Ruho stared at the screen, watching the quiet pirate ships bobbing in the water. His hands were shaking. Not from cold—the castle was warm enough—but from the reality of what he was facing.
"Azirel," he said quietly. "What should I do?"
"It's obvious," Azirel said, his tone matter-of-fact. "Kill them. Destroy the castle. Take one of their ships and run."
Ruho's stomach dropped. "Kill them? I can't—I've never killed anyone! I don't know how to—"
"You killed a Gigantosuchus," Azirel pointed out.
"That was different! That was self-defense against a giant crocodile! These are people! Actual human beings!"
"Actual human beings who traffic in mind-control drugs," Azirel said, his voice cold. "Actual human beings who enslave people, rape people, murder people for profit. These aren't innocent bystanders, Ruho. These are monsters who happen to be shaped like humans."
"But I—"
"Let me make this very simple for you," Azirel interrupted. "You have two options. Option one: you kill a bunch of drug-smuggling, pillaging, raping pirates who are planning to use your island as a base for their criminal enterprise. Option two: you do nothing, the Imperial Coast Guard finds the drugs, and you die via Buster Call when they obliterate everything within twenty kilometers."
Ruho's hands clenched into fists. "That's not—there has to be another way. I could hide. I could wait for them to leave. I could—"
"You could die," Azirel said flatly. "That's what you could do. The Coast Guard doesn't care about your intentions. They don't care that you didn't invite the pirates. They see drugs, they see Holura ships, they level the island. You. Will. Die."
The weight of it settled over Ruho like a physical thing. Kill or be killed. Become a murderer or become a victim. Those were his options.
"Okay," he said, his voice barely a whisper. "Okay. I'll... I'll kill them. Use the Patron skill. Summon Lu Bu. Let him do the actual killing. I don't have to do it myself, right? I just have to... facilitate it."
"That works," Azirel said. "Lu Bu would massacre five hundred pirates in about five minutes. Sixty seconds might not be enough to kill them all, but you could summon him multiple times. Different patrons, different legendary warriors. Clean out the whole camp."
"And then I destroy the castle?" Ruho asked. "Why would I destroy my own castle?"
"Because the Coast Guard is coming anyway," Azirel explained. "The moment those Holura ships entered these waters, they were being tracked. Even if you kill all the pirates, even if you burn the ships, the Coast Guard is going to investigate. And when they find a massive castle on a previously uninhabited island, they're going to have questions. Questions you can't answer without sounding suspicious."
"So I destroy my home," Ruho said bitterly. "The one safe place I have. The one thing Vexor actually did right."
"And you take one of the pirate ships and run," Azirel continued. "Sail away from the archipelago, get far enough that the Coast Guard won't associate you with the Holura operation. Start over somewhere else."
Ruho thought about that. Sailing a ship. Alone. With no crew, no supplies, no idea how to navigate. "That sounds simple enough," he said, even though it sounded absolutely terrifying.
"You'll probably die anyway," Azirel added casually.
Ruho's head snapped up. "WHAT?!"
"Well, yeah," Azirel said. "Think about it. If the Imperial Coast Guard sees a ship that looks like it's fleeing from a Holura pirate base, they're going to shoot it down. Doesn't matter if you surrender. Doesn't matter if you try to explain. They see a suspicious vessel in their waters, they destroy it. That's their entire operational philosophy."
"But—but you just said I should take a ship and run!"
"I said that's what you should do if you want to maximize your survival chances," Azirel clarified. "I didn't say those chances were good. They're just better than definitely dying in a Buster Call."
"How much better?!" Ruho demanded.
"Maybe... ten percent?" Azirel estimated. "Fifteen if you're really lucky and the Coast Guard patrol is having a slow day?"
Ruho stood up from the couch, pacing around the living room. "So let me get this straight. I kill five hundred pirates. I destroy my castle. I steal a ship. I sail away. And I STILL probably die when the Coast Guard blows me out of the water?"
"Yep," Azirel confirmed.
"And if I don't do any of that, I definitely die in a Buster Call?"
"Also yep."
"So I'm just... fucked? No matter what I do?"
"Pretty much," Azirel said. "Welcome to living on a strategically important island in contested waters on a planet where everything is scaled up to impossible proportions. Your problems are proportionally massive too."
Ruho stopped pacing and stared at the screen, at the pirate ships that had brought this catastrophe to his doorstep. "What do I do?" he asked desperately. "What's the actual play here?"
There was a long pause.
"Ion know," Azirel said.
"THAT'S NOT HELPFUL!" Ruho screamed.
"I'm a trainee god, not a military strategist!" Azirel shot back. "I process souls and build worlds! I don't plan maritime escapes from overwhelming military forces!"
"Then who DO I ask?!" Ruho demanded.
Another pause.
"You could pray to someone," Azirel suggested. "Someone who actually knows about warfare and strategy. Like... I don't know, Sun Tzu? Clausewitz? Someone who wrote books about this stuff?"
"Can I do that?" Ruho asked. "Just pray to random dead strategists?"
"I mean, they're all in the afterlife somewhere," Azirel said. "Whether they'll answer is another question. Most famous people get a lot of prayers. They can't respond to all of them."
Ruho slumped back onto the couch, his head in his hands.
He was trapped. Surrounded by enemies on all sides. Pirates to the south. The Imperial Coast Guard somewhere in the distance. No way out that didn't end in death.
And his only advisor was a trainee god who freely admitted he had no idea what to do.
The screen continued showing the peaceful pirate ships, completely unaware that the person watching them was having a complete mental breakdown.