Elemental Cats

After dinner was finished and everyone had gotten to know each other, Toz and Nil began expanding and increasing the available sleeping spaces. When it had just been Toz and the cats, they didn't care too much about how and where they slept. But now, there was both a mother and her child, and two grown men added to the mix.

Since Joan and Joshua had already made the first house theirs, Toz made another one for himself and the cats, and Nil began making a building with two rooms next to the warehouse. While Toz and Nil were doing that, Joan began using some leftover cloth to make simple beddings, creating a more comfortable place to sleep. Hods and Stitches were used to sleeping without comfort, especially Stitches, who had once fallen asleep during the flag punishment, but the two still appreciated the raised beds and the simple mattresses.

Hods and Stitches easily joined the group and after getting comfortable, started pulling their weight. Though, since there wasn't much to do around the island, the two were mostly in charge of cleaning up the jellyfish and other void beasts, or rather what remained of them after they failed when attacking the island.

When they weren't busy doing that, they would either spend time with the others, sleep, or train. However, since Stitches needed to heal people or manipulate life force to train his mana, he saw limited success. Hods, who only had to swing his sledgehammer, had it comparatively easier.

Joan continued working on Toz's coat. Sometimes making progress, and other times realizing things she had missed previously.

Joshua and the cats played around most of the time, often bothering Joan or one of the pirates, not that anyone minded. They spent a lot of time trying to figure out Joshua's inclination but had no success. But since they spent more time with Joshua than on training their mana, Toz had started catching up to them in how far he had trained his mana.

Though, Toz wasn't training all the time. He had started rummaging through the sailboats, looking for anything of interest. He did find a few things that could be called food and a few bottles of liquor in the boat that Kart hadn't been on.

Toz found out that the various crew members worked together so that they would be able to have some fun when they weren't on the same boat as Kart. Hods and Stitches were pretty new to the crew, and they hadn't been going out that many times but it was apparently common practice in the entire crew, and not only in the group overseen by Kart.

When Stitches started talking, there didn't seem to be any stopping him, especially not after he had gotten more comfortable with Toz and wasn't afraid of being killed all the time. Without even being prompted, he started telling Toz all he knew about the pirates and their business in the Void.

Toz didn't mind listening since it was pretty interesting, and it helped alleviate some boredom. And even if there was a lot of rambling and nonsense in Stitches' storytelling, it was a lot of information about what Toz might eventually encounter in the future. Especially the port, Pirate Haven.

Even if it was simply referred to as a port, it was more like a massive city built from debris and materials found in the Void. Pirate Haven didn't have a single ruler but was instead controlled by different pirate leagues and crews. The crew Hods and Stitches came from wasn't one of the crews with power. Their crew was simply a small one located in the outer reaches of the city, living day to day. According to Stitches, their captain wasn't ruthless enough to amass power in the city, but it was also that trait of his that had attracted friendly people like Hods and Stitches to the crew.

If Toz got the opportunity, he would like to see what a city in the Void was like, even more so if it was a city of pirates and general lowlifes.

However, they still hadn't solved the problem of being unable to navigate through the Void. Even if they could travel freely through the Void without fear of getting lost, they didn't have a way of doing so while bringing the island with them. With how special and unique the trees were and how attached Toz had gotten to the island, he was reluctant to leave it behind. His sword wasn't even finished yet.

But they weren't lacking food, and even if they felt like they would die of boredom, it wasn't too bad. Both Hods and Stitches appreciated getting away from the intensity of battle and took to the calm of the island with happy hearts.

And with a kid and several rowdy cats, the boredom wasn't that heavy. Toz and Hods had started giving Joshua some tips on how to use swords and sledgehammers. Even if the kid couldn't awaken his inclination, or it wasn't suitable for him to learn weapons, it didn't hurt learning about them.

Stitches and Lucy had started competing in telling stories to anyone who was bored enough to listen. Most of the time, it would be Joshua or one of the cats who bothered hearing the outlandish stories the two came up with.

Joan was eager to finish Toz's cloak as a display of her gratitude toward him for saving her and her son's life. But she was having difficulty understanding and fixing the various runes and enchantments on the remains of Toz's original coat. In her anxiety to finish, Joan considered rushing the job. But both her wish to do a good job and Toz telling her it wasn't a hurry made sure she took her time and did it properly.

Things on the island of trees settled into a simple routine once again. The cats or Toz, or all of them would defeat incoming void beasts, securing food. Hods and Stitches would clean up the resulting mess. Joan worked on the coat. And in their free time, people trained, rested, or played around.