Chapter 3

A few days have passed since I decided to build my kingdom on this island.

"But how?"

While taking a bite of the squirrel meat I caught after hunting, I think back to my motivation.

I had been thinking about this since that day, but how could I create a kingdom if I was alone?

"There's no one on this island!!!"

I chewed my food in frustration.

At this rate, my ambision would never come true.

All day long, I just spent my time hunting.

But what else could I do? In the meantime, all I could do was strengthen my power.

Speaking of power, I can currently summon around 18 shadows.

I don't know why, but the development of my strength seems to be slowing down.

Maybe it's because I've only been feeding my flame with the same monsters for the past few days.

Looks like it's time for me to explore deeper into the forest.

Honestly, that damn monster still traumatises me.

I might be didn't feel anything, but the sight of my body being cut up was still terrifying.

"I guess I have no choice."

Throwing my spent skewers into the fire, I had already made up my mind to explore deeper into the forest.

I didn't have anything else to do anyway, I just need to get stronger.

But I'll do that tomorrow, I'm tired you know?

I've been hunting from morning till evening, I want to laze around for the rest of the day.

Sitting on the seat beside my house, I picked up the wood, and started carving.

By the way, I have so many carvings now, I even made a storage for them yesterday near my toilet.

Oh, and yes, all this time I was shitting in... Errr.... Forest, I guess.

I decided to make a toilet a few days ago because shitting in the forest sounds really disgusting.

Well, forget about that.

I need to focus on my wooden sculpture.

But just a few minutes into my work.

*Thunder*

"Ah... Another storm."

Storm clouds suddenly could be heard in the distance.

This is one of the things I hate about this island, storms always come so suddenly.

The sky was very clear just a moment ago, but now it's already dark when it was supposed to be afternoon.

"I hate this."

But what can I do, I can't fight nature.

I'm not gonna give up that easily though, I'll just continue making my wooden sculptures inside the house.

Before that, I have to take the sculpture i want to keep into the storeroom, and save the rest for firewood.

Why am I saving some of it? I don't know, it's a hobby I guess.

Entering my house, I lit my flame on one of my fingers for light and continued my hobby.

After finishing, I looked at the wooden statue of myself with satisfaction.

"Hmm... Charming. Just like me."

Well, I might have slightly exaggerated my good looks, but hey, who cares?

I placed it on the table, put out my fire, and prepared to sleep.

"Hmm...?"

However, before I lay down on the bed. I looked out the window, and I could see a light in the distance.

I could see that light wavering closer and closer to my Island.

"From the looks of it, it looks like a ship."

To get a better look, I summon my armor and walked towards a cliff behind my house.

As I expected, the light source was in fact a ship. The ship looked quite large, so it was possible that they were a navy from some kingdom or just a merchants ship.

It seemed like a storm had brought them here, and if my guess was correct, they might have thought to stop by this island because of the storm.

"I'll take a closer look."

Thinking that I could use them for my ambitions, I left my house and walked towards them.

It didn't take long before I arrived at the trees near the beach.

I stopped quite far from the beach, with the help of my armour, I could see well from quite a distance.

I chose a fairly tall tree as a lookout point, and climbed up onto it.

As I arrived at the top of the tree, I could see that the ship from earlier had anchored, or rather beached on the shore.

I could see several cracks in their hull, indicating that they had not managed to land smoothly and had hit some reefs.

I also saw that some of the crew had come down and set up some tents on the beach, they were probably planning to repair their ship before continuing their sailing.

As I looked at the crew, I noticed something strange.

They weren't wearing uniforms, I then looked at their flags and I realised that they weren't a navy nor a merchant.

"A black flag with skulls and bones."

It's a pirate flag.

"Alright, this is out of the plan."

I originally wanted to help them and form connections to help me achieve my ambision, but this changed everything.

I hate pirates.

I don't like them being on my island, should I just kick them out?

No, I'd rather leave them alone, they'll probably leave in a few days after they finish repairing their ship.

But the idea that they would take resources on my island without my permission.....

Yeah, I definitely don't like that. And even if they ask for permission, I still won't help them.

I have to ask them to leave.

Considering they're pirates, I doubt they'll leave if I ask nicely, so the only way is the hard way.

But come to think of it, they wouldn't be able to leave even if they wanted to, wouldn't their ship be damaged?

"Oh, blast. Who cares? They're pirates, and I don't like pirates on my island. I'm the king here, I need to start acting like one."

And what does a king do when someone he doesn't like comes onto his property without permission?

The answer is obvious, the king will behead them. Probably, I'm not sure.

Pirates are criminals anyway, I've often heard of their vile behaviour, so I won't feel the slightest bit of guilt even if I kill them.

Now, I'll keep an eye on them first.

Doing that in the middle of a storm like this might not be easy, but that only applies to normal people.

With my armour, I barely felt anything.

After watching for almost an hour, I count that there were about 20 people on the beach, but I still hadn't seen anyone who looked like their captain.

He was probably still in the captain's cabin, at least that's what I assumed.

I'm sure my shadow can take care of the 20 people on the beach, but I'm not sure about their captain.

Well, whatever. I can run into the forest if things get bad.

I'd rather not waste time, they were still exhausted from sailing through the storm and setting up camp.

If I wanted to attack, now was the time.

I summoned all my shadows, 18 of them. Every time a drop of rainwater hit my shadows, the rainwater instantly evaporated and turned into smoke.

Honestly, my shadow looked really scary in this situation.

"This should be enough to scare some of them away."

15 of my shadows were given melee weapons and 3 were given bow and arrow, they were all wearing armour, so they should be able to deal with those pirates easily.

And about the captain, I might have to handle him myself.

I signalled my shadows to move silently to their tents.

I'll stay here, watching from afar and using my bow for support.

Even if I'm far away, I can still give orders to my shadows through my mind.

Just like telepathy, I don't know how far the limit of this telepathy is, or how far my shadow can go from me.

I've tested it before, and so far, I still haven't found the limit.

Anyway, before my shadow could reach the pirates' camp.

I stopped them, one of the pirates seemed to realise something was wrong and came out of his tent.

"I think I should start the attack early."

I aimed my arrow at the pirate, and shot him right in the neck.

With that, the battle between my shadow and the pirates began.

At first they seemed to panic at the sight of a bunch of flame-covered skulls attacking them, the three who came out early were even killed instantly by my shadows without being able to fight back.

But perhaps because he heard the commotion, the captain finally got off his ship.

He was dressed in typical pirate attire, light clothes so as not to overheat from the sunlight from the sea.

And just as I thought, he was pretty good.

He managed to organise his crew who had been thrown into chaos by my sudden attack in an instant.

But it still didn't help, because my shadow was more powerful than his crew.

In the midst of the chaos, I tried to shoot him, but he managed to dodge it.

"He's got good instincts."

I realised that attacking the captain from afar was futile, so I shot at his men instead.

Overwhelmed by the power of my shadow and my arrows, the pirates died one by one, and before long, only the captain was left.

As a reward for killing my two shadows, I decided to show myself to that captain.

I wanted to ask him something anyway.

Emerging from the trees, I could immediately feel his sharp gaze.

Seems like being surrounded by my shadow still didn't lower his courage.

With my hand, I ordered my shadow to step back.

Standing in front of the man, I could finally see his expression.

Although his breathing was ragged, he still didn't seem to have given up.

I must admit, I admire his spirit.

Or maybe, he was just pretending to act brave?

Still staring at me intently, he asked.

"What are you?"

Without hesitation, I immediately said the answer I had prepared.

"I'm the one who owns this island."

I could see him frowning, like he wasn't expecting that answer.

Maybe he knew something about this island?

I wanted to ask him that, but he spoke first.

"What do you want?"

I couldn't believe he was still asking that after seeing what had just happened.

"Your life, mate."

He frowned again, was he angry?

"Then why are you doing this? You should be able to kill me without showing yourself."

Hearing his question I chuckle.

Yes, he's right. Why am I doing this? At first, I thought it was because I wanted to talk to him and ask about this island.

But now I realised, it wasn't because of that.

I decided to answer him honestly.

"I just want to feel how it feels to be on the winning side when I look down on the losing side."

Because before, I was always on the losing side.

"You-"

The captain was clearly not happy with my answer.

Gripping his sword tightly, he lunged and swung at me.

I neither dodged nor parried it, his strike hitting me squarely in the shoulder.

Or rather, the shoulder of my armour.

The attack didn't even leave a scratch.

I'm pretty sure this guy used mana in his attack, but even that still wasn't enough to scratch this armour.

"Thanks for letting me know how strong my armour is, mate."

Those were the last words he heard, before I cut him in half with my spear.

"Yeah, another easy fight."

This fight was a lot easier than I thought it would be.

But hey, I don't hate it.

And now, it was time to devour their corpses with my flame.

It's my first time doing this to a human, but I don't care, I even feel that this might be more effective than feeding my flame with monsters.

I gathered them into one place using the help of my shadow, and set them on fire.

Despite being soaked from the rain, my flame was able to devour them quickly.

As my flame devoured them, I could feel my body getting stronger and feeling more refreshed.

Looks like devouring humans is indeed more effective.

My fire also looked like it was having more fun.

Using humans as fuel for my power might sound creepy, but I didn't care, they were bad guys after all.

They deserve this.

Oh, right. I haven't checked their ship yet, they must have something useful there.

I removed some of my shadows, leaving only 3 shadows.

I didn't need much to check the ship.

But I still kept my armour on because I hated getting wet.

I first inspected the captain's cabin, and it felt like heaven.

There was a bed, I mean a real bed with a pillow. Now I could say goodbye to my back pain.

There were also clothes, wardrobes, and even a sofa.

"Wow, this captain is living quite fancy here."

I'll take it all.

I then continued my search on the lower deck.

I could see many foodstuffs, such as sugar, salt, and some spices.

They even have tea!!! Splendid.

Although it's not as exciting as when I saw the mattress, I'll take these as well.

At least now I won't have to eat bland food anymore.

I continued my search to the bottom deck, I didn't expect anything because the bottom deck usually only contained prison cells.

I know that from experience.

"What the devil is this?"

Unexpectedly, I found something there, or rather someone.

Inside a cell, there were three women. Actually, one of them looked to be under 15 years old, a little girl with reddish-brown hair.

Then the second was a beautiful blonde woman who looked, perhaps, a little older than me.

And the last one was.... Um, how should I say this? The previous woman was also beautiful, but this one's beauty was on a different level.

Not to mention, she has ears that look similar to fish fins.

No doubt about it, she is a mermaid.

Another race, this is my first time seeing a mermaid. No, this is my first time seeing someone from another race.

I did hear that mermaids are one of the races that have the most beautiful women, but I had no idea that they were this beautiful.

Her simple green dress also looks very suitable with her beautiful blue hair.

She's probably the most beautiful woman I've ever seen.

Anyway, I don't think this is the time to be mesmerized. What should I do with them? This situation is beyond my expectation.