MD— CHAPTER 7

Title: Blood Booze

The ship erupted into a party. Unlike the rambunctious rumors about pirating, or in this case, fisherman's lives, no gossip ever revealed the overly cautious nature of the crew. The ship is handled by four teams in total. The Navigators, the Deck Men, The Arms Bearer, and finally, the Appraiser. In his own right, Sparow earned himself a great position but at the moment, no men worked under him. Unlike the small Navigators group that's holed within the control room, the Deck Men and Arms Bearer were much more serious.

Still, in the outfit sewed out of the flesh of a typhoon catfish, a rather popular yet rare choice, Lucio raised his glass of blood-red looking liquid. Sparow's eyes twitched. Unlike the other sailors enjoying their dinner in shifts, the remaining crew keeping an eye out on the sea, the captain's cabin was visited by Rambo, Kastar, Sparow, and Filip.

As Rambo promised, Sparow was being served the 'real' booze. "Oi, kid," Rambo grinned, raising his specially crafted wooden jug and draining the content with a refreshed expression, "Never tasted the Blood Booze, right?" The juice dripping down from the corner of his lips and flowing into his grizzly trimmed beard. "No, I did not." Sparow looked at his glass while Lucio sipped with a satisfied face. Aside from the three, Kastar, the head of the Deck Men with a team of members specialized in emergencies and rescues smiled. One of his eyes was destroyed, a black patch covering over it with short brown hair and a thick mustache over his lips.

The middle-aged man chortled, "If it's your first time, take it easy. The blood resonates with Chakra... and well, kidney failure is the least of your problems when it comes to Blood Booze addiction."

"Ain't he a Breeder?" Filip, a bald youth with raised jaws grinned and chugged on his glass. He seemed even younger than Sparow, "Then he must've been taught aboot the blood booze. I mean, these Breeders have their special brand of monster blood!" Filip's eyes were twinkling at the mention of the brand eating dust in Behemoth's counter. She was not a fan of drinking.

"Yeah, my professors went to great length describing the taste, texture, and the process," Sparow admitted with his plate untouched and his alcohol unmoved. The carefully cut salmon tendril in his plate looked ravishing with pink, fluffy meat oozing with oils as steam continued to puff out of its flesh. The back of the ship was completely developed into the kitchen personally handled by Lucio and his apprentice cooks.

"Ya bragging?" Filip and Rambo snapped simultaneously as Sparow pursed his lips.

"I mean to say, it is about time I have a taste of this stuff, too. What's the element of this one, Captain?" Sparow inquired. If the blood didn't belong to the earth element beast then he would have to stop after a slight taste. He cannot afford any troubles within his body after all.

"Water, I'm afraid. Drink cautiously," Lucio took a bite out of his fish and replied.

"Hmm," nodding, Sparow picked the glass and brought it closer to his lips. Unlike anything, the smell of the blood booze of an unknown maker was quite off-putting. Fishy and sour but the moment Sparow sipped the viscous liquid, he couldn't help but stay his hand as the liquid was icy cold while the glass remained warm. Shivering, his body's temperature dropping by a slight margin, Sparow took a deep breath while placing the glass down.

"How's it?" Rambo hurriedly inquired, a grin plastered onto his face as Sparow shook his head, "I won't drink this stuff until I get my familiar."

"Hah!" Filip chuckled, "My puchi loves this stuff. If not for her, I would love the earthen ones. The Royal Goat's the best of earthen blood booze in the region! Hey, Cap! The goblins got it, right? Let's get our stocks filled with some of its blood!"

"No," Kastar replied, "Royal Goats are rare and valuable. Not many use it for blood booze and certainly not the Gobbos. They'd rather have the blood convert into inks. Did you already forget the smack on our last trip?"

"Smack?" Filip furrowed his brows as Rambo and Lucio chuckled humorously. "Lord Gobbo smacked you six ways to Sunday... you did wake up confused," Kastar remarked as Sparow looked a little interested at the talk of the Goblins.

"Is it true that the Goblins make the inks from their own blood?" Sparow inquired casually as Filip shrugged, "You can ask 'em yourshelf and get smacked, too?" He suggested with his mouth full of salmon.

"Nobody knows, Sparow," Lucio replied with a calm expression. "The best ink said to have 80% contract success does come from Goblin but... well, I guess that the news of many Gobbos captured and drained of their blood never reached the ears of local news. It is their technique, not blood. At least, that's what the Gobbos have led the world to believe."

Sparow nodded. Goblins were endangered as their numbers dropped at the same speed as the birth rate of their race. But the cold slaughter of a specific race has been abhorred and dealt against with a unified stance due to many races and species already extinct and according to one of the most renowned researchers, this is only the conceptualizing era of the familiars. After all, the contract of familiars and information of chakras didn't exist, or weren't discovered 1000 years before this day, or any other day.

"Anyway..." Rambo slurred, gazing at the untouched plate in front of Sparow. "Ain't ya gonna eat? Your dinner's gonna cold off!"

"It's the spicy variant from the afternoon. Let the steam rise off completely, it takes away the majority of the chill," Sparow replied calmly, making Rambo tongue-tied as he inquired slowly.

"And you know how?"

"Cause I'm the scrawny appraiser of the ship and if you're gonna pull some punkish prank, you better get ready to be schooled."

The table went silent before Lucio started chuckling softly followed by a burst of loud laughter from Filip's side and Kastar holding drunk Rambo back from destroying the table and getting his ass whooped by the Captain.

---

"How was your sleep?" As Sparow entered the Captain's cabin, Lucio inquired with a smile. The evidence of the Blood Booze flickered through Sparow's slightly darkened eye bags as he shook his head slightly. "My whole body ached due to the slightest trace of chakra energy." What Sparow left out was the worst toilet journey of his life. "Blood Booze is really hard stuff," Lucio nodded, "But we had to welcome you in the crew and Blood is the only way. Anyway, we'll reach the island in three days and you'll have plenty of time to make yourself known within the ship. Well, Filip did send a message that he would love to show you around the security points of the ship."

"He didn't say 'love', did he?" Sparow inquired after a moment of silence.

"Well..." Lucio scratched his chin, "Filip and Rambo are, in some sense, rivals. Both of them have opened two of their chakra points and enjoy each other's downfall. So your stunt yesterday actually impressed the both of them. Rambo, because he gets impressed after being... schooled, and Filip, cause you schooled Rambo."

Sparow nodded and slumped on the seat opposite to Lucio as the Captain continued, "And, I'd suggest that you meet up with Filip, get a weapon for yourself and have yourself trained to fire your gun from Kastar. He's the best marksman on the ship."

"Bullets don't work against sea monsters. Is that effort really necessary?"

"Who said it's for the sea monsters?" Lucio smirked, "You don't really believe that the Gobbos won't try to devour a new guy just cause of me, right? You need to arm yourself and it's a good thing you aren't really scrawny. We all have our own stuff to do at the island but one thing is for sure, none of us are safe there unless we have our contacts and a few trustful goblins to our sides and weapons can help you gain their trust more easily."

Sparow furrowed his brows at the realization that his plan for the first familiar wasn't off to a great start.