Momonga was using the Mirror of Remote Viewing to safely search out the area surrounding them. So far he had discovered nothing but empty ocean. Since he had no idea what direction land might be in he was conducting the search in the pattern of an ever widening spiral. The boat wreckage they'd found suggested they couldn't be too far away from land, but it still might take quite awhile.

"I am sorry you are forced to waste so much time watching me do this," Momonga said.

"Do not concern yourself, Momonga-sama. Staying beside my master and following his orders, that is the butler Touch-Me-sama created and my reason for existence."

"It is good to hear that as I have no idea how long this will take."

It was shortly after he received a message from Demiurge. "Momonga-sama! I have just received an alert from one of my imp scouts! There is a ship approaching!"

Demiurge and Albedo had decided to keep four imps with invisibility cast on them flying above the island as an early warning system.

"Where is this ship?"

"About eight miles east of us."

Momonga refocused and the image of the mirror shifted. He saw a small vessel churning through the water leaving a wake behind it. He adjusted it again to give him a closer view.

"I have found it. Your scout did excellent work."

"Thank you, Momonga-sama. I will tell him of your praise, no greater reward could he have. Do you wish us to attack the vessel?"

"No, gather the guardians in the throne room, but we will do nothing for the moment."

"Understood."

Momonga studied the ship. The mirror allowed him draw close and view it from any angle he chose. It was clearly a modern vessel and traveling under its own power. The hull was gray metal while the deck was painted red and white, much of the paint had flaked off and there were signs of rust all over. On the deck of the ship was a small shed with a single door and glass screen, he assumed this was the bridge. Above the bridge was a short mast with an antenna spinning round and round. He noted there was no flag atop the mast.

Also on the deck were two platforms with seats. Built around each chair were a pair of machine guns. One was at the front of the ship and one in the back. The one at the front had a human sitting in it and talking to another. The second human had a rifle slung over his shoulder, it was made of black metal and had a curved magazine already inserted. Momonga had no idea what sort of rifle it was, but then he was no expert. The two men were not wearing uniforms. The one seated had a plain gray shirt and khaki pants. The other one was shirtless and also wearing khakis. Neither man had any shoes on. This ship clearly did not look to be part of any navy, but it was just as obvious they were not ordinary sailors. Pirates then? That seemed most likely.

He against shifted the angle of the viewing to look ion through the glass screen. There were three men inside, one sitting the other two standing. They appeared to simply be talking. Again, there were no uniforms. One of them had another black rifle over one shoulder. The viewpoint pulled back to look over the entire ship. No other people were on deck. The mirror's magic was limited and he could not use it see what was inside.

There was clapping and Sebas bowed to him. "Congratulations on finding the inhabitants of this world."

"I didn't find them. That was the scouts sent out by Demiurge and Albedo."

"They still acted under your order. Shall we attack the ship?"

Momonga shook his head. "I intend to follow it with the mirror. I want to discover where that ship is from without alerting any of the local inhabitants. I want to study them from a distance before actually making contact with them."

"A very wise and cautious decision Momonga-sama."

"We know nothing of this world or its dangers, we need to approach this warily."

"Hai."

About five minutes later the ship changed its course and headed towards them.

"Well… so much for that." Momonga stood. "If they've noticed us we can't ignore them. Let's go to the throne room, Sebas."

"Yes, Momonga-sama."

As they went the mirror floated in the air and trailed after them.

XXX

John had the whole crew on deck except for Mark who had the wheel and Tobi who was in the engine room. Both gun turrets were manned and everyone had their weapons in hand. Counting Mark and Tobi and himself he had a grand total of twelve people. He figured if there were any smugglers here he had enough fire power to deal with them. (Tobi didn't count of course.)

"Bring us close, but not too close," John called in a low voice. "Don't run us aground. The last thing I need is to radio for help."

"Got it," Mark said.

"Is there some kind of tech that can make fog?" Sote asked.

"I think if you put water on dry ice you can make it." Ralph Harmon said.

"What's dry ice?"

"Don't know, I just heard about it one time."

"We should get Tobi up here and ask him," Sote said. "Useless leech oughta be good for somethin'."

"It doesn't matter," John said. "We're just going to go around the Point one time and see if there's anything here. Everybody keep a sharp eye out."

The Evil Witch approached the southern shore, moving slowly through the water.

"Hey, do you see that?" Ralph asked.

"What?" John asked.

"There's something on the island. A house maybe?"

"Hey, he's right! I can just see it." Someone else said.

"Keep your voices down," John hissed. He went to stand next to Ralph. "I can't see shit, what are you looking at?"

"There," Ralph pointed. "You can spot a couple straight lines, like the side of a wall maybe."

At first John couldn't make it out, but then did barely notice the shape of something in the fog. "Fuck." He was about to tell Mark to kill the engines and drop anchor.

"HEY!" Lance Varden, the man on the forward turret shouted.

"Quiet! What the fu-" John cut off when he turned around to see what was happening. There, at the very front of his ship was a circle of black light."

"What the hell is that?" Sate asked, as he and everyone else brought their rifles up to their shoulders.

"Fuck me if I know," John answered. He had no clue what this was. John had thought the worst, the absolute worst, thing they might find was a camp of smugglers. Circles of black light that popped out of nowhere were way beyond anything he was ready for. And as he stood there a massive eight foot tall metal figure with four arms stepped out through the circle.

"Greetings, I am-"

"It's a mecha!" Someone screamed.

That was it. All hell broke loose as everyone blasted away. The personal mecha was standing not five feet in front of Lance's turret. The twin machine guns blazed at point blank. The spent cartridges flew into the air as the muzzle flashed lit everything up. John could clearly hear a rapid, tak, tak, tak, tak, underneath the sound of gunfire. He was shooting along with everyone else. John didn't think he could miss such a big target at this range. It was obvious the machine guns literally couldn't miss. There were sparks all over the enemy and he could see spent bullets raining down on the deck. Despite all this, the mecha wasn't taking any damage that he could see.

The mecha took one step forward, grabbed the twin muzzles in two hands, and crushed them. There was an instant backfire as both machine guns exploded. John saw the top of Lance's head ripped off. His corpse slumped over in the chair, right hand still clutching the trigger.

Then things suddenly quieted down as everyone ran empty at almost the exact same moment. Spent magazines were ejected and fresh ones popped in. And while this was happening another figure stepped through the black circle. Mercifully it wasn't another mecha, instead it was an older man with grey hair and beard, dressed in a black suit with a black tie.

"Momonga-sama ordered us to not kill any of them. He wants prisoners." The new arrival said.

"I know this. I did not kill him intentionally. I will personally apologize to Momonga-sama."

"Who the fuck are you people?!" John screamed. He and all his men had reloaded. No one had started firing again. How did an infantry mecha end up here? And why was there a guy in a suit without even a rifle?

The mecha pilot answered him. "We are the servants of Ainz Ooal Gown and of the supreme being Momonga-sama. We have been ordered to capture you and your ship. I ask you to lay down your weapons and surrender. There is no disgrace in yielding to a superior force. You have already proven your warrior spirits and need not continue a pointless resistance."

"Yeah, I've never heard of either of those. We work for Bloody Billy Turner. If you attack us he'll come after you with everything he's got. I'll make a deal with you. Get off my ship and we'll leave here and not ever come back. I won't even tell Bloody Billy about you." He nodded to Lance. "I'll say there was an accident."

"That is not possible," the pilot inside the mecha rumbled.

"Indeed," the guy in the suit agreed. "Momonga-sama has ordered your capture, which is all that matters."

"Well that's a shame. GUN 'EM!" John and the crew all opened up.

The mecha rushed forward. Amazingly, the guy in the suit leapt up onto his shoulder and then jumped towards them. John got his rifle up to shoot him and thought he got him. But the man somehow landed on the deck behind them. Before anyone could even turn around, three men were knocked out. Mark ran out of the bridge with his gun ready. John could only watch as the man tore the rifle out of his hands and smashed the butt end into his friend's face.

John had no chance to do anything. The mecha was in front of him swatting down him men like they were flies. He saw a massive hand come down to his face and that was all.

XXX

The entire fight had lasted under sixty seconds.

Momonga stepped through the gate. He had on a mask and gauntlets to help hide his nature. Behind him the six Pleiades maids followed. He turned to Yuri Alpha.

"I want this ship secured and searched. Bring me any remaining crew members alive and unharmed if possible. I especially want weapons, maps, and any books or written materials."

"Yes, Momonga-sama." Yuri and the other maids set off to go below decks and obey.

Cocytus came over and bowed. "I apologize for causing the death of one of the sailors."

Momonga waved it away. "There is nothing to apologize for, I watched the battle. I know it was not your intention. More importantly, were you hurt at all?"

"No, I am uninjured."

Momonga nodded and took a close look at Cocytus's armor. He did not see even a scratch. "It seems magical armor is an effective defense against bullets." Momonga knew from his history books that both in Europe and Japan gunpowder had brought an end to knights and armored samurai. But it looked like magical armor was a very different story.

When Sebas approached he was alarmed to see two bullet holes in his chest and blood. Despite the obvious wounds the butler did not move as though he were injured.

"Sebas! Are you all right?"

"I am fine Momonga-sama, please do not be concerned."

In the real world two bullets to the chest would lay out any man, even if they missed all vital organs. Sebas was not human though.

Momonga cast a low level spell. "Status." In his eyes a green bar materialized above Sebas's head. On it were the numbers 1,951 / 2,000.

In Yggdrasil death came when your hit points reached zero. In most cases, unless you were poisoned or suffering a curse, you would be completely fine and able to make a full recovery so long as you kept at least one hit point. Combat normally involved reducing the total number of hit points a target had down to zero. Yggdrasil did not really have critical hits. Certain characters classes such as assassin, sniper, master thief, and ninja were allowed special attacks like back stab, cut throat, or head shot that could instant kill an NPC, on a PC they would inflict five times the normal damage. As a lich mage he himself had spells like grasp heart which were designed as one shot kills. In practice those sorts of spells rarely worked if the target was above level 30. The point was that in Yggdrasil killing usually involved attacking someone to reduce their HP to zero. Critical strikes were unusual and an exception to game play, so there was usually no benefit to aiming at the head or heart, since the exact same damage would be done wherever the blow or spell landed.

The real world did not operate this way. There it made a very big difference whether you stabbed a person through the eye or the shoulder. If bullets in this world caused an average of twenty-five points of damage did that mean Sebas could be shot more than fifty times and still be fine? Could he be shot in the head or heart and survive as if it had been a wound in his arm? Was the important factor that his race was dragonoid? Or was it the fact he was an NPC?

I'm going to need to conduct more experiments. In the meantime, Momonga reached into a pocket dimension and provided Sebas a healing potion. Though it was not serious he wanted Sebas fully healed.

XXX

They had searched the prisoners and the bridge. Momonga had figured out how to shut down the engines. He'd then cast levitate and brought the ship completely out of the water and on to dry land. Along with the rifles they'd uncovered four handguns. Going through pockets most of the men had possessed wallets. The men had picture identification cards with presumably their names and other information written in the same indecipherable script that had been on the wrecked boat. In the wallets were wrinkled paper bills of red and black with the same image of a balding man on all of them. There were coins of copper and iron, also with the same face stamped on them. Momonga assumed this was money, but the numbers, if there were numbers, were as indecipherable to him as the words.

When the maids returned, Yuri was leading a young man gripping his shoulder. Delta and Solution were carrying wooden crates. The young man had straw colored hair and was very thin, his clothes were noticeably more tattered and frayed than those of the other sailors. Momonga noted he had what looked like an old scar on his right cheek, it was in the shape of a triangle.

"Momonga-sama," Yuri said. "This is the only other person on board. He was not armed and did not resist."

Momonga nodded. "Good work, Yuri. I will speak to him."

Yuri turned to her prisoner. "Kneel."

He obeyed without a murmur. The man glanced at his unconscious crewmates and at the body still in its seat. He turned his eyes back to Momonga.

Momonga saw fear in them, but more weariness and despair. "What is your name?"

"Tobi."

"Just Tobi?"

The man's eyes widened slightly. "I am a Tech." By the way he said it, he seemed to think that was enough to explain it. As if from habit he reached up and touched his cheek.

"Well, Tobi, I am Momonga, leader of the Ainz Ooal Gown guild, and I have questions for you."