Chapter 258 Skrånøtiå
"In the Northern Ocean Area, there should be more pirates and, more importantly, far more stronger ones with high bounties. Only a few years ago, the strongest nations of the Western Ocean Area launched a great clean-up of the pirates together with the Marines and even some of the strongest bounty hunter groups and managed to destroy approximately 60% of all pirate crews and more than 90% of strongest pirates crew were killed, including the majority of the Sea Warlords and even Pirate King was hunted down."
Yvraine commented from the side because she read some information about the 11th Floor and because of the clean-up that was carried out on the 11th Floor's Western Ocean Area, only some small fries and weak pirate crews remained...
Naturally, the Kingdoms and Marines suffered greatly from those actions as well because they lost a lot of Professionals and high-tiered personnel in operation.
Yet, for them, the good thing was that they obtained everything that was left after the pirates were killed.
"Did you also go through some information about the Skrånøtiå and Northern Ocean Area?"
Samiel asked as he saw Yvraine nodded and proceeded with the explanation.
"Northern Ocean Area has the lowest number of pirates, but all of the pirate crews that are operating there, are the strongest of the pirate crews. Not to mention, they have a special social class called Vikings who are long lineages of raiders living in the coldest and most inhospitable areas of the Northern Ocean Area. There are several Sea Lords and three Pirate Kings operating in the Northern Ocean Area so that the area would be rather fruitful for our hunt."
Yvraine stated as Samiel hummed in satisfaction.
"Splendid... now we need just to eat somewhere and we can depart toward the Skrånøtiå."
He muttered while they proceeded towards the merchant district of the city, as Juulius ordered the carriage driver to bring them to the most exclusive restaurant in the Avandor Port City.
It was famous for its menus from the local sea life.
When they were welcomed to the restaurant, Samiel ordered the VIP box for them as they were led to a lavish room on the top floor of the restaurant, which cost him a hefty sum of Credits for a single VIP box.
"I will have an entire sushi menu... at least from Silver-Tier fishes... nothing less and for Familiar, bring me a few corpses of Imperial Tunas and Pink-Red Salmons for the felines."
The waitress made a note of the order and soon enough, the orders started rolling because the kitchens started working very fast, especially when the orders were for the VIPs, which were paying astronomical prices.
"Thank you, hooman."
Nefertari yawned happily as she was munching on the Pink-Red Salmon, as it was one of her favorite treats.
While Samiel soon enough started enjoying his sushi.
He had to admit that the sushi from here was top-notch, mainly because the fish from which it was made from were all high-tiered and freshly hunted by the fishers.
"It is splendid... how do you like your food?"
Samiel asked as he didn't need to hear a response from Nefertari and Tytos as both of them were too engrossed in eating their fish.
Tytos was munching on enormous human-sized Imperial Tuna while Nefertari was gracefully eating the Pink-Red Salmon.
"It is delicious."
***
Northern Ocean Area, Skrånøtiå, the capital city of the Skrånøtiå, Jorvik.
"It is different here... yet beautiful and the environment here is empowering me..."
Samiel muttered as he looked around the buildings made from timber and stone; all of them were constructed in distinctive Viking-style architecture, which was the dominant culture of the Skrånøtiå.
"Skrånøtiå was originally a loose alliance of several Jarldoms and smaller viking Kingdoms that were worshipping the Ásatrú Pantheon a long time ago. After something happened within the Ásatrú and they closed off their borders and stopped intervening within the wider Cosmos and restricted their influence solely to the Yggdrasil and a few worlds adjusted to their Higher Dimensional World, backers of these smaller organizations disappeared and they were left on their own; thus a few from the powerful factions backed by their Transcendetns started freely spreading their influence here."
Juulius explained to Samiel that it was rather interesting to see that faith in the Outer Court was dominant in these areas.
However, he could still observe some temples dedicated to the Ásatrús and there were even a few of their temples, though they were not as grandiose as the Cathedrals and Churches of the Outer Gods.
"In the end, the culture left by the Ásatrú through their faith created a warrior society which was very appealing to the Hall of Kadath, so we invested a lot of resources to bring these Jarldoms and nations to hell and established a covenant with them. While the faith of the Ásatrú is not outrightly banned because their faith is deeply steeped in the very own culture of the Viking people, their loyalty has changed within the past tens of thousands of years to the Hall of Kadath. They even produced one Cardinal, High Excellence Ragnar Kallikratos."
Samiel naturally heard about his High Excellency Ragnar Kallikratos and Yvraine shuddered at hearing that name because that man was completely savage, even by the standards of the Hall of Kadath.
He was a person who rose from being a lowly viking serf to the position of one of the most powerful mortals in the Material Plane of the Cosmos.
Not only that, but he was born as a Berserker, which was a sub-species of the viking people, who entered uncontrollable rage on the battlefield, that increased their powers tremendously at the price of their sanity.
They were absolutely savage warriors that left only blood, carnage and pieces of their enemies and sometimes even allies alike on the battlefield.
Naturally, some of the Berserkers, like Ragnar Kallikratos, learned how to control their transformation and rage, which made them even more dangerous.
"So, where now?"
Samiel asked as he breathed in the freezing cold air of the Northern Ocean Area because he was feeling more powerful in this environment.
It was pretty much similar to Yvraine, who thrived in the forests and places where nature was strong; Samiel thrived in the freezing cold places due to his Lord-Class Knight of the Niflheim.
"We need to go to the local Cathedral to meet with the Bishop in charge of that one."
Hearing that, he was monetarily surprised to hear that the Bishop of the Hall of Kadath was present on the 11th Floor because normally, Legendaris didn't spend their time on the Lower Floors of the Tower due to the Covenant.
"Yes, there is a Bishop stationed here, but naturally, due to the Covenant, he is under strict restrictions on how to use his power and so on to not breach the Covenant."
Such a thing was absolutely unthinkable to almost all of the factions across the Material Plane of the Cosmos probably with the exception of the Vaultbank and Hall of Kadath.
For the Vaultbank, it was pretty much a simple reason because somebody needed to guard their branches and for the Hall of Kadath, the reason was their entire organization was most militaristic and ran on the pure meritocratic system.