Chapter 16
Not far away from the island of Ballywood you can see a small boat usually referred to as a cog very smoothly nearing its port, this ships most unique feature appears to be its structure, built using the well-known yet uncommon clinker technique (edges of hull planks overlap each other to form an airtight seal, unlike normally positioned wood) which allows it to move much faster than normal ships its size, and only needs one mast in order to accelerate the ship.
As soon as this small boat lands on the edge of the docks two people walk out of it and leave its safety to the patrolling guards, not knowing that this ship is actually full of hidden booby traps that once activated can easily capture thieves.
….
As we arrive at the docks we park at an unused spot and leave the boat behind, not really worrying of losing it with all the traps that the aspiring kunoichi Porche-chan has set up.
And as we walk into town, we are amazed at the amount of people we see walking on the streets.
Anywhere you look you can find business deals going on at every second, from small mom and pop shops to street vendors selling their wares and food items to public performers performing for the crowds, and even a few public sex workers selling their craft.
I am amazed at this scene because it is the first time that I see such a thing.
I know that bazaars and street markets were a thing in my old world, but this seems to be an upgrade, or downgrade to some, from those.
As we walk along the city streets, we enjoy ourselves by tasting many unique dishes that we have never heard of, and even buy some trinkets with the bellies that we confiscated from all of those pirates that we defeated along the way here.
We even try some activities that were available anywhere you look, like arm-wrestling a large muscular man, and if you win you get 1,000 bellies, or see if you can outperform a professional acrobat, which Porche-chan tried and conquered with relative ease.
She was cheating a bit by using the paper arts, but no one knows it and what they don't know doesn't hurt them.
Overall, we had our fun visiting many interesting places, this is why we came here for, to rest and relax, enjoy some time just getting entertained.
As we are approaching the town square we are suddenly squished and pushed around by the surrounding crowd, they seem to want to go towards something up ahead.
As we get closer to what the commotion is we see a podium surrounded by 5 large burley men guarding a wealthy looking fat man that is speaking to the gawking crowd.
And as we near we hear him speaking, "That's right you all heard me correctly! The minx is the one that Stole from Mayor Cheese Burger! He has set up a large bounty of 50 million bellies for anyone who finds her and brings her back alive for punishment!"
As he finishes speaking, he then picks up a large stack of paper and throws them at the crowd for dispersion.
I quickly pick one up and look at what it says, and I am gobsmacked by what it reads!
"Wanted ALIVE for crime against the Burger Family, Reward: 50,000,000 B: Hellcat Carina!" With a photograph of a busty purple haired teenager on the front.
I'm stunned by this because this is one of the secondary reasons that I came to this island, in order to recruit Carina into my forming bounty hunter team.
I first heard about a Carina from some cheery pirates that came to Lily Island not long ago in the bar.
She was apparently a rising star in the entertainment industry here and had many fans behind her.
Either due to her beauty or her ability to act and sing, either way she was very well known here and around the West blue apparently for her capabilities.
At the time I also seemed to be one of the very few people that knew that she also goes by the epithet of Phantom Thief, apparently due to her competency in the field no one else had found out.
Yet here she is, being an openly wanted criminal on one of the biggest islands in West Blue
I was originally planning on bribing her with a few things that I have in my possessions, like a self-created manual on learning Rokushiki, which I know for a fact could sell for a few hundred million to pirates, as marines don't share this knowledge openly, and the ones that do are usually very quickly targeted by the World Government and disposed of.
Adding to that deal the prospect of other riches, that can be easily acquired with her skills and my slow-slow powers.
It would have been obvious that she would likely have accepted the deal, or maybe not I don't know, but here she is now, a wanted fugitive on the run right as I have need for her, this is a great opportunity.
Now all I need to do is find her and recruit her and I'll have my very own sexy thief.
Chapter 17
After that little display concerning Carina, we continue walking onto our original destination, a grand building that has large, emboldened letters displayed on its front that read "MARINE", in order to get our Bounty Hunter Registration Cards, something that we found out bounty hunters in this world are required to have in order to claim a reward for a criminal from the Navy.
This is apparently because in this world Marines don't just have to deal with pirates, but also other more mundane threats, like gangs, thieves, and amongst them bounty hunters as well.
It's a pretty well-known fact that 50% of all bounty hunters at one point in their career lose interest in hunting pirates and instead take up the pirate life for themselves.
There are many reasons for it, but the most well-known and common reason is that typically pirates make much more money by taking from innocents than bounty hunters do, which requires them to put themselves in danger and capture dangerous people in order to make a few mills in belly.
Most of the time most bounty hunters also only get 70% of the bounty because it's not very easy to go for the capture instead of the much easier and convenient kill.
There are a few well-known bounty hunters out there in the world like the mysterious veil wearing female Eiko, which has a 99% public capture record going all the way to 1 billion Belly captures, or the well-known ladies' man Ronin which has a 70% capture record going all the way up 900 million Belly bounty.
Yet almost all of these figures reside in the New World or in the later stages of Paradise, where they can actually find appropriate targets to hunt, and not in any of the blues.
All of these facts lead to the Navy recording very carefully the details of every bounty hunter in case they for one reason or another become true enemies of the World Government.
This is also the main reason for civilians being afraid and tense around most bounty hunters in general.
…
As we approach the large open-air building, we are greeted by a cacophony of noises everywhere, as well as many Marines and Marine employees moving about the courtyard.
Soon someone from the front desk appears to have noticed us, and due to our confident gate and unique clothes options which for me are dark military boots with black camo cargo pants with a purple tank top that shows off my hard-earned muscles; and for my companion it's her usual red revealing jumpsuit paired with a newly purchased fluffy red bucket hat along with some red shades.
We look like a pair of badasses, and as you may or may not know, badasses in this world are usually paid attention to.
Therefore, the attendant walks towards us and quickly asks us, "Hello madam, sir, how can I help you today?"
Hearing this I quickly reply: "Yes good day to you soldier, we are here to register as bounty hunters, and we also have a few heads we collected that we would like to cash in."
Hearing this the attendant makes an ugly face for a second before it's quickly hidden and replies with a fake smile, "Great, please come this way and we will set you right up."
…
Not long after we walk out of the marine branch a few million bellies richer and with content smiles on our faces.
We received our Bounty Hunter Cards relatively easily as well as a bag full of belly after we showed them all of the pirate heads that we chopped off, which was only 5, as these were some of the captains that attacked our boat in order to try to capture us and enslave us.
Every single one of them were nasty people, and congruent to that behavior every single one of them had a bounty of 5 million belly bounty and up.
We then check into a medium quality hotel for the night and go right to our room, which only has one large bed.
As we are getting prepared for bed, Porche asks me, "so ah Cade-kun what's your plan for getting that Carina woman now? Are we still going to enjoy the islands entertainment or not?"
As I hear this question I ponder for a bit before answering, "unfortunately we are not going to be able to enjoy ourselves for as long as I originally planned, tomorrow we are going to be searching for clues about Carina's whereabouts and then we are unfortunately going to have to leave this island."
She unsurely replies, "Are you sure you want to get this woman in our team? Not only are we going to miss out on some well needed fun, but she also appears to not be that good at being a thief."
When I hear this, I chuckle and shake my head a bit and reply, "Yeah I'm sure, I know for a fact that she is a good thief, I read in one of the marine reports that since young she was in the thieving business and that she pulled off a job against a big-time pirate in the East blue about a year ago, so I'm sure this must have been a rare blunder for her."
As I say this she quickly nods and goes about her business easily accepting what I said, which is getting ready for bed.
And as I lay on the soft bed, I think ''No' is not really an option if I want to achieve that goal'.
….
Quick Note: If any of you are wondering what he chose as his backstory, don't worry, it will be revealed later on.
—-
Chapter 18
[First Day of Looking for Carina]
The next day we slowly wake up in each other's embrace, go on to have a delicious 3-star breakfast provided by the hotel – which is truly delicious and always makes me happy that I came into this world – and take long showers that we were sorely missing in that small boat.
We then get ready for the day by wearing some gray cloaks over our clothes and preparing our weapons, or at least in Porsche-Chan's case; all I needed to prepare were my fists.
As Porche-chan is preparing her weapons I look at myself in the mirror and what greets me is a handsome face of a Japanese looking man with green eyes and a good amount of hair on his head. (Hehe, bet most of you forgot mc doesn't have official appearance yet, anyways he basically looks like Saizo Kirigakure from Brave 10)
I quickly look over if everything looks fine, and as it does, I turn back to Porche-chan to see that she's just about done.
We then walk out and separate in different directions like it's an everyday thing.
Porche is going to check the entertainment district while I'm going to check the slums and the darker side of the island for any clues about her whereabouts.
…
[A few Hours Later]
I was once again sitting in bed in the hotel room with Porche hugging my left side as we were detailing what we both did the whole day to each other (in order to be on the same page).
Apparently Porche went all around the entertainment sector trying to find any clues about Carina and keeping an eye out for any conspicuous individual.
She visited many high-end bars, restaurants, theater houses, high-end pleasure houses, and even a large casino…she had no luck.
As she is telling me all about her day, she is also discreetly complaining with her tone that due to being on the lookout for her target and quickly searching many establishments, she wasn't really able to enjoy any one of those things, except perhaps the restaurants.
Well maybe not too discreetly since she is openly pouting quite heavily.
Unfortunately, I couldn't oblige her, because we are on a tight schedule to find Carina and get out of dodge safely and without causing too big of a ruckus.
I then also report my findings to her and this time luckily, I did find a clue, not a very good one, but people where reporting that they saw a conspicuously sexy purple haired woman walking towards the east end of the island a few days ago, one that looked eerily similar to Carina. (People are perverts who rather pay attention to some eye candy walking by then pay attention to what they need to survive)
This doesn't give us much because the East end of the island is the biggest and most populated region, but it gives us a starting point and that's something.
[Second Day of looking for Carina]
We once again repeat the process of yesterday's morning routine, and once again split up, but this time in the East end in order to find any clues.
I head towards the Industrial area, while Porche heads towards the large markets in order to discreetly ask around.
This time when it was time to report our findings, unfortunately neither of us found anything, so we simply marked those places off for future reference and went to sleep cuddling.
[Third Day of looking for Carina]
Once again, we do the same thing except this time Porche and I enjoy an early morning massage that the hotel scheduled for us; and with that relaxing experience we each go out on our search much happier than what should be expected of us, and luckily when Porche was teasingly asking a marine cadet if he knew anything, she finally got a major clue.
He reported that the marines suspect that Carina is hiding out in one of the more secluded clubs in the party district but have not had the time to confirm it because apparently the marines whose job it is to do raids in these types of situations have been sent on a 1-week training exercise with the local military in order to "improve" their teamwork and efficiency.
When I heard this, I found this to be very fishy, and apparently so did Porche, so she asked the cadet about this and he said that it was apparently just a coincidence, because that training session was planned out months before, so all of the marines were basically forced to show up to it.
When I hear this I come up with two plausible situations, one: Carina merely used this exact time in order to carry out her robbery and simply got caught in the process and now she's wanted, or two: she has secretly been collaborating with some official in the government in order to set this up, then carry out the heist, but unfortunately something went wrong along the way or maybe she was backstabbed by her collaborator and now she finds herself wanted.
Either one of these situations is very plausible according to everything we know about the circumstances.
With this final clue we are ready to finally interact with our upcoming new member, and that night we sleep much more comfortably than any of the previous nights.
[Last Day of Looking for Carina]
This is the fourth day that we have been searching all day for any possible leads, and we finally have a location on hand.
In the morning we once again have breakfast, but this time we are much quicker about everything since we don't want to take any undue risks and cause us to lose her trail.
We quickly walk out of the hotel front doors but this time we don't separate but walk together to the apparent place where Carina is staying at.
As we open the doors to the more locally known club the first thing that we hear as we enter is a beautiful melodic voice in the air, and as we trail the voice to the source, the first thing that we see is surprisingly a 16-year-old Carina right in center stage singing a song like its none of her business that people are looking for her all over the island.
With this we both look at each other gob smacked and with surprise written all over our faces.
Either way, we have now found our next companion, Carina.