The debt
"She's really happy." Sky said to Jay.
"Aren't you also happy, Captain? You seem to be smiling a lot." Jay pointed out.
"Yeah, guess I am." Sky smiled. Many would think he was smiling because he was helping out Jericho, but in reality he was happy about completing the quest.
{Quest: Paying back a great debt}
{Help the Haydie family pay back their enormous debt to the Caribbean: 0/500,000,000}
{Time limit: 4 months 24 days}
{Reward: 1x purple scroll, 1x purple item, Jericho Haydie's undying loyalty, 100,000,000 exp}
Sky really wanted the purple scroll and item. The only way to get purple grade items was from purple portals and those are hard to clear when there is intense competition for them everywhere.
He doesn't know if he's lucky or unlucky to have been given so many purple scrolls by an unknown entity even though its intentions were unclear.
"We're almost here! Woah…" Jericho yelled and was surprised..
"Woah…" Sky and Jay said.
From afar they could see the island full of luxurious tall buildings. There were dozens of warships entering and leaving the island.
There is one building that stood out. It was an extremely tall building that touched the clouds and beyond. No one could see the top part.
"Jay, with your amazing eyesight, can you see the top?"
"No, Captain, I cannot."
"Stop the ship!" Sky said.
The ship halted. Sky turned to Jules and said, "Jules, take a break. Swim in the ocean and don't get caught."
Jules didn't say anything. She jumped off the ship, transformed into a mermaid, and swam away deeper to the bottom of the ocean.
"It's better if no one finds out about her."
Jay and Jericho agreed with Sky. They resumed sailing towards the Caribbean HQ, also known as "God's Paradise" the biggest island in the Land of the Dead.
The ship reached the island but they were greeted by two warships with cannons aimed right at them.
One of the men in charge jumped from the warship and landed right on top of Sky's ship.
{Robert L'win}
'He's strong, but that's hardly a surprise these days.' Sky thought after seeing the man's stats and abilities.
"State your business here."
{Eye of truth is being used on player}
"We're here to pay back a debt we owe to the Caribbean."
"If it's for business of that sort, go to the other side. The only ships allowed here are Exterminator ships under contract or those who want to trade."
"Alright."
The man jumped off the ship and landed in his own ship in a single leap.
Sky stood behind the wheel and steered the ship. Using the system's function would bring too much attention to them, and that's what he didn't want at the moment.
It would take an entire half an hour to sail to the other side of the island. The other side's security was more lax compared to other places but still well protected.
This time they were able to dock their ship. There was a surprisingly large number of ordinary people living on the island. And there were a large number of stores, houses, one would think this was another ordinary island.
"I didn't expect this island to be so full of people." Sky said.
"I guess since the island is so big they had extra space to spare?"
"We can talk about that later!" Jericho said.
"She's right. Let's look where we need to go to pay back the debt."
"Captain, someone is waving to you." Jay said, pointing at a man waving at them.
Sky and the rest jumped off to greet the man. He was a middle aged man with a thick, black beard holding some paper and a pen.
"What are your names? Also what is your purpose here? Are you exterminators or merchants? How long is your stay?"
"..." The crew.
"It's my job. I have to know to know for security reasons." The man said as if he already knew what they were thinking.
{Eye of truth is being used on the player}
"Captain, I'll handle this. You and Jericho go and clear the debt."
Jay stayed behind and answered the man's questions.
Jericho and Sky were looking around the island looking for the place where they'll clear her debt.
'You know, since we're here and there's so many people here… identify. Identify. Identify. Hm?"
{God's Paradise}
{Monsters: None}
{A purple++ dungeon can be found on the island}
Sky had accidentally used 'identify' on the island. Some islands had secret passages leading to dungeons, but this method of looking for dungeons was horrible. It was much easier sailing through the sea using the map function looking for dungeons.
'Two '+' signs? Never seen that before.'
Sky had seen some green dungeons with a single '+' on the side of its name, but none on red dungeons for whatever reason.
But he somewhat understood why this purple dungeon had two '+' signs, because there is an infinite number of worlds that can be found inside of purple dungeons, unlike red and green portals. It meant that this hidden dungeon on the island was more difficult to clear compared to other purple dungeons.
'I really want to clear this purple dungeon but I don't know if we're strong enough.' Sky thought.
He could always go inside a purple dungeon, check it out, and leave using a dungeon escape stone, but he felt not only would it be a waste but he really wanted to get stronger before attempting to clear a more difficult dungeon.
"Sky, we can ask her for directions!" Jericho pointed to a woman.
They could only see the woman's back but she was wearing a Caribbean uniform.
Sky walked up to her and said, "excuse me."
The woman turned around. She had a pink eyepatch on her left eye as well as several scars on her face and hands.
Both Jericho and Sky were caught off guard by her appearance.
On her right shoulder she had three tidal waves.
"What do you want?" The woman asked grumpily.
"We're here to pay off her family's debt but we don't know where."
"If you head that way." She pointed behind her with her thumb extended, "You will find a government building, you can pay off whatever debt you have there. You'll know it when you see it because the walls are made entirely out of glass."
"Thank you."
Sky led Jericho by the hand through the busy street.
In a few short minutes they found the government building. The walls were made out of bulletproof glass, even the doors. The only places where there were no glass walls are the bathrooms and the floors and ceilings.
They entered the building where there was no one there except a janitor, and a man sitting behind a desk.
"Can I help you?!" The man asked loudly.
"We're here to pay off her debt."
"Can you please remove your helmet? Sorry I was born without the ability to hear so I can only read lips to understand you."
Sky removed his helmet.
"We're here to pay off her family's debt."
"Oh. What's her family's last name?"
"Haydie."
"Hey-dee? How do you spell that?"
"H-a-y-d-i-e."
The man left his desk and went to the storage room behind him. There were hundreds of cardboard boxes all with important files.
He took out one box and took out a file with the name 'Haydie' reading the file the man was surprised. He very slowly walked towards Sky while reading the file again to be sure.
"It says here, correct me if I'm wrong, but your family owes the Caribbean 500,000,000 shells, is that correct?" The man was flabbergasted. He had never seen someone owe that much money.
Sky took out several cards and placed them on his desk.
"This is the money."
"I gotta be honest, this is beyond me. I gotta ask my bosses. One minute please?!"
The man ran out of the building as fast as he could.
"Huh, that was weird." Jericho said.
"Well all I know is that we are in the right place. Let's sit and wait." They sat on some uncomfortable chairs that were nearby. There was even a small table with toys and books for kids under the age of eight.
"Do you wanna play?"
"No, do you?"
"No."
Both sat there in silence waiting patiently.
Meanwhile…
Inside the tall building.
The tallest building in the world can be found in God's Paradise. The building was built for two reasons, to be used by the Fallen God family, and to flex on everyone.
The tower is called "Ignosce me" no one truly knows the reason for its given name. People have also called it "tower of god" because the ones who had built the tower were the first fallen god family members.
The tower has 1,000 floors and no one is allowed at the very top. In fact no one has ever seen anyone leave or enter the 1,000th floor.
Before many important meetings used to take place on the 999th floor, now most people have meetings on the 8th-9th floor because it took more time climbing the floors than the meetings themselves.
Rarely do people use the floors above the 50th level except janitors who are paid handsomely to clean all 999th floors, and security who are hired to guard all 999th floors.
Inside the 8th floor there was a meeting taking place. On one end of the table was Xero and there were other high ranking Caribbean officers.
All the high ranking officers were old men, the youngest of them was 40 but they all looked young and fit despite their age.
"This is a tactical assault. The fishmen and mermaids are deliberately attacking the exterminator crews. Without exterminators the steady flow of red scrolls and items will cease, and not to mention the portal outbreaks that are increasing because we have no exterminators to clear them." One of the officers said loudly and angrily.
"I don't know what you want me to say, Lucius? We are already spending all our effort and resources with the ongoing battle between the mermaids and the fishmen." Xero said.
"The Warlord is becoming a menace along with his Abyss family. Then again we always triumph when threats like them appear."
"Except for the time when we failed to acquire the Nightmare blade."
"Speaking of failing to acquire something, what happened to that purple scroll? Did we get it?"
"No, for the fucking thousandth time IT IS GONE!"
"Jeez, sorry, that was a valid question."
"Not if we have repeated it already a thousand times to you!"
"Where is Boris anyway? Didn't he fail to get the scroll back?"
"He's on portal duty for failing his mission."
"I have something to ask, can't we ask the Fallen God family to help us? Only one had left the tower some time ago to blow up some islands. We covered his tracks pretty well but still, he's willing to blow up an island but not towards our enemies?"
"They've always done whatever they want. They always hide from the public eye because of their grotesque appearances. Every time I see it's always disgusting to look at, not even human at that point."
The door opened slightly. From the door Georgia extended her head out.
"Sir? This is important." Georgia said.
"What now, Georgia? We're in a meeting. I swear if you ask me for another promotion I swear to god I will-"
"No, sir, someone claims to want to pay the Haydie family's debt."
Xero's eyes were widened in shock.
"It's only been six months. How is that possible? No one is willing to fork up 500 million shells, even to the richest, that's a lot of money."
Almost no one in the meeting knew the exact amount the Haydie family owed the Caribbean. But hearing that number most of them were curious and salivating for the money.
"I thought that as well, sir. So I send out my personal assistant to see if it's real, and she claims it is. They have the money."
"First: You're MY personal assistant, since when do you have your own personal assistant? Secondly: I need to check this out. We'll take a ten minute break."
"Hey, wait, Xero, I also wanna make sure that the money is real."
"Same."
"I'll go as well since I have nothing better to do."
"NO! All of you greedy bitches stay back." Xero said in a commanding tone.
"Relax, Xero." Lucious spoke up, before jumping out of the window and landing on the ground.
"I KNEW YOU WOULD DO THAT! COME BACK HERE!" Xero jumped out of another window, breaking it instead of jumping out of the same window Lucious jumped out of.
The rest of the men jumped out of the windows and ran like maniacs, leaving Georgia behind.
With a sigh, Georgia picked up the phone to call someone. "Yes, we need another… nine windows fixed please on the 8th floor… or is this the 9th floor?"
Meanwhile…
Sky and Jericho were still waiting. They only saw another woman come up to them wanting to see proof that they had the money, soon after showing her the money she left.
Out of boredom they were reading kids books. Sky was reading a book about a shark family.
"Hey, Jericho, reading this book I think I came up with a new song."
"Really? How does it go?"
"Well I only got the beginning but it goes like "baby shark… uh… dee-dee" no, that doesn't work well. How about "baby shark doo-doo… doo." and the rest writes itself."
"That's only like three seconds worth of song, Sky."
"I'll keep adding more "doo's" and repeat the song over and over. It's genius."
"Hardly think it'll ever be popular if that's the case."
"It'll be a song made for kids."
"Oh, in that case, yeah. Um, do you see that man running towards us? And behind there's another man chasing him? And seven other men chasing them?" Jericho squinted her eyes to be sure.
"Hm?" a confused Sky turned around and saw exactly what Jericho described.
Xero managed to throw himself at Lucious and they broke through the bullet proof walls like it was nothing. They were rolling on the ground, fighting like little children.
"NO! XERO! THIS IS MY RETIREMENT FUND!"
"RETIREMENT MY ASS! THAT MONEY BELONGS TO THE CARIBBEAN NOT YOU!"
"I WANNA RETIRE AND SPEND TIME WITH MY GRANDKIDS!"
"YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW YOUR OWN CHILDREN'S NAMES, LUCIOUS!"
Both of them stopped fighting once they noticed Sky and Jericho were staring at them, confused.
"Ahem." Xero and Lucious stood up wiping off the glass and debris off of their bodies and composed themselves.
The seven other men entered the building immediately.
"You're the one who is paying off the Haydie family debt?" Xero asked Sky.
"Yes. Money is… I mean here's the money." Sky handed him several stacks of cards full of barrels of shells.
"Thank you." Lucious took a step and reached for the money before Xero punched him in the head.
"Ow!"
"Hands off, Lucious. Thanks, kid, we'll count the money and let you know if the debt was paid off."
They started counting the money right then and there at a fast rate.
Sky and Jericho were watching these grown, powerful men counting money on the floor.
'Identify. Identify.'
Sky was amazed to see their stats, especially that one guy, Xero.
{Xero The Great}
{HP: 11.0m/11.0m}
{Mana: 4.2m/4.2m}
{Str: 903k Dex: 740k Spd: 995k Int: 840k Mind: 831k Vig: 1.1m}
He had all the red and green abilities, none of which were evolved, neither did he have a talent or dropped an item. But he had four abilities that can only be found in purple scrolls.
{Gravity control: lvl 9: Control gravity at a master level}
{Slow time: lvl 9: Slow down time by 90%}
{Vibrations: lvl 9: Control the vibrations at a master level}
{Summon angel: lvl 9: Summons an angel that will fight for you}
Most of the other men had only 1-2 purple abilities all of which were the same as the ones Xero had.
Sky and Jericho did not know how long they waited for the men to stop counting. Both were equally confused all the time as why would these powerful men want to count their money? Boredom perhaps? Because it was fun to count money? Most likely.
After a little bit of chatting all nine men stood up and looked at Sky and Jericho.
"Your name is Jericho Haydie, right?"
Jericho nodded.
"There are exactly 500 million shells. Your family is debt free, congratulations."
{Quest completed}
{Level up}
{Level 169}
{Stat points: 37}
"YEEEEEEEESSSSSS! THANK YOU! THANK YOU. SKY! THANK YOU!" Out of pure joy Jericho jumped up high, even cried as she hugged Sky as tightly as she could, thanking him repeatedly.
Sky was happy to see her happy, but he was more happy to get the items he wanted.
"But there is one thing I want to know, where did you get the money?" Xero asked.
{Eye of truth is being used on the player}
'This again?'
Sky took a deep breath before responding, "we got it from clearing dung… portals. I even got a decent bit from doing odd jobs here and there, and even won a tournament that gave me 10,000,000 shells plus more."
"Hm, it seems you're telling the truth. Did you do anything bad, illegal to get this amount? Because if memory serves right, you only had one year to pay off the debt, that was six months ago."
"No, we earned the money in a legal way. It's not like we stole it… I mean, we did find a few million on this island but that's pretty much it."
"Hmm… I just want to make sure but who is responsible for getting the money? Was it just you?" Xero pointed at Sky.
"Jericho, and another crewmember of mine helped a lot."
"But you're an exterminator crew, right?"
"No, not really. We clear portals because it's easy to earn money but we do what we want."
"But who is the Captain?"
"It's… me." Sky said.
Xero looked at Sky weirdly.
"I know you're telling the truth but I just have a hard time believing it. You're nowhere strong enough, I mean you're decent but I can safely say most pirates and exterminators can destroy you easily."
"Xero, just let it go, man. We already got the money and they clearly didn't do anything illegal to get it. They're just weak kids." Lucious held onto Xero's shoulders before attempting to snatch a card. Xero elbowed Lucious in the stomach.
"Oof."
"Nice try, but you're right. However I want you two to stay here for a few days, there are just some things I want to be sure of first. I'll ask my assistant to help you and your third crewmember settle in."
"But-"
"This is an order." Xero interrupted Sky. "Legally I am allowed to hold you for questioning for 48 hours. If I cannot find anything I will let you two go. This is just a precaution. Until then you're not allowed to leave."
Unable to say or do anything Sky and Jericho agreed. They weren't worried, they didn't do anything that can be traced back to them.
All the nine powerful men left the building leaving Sky and Jericho in the room.
"Sky, I'm confused, did we or did we not pay back my family's debt?"
"I'm pretty sure we did. We have nothing to worry about because we didn't steal the money. We earned it. Let's go get Jay and tell him the good news. We'll treat this as a vacation, we still have a few million left we can treat to ourselves."
Sky knew why Xero was keeping them on the island. It should not be possible for such a weak crew to gather 500 million shells in six months. No matter how you look at it, it was all very suspicious.
Jay was waiting for Sky and Jericho in the boat. During the day someone led Sky and the rest to a hotel where they will be staying. Everyone had their own separate rooms.
Sky took a shower and lay down on his comfy bed wearing his pajamas. While no one was looking Sky took out the purple scroll and item.
{Purple scroll: There is an ability that can be found inside}
Sky groaned. His dead language skill was still too low for him to understand what the scroll means.
There are 55 possible abilities one can find in a purple scroll.
"Well… here goes nothing. Activate."
{Learned: Teleportation: lvl 1: Able to teleport anywhere within a 10m radius}
"Thank god it wasn't another curse skill. That would suck." Sky hoped he would not get another duplicate.
Then he took out the purple grade item.
{Child of Puor: Purple}
{25,000+ HP increase while wearing. 50,000+ mana increase while wearing}
{Mana recovery rate increased by 1000%}
{Ability: Meditating: Permanently increase your Mind and Int stat by 0.1 for every hour of meditation}
{Example: While meditating for 10 hours your Mind and Int stat will have increased by 1}
{Requirements: lvl 200. Mind: 2,000}
"PFT! How did I not see that?" Sky scoffed at the requirements. He was literally 1/10 from reaching 2,000 Mind.
Sky was glad to get the purple item but meditating for so long doesn't seem worth it. He could easily increase any of his stats easily by clearing dungeons and leveling up.
For now he could only place the purple item inside.
'You know I shouldn't be ungrateful but… these rewards were underwhelming for all the work I've put in for them. At least Jericho is happy and will continue being part of my crew for a long time, thank god because she can find these treasure chests.'