Chester's eyes opened again, once Lina had figured out the deal with the knocked out bear and bandit. "Wait, the Bear couldn't even talk, the dude was a ventriloquist?" He asked, the girl had nodded in response, and Chester burst out laughing, hard enough for his wounds on his face and shoulder to start bleeding again. Lina had opened the treasure, Chester crawled onto his feet, leaning over her shoulder as she opened the chest - inside there was only rusted iron tools. Chester shrugged. "Unlucky." Was all he said, before he headed back towards the ship, only for Lina to find a map.

"Less unlucky." He corrected himself - the two heading back towards the ship.

---

The Girl wasn't too pleased with the mission they had been sent on - she was expecting there to be money involved, but there was not. The Commander, Griff shrugged. "Deal was that we split the reward.. You want half of the map?" He asked and Chester laughed. "Half a map, really? We'll trade you our half of the map for food, water and booze." Chester demanded as the Marine commander wrinkled his nose. "You dare try and haggle with an Officer of the Navy?" and Chester nodded.

"You know it."

Then Lina pointed out that their boat was sinking, and Chester dashed towards the boat. "MY RUM!" He shouted, kneeling on the bridge next to the sinking boat, finding a floating bottle of rum that he held with the same kind of tender care one would hold their first born. The Marines collected the rest of their belongings, floating in the water, Lina's Melonberry plants and seeds surviving, luckily, but any other bottles of Chester's booze did not.

He leaned towards the Marines, whom were unpacking food and drink for them onto the harbor. "How are we gonna take off from this island, then?" He asked rhetorically, kind of angling for a ride from the Marines.

That's when a small voice from behind him spoke up. "W-We have a ship." The voice said, it was an old lady, a head and a half shorter than Lina, three heads shorter than Chester. "Oh? I don't think a fisherboat will work for us.." He said, trying not to offend the lady. "No, stupid! It's a ship. Pirates came on it one day, many years ago, they were taken by Marines, their ship was left behind."

"Why would you give a ship to us?" Chester asked, and the woman smiled. "Our hunter, Jorgen, saw that you and the young lady here fought off the Bear Bandits, and we want to show our gratitude." Chester smiled. "Sweet!"

"B-But, there's famine going around in the village, our people are starving, due to the Bandits taking a lot of our harvest.." She said her eyes darting to the crates of food that the Marines had left on the shore.

"Surely, you can't mean that we'll give you all that foo-" Lina was going to ask, as Chester smiled. "OK. You can have all of the food we can't carry to the boat." He promised and the old lady smiled. 


Was the pirate planning something foul?


Chester picked the crate with the drink inside off, slinging it over his shoulder, the crate was larger than his torso, but it didn't seem to bother him at all to lift. "Lina, grab a little food, and your plants." He said, as he uncorked the bottle of rum he had in his hand, heading towards the other shore of the island, where the old pirate ship was docked - the villagers coming to pick out food from the crates Chester had left.