Evelyn and her crew came back to reality in her room back on the ship. Thia was completely healed too from going to Neptune's astral realm. The only evidence left that she was ever skewered by a sword is the blood that was slightly drying on her clothes. "I'm wet," Thia said feeling her shirt.
"That's gross," Darla said. "Stop touching your shirt like that. You'll get blood everywhere."
Evelyn studied Jackson as he came back to reality and leaned over with a hand over his eyes and the other propped up on his knee. "You good, babe?" Evelyn said as she moved over to him.
"Mmmmm," Jackson hummed.
Evelyn bent down onto her knees and lift his head up. The look on his face was sweaty and a sense of distraught. "He looks kind of hot by appearance but I'm sure it's only because of his mental state," She thought. "I'm sorry," She apologized. "I understand this was a lot to bomb on you suddenly, but we were on a timeline."
Jackson peered a look over he Thia and back to Evelyn. He couldn't help but lean in and kiss her lips. He pulled back and with a hand wound the back of her neck, he put his forehead to hers and took a deep breath. He then kissed Evelyn on her forehead, sat up and looking back over to Thia asked, "Are you okay now?"
"Aside from the weird things I'm seeing, yeah. I feel fine," Thia responded.
"Yeah," Jackson lingered. "We'll get used to it together." He pulled a pocket watch from a pocket in his vest and put it back. "It's the girls bathtime. I suggest you guys take it. Captain wants to talk to us in the morning." Addressing Thia, "Even with Evelyn as Captain, I still advise you still call Captain Goob, Captain until we're on our own ship."
"Yeah," Evelyn started, "We'll get there eventually."
"Goob?" Thia questioned.
"Captain Goob's real name is Godric, but he's a goofy goober," Evelyn said.
Laughing, Darla said, "That is not how he got that name. Or at least not 100 percent correct. Godric was a stand-up comedian during the beginning of his pirate career. He was very good and really popular too. And 'goofy goober' is how her got the name Captain Good."
"Why don't you call him Captain Goob?" Thia asked.
"Well, that's when I met him. He wasn't Captain Goob yet. He and I," She looks at Evelyn as she speaks slowly, "Have history."
"OH, shut your fucking whore mouth!" Evelyn yelled.
"What does that mean?" Jackson asked.
"Oh, child. He's really precious, Evelyn," Darla laughed as she stood up.
Throwing his hands up, Jackson says, "You know what, never mind. I don't think I can handle anymore today."
Standing up with her and helping Thia up so she doesn't get anymore blood on more things in her room than just her bed said, "We're taking that bath," Evelyn said. "But I'll be bunking in your room tonight. I'm giving you a crash course on the system. Darla," Evelyn addressed her, "We'll brief Thia on it in the bath but you'll be bunking with her in here tonight so you can tell her more. And some pirating stories. Thia's lived here her whole life. Preparing her for what her future might hold will help." Evelyn was about to walk out of the room and then stopped herself and turned around. She walked up to the bed and started taking off the covers, "It might be a good idea to take care of these while we're out."
"Oh right. It's like you-"
"Shut up," Evelyn cut her off. "The reader doesn't care to read about that."
"The what?" Darla said, confused.
Evelyn was looking for her clothes on Jackson's floor and found his underwear and threw it in his face. "Thanks," he laughed. "I don't remember you being that athletic from the last time."
Trying to decide if getting dressed is worth it if they'll be going to bed soon, Evelyn gave up and just threw on a big t-shirt of Jackson's and crawled back into his bed and said, "I've been able to increase my agility through the system. It's not only good for combat."
"That's hot," He smiled.
"Stop thinking with your dick, Mr. Flower of Booze." Evelyn joked.
Jackson laughed and whispered in her ear, "Fleur de Liqueur."
Evelyn could feel her blood riveting, "Not fair. Not fair. Not fair. We just got done with three rounds. We got business to go over." Jackson stared kissing Evelyn's neck, "This asshole will be the death of me." She pulled up his system and saw a new title on his profile.
[Volgma Siren's Playtoy]
[Title Effect: Exclusive social effect. When engaged in intimate interactions with the Volgma Siren, she will be drawn and unable to deny your advances.]
[+20 Agility]
Evelyn rolls off the bed and so flustered and red in the face she yells, "UNEQUIP IT NOW!"
Jackson rolls onto his back, and once he was able to slightly compose himself, he opened the system and reequipped his [technician] title and said, "There you go."
Now looking more aggressively for, at least her underwear, she said, "How the hell did you even get that title?!"
"I was playing around with the system when you girls were in the bath and doing your laundry and it was in my title directory," Jackson answered.
"Is there anything else in there I should know about?" Evelyn said sternly pulling on her underwear and crawling back into the bed.
"Just that," He said with a smirky smile on his face. "Could that be because we're in a relationship? Neptune did say the system does kind of have a mind of its own."
Evelyn moans and says, "I did sometimes feel like the system wants to torture me sometimes."
Jackson says softly, "Oh really? It didn't seem like torture the first time. Or the two others after that."
Annoyed, Evelyn glares at Jackson. Captivated by his smile and his beautiful eyes, she thinks to herself, "Did he lie to me?" Peeking at his title from her peripheral vision she sees that he didn't lie about changing his title and focusing on his face and only him, she thinks, "Such a beautiful asshole. He doesn't need that damn title assigned to make me want him."
Jackson leans into kiss and then sigh as he rolls over, "So what's up? This 'system'? You wanted to tell me more about it?"
"Right," Evelyn said, pulling hers up for him to see and they both lied on their backs. She stares at it for a second and then put it away as she stares at what he had on his ceiling. "You literally put a ceiling fan in your room with swords for fan blades?"
"Well, yeah. Fan and fan blades," He replied.
"Did it not come with panels?" She asked.
"Yeah, but I didn't know what they were for. I read the instructions and when it said attach the fan blades, I didn't see any blades in the box, so I took some common blades I had in my technician inventory and there, ceiling fan."
Struggling not to make fun of him, under breath she said, "You're such a guy. The worlds second greatest technician everybody."
She pulls the system back up and says, "So, before I redo your entire room for you, this is my favorite part of the system." Evelyn pulls up her profile.
"Character stats?" Jackson asks.
"No," Evely replied. "Me. I'm my favorite part," She laughed at Jackson's confused look and said, "Only joking. "So not just stats, but the player profile. Here we have character name, species, level, title, current experience, and then stats."
"I don't have that thing on mine," Jackson says as he points to 'class' on Evelyn's interface.
"That's exclusive to me only for some reason," Evelyn said. "I selected brawler by accident."
"How do you do that?" Jackson asked.
"When you found me at the summit of that Valcano and then I got handcuffed to the boat, I told myself I wanted to punch you in the face and the system took that as my decision was the Brawler class." She sighs and says, now I'm stuck with it until the class reaches level 15 AND I reach level 25."
"Well, you're getting there, aren't you?" Jackson encouraged her.
"Well you see this?" She gestures to the experience and class experience gauge. "Right now, it says, 0/1,300 experience. So, you can probably tell, at my current level, I haven't gained any experience points. In the beginning I had daily quests but since I reached level 10, not anymore. Plus, when I reached level 10, when I leveled up, that second number goes up by 100. When my level was in the single digits it went up by 50. If I had to guess, it'll go up by 200 when I reach level 20. So, as it says, 1,300 of the total experience needed, level 20 will say 1,500 experience needed." Gesturing to her class gauge, "This has gone up by 25 every time it leveled up. I can only get experience for my class by using my gauntlets to kill somebody."
"Oh," Jackson says, "Wait a minute," Jackson shoots his gaze at her and says, "You've killed somebody?"
"Oh," Evelyn realized she hasn't mentioned it yet, "I killed most of Darla's crew, two soldiers back on the island and today, about 25 people who were trying to kill Thia."
Jackson sighed and said, "Your bounty is clearly not high enough."
"Okay, rude," she said sarcastically.
"How was I supposed to know you were okay with killing people?" Jackson asked her with a serious tone.
"We're pirates now, Jackson. You know as well as I do that it's kill or be killed," Evelyn answered. "And is killing people so bad? You saw me put the finishing blow on Yo-La-Lu back at Waterworld. Frankly, I also did the most damage to it."
"Ya-La-What?" Jackson asked now more confused than ever.
Evelyn replied with a nervous laugh, "Oh right," she admitted. "The system can read other monsters. They all have names and difficulty levels. I can see their health when in combat. If they have any abilities, I can see that too. Also, when their abilities are being used. I can also tell it it's worth fighting them or not. Yo-La-Lu was the name of the Sea Beast back there."
Jackson's expression was now intrigued than it was serious now. He let out a sigh that sounded like a smirk supporting a smile and said, "Well damn. I've always had this worry in my head of being this fragile girl I've known my whole life and had fallen in love with and would do anything in my power to protect you." He stops and looks at Evelyn endearingly and continues, "But you've already done so much growing in front right from under my nose but also in front of my eyes. I'm a little ashamed I hadn't seen it."
Evelyn put a hand to Jackson's face and softly stroking a stray hair from his face she said, "And you will continue to protect me," Evelyn begins to laugh a little, "And with the system you can do that even more efficiently."
Jackson kisses Evelyn and lays back down on his back and asks, "So that's it?"
"No," she answers. "Open your inventory. Anything you have in your shadow space from being a technician should now be in there."
Evelyn's jaw dropped when he opened his inventory. She wasn't sure how big the inventory they had with the system was, but Jackson's looked like he had the system for a long time for how much he had in there. Just collecting.
"Something wrong?" He asked from her silence.
"How long have you been putting stuff in your shadow storage?" She started scrolling through it. "There are black weapons, normal weapons, you even have damaged weapons and, what's this? You have fucking harpoon launching and harpoons? 50 harpoons? And, and, and," Evelyn's expression goes blank and she sits up to look at him and says, "Hey, doofus. There's a half-eaten bagel in here. The bagel I made for you a month ago. You asked me for it specifically and to make it special. I poured my heart out for that because of how much I don't like them. My secret ingredient of love is in that. What the hell?"
"Oh no, I finished it," he lied.
"Oh No, I fInIsHeD iT," she mocked his reply. "You can't lie to me when the evidence is right here!"
"I think I'm realizing how the system tortured you," Jackson said scratching his head.
"I think it's time for bed," she said yawning. "We'll go over more in the morning."
Jackson leaned over to her and kissed her forehead and said, "Okay. And to make you happy, I'll finish that bagel."
She lied back down next to him and said, "You better, mister." And turned over and closed her eyes.
A few moments later, she opened her eyes wide to Jackson's snoring and sat up to look at him. "Are you fucking kidding me?" Still awake, she decided to pass the time by opening her shop to look around. Curious if there was a sleeping potion she could use on herself.
She ended up in the weapon shop and was just looking at all the gauntlets she could afford until she was at the bottom of the list, staring at the pale blue gauntlets she saw the first time she had visited the shop when Freya was still in her head. The smile on her face was unmatched. It was no longer grayed out and she selected 'buy'.
[Purchased: Special Exclusive Gauntlets]
[Name: Ice Blocks]
[Ice Blocks Skills: Volgma infusion, Freeze, Icicle crash, Icicle explosion]
[Volgma infusion: Ice Blocks Gauntlets are exclusive gauntlets that have the ice attribute. The Volgma siren can now use ice skills exclusively with the gauntlets that are infused with her Volgma powers.]
[Freeze: Can shoot normal fireballs or ice balls at enemies. Ice ball effects have a 40% chance to slow the enemy and 55% to freeze the enemy. 60% chance to slow the enemy with a physical attack and 75% to freeze the enemy with a physical attack. Slow debuff to enemies lasts for one minute. Freeze debuff to enemies lasts for two minutes.]
[Icicle Crash: Enemies that are frozen can be broken to defeat them.]
[Icicle Explosion: Ice Balls can be used as grenades instead. Their explosion shoots out fire and icicles. Additionally, can place an ice mark physically on an enemy and decide when it explodes.]
"What the fuck!" Evelyn thought to herself. "If I keep this up, readers are going to ask me to be nerfed."
"We're firing you from being the cook from the crew," Goob said to Evelyn. After waking up they had got dressed and made their way on top of the deck and addressing them all, Goob singled her out.
"WHAT!" Evelyn exclaimed, a little offended.
"Good Neptune!" Fawn yelled out. "Godric, there were much better ways to say that." Fawn walked over to Evelyn and said, "We're letting you go like we had discussed. You're not fired."
"What the hell? That's not much better," she cried out. "Cooking is what made me! It's who I am! What am I supposed to do if I can't cook?"
"Maybe be our Captain?" Darla mocked gesturing to her, Thia, and Jackson.
"Oh, right," She said as she straightened up.
"You're so dramatic," Laylee laughed.
Getting everyone's attention, Goob started again, "Well, as you all know, we made this decision together and it looks like Evelyn hasn't hesitated in forming her own crew. Darla and Jackson were expected, but you," Goob refers to Thia, "To find another Siren like a needle in a haystack on this continent? Now that's impressive."
"Thank you, Captain," Thia said politely.
"Are we all ready?" A voiced sounded from behind them. They all turned to see James and Arland had climbed aboard the ship.
"We are," Goob replied.
"And I see Evelyn is here now," James said. Noticing Darla and Thia, he said, "And more of your crew?"
"It'll just be who you saw yesterday," Goob said.
"Right," Arland said.
"Hey! I saw you guys two days ago! Why were you following me?" Evelyn exclaimed.
James sighed and said, "We were assigned by our Captain to take you and bring you to meet her. That's all."
"And you will do that. Consider it my last order as your Captain," Goob said.
Jackson stepped forward and said, "Before you deny that, accept it. We'll be with you, but I need to go with you too. It turns out my father is a part of their crew."
Evelyn looked at the boys, Goob, Jackson, and back among them again. Then she looked at the crew and realized that they looked a little 'geared' up for a normal day on land. "What's going on?"
Goob pointed at the boys and said, "They fucked up and we decided to fix their mistake. We're going to hunt some land beasts. You guys just stay on the ship or visit the city." He points to Thia and says, "A native like her should be able to show you around."
The crew left the ship with James and Arland and on the top deck, watching them walk away, Evelyn turned to Jackson and asked, "Did you know about this?"
"Yes," He answered. "It was decided yesterday before you returned."
Accepting his answer, Evelyn then turned to Thia and said, "Well, should we go save your sister?"
Thia's expression was radiant as she exclaimed, "YES!"