Chapter 224 - The Surprise Factor

After Orleand's words, the entire room fell silent for a moment, but despite that, Ameria and Drannor looked weirdly amused. Zaos finally discovered why Noemi wasted so much time watching him train… It seemed that she felt attracted to him. It was no surprise since she was at that age, and Zaos was a warrior from another land who helped her family more than a few times.

"Why did you suddenly say that, Dad?" Noemi asked.

"Well, I just thought that you were looking at him a little too much, and…" Orleand said.

"I wasn't!" Noemi shouted again.

That was why Zaos never considered marrying a girl around his age. His wife needed to be at least five years older since, at that age, she wouldn't be so noisy and emotive. Even if her father misunderstood something, there was no reason to be so noisy. He was just two meters away from her, after all.

"This is hardly the time to talk about this, sir," Zaos said. "Not to mention, I am not a knight, so you can't refer to me like that. Lastly, it seems you misunderstood your daughter's actions. Well, if that is all, I am going to the deck."

"Yes, my apologies," Orleand said.

Things felt quite awkward in the room for a while since Noemi looked pretty embarrassed. Erean soon left while shrugging his shoulders, and soon after, Ameria put her hands on Noemi's shoulders.

"You blew your chance of marrying a young hero, Noemi," Ameria said. "Or do you escape from someone who is a real pain in the ass? Since we are talking about Zaos, we can't say for sure."

"Now I am confused. What is…" Orleand said.

"Stay confused forever!" Noemi said and then left the room, furious at her father.

Zaos was already concentrating on the deck when all the others left the cabin. Although it was quite difficult to come up with a proper plan when ships were involved, and he never participated in a battle inside them, Zaos still decided to at least devise a battle plan for himself. He couldn't mess up this time. He did that twice and ended up spending two weeks unconscious.

"I am pretty sure my Wind Swords can cut off a mast like that, and without it, ships can't move around all that well, that should make things easier for us, but…" Zaos thought.

If Zaos save his mana only for that, he will be able to make forty ships lose their mobility, but that wouldn't be enough against Ferdinand's fleet. Things would be different if he could obtain some mana potions, but he didn't have any money with him, and those were pretty expensive in Cezar. With the price of a single one in that country, anyone could hire five decent mercenaries for a full day. It wasn't just worth spending so much money to make Zaos's able to use more of his magic.

"I guess I should research how to recover my mana faster after I discover how to improve mom's condition," Zaos thought.

Zaos tried and tried, but in the end, he didn't come up with any decent idea to make that battle end as soon as possible. He could jump from one ship to another once they get close enough and then try to kill all of Ferdinand's loyal men and try to look for the ones who were fooled and try to spare them and then hope that they will join his side, but that would be too dangerous. Besides, he wouldn't have the time to check each man on the ships.

"Whatever… I am not the one who made this mess, so I shouldn't be the one who has to feel most guilty for the death of innocents," Zaos said. "Besides, they received the message we sent. If they were still fooled by Ferdinand, it is not my problem anymore."

Zaos felt like he was using a cheap excuse to avoid a headache later, but it couldn't be helped. A single second of confusion and hesitation might be deadly on the battlefield, and between his life and the others, his life was more important.

After dinner, Zaos decided to spend the night on the deck. While the soldier's cabin wasn't that comfortable, it was better than spending the night outside getting hit by the cold wind of the ocean. Zaos used that same discomfort to keep his focus at the max level because the following day, the battle will start.

Much to everyone's surprise, the battle started even before the sunrise. Zaos was right there sitting on the deck when he noticed the winds changing and a weird sound approaching in the distance. The sailors who had more experience alerted the entire crew when they saw some lights in the distance.

"We ended up losing the surprise factor…" Zaos said and then sighed.

In the blink of an eye, pretty much everyone on that ship showed up on the deck. It seemed that they didn't sleep all that much. 

"All right, the ships on the front lines will buy us some time," Erean said. "In the meantime, we will move to the East and then attack the ships from the side. Again, this battle will take a while, even though those ships are mostly for scouts."

"Wouldn't it be better if we hurried and then alert everyone that Orleand is here?" Drannor asked.

"Yes, but that won't be possible," Erean said. "Most likely, the ships we are going to face right now are loaded with experienced soldiers. Besides, in this darkness, it will be hard to show that Orleand is the real deal."

Zaos looked in the distance and already saw some ships burning. Both allies and enemies were trying to destroy the masts because, without them, the ships were as good as destroyed. Burning the enemy ships with bolts was practically impossible, and that was what most of the people in that ship had since they weren't experienced soldiers and didn't have as much time and resources like Ferdinand to prepare. Still, it wasn't possible…