This young master truly has the ambition of a hero.

As for the other two tentacle ship girls that Belfast didn't recognize, one was called Golden Deer and the other Royal Fortune. They claimed to belong to the "Hurricane Faction" and were sailing warships that once roamed the oceans during the Age of Exploration.

It's worth mentioning that the two groups of four ship girls, Ding An and Kashino, were summoned when they encountered a Siren air attack while docked in the port, while Jinlu and Royal Fortune encountered an unprecedented storm during their treasure hunt adventure and were swept into a huge whirlpool.

As for their immediate kidnapping of Dick upon arrival, that was purely a matter of "professional habit."

After getting a general understanding of her new companions' abilities and skill levels, Belfast felt that the five ship girls could indeed form a "task force." This force might be lacking in their original Azur Lane world, but in this world, it wouldn't be a big problem dealing with some sailing pirate ships or Imperial Navy paddle steamers.

Golden Deer and Royal Fortune are both standard combat-type ship girls. Kashino's ship equipment also includes small-caliber naval guns and anti-aircraft machine guns, while Sadan is equipped with seaplanes. Although there are only three of them, they are sufficient as an aerial reconnaissance means.

Therefore, Dick transferred all four ship girls to Belfast's command, hoping to give them some time to get used to each other.

Belfast immediately said there was no problem, and then looked at Dick with a serene smile.

Seeing this, Dick immediately understood. He coughed lightly, signaling the Golden Deer, who was clinging to him, to let go of her slippery tentacles. Then he asked the others in the room to leave first, as he had some things to say to Belfast alone.

Upon hearing that Dick was going to kick people out, Jinlu immediately pouted, looking somewhat unhappy.

Among the four ship girls in the same period, Jinlu can be said to have been very direct with Dick from the very beginning, frankly admitting that she was attracted to Dick's body and wanted to make him her "collection".

"Commander, I don't want to be separated from you!"

"Be good, listen to me."

After being coaxed by Dick, Jinlu reluctantly left the office with the others, while Ding'an's gaze lingered between Dick and Belfast for a moment, revealing a thoughtful expression.

Once only Dick and Belfast were left in the room, Dick got up from his desk and sat down on the sofa. Belfast followed him, lay down on her side, and rested her head on Dick's lap.

As the master, Dick has the obligation to "replenish the mana" of his servants, and intimate physical contact helps with energy absorption. Therefore, there is an unwritten rule in the team that there will be "extra compensation" when returning from field missions. Dick will try his best to satisfy his girls, not only by replenishing their mana, but also by providing them with the emotional value they want.

The girls also choose different ways to have intimate contact.

Some are more demure and like to use him as a pillow, finding satisfaction in holding him in their arms. Others are more wild and untamed, transforming into a fierce and untamed woman, treating Dick like a cat, holding him down and inhaling him with a whirlwind of energy.

In contrast, Belfast is a more refined type, and she is very fond of lap pillows and reverse lap pillows.

Looking at Belfast, who was resting her head on his lap with a peaceful smile on her face, Dick gently stroked her beautiful silver hair. During the days the enemy had launched a solo attack, Dick appeared calm on the surface, but in reality, he hadn't stopped worrying about Belfast's safety for a moment, fearing something might happen to her.

"Thank you for your hard work, Belfast."

As Dick spoke, he lowered his head and kissed Belfast's forehead, and Belfast immediately got up and returned a long, wet, and passionate French kiss. This kiss seemed to have triggered something in Belfast, making the two of them unable to stop themselves from getting intimate.

"I think I should have a bed in my office."

"The sofa is fine too!"

As Belfast spoke, she adjusted her posture to Dick's favorite straddle position. Due to his obvious disadvantage in height and size, Dick was almost completely covered by Belfast's body. However, because Belfast's body was soft and elastic, this pressure was not only not uncomfortable, but even quite comfortable.

As they kissed passionately, they undressed each other. Belfast's maid outfit was pulled open, revealing her two perfectly shaped breasts, which still stood proudly erect thanks to the corset. In a time when breast size within the group was experiencing "numerical inflation," Belfast, though no longer considered top-tier, still provided Dick with a delightful experience with the feel and texture of her large breasts.

Despite being the perfect maid, Belfast, even when aroused, rarely sang passionately during lovemaking like other girls. She would try her best to suppress her volume, but she would never hide her allure when they were intimate, her purple eyes filled with intense love and desire.

This understated allure is precisely Belfast's most captivating sexiness, making Dick unable to resist!

Belfast's somewhat greedy kiss suggests that her days tracking the enemy at sea must have been extremely arduous. Belfast previously mentioned losing her way after entering the dense fog, implying she was likely trapped inside for some time; the reality was far more complex than she made it sound, and her escape was far from simple.

Chapter 087: Dirty Deals

As it turns out, when you have a clear advantage in negotiations and want to maximize your benefits, stalling is undoubtedly a good option.

The negotiations between the three parties lasted for more than ten days. The one who suffered the most was undoubtedly Hammuradi, who was caught in the middle and torn between the two sides.

Hammuradi initially tried to get Dick to back down, but Dick quickly silenced him with a few words.

"Grandpa, why are you siding with outsiders? Are those pirates elves? I want to gain more benefits, not just for myself! Grandpa, please be more careful!"

With no other option, Hammuradi had to approach the Sea Tiger Gang himself and have Yitzhak act as a salesman, explaining to the pirates just how lucrative the profits from "flour" were.

Finally, after a series of negotiations, the three parties reached an agreement on the cooperation model and profit-sharing plan. The first transaction agreed upon by both parties was a trade of goods, with Dick's side exchanging 350 catties of goods for 700 strong slaves from the Sea Tiger Gang.

According to the official market prices in the Empire, a healthy male slave in his twenties or thirties would cost between one and two hundred gold coins. If he also possessed a skill, the price could increase two or three times. But among the pirates of the Sea Tiger Gang, all slaves cost only fifty gold coins.

The advantage is that they are cheap, but the disadvantage is that these "unlicensed slaves" are not officially recognized by the empire. Slave owners have to put in the effort to train them and also have to guard against the slaves escaping.

To put it bluntly, it's an irregular purchasing channel with no "after-sales service".

Seven hundred slaves were exchanged for three hundred and fifty catties of goods, which means that the pirates were willing to pay one hundred gold coins per catty to buy goods from Dick. The Sea Tiger Gang's ships were responsible for transportation, and the Dead Tree Gang was responsible for sales after landing.

After everything was agreed upon, the three parties agreed to conduct the transaction on the first day of August at a beach on the south shore of the fjord. Meanwhile, while Dick was busy fishing for pirates, a letter from the capital arrived in his hands.

“My son, you have been governor of your fiefdom for almost a year now. Is everything going well? Come home in the fall. Your father, Rune Besda.”

Upon receiving the letter, Dick thought for a moment. He had indeed taken office in Lagug at the end of September last year, and ten months had passed in the blink of an eye. According to normal custom, he should indeed return to the capital in person to report to the Duke in the autumn of his first year in office.

However, to be honest, Dick didn't want to go back. He had no nostalgia for the magnificent ducal mansion in the capital, and all his memories of it were terrible.

Looking back on those ten-plus years in the capital, Dick lived like an orphan living under someone else's roof. Before he awakened his magical talent, not only his older brothers and sisters, but even some servants in the Duke's mansion dared to give him, the "Fifth Young Master," sarcastic and strange looks.

During that time, Dick could only endure it, playing the role of an innocent and naive little cutie, trying his best to survive until adulthood, and then find a way to escape the perilous Duke's mansion.

What about standing out from the crowd? What about dominating the world? Those are things you only start thinking about after you have the ability. Before he was twelve, Dick only thought about how to survive.

Even if he returned to the capital, Dick was not worried about being dismissed.

For the Belt family, the fiefdom of Lagug had always been a burdensome one.

The territory is indeed vast, and although the climate is harsh, it possesses rare strategic resources like cold iron, so you can't say there's no profit to be made here. However, the Best family and the noble clan behind them have always had their traditional sphere of influence in the warm and fertile southern part of the empire, making Lagug, located on the northern border of the empire, a "remote enclave" that is too far away.

In fact, the Best family did not want this land at all back then, and they did not care about the cold iron. It was Blacksen I who forced it on Duke Best in order to gradually dismantle the Best family and let this family, which had a lot of influence in the noble group, slowly split into several families.

As a result, the old duke back then didn't buy into this at all. He appointed governors to manage all the non-core fiefdoms and never sent any direct descendants of the family there, thus maintaining the centralization and unity of the entire family.

So even though his brothers were all envious that Dick could become governor of a fiefdom, if Dick were to actually offer to give up his position to them, not a single one of them would be willing to come.

Who would want to be a mere governor when they could compete for the title of duke?

After calculating the time, Dick decided to wait until he could see the corn harvest in the fields before setting off back to the capital. Before that, he still had to deal with the pirates and the Dead Tree Gang.

Soon, the day of the transaction arrived. Dick personally led Black and White Gunner and fifty trusted guards to the agreed-upon transaction location, escorting the promised "goods".

When the group arrived at the beachhead, Hammuradi also appeared with Yitzhak and several members of the Dead Tree Party.

Among this group of companions, apart from Yzak, the others were all pure-blooded elves, all dressed in magical black robes with the ability to become invisible. Their faces beneath the hoods were exceptionally handsome, but when they looked at Dick, their eyes were filled with undisguised contempt and disgust.

Most elves are "frank" and won't keep their disdain for you to themselves.

Hammuradi, who has learned to be hypocritical, belongs to the minority who know how to adapt.

Ignoring the elves' stares, Dick stepped forward to greet his "good grandfather," then complimented him on how handsome his cloak was, making no attempt to hide his desire to covet it.

Upon seeing this, Hammuradi smiled reservedly and explained that it was called the Moonlight Cloak, a magical piece of equipment specially issued to the Queen's Royal Guard during the Elf Empire era, and also symbolized supreme honor.

Hammuradi meant that Dick wasn't qualified yet, but his grandson was so shameless that he pretended not to understand.

"Wow, that's amazing! Can I get one too?"

"Let's get the transaction done first."

As Hammuradi spoke, he pointed to the sea not far away. Thick white fog had appeared outside the fjord at some unknown time and was moving into the bay at a speed visible to the naked eye, soon covering the location where Dick and his group were.

Suddenly, the sound of a bronze bell rang out from the thick fog, followed by the flickering blue light of a book lamp, like a will-o'-the-wisp.

Seeing this, Dick thought to himself that these pirates really did have something good. Previously, Belfast had lost her way after entering this fog while tracking the enemy, and now that Dick was in it, he could clearly feel a power more advanced than magic.

Dick had seen a similar power fluctuation before, when his master Behemoth lent him the Wild King's Crown temporarily. Therefore, there was no doubt that this was the aura emanating from the divine artifact.

The author says:

Author's note: I've been coughing for almost two days now. My lungs hurt so much, and my brain feels like it's being shaken. I'm in no condition to write anything. I went to get an IV drip this afternoon, and it's barely managed to calm it down.

It feels like my immunity has been nonexistent since the Year of the Sheep. Whenever there's a slight change in the weather, I get sick.

Chapter 088: Big Brother, this tastes wrong!

In the thick fog, the shadows of boats gradually appeared. A small boat carrying seven people docked at the dark brown rocky beach. Several non-mainstream people, whose appearances clearly indicated they were no good, jumped ashore and surrounded one of the burly men, walking towards Dick.

Dick guessed that this man must be Tiger, the leader of the Sea Tiger Gang, the self-proclaimed "King of the North Sea".

Judging by appearance alone, Tiger is a very tall and strong man, over two meters tall, with broad shoulders, thick limbs, and unusually thick body hair.

This was the first time in Dick's life that he had ever seen a man with a full beard and chest hair.

With his slanted eyes and wide mouth, he looks like a wild beast that walks upright at first glance.

Dick deduced from this that Tiger must have orc blood and be a mixed-race person.

Within the Hessen Empire, people of mixed races are generally not well-liked. Often, people can roughly deduce your origins simply by looking at your mixed race.

Most elven half-bloods like Dick are illegitimate children of the powerful and wealthy, because elven slaves are high-class goods that ordinary people cannot afford. Even if they go to a brothel, it is a high-class brothel that only gentlemen can patronize.

Orc hybrids fared much worse, as it was practically equivalent to being labeled a "slave."

It's important to understand that neither the current Black Forest Empire nor the former Elven Holy Kingdom recognized the orcs as a superior intelligent race; they simply considered them talking beasts.

Because the orcs' level of civilization is indeed very low, and they are inherently fierce and violent. Most importantly, the orcs eat people, and both humans and elves are on the orcs' menu.

The hybridization of humans and orcs is said to largely stem from the perverse tastes of Earthlings.

Some Earth-based Fury fans, upon seeing beastmen, suddenly had the idea that cute beast-eared girls could be artificially bred. They then encouraged their slave owners to "preach" to them, which actually made some Black Forest nobles sexually interested in the beast-ear attribute.

In the eyes of these noble lords, slaves and beastmen were all livestock, no different from donkeys mating with horses.

And so, the orc was born in this absurd way.

However, so far, those adorable beast girls have not appeared, because the genes of beastmen are stronger than imagined. Half-beastmen with half-beastman blood look no different from beastmen, and quarter-beastmen are just slightly smaller in size, becoming smaller beastmen.

However, the human genes did play a role, namely that these hybrid orcs were smarter than pure-blooded orcs and were more obedient when raised from a young age.

These half-orcs were as strong as orcs, and also intelligent and obedient, making them very popular with slave owners. Furthermore, orcs reach sexual maturity at twelve and have a short reproductive cycle, so this immoral practice of hybrid breeding continues to this day.

Tiger in front of him was clearly a half-orc. He probably didn't have much orc blood, but the physical characteristics left on him were still obvious.

Dick didn't have much information about this guy, only that he was the son of the old captain of the Sea Tiger. After following in his father's footsteps and becoming a pirate, he used his skills and wit to grow his family business from an old sailing ship that belonged to his grandfather into an entire pirate fleet. In the end, he even integrated the pirates of the northern fjords into an alliance and became the head of the largest smuggling group in the northern waters of the empire.

With this background and experience, he's definitely the male lead in a gangster fantasy novel!

Dick is currently unsure whether Tiger has a deeper, more powerful backer, but as long as this guy and his pirate group remain entrenched in the northern fjords, Lagug's development will be limited, so the entire pirate group must be wiped out!

So Dick used himself as bait, demanding that the three leaders meet during the first transaction, and he actually succeeded in luring Tiger from the Sea Tiger Gang out.

At this point, Dick's plan was already more than half successful!

It's clear that Tiger is very arrogant. Even when he saw Hammuradi, he just waved his hand dismissively. When he saw Dick, who was barely tall enough to reach his third pair of abs and was as thin as a bean sprout (compared to Tiger), his eyes revealed undisguised mockery and contempt.

"You're the current governor of Lagug?"

"It's down."

"Hmph! You've got a face that can fetch a good price. I heard that the old priest over there in Fenglu likes your type the most."

Hearing Tiger's obvious provocation and sarcasm, Dick just smiled, raised his hand to signal White Gunner behind him not to act rashly, and then asked in a calm tone.

Where is the goods I ordered?

"On the ship, where's yours?"

"here."

As Dick spoke, he clapped his hands, and several soldiers immediately pulled over a cart. Inside the cart were three hundred and fifty neatly stacked yellow kraft paper sheets.

"I've already had them packaged into smaller portions, each weighing one pound. There's so much that I can't even fit it all in my storage space with my bracelet."

Tiger walked to the car, picked up a bag, sniffed it, then turned to Hammuradi and asked in a skeptical tone.

"Is this thing really as amazing as you guys claim? Once you try it, you'll never forget it or get rid of it?"

“Of course! Yzak, go and demonstrate it to Captain Tiger.”

Yitzhak, who was named, seemed somewhat reluctant. He was indeed a drug addict, and he had become addicted when he first started working for Mossad.

Often, after completing a "secret mission" assigned to him by his superiors, he would go on a wild party with his comrades as soon as he returned to the base; otherwise, he would have had a mental breakdown long ago.

His reason for resisting was that he didn't want to smoke in front of so many people, because once people get high, it's easy to lose control.

But since it was the boss's order, Yitzhak dared not disobey.

He stepped forward, picked up a package, cut a slit in it with a knife, and poured a small amount onto the table Dick had prepared. He separated about two grams of white powder into three lines, then pulled a rolled-up straw from his pocket. The whole sequence of movements was incredibly practiced; he was clearly a seasoned drug addict.

Dick, standing to the side, simply watched with a smile, glanced at the thick fog on the sea, and then casually stepped back to stand in line with Black and White Gun.

At this moment, Yitzhak took a deep breath, inhaling a strand of powder into his nasal cavity. Although he let out a strange groan, as if he was about to sneeze but couldn't, half of his face was twitching involuntarily, and his eyes rolled back as if he were possessed by some unknown evil.