Last chapter, the trio and Abigail encountered the supposed wicked mayor of the town, Virile Noble, who overheard Abigail talking trash about him behind his back. This lead to a fight between him and Karia, in which she lost completely, and luckily Virile let her off with a warning.

Seric's P.O.V.

"Wooooow, cold. Anyways, you're fine walking around right Karia? We should probably get off of the island now that Virile has an eye on us." I respond without concern for her injuries, putting my knowledge of Karia's pride to use as Abigail slowly gets up from the sand.

"Why? It's not like that bastard's hunting us down, he just gave us a warning. Besides, it's not like he'll last long against me if we fight again, that was pure luck." Karia replies with a scoff as she looks down at me.

"...Well you guys have fun then. I'll meet you back at the ship. It was nice meeting you, Abigail." I reply with the shrug of my shoulders to gesture "that's too bad", as I turn around and start walking along the sandy path back towards the dock where our ship lays.

"Oh come on pal, what's up with you and speaking all this mumbo-jumbo B.L.A.S.P.H.E.M.Y.?! That's it, you pulled the last straw!" King Metallica shouts from behind me in an almost angry tone, causing me to look back to see him rolling up his sleeves while stomping towards me.

"It's not "blasphemy", it's called having common-sense... King Metallica?" My confidence shrivels as I remember what he did to some of his prior "pals" of the Long Sleeved Pirates beforehand. And I certainly don't want to end up being the second dwarf defeated on his record.

"Hey, hey, hey, take it easy! I'm sorry I didn't mean-" Before I can finish and I'm about to turn back around and run like hell, King Metallica reaches me and grips my wrist, staring down at me with his soulless white orbs with a speck of black in the center of them.

"Karia, oh God please stop him!" I yell out as I try to break free and run away, but it's no use and so I squeeze my eyes shut and flex every part of my body, expecting to be launched by his "catapult" any minute now.

"...Why the grim look pal? I thought you trusted me... Consider this one of my close-to-Five-King tier lessons on friendship, my inexperienced pal!" King Metallica says in a sad robotic tone as he tilts his head down in order to stare at the ground, and cheering up a second later as he swings the arm gripping me behind his back, causing me to fly with it and to land on the soft fabric of his robe that covers his hard iron shoulder chest down.

"...Huh? What are you doing?" I ask completely dumbfounded as I hang over said shoulder.

"Why, I'm just forcibly continuing our journey of course, YASHASHASHA!" King Metallica laughs as he starts to walk back towards Karia and Abigail with his "loot" in tow- being myself hanging over his shoulder as he secures me with his hard hand over my back.

"Oh, Seric I believe your name was, you came back!" I hear Abigail say happily, and looking up I can see her smiling with closed eyes on the side of the path with Karia slightly smirking as she looks at me with her arms crossed leaning against the building she just crawled towards. Ironic.

"King Metallica, I would REALLY, really appreciate if you could put me down now." I grit my teeth as a blush floods my face due to me looking like a ten year old who just had a tantrum in front of the girls.

"Nope! Then you're just gonna run away again, sorry pal but it ain't gonna be so!" King Metallica responds undettered as we reach our two companions.

"Hah, you look like real badass there Seric! Anyways, so you were leading us to the trading areas before?" Karia responds with obvious sarcasm as she turns towards Abigail.

"Ah! Indeed I was! I'm glad you're all still interested in our lovely town, right this way!" Abigail responds with a huge smile planted on her face as she starts to walk along the still empty sandy path- which I'm guessing is due to the "fight" that occurred.

"At least Karia isn't obsessed with fighting Virile again, so if we're lucky there's a decent chance we won't get into any more trouble... Honestly, Karia really got on my nerves back there, "blah blah you should be more manly like them blah blah". Like yeah sure, I would love to be a brainless idiot who only cares about looking strong and getting it on with chicks! Haha, yeah right. Seriously though, am I just a coward...? No! I mean... maybe a bit? Thinking realistically, fighting Virile was basically suicide, so me suggesting for us to retreat wasn't wimpy so to speak... Yeah, I like being smarter instead of stronger, the day I become a "man" is the day I lose myself!" I think to myself lost in thought as I can hear the voices of my friends in the form of ambient sounds.

"And that guy, he pissed me off too, saying that girls only like tall guys with guts... Well, that might be true for the most part, but there has to be some girl out there who wants a guy who isn't all big and macho... right? Hell, I don't even know if I'll ever have the guts to try to flirt with one... But I mean, there also has to be some girl out there who'll... flirt with... me..." I think to myself worryingly as I continue to hang off of King Metallica's bobbing shoulder, as I'm starting to realize what my life of brains over brawn truly entails.

"Ah! Curses, curse the genetics that make basically everyone think that way! But I mean, I doubt I'm gonna have time to get a girl anyways, this mission of completing the trials is much more important! I guess worst case scenario I'll just stay single-"

"Ow!" I curse to myself as a flick hits my forehead, in which when I raise my head up I can see that the perpetrator is Karia, "Where's the other bag? You know, of loot?" Karia asks impatiently, and looking around a bit we're now outside of an odd looking purple bricked building with large glass windows showing the small interior of it being one gray counter and a small white tiled floor with two people behind said counter, being one man and one woman.

"Huh? Loot..." I start to panic when I forget where it is, but I regain my cool when I remember that I not-so-simply shoved it into one of my worn out pant pockets beforehand.

"Here." I say as I reach into the pockets of my hanging legs behind King Metallica's shoulder, yanking out the small bag and reaching my arm back over his shoulder in order to place it in Karia's palm.

"So what, are you gonna put me down now, or how is this gonna work?" I ask as my dear robot friend is still planting his palm firmly on my back so I can't break free.

"I may be an old bot but I'm sure not a senile one, so I've got enough brains to know when someone's telling a big, juicy fib!" King Metallica responds in an annoyed tone as he stomps towards the building and enters through it's silver metal door- with me in tow of course.

"Oh, dear, you finally came back, we were worried sick about you!" The voice of the woman clerk sounds as soon as all four of us enter, as well as a door chime in the form of a bell.

"Hi mom! I missed you guys even more, you're not gonna believe it, this girl here fought Virile for my sake, and she was so, so close to beating him too!" Abigail says with a smile as she does a small skip over to the counter, leaning over it and hugging her shorter brown haired, and a bit chubby mother.

"What?! You had an encounter with Virile?! Oh dear me I'm about to faint..." Her mother says as she puts her hand on her forehead, starting to wobble on her feet a bit until she falls over and is luckily caught by the person next to her, being a tall man with completely unnatural blonde spiky hair, and wearing a pair of khaki cargo shorts, as well as a pure white t-shirt displaying the words "Tirion" on the front of them in big blue letters with a thumbs up next to them. A true man of culture, as I have a shirt from the same brand, although I'm not wearing it right now.

"Ah, mom!" Abigail shouts out.

"Mm." Her father only replies as he stands her back up on her feet and she starts to recuperate, or actually I think he is her dad at least.

"Um... Abigail, love, I know you promised us that you would bring traders to our wonderful shop, but... we didn't mean slave traders..." Her mom says in a nervous tone which completely baffles all of us, in which of course Karia is the first person to break out into humiliating laughter.

"What?! Excuse me ma'am but we don't have any slaves-" I then realize the depressing fact, that they think I'm the slave, being that I'm currently being lugged over a robot's shoulder like some animal he just hunted.

"...You know, I actually wouldn't mind being traded off to a group of sensible people!" I curse to myself in embarrassment as I slam my fist into King Metallica's robe, only to feel the pain of the steel right afterwards.

"Quiet, boy! How much do you want for him? Two Herin?" Karia plays along like an idiot to suffice her immense sadism.

"Quit it will you, and also what do you mean two Herin that's even less than one piece of King Metallica's scrap metal!" I reply with a huge blush taking over my face as I try to break free from his grip, but he still doesn't let go.

🧱🧱🧱

"Hm... I see. Thank you so much again for saving my daughter, who knows what that wicked mayor would have done if he had gotten his grimy hands on her beautiful, precious face..." Abigail's mom, who goes by the name of Tanse Effete, says to us as she finishes examining the last piece of jewelry from the last small bag of loot using some high tech portable scanner gun thing behind the counter.
Luckily, that... "misunderstanding" got cleared up pretty quick, and Abigail's parents kindly agreed to trade with us.

"Don't thank me, I just hate it when people try to make me look powerless." Karia replies with a small smile as she sits back in a small red cushioned black metal chair with her arms behind her head next to the small and worn out but still nice looking circular gray plastic garnished table of the Effete family trading shop, still wearing her same ripped clothes and being roughed up from the fight with Virile.

On that note although Abigail's family didn't have any spare clothes thankfully they had some rubbing alcohol which Abigail's mother kindly used to wipe down most of Karia's wounds, even though my stubborn companion insisted she was fine.

On the other hand, me and King Metallica are currently sitting at the other two seats of the table after he reluctantly agreed to put me down a little while ago.

"Hey, guys. Don't you find it weird how that Virile guy was even allowed to become the mayor of the town?" Karia says out of the blue, causing me to look up from my Recluse 2P and into her direction, "Yeah, I just didn't question it 'cause we've seen weirder before. I mean, I've heard that the Hopian Government is corrupt from both you and Popshot, so maybe that corruption leaked over to this island too?" I try to form a hypothesis as I look back down towards my phone which I'm still getting used to, more specifically the internet browser as of now.

"Those stupid higher ups, just who do they think they are, above the almighty Hopian himself?! They try to act like perfectionist God's, but in the end they're nothing more than the same old meatbags that the Five Kings gave life to all those years ago!" King Metallica rants as he slams his fist down on the table with a literal iron fist, actually sounding close to "angry" again.

"Whoa..." Is all I reply in shock, not looking back down at my phone this time.

"Well, of course all of my pals are the greatest meatbags out there, though!" King Metallica says with a big grin and thumbs up towards me and Karia.

"Hah, thanks. I agree with you though, Hopian's leaders are disgusting, for letting it come to what it is now that is." Karia says with a more serious face as she looks up at the ceiling for some reason.

"You were talking about Virile? I already told you three, did I not? Oh well, of course I'll explain again, after all I wouldn't want you to get the wrong impression of our beautiful island!" A voice sounds from the other side of the small gray colored room, and looking over Abigail stands with a black tray of four steaming white mugs with a pink floral design on them.

"Our town has had kind and likeable mayors for many, many years due to Birzion not following the... "standards" of Hopian's normal politics. But, however in the very early days of the island's civilization, people only wanted those who were strong as leaders, and so a stupid, foolish rule was implemented, being that if anyone could destroy the biggest rock on the island, they would become the mayor of the town immediately." Abigail starts to explain as she walks over to our table, handing each of us a steaming mug, including King Metallica surprisingly which makes his face glow up.

"Oh, so I'm guessing that nobody thought about the rule for a long time, until Virile suddenly came and destroyed the rock himself?" I hypothesize as I take a sip of the drink, burning my mouth a little bit but healing soon afterwards.

"Yes... and now, there's nothing we can do to take him out of the leadership he's already had for more than a year, unless someone destroys the next biggest rock on the island with their bare hands..." Abigail says sadly as she sits down at the table as well.

"...Damn, that sucks. Wait! If someone broke the next biggest rock on the island, could they pass the leadership on to another person other than themselves?" I ask as I come up with a potentially brilliant solution.

"Hm? Um... I don't think that's written anywhere to not be allowed no, why do you ask Seric?" Abigail asks with a tilted head.

"One of us three could destroy it for you! Oh wait, but are Blessings allowed to be used to destroy the rock?" I ask Abigail with a smile on my face and a furrowed brow.

"No." She replies suddenly which turns my smile upside down.

"What if someone beat him?" Karia asks.

"That would... probably do. Although, I don't know anyone who would willingly fight someone like him, even you, um, even though put up a great fight, couldn't win. And if you got hurt again, I would..." Abigail says with a sad look on her face as tears start to well up in her eyes.

"I wasn't trying, you know. I can beat him, trust me. Besides, I was planning on kicking his ass anyways to get my revenge, so it's not like you should feel like I'm purely doing this for you." Karia replies with confidence as she cracks her neck.

"I doubt it, Karia. He completely tanked your Spirit of Kodan, and unlike Aeko this guy didn't just use his body fat to nullify your hits, so putting him against a wall wouldn't be able to work. That's why I think, all three of- erm, I mean you and King Metallica should fight him together." I respond, trying to reason with my prideful friend but realizing that I probably should have worded that better.

"Sure thing pal, after all he did rough up pal #2 so he's already on my bad side! But! Only if you agree to help us too, I want to have some more fun with you as well!"  King Metallica says as he takes a sip of the tea Abigail gave him. Once again, I still have no idea how that works...

"Huh? Me? But, I would only hold you guys back, haha, I'm so weak..." I nervously respond as I try to weasel my way out of the scary situation I could be put in.

"Ugh, fine. Taking on all of those guys would be a pain, so you two can take the grunts out, while I fight Virile myself. If worst comes to worst, I still have a few tricks up my sleeve." Karia says with an annoyed sigh.

"You guys... you would really do this for us? But, he's so strong, and his men, if you defy them, Karia, they'll..."  Abigail says as tears begin to leak from her eyes, but I feel like these are happy ones this time.

"Um, I still didn't agree to fight-"

"Of course we will, if your a pal of my pals then there's no way I'll let you cry anymore!" King Metallica says with determination as he stands up from the table, with Karia following in suit afterwards with a grin.

A/N: And so, with determination our "heroes" decide to commit some chaotic good by taking down the mighty Virile and his men!

I hope you consider voting or commenting if you enjoyed, and see you guys next week- although, one of the following chapters may be another break one.