Ch 16 - Ballywood Kingdom

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 needs to know that, now do they?

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.