"Damn it! What do we do? Tell me what we do now!" Kinlock seized Kloros by the collar and roared.
A massive wave of pirates was coming!
There was no concealing such explosive news, and Kinlock had been stunned the moment he heard it.
Last time, only five major pirate gangs and a few small fry had come. This time, some Pirate Alliance had appeared out of nowhere, bringing several times their previous numbers. They had practically come out in full force!
Just how big a grudge did these pirates have against him?
Again and again-were they determined not to stop until they had plucked him bald?
Kloros was a large, tall man. With his collar seized, he had to bend at the waist, struggling to "accommodate" the other man's height.
"The situation has changed somewhat..." Kloros explained, suppressing his anger.
"Changed, my ass!" Kinlock cut him off harshly. "Didn't you say you had everything under control, that those damned pirates would soon be wiped out?
Where's your backup plan? Where are your reinforcements? Did the dogs eat them?!"
"Well..." Kloros looked embarrassed.
The Illusionist, whom he had long since arranged to infiltrate the enemy, had come up empty time after time. The situation had already taken a disastrous turn before the Illusionist had even met the actual target. What could Kloros do but despair?
As for reinforcements...
Their covert forces were not like the pirates, coming and going like the wind, with entire hordes charging out at the slightest impulse.
Even if they urgently mustered their forces now, factoring in travel time, the reinforcements would take over a month to arrive at the very earliest. By then, it would not just be too late-Kinlock's corpse would probably have gone cold.
Kloros's original plan had been sound. An army would