Chapter 82: THIRD POV [BONUS Chapter]

’She’s been manning this entire ship on her own for that long?’ Jacob was visibly amazed.

Even if she didn’t know what she was doing, the sheer physical strength and speed it would take for one person to move the sails, steer the helm, and manage the lines on a vessel this size was unbelievable.

She must have been running back and forth across the deck for twenty hours a day.

It explained why she was so eager to pick up a group of former slaves who had no business playing sailors, she was probably exhausted.

"Why I want to be a pirate doesn’t matter," she added quickly, her tone turning sharp. She looked away from him, her eyes focusing on the horizon.

The awkward look on her face when she said that, though, had him looking at her strangely.

She wasn’t being mean; she looked embarrassed.

From the looks of it, her reason wasn’t something she was willing to share openly with others.

’What a strange one...’ Jacob thought to himself. If course he didn’t care.

Rather, He wondered if she was running away from something, or if she just had some romanticized idea of what life at sea was like.

"I don’t exactly know many pirates," she revealed next.

The awkward look grew even more prominent, though she tried to hide it behind that intimidating, cold look of hers. She stood up straighter, trying to regain her air of "Legendary Pirate."

"I don’t know why, but they tend to flee whenever they see my ship," she harrumphed, as if recalling something deeply annoying.

She kicked at a loose splinter on the deck. "I try to sail close to say hello or ask for tips and they just start throwing everything overboard and rowing for their lives. It’s very rude."

Jacob looked at her, then at the ship, and then back at her.

’Of course they run!’ he screamed internally.

They see a massive, high-end warship coming at them at full speed with a giant tigress on the deck, and no crew in sight.

They probably think the ship is haunted or that she’s some kind of sea demon or maybe her crew were lying in ambush, waiting to pounce upon collision.

"Douglas was the only one who didn’t run," she continued, her expression brightening. "He even politely helped show me how a real pirate should act." She smiled smugly at this point, clearly proud of her "friendship" with the Captain Jacob had one shotted with a single blow.

"Though he ended up acting strangely at the end," she said, her smile fading into a look of genuine confusion. "He started shaking a lot, and he kept wanting me to hurry up and get to pillaging and stuff. He kept saying, ’Please, just take the gold and go!’ It was very odd. I thought pirates were supposed to be tougher than that."

Jacob stared at her as if looking at an idiot once more. He didn’t need to be a genius to figure out what had actually happened.

From his thought process, he believed Douglas, who was probably the "Darlington" she mentioned earlier, had likely tried to ruin her.

’ Great... she can’t remember names properly either.

Darlington probably saw a lone woman on a magnificent ship and thought it was his lucky day rather than being suspicious, clearly the man’s greed knew no bounds.

He probably pulled alongside, ready to board and take the ship for himself. But after she single-handedly defeated his entire crew, he became rather submissive.

The "lessons" on how to be a pirate were likely just Douglas begging for his life and trying to give her whatever she wanted so she would leave him alone.

He hadn’t been "politely helping" her; he had been terrified.

"Wait," Jacob said, rubbing his eyes. "So, you stole this ship, you’ve been sailing it alone for weeks, you don’t know what you’re even supposed to do, and the only pirate you’ve met was a guy who was too scared to fight you?"

"That’s a very rude way of putting it," she pouted. "I have you now, don’t I? You’ll help me with the other stuff, then I can become a real pirate."

Jacob let out a breath he felt like he’d been holding since he woke up.

He looked back toward the slaver ship, where Dinklehimer and the others were waiting to be towed.

They thought they were being rescued by a powerful pirate fleet. If they knew the truth, that they were the crew for a woman who didn’t know a compass from a dinner plate, they’d probably jump back into the ocean.

But at least she knew how to get back to land, more like he hoped she knew at this point.

’If I’m going to help her becoming a pirate, it’s gonna take a lot of work,’ he said to himself, sighing right after. He looked at the vast deck, the miles of rope, and the complicated pulleys.

He wasn’t a sailor, and the men following him were mostly farmers and laborers who had probably never been on anything bigger than a rowboat before they were kidnapped.

Turning this group of amateurs and their "pretend" leader into a real crew felt like trying to build a house out of wet noodles.

"What’s your name if I may ask?" Jacob asked, snapping out of his thoughts. He realized he really didn’t know her name yet.

Quite a poor thing to do to someone he’d be working together with soon. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

"My name?" She blinked, her fluffy ears twitching as if the question had caught her off guard.

"Yes, since we’ll be working together for the mean time, I must know your name," he said.

He tried to sound professional, like he was making a business deal. If they were going to be sharing the same space and risking their lives, calling her "Hey you" wasn’t going to cut it.

Rather than replying immediately, an excited look emerged on her face. It was as if a lightbulb had gone off in her head.

"So that means you’re really accepting my offer then?" she asked. Her voice went up an octave, sounding less like an intimidating predator and more like a kid who just got told they were going to the zoo.