239 The Three Objectives
Martha the servant girl’s idea was the trigger to start a new plan to finally arrest Erick Smakusa. Banishing him from the council, which brings together the commanders of the eight largest families in the Broteforge Empire.
Since this could be a longer plan than all the others, and since everyone was inspired by Martha’s words, the huge group living in Ayumi’s residence decided that they should fragment to act more widely.
Not everyone in the group were adventurers with powerful Gene Skills, so they decided to form a division among themselves, to prioritize exactly how safe everyone was.
This meant that powerful people like Luke Lange and Alexis Dmitry couldn’t work together, which made them both upset. Still, the half-wolf didn’t martyr himself too much over this, because he could still be paired with Meredith or Ayumi.
Besides, the S-Class was still stronger than he was, and he knew he shouldn’t be worried about her safety because of this, but deep down, something still made him worry. This was like a feeling of uneasiness that he felt whenever he got away from her.
However, before they drew pairs for the first day of the operation, they outlined three main objectives:
Number 1 – Set up a vigil in the harbor.
This was the most important step, after all, it was their only hope of finding something that would link Straw Hats, and their human trafficking scheme in the East Port of Oukiwa, with the Smakusa Family, who were largely responsible for the administration of that region.
Number 2 – Work with the Municipal Guards to find the Straw Hat hideouts.
The main motivation for finding the Straw Hat hideouts was to find documentation proving that the Smakusa were dealing with criminals.
Although for minor criminals documents are superfluous material, for the underworld this kind of information is used as blackmail. In other words, not even the Patriarch of the Smakusa should be exempt from signing contracts, or any of his henchmen from stamping with the Smakusa Family shield.
Number 3 – Keeping track of Erick Smakusa’s daily moves in the Central Palace, to make him feel pressured and afraid to act.
With each passing day the Smakusa Patriarch was creating more tension among the members of the Council, therefore fine-tuning already established relationships and dealings among its members.
*
When the goals were finally accomplished, it was time to form the pairs and also the tasks of the first day, because they decided to vary this every day.
“So, how do we do this?” Matthew asked, because he had no preference about who he would pair up with.
“Let’s use logic, shall we?” said Nathalia. “For example, my mother needs to be fixed in the third goal, because she is part of the Council. Does everyone agree?”
Without exception, everyone nodded to the white-haired Elf.
Then the half-wolf raised his hand politely to follow up. “I think it will be better for everyone if you, Nathalia, and Shiro work together with the city guards every day. To gain the trust of these people is not at all easy, but Nathalia is charismatic and Shiro is reliable, you would be the perfect duo.”
“But wouldn’t that affect our rotation of doubles?” Shiro was surprised and happy about Luke’s reliability, and also thought the same way, but still couldn’t accept it without everyone agreeing.
Just then, Ayumi reached out to grab paper and pencil from a small circular table next to the armchair she was in. “The doubles rotation is simple. We are in ten, not to mention Martha, who will be in the rear taking care of the house. That is, without me, Nathalia and Shiro you would still be seven, as we need six to form pairs with eight-hour shifts to guard the harbor day and night, there would still be one left to accompany me during the day.”
Everyone looked dumbfounded at Ayumi Yamazaki, especially the members of the gang of former thieves. Normally, they would stay all night discussing different alternatives, trying to find the best one, but the Matriarch managed this with only half an hour of discussion.
“You are really amazing.” Martha complimented her, understanding a little more that Luke did not fall in love with her only for her huge breasts.
Hearing the compliment Ayumi was surprised, because she felt that the half-breed usually avoided her, so she blushed a little and thanked her in mumbles. Meredith was Luke’s childhood friend, so Ayumi wanted to get closer to her and be able to become her friend as well, but she hadn’t found ways to be able to do that yet.
Luke smiled as he watched the two interact. “All right, so tomorrow’s pairs can be Meredith and Ynosuke in the morning, John and Zack in the afternoon, and Matthew and Alexis in the evening. That way I would go to the Council on the first day, and on the second day I’ll switch with some duo. What do you think?”
Everyone agreed with the half-wolf, as these divisions were in line with the idea of leaving less powerful people with more powerful people.
Ynosuke was at the fourth stage of the Sea Ornament, two levels above Luke, and while he still didn’t have the physical attributes as great as Luke’s, his range of attacks and defenses was impressively vast, so that the <Horus’s Eye> was never enough to predict all of his movements or attack patterns.
Zack had also become quite strong during the trip, especially with the basic fundamentals of battle that Luke and Alexis taught him. This big red-headed man had abnormal strength, which had already made him break bones easily during tavern fights when he was younger.
Alexis also needs no comment, because he is by far the most powerful person in the group. Besides her extremely superior physical strength, she knows movement techniques that enhance all of this, not to mention her devastatingly powerful Gene Skills.
Knowing all this about his friends, when Luke woke up the other day and went to the Central Palace accompanying the Matriarch of the Strogueher Family, he was unconcerned about his friends and focused on his goal of keeping an eye on Erick Smakusa.