Franklin Harbor

Chapter 28 Franklin Harbor

Dean Issac turned into a small alley next to the main street. After confirming that no one was following him, he walked to the door of a house. He knocked three times, paused slightly, and then knocked twice again.

The door opened, and a girl poked her head out. After glancing at both sides of the road, she grabbed Dean's clothes and pulled him inside.

"Hey, hey! Easy there, you're going to tear my clothes," Dean protested, dissatisfied.

"You have the nerve to say that? You've been gone for so long without coming back. I thought something had happened to you."

The pink-haired girl frowned, her hands on her hips, clearly a little angry.

"Oh? Oh? The sun is rising in the west. Is the captain worried about me?" Dean feigned surprise.

"You—do you believe I'll beat you up!" The girl's face flushed red as she raised a flail that seemed disproportionate to her size.

Dean immediately raised his hands in surrender. "Mercy, mercy!"

"Hey, hey! Can't you two flirt at a better time? Susan's grandfather is still in the hands of the pirates," a tall, blond young man next to them said helplessly.

Then his face had a "close encounter" with the girl's flail.

"No one would think you're a mute if you didn't speak, you 'fly'," the girl said menacingly, wielding the flail.

The blond, spiky-haired youth covered his swollen cheek and said miserably, "Yes, Captain. I won't dare to do it again."

As soon as he finished speaking, two more people walked out from the inner room: a girl wearing a pointed scholar's hat and a girl with a ponytail. Of the people in the house, only the ponytail girl was wearing Northwest Bay-style civilian clothes. She said happily, "It's Dean!"

Seeing that Dean had returned safely, the two couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

The girl dressed as a scholar asked, "Dean, did you find out anything?"

"I did manage to get some useful information."

Everyone sat around the table, and Dean continued, "Franklin Harbor is under full martial law, and no one is allowed to enter or leave. I heard that the pirates ran into some trouble a while ago."

The flail girl asked impatiently, "Who asked you about that? What about Susan's grandfather and our mission objective?"

"Don't worry, I'm getting to it. I got a pirate grunt drunk and squeezed some information out of him. Susan's grandfather and our target are both imprisoned in the Church. But I went to take a look around, and the pirates are guarding it very closely. It's hard to get close to the place, so we need to find the right opportunity."

The flail girl complained, "Why does it have to be so troublesome? If you ask me, we should just rush in, drag out that 'Shark', beat him up, and make him hand over the people!"

Dean smiled wryly. "Captain, you have to consider the numbers on both sides."

The flail girl glared at him. "Then what do you say we do?"

Dean said calmly, "I do have a plan, which brings me back to what I said at the beginning. Do you know how much trouble the pirates ran into recently? They lost more than four hundred men! That's almost half of the Shark Gang's forces."

The bruised and swollen spiky-haired youth asked, covering his cheek, "Who's so powerful? It wouldn't be the local lord, would it?"

Dean spread his hands. "That grunt didn't know. You served in the army, right? You should know that superiors often don't want the lower ranks to know too much. If the enemy is too strong, they might desert. They only inform them right before the battle and push them to the front as cannon fodder. He only found out about the loss of more than four hundred men through an acquaintance close to the boss."

The flail girl: "Could it be the lord's army, Su…?"

"Don't be ridiculous. Would our lord care about the lives of the coastal commoners? They sold us to the pirates more than a decade ago."

Before the flail girl could finish her question, the ponytail girl blurted out a stiff sentence.

The girl's face lost its earlier expression, replaced by something like disdain and resentment, and one small hand clenched into a fist.

"The shameless nobles still have the nerve to come here every quarter to collect taxes. My grandfather, as the town chief, has to satisfy the pirates' greedy appetites and deal with the tax officials sent by the pig-headed lord. Even so, he's still resented by many of the townspeople."

As she spoke, the girl's eyes welled up, and tears uncontrollably swirled in her eyes.

The scholar girl immediately put her hand on the girl's back and comforted her. "Don't be sad. Everyone is probably just saying it, but they understand the old man in their hearts. Otherwise, why would they elect your grandfather as the town chief every year?"

The ponytail girl wiped away her tears and sobbed, "Yeah… I know everyone's feelings. Being extorted by both the pirates and the lord, it's inevitable that there will be some complaints."

"Ahem!" Seeing that the atmosphere was a bit heavy, Dean cleared his throat to attract everyone's attention and continued to talk about his plan:

"Regardless of who caused the pirates trouble, judging from their recent deployments, reinforcing fortifications and restricting entry and exit, it seems that the other party will soon come to Franklin Harbor to deal with them."

"There are only a few hundred pirates in the town now. According to the information I squeezed out, most of them will be sent to the city gates for defensive operations, leaving only about 20 people in the Church."

"We can't judge whether the newcomers are good or bad. Since Susan said that the local lord is very incompetent, I guess it might be another group of pirates coming to fight. We can only rely on ourselves. When the time comes, we'll take advantage of the chaos and do this… and that…"

After everyone discussed the details of the operation, the flail girl made a final decision. "Hmph! Simple! Let's do it that way. Sigh, if the others in the group were here, that would be great. If we were all together, I think we could storm in right now."

"No choice, who told you to take on two missions, Chief?"

"Hmph! I'm also thinking about the future of our adventurer group. But speaking of which, what's our target—the Horn Bay Alliance's young master Foster doing here? Just causing trouble."

"What else could it be? A rich young master like him probably had his brain fried by those knightly adventure novels, dreaming of slaying dragons and rescuing princesses every day. Can't find a dragon, but there are plenty of villains. Wasn't this area once the territory of the great pirate Edward? I heard many people challenged him before, but none succeeded; they were all fed to the fish. Our young master's luck is bursting; he just happened to arrive when Edward was away."

The ponytail girl said, "Dean, Meru, I want to help you too, especially since my grandfather is among those being rescued. Let me go with you; I know the church's interior very well."

"No way! It's too dangerous. Susan, just stay home and wait for our good news."

The chain mace girl refused outright, a serious expression on her face.

"I—Meru Heimer, in the name of the Lichman Adventurer Group, guarantee to bring your grandfather home safe and sound."

At this time, the Franklin Harbor Church had become the Shark Gang pirates' headquarters. The big and small bosses gathered in a room to discuss their recent defeat.

The boss, 'Shark,' dressed in classic pirate attire, with a face full of excess flesh, and an eye patch over his left eye, said hatefully, "No wonder that 'Loach' guy ran back to the sea in a panic. It turns out the Greiman Family kid really has some tricks up his sleeve."

A small boss said, "Boss, let's retreat to the sea too. The brothers below are a bit panicked. Rumors are spreading that the other side has a wizard helping them."

Shark was furious, smashing the water glass in front of him to pieces: "Pass down the order, anyone who dares to spout nonsense again will have their tongue pulled out!"

"Do you want to go back to the sea and live that wandering, hand-to-mouth life? Now that we've finally gotten rid of that busybody Edward, I'm going to swallow this piece of fat that is Franklin Harbor."

"But this land belongs to the Greiman Family..."

"I don't care about Greiman or Shreiman; what I take is mine."

A former Quirk Gang boss who had defected showed a look of fear: "But Shark, their 'wizard'..." Before he could finish, he remembered Shark's order forbidding nonsense and quickly shut his mouth.

Shark looked at him with disappointment: "Use your brains. If they really had wizards, magic, and the like, the Church would have come looking for them long ago. Would they have time to deal with us?"

Then he said confidently, "It's just some uncommon weapons. I carefully questioned the brothers who experienced it firsthand and summarized a set of methods to deal with them. As long as you wear thick armor, or even thicker clothing, those iron nails and debris won't cause much damage. As for those tubes that can fire iron bullets, they're just like bows and slings, only they fire bullets faster, with more power, and in very small numbers."

Although Shark was putting on a tough front, he was secretly afraid. He had seen a pirate from the Quirk side who had been shot; the man's entire arm was almost useless, and he died a few days later from a persistent high fever.

But he couldn't show it, or how would he trick his men into going to their deaths? So he said some encouraging words, promising them how many benefits they would receive after permanently occupying Franklin Harbor, and so on.

The Shark Gang were encouraged by Shark. The Greiman's secret weapons didn't seem so scary anymore, and they all expressed their willingness to follow their boss and fight the Greiman's army to the death.

"By the way, what about that old man, the town chief, and that young master from the Horn Bay Alliance?"

"The old man is still not cooperating, no matter how severely he's tortured, he won't acknowledge your title as lord. That young master is obedient, writing whatever he's told to write."

"Hmph! Once we stop the dog-headed noble's army, I'll have plenty of time to play with the old man, but it won't matter if he doesn't acknowledge me then. Keep a close eye on that young master too; he's our money tree."

"Yes, Boss!"