Ruho stood up from the edge of the bath, his towel nearly slipping before he caught it. "Okay, so what? I've got pirates on my island. I'll just use my new Patron ability. Call up Lu Bu, let him massacre them all. Problem solved. Easy."
"It's not that simple," Azirel said quickly.
"Sure it is!" Ruho was getting confident now, the rush of having actual powers making him cocky. "Or better yet, forget Lu Bu. Let me call in Oppenheimer! The father of the atomic bomb! Let's see what kind of powers HE gets with the Patron skill! Blow both ships sky high! Nuclear pirate removal!"
"RUHO—"
"I've got options now!" Ruho continued, pacing around the bathroom in his towel. "I've got legendary powers! I've got over a million people who can potentially fight for me! This is fine! This is totally—"
"IT'S NOT ABOUT THE PIRATES!" Azirel's voice cut through his rambling like a knife.
Ruho stopped pacing. "What?"
"The pirates causing a ruckus on your island isn't the problem," Azirel explained, his tone serious. "I mean, yeah, they're terrible and dangerous, but that's not what I'm worried about. I'm worried about the Imperial Coast Guard."
Ruho blinked. "The who now?"
"The Imperial Coast Guard," Azirel repeated. "Specifically, the coast guard belonging to the Duke Noverk's Agreement of Nations."
"I have no idea what any of those words mean," Ruho said flatly.
Azirel sighed. "Okay. Geography lesson. You know how your island is part of the Quartet Archipelago?"
"Yeah, you told me that."
"Right. Well, the Quartet Archipelago technically falls under the territorial waters of a continent called Duke Noverk's Agreement. It's the mainland—or one of the mainlands—on this planet. And it's... complicated."
"How complicated?"
"Very complicated," Azirel said. "Let me explain. Duke Noverk's Agreement of Nations is a massive political entity made up of four hundred different nations that all agreed to act as one unified force for defense and trade purposes. The continent itself is about 55.4 million square miles."
Ruho waited for more. "Okay, that's big, but—"
"Million with an M," Azirel interrupted. "Wait, no. Shit. I read that wrong. Billion. 55.4 BILLION square miles. With a B."
Ruho's brain stuttered. "That's... that can't be right. That's bigger than—"
"It's the smallest continent on this planet," Azirel continued. "Remember, the planet is 1.8 times the size of the sun. Everything scales up. And Duke Noverk's Agreement is considered tiny compared to the other landmasses. It's basically a collection of relatively small nations that banded together because individually they'd be insignificant."
"Okay," Ruho said slowly, trying to wrap his head around the numbers. "So it's a big alliance. What does that have to do with pirates?"
"Everything," Azirel said. "See, Duke Noverk's Agreement has a combined population of about 2.16 billion people. Which sounds like a lot until you realize they're spread across 55.4 billion square miles of territory. They're massively underpopulated for the size of their land."
"So they have empty space," Ruho said. "Again, how does this—"
"They got insecure about it," Azirel interrupted. "Four hundred nations, all trying to maintain sovereignty over enormous territories with relatively small populations. They couldn't effectively patrol their borders. They couldn't monitor their coastlines. They were vulnerable to invasion, to pirates, to literally anyone with boats who wanted to claim unoccupied land."
Ruho was starting to see where this was going. "So they got paranoid."
"They got EXTREMELY paranoid," Azirel confirmed. "About three hundred years ago, they established the Imperial Coast Guard. And the policy they implemented was basically: any unidentified vessel that enters our territorial waters gets destroyed. No warnings. No questions. No diplomatic negotiations. If we don't recognize your ship, if you're not on our approved registry, you get blown out of the water immediately."
"That seems excessive," Ruho said.
"It's completely excessive," Azirel agreed. "But it worked. Nobody wants to mess with Duke Noverk's Agreement anymore because the Coast Guard has a reputation for being absolutely ruthless. They operate on a shoot-first-ask-questions-never policy. And because the alliance has four hundred nations contributing resources, the Coast Guard is MASSIVE."
"How massive?"
"11.3 million personnel," Azirel said. "That's the current active roster. 11.3 million Coast Guard members spread across thousands of ships, all patrolling the territorial waters 24/7. They've got everything from small patrol boats to massive warships. They've got magic users, artillery, long-range detection systems. It's basically a naval military force disguised as a coast guard."
Ruho felt the confidence from earlier evaporating. "And they're coming here because...?"
"Because they've definitely seen Holura ships before," Azirel said grimly. "The Holura Pirates have been operating in these waters for decades. The Imperial Coast Guard has standing orders to engage any Holura vessel on sight. And if they're tracking those two ships—which they probably are—they're going to follow them straight to your island."
"But I'm not a pirate," Ruho protested. "I didn't invite them here. This isn't my fault."
"Doesn't matter," Azirel said. "The Coast Guard doesn't care about nuance. They don't care about your situation. All they care about is that there are Holura Pirates on an island in their territorial waters, and their protocol is to eliminate the threat completely."
"So they'll just kill the pirates and leave?"
"No," Azirel said slowly. "That's what I'm trying to warn you about. The Coast Guard doesn't just eliminate pirates. They eliminate EVERYTHING associated with them. If they find drugs on your island—which the pirates are definitely going to bring and start manufacturing—they're going to assume the entire island is a drug operation."
Ruho's stomach dropped. "What does that mean?"
"It means they're going full Buster Call," Azirel said. "You know, like in One Piece? Total annihilation. They'll bombard the entire area until nothing is left standing. Ships, camps, buildings, wildlife—everything. They'll turn your entire plateau into a crater just to make sure they eliminated the drug port."
"My castle," Ruho whispered. "My torture-furnace full of meat. My bath. My—"
"All of it," Azirel confirmed. "Gone. The Imperial Coast Guard operates on the principle of overwhelming force. If there's even an OUNCE of drugs found on this island, they will destroy everything within a twenty-kilometer radius. Maybe more, depending on how aggressive the commanding officer is feeling that day."
Ruho sank back down onto the edge of the bath, his towel forgotten, his mind reeling. "So I've got pirates who are going to set up a drug operation. And a coast guard that's going to destroy my entire island if they find it. And I'm stuck in the middle."
"Exactly," Azirel said. "Welcome to geopolitics on a planet-sized scale. Everything is bigger here. Including the problems."
"Can't I just... tell them I'm not with the pirates?" Ruho asked desperately. "Explain the situation?"
"The Imperial Coast Guard doesn't accept explanations," Azirel said. "They don't take prisoners. They don't do investigations. They see a threat, they eliminate it. That's their entire operational philosophy. It's kept Duke Noverk's Agreement safe for three centuries, but it also means they've probably killed thousands of innocent people who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Ruho buried his face in his hands. "This is insane. This is actually insane. I just wanted to survive. I just wanted to eat some crocodile meat and take a bath and maybe figure out how to not die every five minutes."
"Yeah, well, you're on a strategic island in contested waters on a planet where everything is scaled up by a factor of ten million," Azirel said. "Your problems are going to be proportionally scaled up too."
"How long do I have?" Ruho asked quietly.
"Until the pirates finish setting up their camp and start manufacturing drugs? Maybe two days, if you're lucky. Until the Coast Guard tracks them here and decides to level the island?" Azirel paused. "Could be a week. Could be three days. Could be tomorrow if they're already close."
Ruho stood up, his jaw set with determination despite the towel barely clinging to his waist. "Then I need to get rid of the pirates before the Coast Guard gets here."
"How?" Azirel asked.
"I don't know yet," Ruho admitted. "But I've got Lu Bu on speed dial. I've got killing intent. I've got two hundred mana points. I'll figure something out."
"You're going to fight pirates in a towel?"
Ruho looked down at himself. "First, I'm going to find some actual clothes."