Chapter 80: Ocean FishingA few days after the whole ordeal with Armaros, Port Town Blue had managed to go back to its routine.

    The fishing boats were leaving the coast without any fear from the Kraken, and the roads were cleared of monsters for the merchants to travel.

    The 2nd and 7th orders knights were also ready to go to End Town to start their training. However, it wasn’t possible to bring every single knight from their orders since they couldn’t just leave their posts alone.

    From the 2nd order, Commander Garret and a few of his best knights were the ones we teleported to End Town first.

    From the 7th order, Commander Valentina brought all of her knights from Port Town Blue since the other half was still stationed at their post at the border.

    The plan was to have them travel in batches, train for two weeks, send them back to their posts, and bring another group of rookies.

    I also made a gym for the knights of the 2nd and explained to them how to use it. That way, they could get a bit of a headstart when the real training started.

    I wanted to install a gym for the knights of the 7th, but I had never been to their post, meaning that I couldn’t teleport there. From what I heard, their base was fifteen days away.

    ’That’s way too much time...’ I thought.

    After we brought the groups from both orders to train under Commander Thomas in End Town, Melina and I told them we would be flying towards their outpost on the border to maintain a fast method of traveling.

    If we visited the area, we could teleport from there to End Town and move the knights around without having them go on a two-week journey.

    Valentina agreed with the plan, although she seemed reserved about making us do any more work and favors for her. However, it wasn’t much of a problem since we wanted to visit other places in the kingdom either way.

    "We won’t be going there yet, though. I still wanted to do a few things in Port Town Blue..." I said to the knights before giving them a tour of End Town.

    Seeing the shadow dogs and demon spiders at first had them on their toes, but they quickly realized that these beasts were living among the people of town without causing any problems. If anything, they helped out a lot.

    "How did you manage to gather such a huge pack of shadow dogs to obey you?" Valentina asked as she petted one of the dogs that approached her in a friendly manner.

    "I’ve never seen such a friendly beast..." she said, slightly smiling.

    ’Woah, is that a smile?’ I thought, considering Valentina was a very serious and proud woman.

    "Umm, well..." I said as I told her the story of how I met the shadow dogs.

    Technically, it wasn’t even me that found them but Yoru. They were hurt and hungry, so after helping them out, they became extremely friendly with us.

    Little by little, more shadow dogs appeared around town, sensing that some of their own were living here and joined the pack.

    "And that’s pretty much how it all happened..." I said, finishing the tale.

    As Valentina listened to my story, she kept petting the shadow dog and commented about giving him a name.

    ’Hmm, if she gives the dog a name and he accepts it...’ I thought, remembering that was a way to make a contract with a beast. But before I could warn her, she blurted the name out loud.

    "Bronco! How about that?" she exclaimed, making the dog spin with joy and glowing faintly for a moment.

    "What was that?" Valentina asked with a cautious tone.

    I giggled a little and sighed. "I think you just made a contract with Bronco..."

    "A contract!?" she asked with surprise.

    "Here, let me show you," I said before inspecting the dog and her information.

    Shadow Dog

    Name: Bronco

    Familiar Contract: Valentina Embervane

    Age: 3

    Skills: Tracker.

    Name: Valentina Embervane

    Age: 24

    Skills: Swordsmanship

    MP: 7,000

    Titles: Knight Commander, Friend of Shadow Dogs.

    "Mhmm, see. You got a title called ’Friend of shadow dogs.’ It’s a pretty common title to get in this town..." I said, explaining to the commander that she had gained a trusty ally.

    Valentina looked at her dog, who stared at her with puppy eyes and hugged him.

    "Let’s get stronger together then," she said with a soft tone that was very out of character for her.

    ’Maybe she has a soft spot for animals...’ I thought.

    "Look, he also has a skill..." said Melina, as she also inspected the dog.

    I focused my vision on the skill, and the information popped up.

    Tracker: Able to follow any tracks by their smell. Obtained after hundreds of hours of hunting.

    "I see. It looks like Bronco here was part of the hunting team..." I said.

    The hunting team wasn’t an official thing in our town. It was simply a name we gave to the group of shadow dogs that liked venturing into the forest to hunt for food, which they would always bring back to town to share with the residents.

    It seemed like Bronco had been hunting for a while and developed that skill on his own, which was impressive, honestly.

    After the tour was finished, our group teleported back to Port Town Blue to spend the night there since we wanted to go fishing the following day.

    One of the main reasons we thought about going there was to eat seafood in the first place, so now that all of its problems had been solved, it seemed like the perfect time.

    __________

    The following morning, we were up early and made our way to the beach area to enjoy ourselves.

    Vespera made a few towels for us to put on the sand to lie on, and Melina and I used nature magic to gather some wood and make a small raft.

    We planned to take the raft to go deeper into the water and fish from there since fishing from the shore wouldn’t let us catch anything significant.

    It’s not like there weren’t any fish around, but we were looking for something big that we could take back home to End Town for the others to try.

    Once it was built, my two companions showed their interest in joining us and fishing, too, so the four of us shared the squared raft, each taking a side.

    I made our fishing rods, although we used a thread that Vespera made and coated with magic to make it harder to break. This meant that unless we were trying to catch a magical shark, our line was pretty much indestructible.

    With the raft slowly getting further from the shore, we found ourselves in a calm tide, patiently waiting for a fish to bite on our baits.

    A few minutes later, Vespera was the first to catch something as her thread pulled her hand down slightly.

    "Alright, Vesp, just reel back the thread carefully..." I said with a bit of excitement.

    However, my companion held the rod carefreely with a raised eyebrow, slowly reeling back the fish, not reacting accordingly with the rest of the group, who waited in anticipation.

    "Now, pull!" I exclaimed, making Vespera yank the thread with one hand and making the catch visible to us as it jumped out of the water.

    Landing in the center of the raft, I inspected the massive fish as it flopped pretty violently.

    King Mackerel

    Rank E

    Fish with white, tasty meat.

    Found in warm salt water.

    Strong slap with its tail.

    "Huh, so this counts as a beast?" I asked.

    Melina explained that while some fish were too weak to be inspected and show substantial information, others weren’t.

    It had to do with the fact that fish had to eat other fish to survive, eventually evolving into higher ranks. However, these ranks couldn’t be compared to that of a land monster or beast.

    Basically, an E-ranked beast from the sea would be much weaker than an E-ranked beast from the land.

    We kept fishing for a few more hours, managing to catch a few other king mackerels and cod fish, which were smaller.

    Once we were back on the shore, I was craving to try some of the catch, so we used nature magic to make a very rustic grill.

    While the fish cooked, I used limes and butter that I had in my void pocket and made a "lemon butter sauce" that my companions and the princess loved.

    ’Hmm, could have been a little better with garlic...’ I thought as I tried the fish with the sauce.

    ’This is still great, though.’ Sear?h the N?vel(F)ire.nёt website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

    "I wonder if there are any crabs or lobsters we could catch..." I pondered out loud as everyone shared the lemon butter fish.

    "What’s that?" Vespera asked with a mouthful.

    Realizing that Melina was staring at me, somewhat confused, I dismissed my statement and kept eating.

    ’Crab and lobsters probably have other names here. So, why is the princess looking at me like I just said something crazy? She shouldn’t know what those words mean... right?’ I pondered before shrugging and continuing to eat.