Chapter 103: Hot Spring And Banquet (part 1)
“Bang!”
This was the sound of paper being forcefully slapped on the table, followed closely by the girl’s angry roar.
“Idiots! I told you to count exactly how many flintlock pistols are left in the warehouse, and this is how you do it?!”
“Come on, explain this to me! What do you mean ‘about a hundred crates in stock, seven or eight per crate’?!”
“Hm?!”
“Do you not have hands or eyes?! Can’t you open each crate and count them one by one? Six people in your group can’t even handle this?!”
The statistical report on the table was violently crumpled into a paper ball by the girl and then fiercely thrown at the leader of the pirates who was getting scolded. The seemingly light paper ball directly sent the over three-meter-tall Big Man flying out the door.
“Go back and count again! Short pistols how many, long pistols how many, exact to the piece!”
“No dinner until it’s done!!!”
“Yes, yes!”
The other personnel in the group didn’t dare say much at this point and immediately hurriedly lifted that Big Man, scurrying toward the warehouse.
Sister La outside the door listened to these gunpowder-filled words and recognized Obei’s voice.
『I didn’t expect the always calm and steady Obei to have such a fiery side.』
“This…”
Wright standing nearby was clearly startled by this scene.
He saw it clearly: the Big Man visually weighing four or five hundred pounds had just been smashed flying past his side by a paper ball.
Are all Beasts Pirates people this terrifying?
Sister La didn’t pay attention to Wright’s hesitation and fear, just lightly knocked on the open gate nearby.
“What are you knocking for?! Didn’t I say no need to knock, just come in… Uh, Big Sister?!”
Obei, who had been looking down at the report and was about to flare up again, looked up and saw Sister La standing at the doorway.
“It’s me.”
“What’s wrong? So much anger?”
“Uh~ No, it’s not, this, that, I…”
Caught in her respected Big Sister’s sight showing her irritable side, Obei was momentarily embarrassed and helplessly changed the subject.
“Big Sister, when did you get back?”
“Just got back. Burufaruto said you were here, so I came straight over.”
Leaning down to pick up the few documents scattered on the ground and place them back on the table, Sister La turned to look at a room on the inner side.
“Aoxi in there?”
“Yeah, she and Foll are both in there.”
Obei pointed to the tightly closed door behind her.
Compared to the noise outside, it was very quiet inside the door, at least no quarreling voices came out.
Seeing someone else coming in with a form, Sister La didn’t disturb Obei’s work and instead walked toward the inner room.
“Knock knock knock~”
“Come in.”
This was Foll’s voice.
Sister La led Wright through the door and found that there were not just Foll and Aoxi in the room; several other people were also sitting at their respective desks, heads buried in writing and calculating.
Their arrival didn’t attract anyone’s attention.
Except for the special ones like Aoxi and Foll, almost everyone in the room had dark circles under their eyes, as if they might drop dead at any moment.
Scanning around, Sister La quickly spotted Aoxi, who was properly sprawled over the table writing and drawing.
However, due to her short height, she had even stuffed a few books under her butt to pad it.
“Aoxi.”
“Huh?”
Hearing someone call her, Aoxi blankly lifted her head.
Only then did Sister La notice that the other had a headband tied around her head, with crooked Chinese characters written on it saying “Catch Up to Obei and Surpass Foll.”
“…”
Sister La roughly knew what method Foll and the others had used to make Aoxi work obediently.
Before Sister La could do anything, Aoxi jumped down from the stool and hugged her waist, starting to complain tearfully.
“Qua! Sister La, you’re finally back!”
“While you were gone, Obei teamed up with that Masked Man to bully me!”
“Wah wah wah wah~”
This person fake-cried while rubbing hard against Sister La’s chest.
Zero seconds after meeting, she started tattling.
Aoxi, right now, you’re really despicable!
“Okay okay~”
Sister La gently patted Aoxi’s back.
“Tell me what happened?”
“Uh… It’s that Foll guy was overwhelmed and wanted my help, but Obei slandered me saying all I do is eat and sleep, that I’d just cause chaos…”
“Then you wanted to prove them wrong?”
“…”
“Yeah.”
Alright, though the facts might differ somewhat from what Aoxi said, the provocation tactic was definitely in play.
“Fine, conveniently, I brought you a helper this time.”
Sister La pointed to Wright behind her.
“Foll, this is Thurners Wright, who actually managed affairs on Fenrir Island before. I specifically requested him to come be your assistant.”
“Foll, long time no see.”
Wright obviously knew Foll too; they had interacted plenty when Foll was still alive.
He and Foll usually met over non-battle matters, like some private intelligence exchanges.
Though on different sides, in long-term dealings, the two pirate crews had built some wonderful friendships.
“Mm, with you joining, things will be much easier. To be honest, we’ve been overwhelmed lately.”
Without much small talk, Foll directly assigned Wright a desk, then slammed a thick stack of reports onto it.
“Shouldn’t need much instruction from me; these are no different from your previous work.”
Looking at the pile of materials in front of him nearly taller than his head, Wright once again felt the immense malice contained in the words “labor dispatch.”
With nothing else to do, Sister La also sat down to help.
Flipping through the materials at hand, Sister La found the documents covered everything: from arms procurement and warship maintenance to member fights and old/new disputes…
All the documents were just jumbled together without any classification.
And even though Obei outside had already screened them once, many of the submitted reports still had illegible handwriting.
This undoubtedly greatly increased everyone’s workload in the room.
But after all, they were the ‘high achievers’ who could write; in Beasts Pirates where academic atmosphere wasn’t strong, finding a few was already quite impressive.
Everyone could only pinch their noses and accept it.
By the way, after days of ‘kilogram-class’ text volume feeding, Obei and Aoxi’s common language reading and writing had become proficient.
Sister La picked it up quickly too, like a fully automatic computer, processing trivial small matters at a rate of one every few seconds.
While issues involving weapon and troop deployments were all sorted and left for Foll since specific needs were unknown.
Good news was that these matters truly needing executives numbered less than one-tenth of the total; the remaining nine-tenths were mostly trivial but necessary timely-handling small matters.
Under Sister La’s efficiency, the small matters taking up most of everyone’s energy were disappearing at an extremely fast speed.
The workload of the other group members was also decreasing at an astonishing speed.
……
Finally, before dinner, everyone actually finished processing the documents piled up for several days.
Some with dark circles were still dazed; they hadn’t expected to complete the work before dropping dead!
“Yo! Done already?”
Burufaruto’s rough voice timely sounded from outside.
“The banquet is about to start!”
“No rush, you go first. We’ll be there soon.”
Foll twisted his somewhat stiff neck; he planned to soak in the hot spring first to relieve fatigue.
These days of high-intensity mental labor had worn even him, of the Lunarian Clan, down; this was way more tiring than fighting.
Only brats like Aoxi and Obei with infinite energy were still bouncing around.
“Hot spring, anyone going?”
Foll asked the people in the room.
“Of course!”
Wright signed up first; he hadn’t bathed since following Foll on the strike over a week ago.
For this usually impeccably dressed man, it had reached his tolerance limit.
The rest, though hungry, all planned to soak first before properly enjoying the banquet.
