are used in almost all magical endeavours and can even be used as power sources for some magical devices. And as you know, the whole operations on this island were started because of the huge amount of mana crystals in those mountains."

  "We should take their stock?" Jackie caught on to what Robert meant.

  "Exactly." Robert smiled. "I've talked to Arkus and Graham and realised that not only were there a huge amount of mana crystals in stock, there were even tons of magical metals. There might even be more magical metals than mana crystals in stock."

  "Those mines produced more magical metals than mana crystals?" Old Raily asked.

  "It's not that." Robert shook his head with a chuckle. "It's more of a matter of logistics. You see, mana crystals are way more valuable than any of the magical metals on this island, making the people here prioritise sending them to the mainland. Also, as you know, they use a Deepdark to take the mana crystal back, and you know how those are, right?"

  Dan nodded. Deepdarks were ships that had their wood soaked in the ink of a kraken, which made them almost unnoticeable by most ocean creatures, even some of the Behemoths might lose interest in such a ship. The first ship they met on their first day was a Deepdark operated by pirates. As for what Robert meant, it was that they were made to be stealth ships, and they didn't have much cargo capacity.

  "With no room to even take back their whole storage of mana crystals, why would they waste their precious cargo space on cheaper magical metals?" Robert continued with his explanation, "All that meant that over the years, the island had collected an astonishing amount of magical metals, just sitting there for someone to pick."

  "Well, would you look at that," Jackie said after Robert was done speaking, "Seems that we ended up with quite the haul, huh?"