"Wait, you already started without me?" While Dan was still lost in his thoughts, he heard Freddie's voice from behind him, "At least tell me you didn't tell him about my discovery?"

  "Don't worry, I didn't," Keith said as she rolled her eyes.

  "Morning Freddie," Dan greeted before asking in interest, "What discovery though?"

  "Just something that we might need to look into later on," Freddie said, "While looking through the book, I found a passage about the Eastern Ocean. Following that, I looked into some of the other books we have here and found more about it.

  "You see, there's a reason why all the focus is on the exploration of the Imperial Ocean, the one we are currently in. The Eastern Ocean seems to have this weird phenomenon called the Dead Barrier. For most months of the year, for hundreds of nautical miles off shore, there's almost no wind, it's just breezy, not enough to push any vessels. And during the other few months, that area is hit by heavy storms, making it impossible to navigate. Don't you think we should consider it as a possible candidate for a hiding place? We just need to circumnavigate the Continent and we would find ourselves there."

  "It does sound promising." Dan nodded slowly. They almost forgot the other ocean just because the natives never mentioned it. Dan made a note to look into the possibility of getting there and finding out more about it.

  "There are a few points we need to keep in mind if we went with that though," Keith jumped to interject.

  "I know, I know. We argued enough about this yesterday," Freddie said as he shook his head, "As she said, there are a few problems we need to consider before heading there. Our fuel is the first. Without enough fuel, heading there would be too much of a risk. If we run out of fuel around these parts, we might still be found by some passing ship, we won't be stuck here. We can't say the same if we went to the Eastern Ocean. We should only look into it after dealing with that point."

  "It's unexplored too," Keith cut in again, "We are using some of the forbidden zones like the Swarmers' territory or maybe the Sticky Reefs, but that's mainly because we know what to expect, we are choosing the ones that would work for us. Who knows what we might meet in that uncharted part of the world? Another Ghostly Lantern might be awaiting us there."

  The group fell silent after she was done speaking. The Ghostly Lantern was the worst experience they had been put through since the Behemoth. Some might even rank it worse than the Behemoth because other than being extremely intimidating, the huge serpent-like monstrosity didn't try to go for them. The Ghostly Lantern though? That thing had them as a target, as prey. They were fortunate to use the Swarmers and the pirates to escape it. Who knows how things would have gone if they didn't.

  "Well," Dan said as he saw the others all fall into silence, "It is a possibility, and we don't know much about the Eastern Ocean anyway. We should revisit this idea once we have enough levels and knowledge."

  "Yes." Freddie nodded. "I introduced it for us to look into using it eventually, we should look into all possibilities after all."

  "Thanks a lot, both of you." Dan patted his first and second mate. "We will bring this up with the others later and see which of these we will take, and maybe even chart a course to the chosen location."

  "No problem, it's our job."

  Having those few options, Dan thought them over during the day before bringing them up with everyone during lunch. As expected, the option that ended up being chosen was the Sticky Reefs. It was what Dan had expected. The Foggy Maze had a great chance of meeting someone else and the Kraken had the eyes of the Empire on it. No matter how injured it was, they couldn't steal it out from under the nose of that superpower, if they could even hurt it that is.

  Their next target chosen, they had to look into the deeper details of the matter, their routes, their stops, even if they should stop or make a beeline for it straight away. It all needed to be considered. Fortunately, that only needed a few people to be involved, it didn't need everyone to discuss it and give their own thoughts.

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  The people who were put in charge of the matter were, of course, Freddie and Keith with Marcus as an advisor.

  Feeling safe with leaving the matter to them, Dan turned his attention to something that had been pushed aside many times because of the different events they found themselves in, dealing with the guards.

  Having already brought up the matter with Marcus and Old Raily, he contacted the old man and told him that they should gather all the current guards and see how to deal with the situation.

  Soon after, Dan found himself standing with Old Raily in front of their current guards. All in all, their current guards were:

  George the ex-soldier, who was also Arnold's best friend. Arnold was one of the three deckhands remaining on the ship.

  Hank, Fleta's brother who was a mechanic on Earth.

  Leonard, a personal trainer who was quite into martial arts, and also Kathy's boyfriend.

  Sam, he only joined the guards later on when he found out that his sister, Rose, was the one driving the tender the first time they dropped the natives. The young man was a content creator who mainly dealt with animals and different pets.

  And finally Ricky. He was another who joined later after the missions given to him as a deckhand.

  Dan looked at the group as he organised his thoughts before saying,

  "When we got here, the situation was quite pressing and we needed someone to stand up and help in our protection, and you did. You should be really proud of yourselves, you put yourselves in danger and worked late at night for our safety. I'm here to say thank you and tell you how much we appreciate your sacrifices."

  Dan thought that this part of the matter was essential. These people stood up when they were needed, stepping into danger for their families and their loved ones, the least he could do was acknowledge that and show them their deserved appreciation.

  "I know how hard it must have been, though," he continued, "Most of you never dealt with something like this. Even your Classes and skills might not be optimal for this, and that's why we called you here."

  Dan saw that what he was leading to started clicking for some of the people there, and also the hidden sense of relief that passed through them. That last bit made him feel even better about their choice and some guilt about putting them through all of this in the first place.

  "As some of you must have already caught on, you can leave the guards. If your Class doesn't have anything to do with this, or even if you just want to rest and be done with the matter, you can leave. You don't have to worry about who would take the position of guards, I'm sure that people who have Classes more compatible with those positions would step up. And if you focus on your own Classes, you would be just as productive to the team as being guards, so please think clearly about this before choosing, you don't even need to give us an answer right now, you can think about it more first."

  "My class would work best with me as a guard," George was the first to talk. The ex-soldier didn't even hesitate as he spoke, Dan could almost see a younger Marcus in him, "I will remain, if that's alright with you."

  "Of course it's alright," Dan nodded, "We will respect your choices no matter what you choose."

  "I-I will drop out," Sam was the second to speak, "My Class needs time to grow. I'm sorry but I'm going to step down."

  "It's alright." Dan smiled comfortingly at the young man. He didn't want him to feel bad for leaving, it was his right after all. "Just work on your Class and do your best to help in the best way you can."

  "I'm still in," Leonard said carelessly as Dan glanced at him, "I got Grandmaster Martial Artist. It seems rather close-quarter combat coded but I'm alright with it. I'm sure it's going to make me a beast at higher levels."

  Dan found himself genuinely smiling and chuckling at the personal trainer, his carefree attitude was so fresh to be around.

  With three of the guards having already made their choices, Dan looked at the last two, just to be met by hesitation. Not wanting to push them, he put a gentle look on his face as he said lightly,

  "Again, you don't have to give us an answer at this exact moment, think some more about this, maybe even discuss it with your loved ones if you are still hesitant. Just remember, no matter what choice you make, it will be respected, and no one will judge you."

  Also! Today is one month for cruise ship~~ when I started this story 1 month ago, I really would have never thought that we would have achieved all of this! One again, thanks a lot everyone, you have no idea how happy all of this is making me! Thank you