After about forty-five minutes of actual meditation, which felt like three hours to Ruho's restless brain, he finally opened his eyes and stood up. His legs were still stiff from sitting cross-legged for so long, and his back popped as he stretched.
But something was different. The gnawing hunger in his stomach had... diminished. Not gone completely, but slightly muted. Like he'd eaten a light snack instead of sitting in silence absorbing cosmic energy.
"Did meditation just... feed me?" Ruho asked, confused.
"Kind of," Azirel said. "Mana sustains your body on a cellular level. It's not a replacement for actual food, you still need nutrients and calories, but it can suppress hunger temporarily. Think of it like your body running on reserves."
"I hate this weird meditation shit," Ruho muttered. "But I guess it worked. I'm at like... what, 190 mana now?"
"185," Azirel corrected. "You're not quite that efficient yet. But yeah, you recovered fifteen points in forty-five minutes. Way better than passive regeneration."
Ruho rolled his shoulders, working out the stiffness. "Can I watch what the pirates are doing? I want to stay one step ahead of them."
"Sure," Azirel said. "One surveillance screen coming up."
The living room, one of the many rooms Ruho had discovered during his exploration, suddenly lit up as a massive screen materialized on the wall. Easily a hundred inches, crystal clear, showing the same bird's-eye view of the pirate camp that Ruho had seen on the tactical table.
Ruho flopped onto one of the couches—medieval style but surprisingly comfortable—and stared at the screen like he was watching Netflix.
The view zoomed in on one of the ships. Specifically, into the ship, through the wooden hull and down into what appeared to be the captain's quarters or a planning room. About fifty men were crammed into a relatively small space, lit by flickering candles mounted on the walls. They were hunched over a table covered with a hand-drawn map of part of the island.
Ruho leaned forward, squinting at the screen. "Can you give me audio?"
"Already done," Azirel said.
The sound kicked in mid-conversation. The pirates were speaking in a language Ruho didn't recognize, but subtitles appeared at the bottom of the screen, translating in real-time.
"—the plateau to the north," one pirate was saying, a grizzled man with scars across his face and a captain's hat. He jabbed a finger at the map. "Highest point on this section of the island. Perfect for surveillance and defensible if we need to make a stand."
"When do we move?" another pirate asked, younger, eager.
"Tomorrow," the captain said. "We'll scout it out, claim it if it's unoccupied. Set up a forward camp."
Ruho's stomach dropped. Tomorrow. They were coming tomorrow.
"What about the product?" a third pirate asked, gesturing to something off-screen. "We can't just leave two tons sitting on the beach."
"We need to hide it," the captain agreed. "Dig a cave in the plateau area. Somewhere the Imperial Coast Guard won't find it even if they search."
Ruho paused. "Azirel, what drugs do they have in this world? What are they transporting?"
"Cog drugs," Azirel explained, his tone grim. "Specifically designed to alter critical thinking and decision-making. Pirates and slavers feed them to captives to make them more compliant, easier to manipulate and control. Breaks down their ability to plan escapes or resist orders."
"That's..." Ruho felt sick. "That's horrifying."
"It gets worse," Azirel continued. "Some people also use them as roofies. Slip them into drinks at taverns or parties, drug someone unconscious or compliant enough to... well. You can imagine."
Ruho shuddered. These weren't just pirates. They were slavers, rapists, monsters who trafficked in substances designed to destroy people's minds and agency.
He forced himself to keep watching.
"We've got about two tons," one pirate was saying, consulting a ledger. "That's roughly 988,000 pills. Going to take at least ten men to transport it all, and about six hours if we avoid the swamp route."
The captain nodded, thinking. "Here's what we do. Send one scout ahead, fast, light, just surveil the area. Should take less than an hour. Once he confirms it's safe, send ten more men to follow his route. They spend a day digging the cave, get it properly concealed. Then the day after, we take the six hours to move the product and hide it. Three days total, and we're secure."
"What about the Imperial Coast Guard?" A younger pirate spoke up, his voice nervous. "They patrol these waters. If they track us here—"
The other pirates burst into laughter.
"The Coast Guard?" one of them wheezed. "You scared of the Duke Noverk's toy boats?"
"They're thousands of miles from here!" another pirate added. "By the time they even detect our ships, we'll have the drugs hidden and be halfway to the next archipelago!"
"But they have fast vessels," the nervous pirate protested. "And long-range detection magic. If they—"
"If they show up, we scatter," the captain said dismissively. "Leave the product buried, come back in six months when the heat's off. Standard procedure. You worry too much, kid."
More laughter. The nervous pirate looked unconvinced but shut up, clearly not wanting to be mocked further.
"Alright," the captain said, rolling up the map. "Get some sleep. Scout leaves at dawn. The rest of you, prep supplies for the forward team. Dismissed."
The pirates began filing out of the room, heading to their hammocks and sleeping quarters. The candles were snuffed one by one, plunging the space into darkness.
The screen stayed on the now-empty planning room for a moment before Azirel switched back to the exterior view, showing the ships quiet under the moonlight.
Ruho sat on the couch, his mind racing.
Tomorrow. A scout would arrive at his plateau in less than a day. Then ten more pirates the day after. Then the full operation to hide nearly a million pills of mind-control drugs somewhere on his territory.
And if the Imperial Coast Guard found even a trace of those drugs, they'd level the entire island.
"I'm so fucked," Ruho whispered.