43 The price

"Ruff… Ruff..."

"...Yeah I hear you Serina… Sure is hot…"

Mike was laying on the deck of the ironclad on his back just baking in the sun, next to him lay Serina, she was laying on her back with her tongue out of her mouth it flopped out to the side as she hyperventilated to cool down

"Alright let's get some water… Hail hydrate and all that…"

Mike slowly raised his shirtless body off the deck and walked towards the aft of the ship where the water purification plant was, it was the fourth day of the journey towards Thera and so far Mike had passed time laying on deck getting sun all day so now he had a healthy tan, another thing Mike had noticed now that he had spent most of the days shirtless was that his figure had turned amazing all of a sudden

'Can't believe I have an eight pack all of a sudden… It's properly thanks to [Blood body enhancement] and all the killing I did previously… Now that I think about it even though I have not killed anything in four days I still feel fine… Maybe I overfed the knife with all that genocide?'

At the back of the ship were a water station with a couple of water pumps where one could satisfy one's thirst, most of them were occupied but there were some that were free so Mike walked over to one of the free ones and began pumping some water while drinking directly from the pump, then when he got his fill he took a big bowl for Serina and put it under the pump and began pumping water for her while he did he was approached by a group of people, one of which was a woman that called out to him

"Hey there"

Mike glanced over at them while he pumped for Serina that was busy lapping up the water that fell into the bowl

"Hello… Can I help you with something?"

"You could say that, we are getting bored so we want to do a fighting tournament on the deck tomorrow and to spice things up there's an entrance fee of a 1.000, winner takes all, what do you say? Want to participate?"

Mike thought for a moment before he gave a shrug and spoke

"That beats laying in the sun all day so why not?"

The woman gave a smile

"Then be sure to bring 1.000 to the deck tomorrow at noon"

"Sure"

"Alright see you then handsome"

Mike looked after the group of people as they left before he muttered

"Damn right I am handsome"

"Ruff… Ruff!"

"Yeah yeah I know Serina, just wait a moment"

Mike resumed pumping water for Serina, after he was done they went back to sunbathing on the deck, this continued until the sun went down (with a few drinking brakes in between) Mike feed some raw meat to Serina which was provided by the crew of the ship before he said goodnight to her and went below deck and back to his room where Julie already was taking up more than half of the bed snoring away, Mike gave a smile and considered playing a prank on her but eventually decided not to before he laid down beside her and hugged her close before he began drifting off to sleep…

The next morning Mike awoke when Julie slightly shock him and called out to him

"Mike… Mike wake up"

Mike opened his eyes and saw Julie's slightly concerned face and asked her

"What's wrong?"

"Elina and Rebecca are acting strange"

Mike got out of bed at once and quickly put on some clothes before he followed Julie to Elina and Rebecca's cabin, there he saw Elina sitting in a corner hugging her legs and rocking back and forth, there were numerous cuts on her skin that seemed to be self inflicted but none of the deep cuts bleed meanwhile Rebecca was in a similar state she was laying on one of the two beds with her eyes unfocused staring into space as her body also had numerous cuts while she was gasping for breath seemingly having trouble breathing, Mike gave a sigh and muttered

"Guess this is their limit…"

Julie however didn't get it and asked

"What limit Mike? Do you know what's wrong with them?"

Mike grabbed Julie's sword and drew it from her hip before he spoke to her

"Go get some bandages"

"...Okay Mike"

Julie quickly left the room, Mike looked at the two of them that were like fish on land, they were dried up, so Mike simply needed to water them a bit so they could endure

"Well this is going to hurt… Oh well, probably not more than when mom hit the pavement from the 4th floor and survived…"

While Mike remembered the slightly nostalgic dive his mother had made over the balcony he walked over to Rebecca and cut open his wrist with a superficial wound that bleed a little, the blood dripped down and landed in Rebecca's open mouth, once, twice did the blood drip into her mouth before there was a reaction and she suddenly lunged upwards and bit into his arm locking her lips tightly around the wound Mike had cut on his wrist as she bit into his arm, but only slightly before she began sucking blood at an alarming rate, Mike could see his arm slowly turn blue as Rebecca greedily sucked out his blood

"This might have been a bad idea…"

Mike felt lightheaded but then a red light flashed in Rebecca's eyes and she suddenly seemed to regain consciousness and stopped herself from sucking any more blood when she realized she was sucking Mike's blood, then she bowed down with her head against the floor and spoke

"I am very sorry for my unsightly behavior lord, please punish me"

As she bowed down the cuts all over her body started healing at a visible rate, Mike waved his hand and spoke

"It's fine, now I know your limit so I can work around it in the future"

Mike looked over at Elina that were in a similar state to the one Rebecca had been in before as a red light flashed in his eyes before he spoke

"I have a task for you Rebecca…"

Soon Julie returned with some bandages and saw that Rebecca had gotten better, then she saw the bit mark along with the cut on Mike's wrist and gave a sigh before she walked over to him and spoke

"Give me your hand"

Mike held out his injured hand out, he figured that he would have needed stitches if it had been back in his old world but here he would just have to kill someone when they landed on Thera in three days, Julie quickly warped Mike's wrist with the bandages, then he gave him and clap on his wound which stung quite a bit before she gave a smile

"There now your all better"

"...Thanks Julie"

"Also next time you try something like that I'll cut you, understood?"

"Yes Ma'am!"

Julie finally showed a real smile before she looked over at Elina that still was in her dried up state

"What are we going to do with Elina?"

Mike gave a smile and Rebecca spoke

"Master has tasked me with looking after her until reach port"

Mike gave a nod

"Yeah we have to know what happens after this, if she dies or enters some sort of hibernation"

"But what if she dies?"

"Well that would be unfortunate… but acceptable, after all I can always make a couple new servants once we make it to Thera"

Julie gave a nod before she said with a smile on her face

"Yeah that's true, but I rather like Elina so I hope she'll live"

"Yeah me too"

Julie leaned into Mike as they looked at Elina slowly drying out when Mike suddenly remembered

"Oh right, is it noon yet?"

"Yeah about to be, you slept pretty long"

"Okay then let's go up on the deck, I joined a fighting tournament"

Julie gave a nod and spoke

"Sounds fun… take care of Elina Rebecca"

"Yes mistress, please leave her to me"

Mike and Julie left Rebecca to look after Elina and went up on deck where a sizable group already had formed a circle and watched two people fighting with wooden weapons, they exchanged multiple blows in mere seconds but Mike having been strengthened by [Blood body enhancement] was more like a level 3.5 than a level 3 so he had no problems following their blows and Julie being strengthened to level 4 had no problems following the flow of the battle so after they observed for a while they both spoke

""She's going to win""

Of the two fighters (a man and a woman) the woman seemed to be lagging behind somewhat but still their gut feeling told them that she was going to win the fight and just when the man was about to land a 'killing' blow on her neck the woman spoke

"[Flow]"

And then just like a flowing wind she dodged the 'killing' blow and landed one of her own on her opponent which resulted in the crowd giving a large chee