Dan left the Skyline, heading to the bridge for his next appointment, leaving Nulara and the young man behind him. As he said, they had the time to make their choice and they weren't going to pressure them for it.

  The matter had been brought up while they were discussing their new passengers. Jackie, who would be responsible for them when they were finally on the Voyager, said that maybe getting Nulara's help would be a good idea.

  Having another native to help them get used to how things were on the Voyager would be for the best. Plus, she had already gone through what they were about to go through. She was someone who knew what they were going to have trouble with, exactly who the natives needed

  After that bit was decided, they wondered next if they should tell her and the young man about Voyager being alive. Surprisingly, there wasn't as much resistance to the idea as Dan had expected, most people seemed to be open to it, after all, the two had already shown that they were trustworthy and had put themselves in danger to warn them about the tracking mark that noble had put on the Voyager.

  But then, the main concern for why that would be a problem was brought up, what would happen when they left the Voyager with such a valuable piece of information?

  And that was how they ended up with him asking Nulara and the young man if they wanted to join the crew for real, staying on the Voyager.

  Again, it wasn't really an easy choice to make, but they weren't going to pressure them to make it any time soon, they were free to continue as is, staying with them for as long as they wanted without giving their answer.

  Dan shook his head when he made it to the bridge, throwing aside those thoughts, his mind went to something that he was starting to worry about more as time passed, the Harvesters' attacks.

  He had seen three waves or so of attacks on the island by those huge water striders, and he had noticed how each of them included more bugs than the previous one. Not that their numbers would make much of a difference for the Voyager, but there was a chance that if there were enough of them, some of the Harvesters would bypass the Voyager and head for the island directly, and though he barely took the bugs seriously while on the ship, on land, he doubted they would have as clean of a victory, if they won at all.

  With his thought reaching that point, he took his walkie-talkie and contacted Robert, his chief officer had returned to the ship and was working on preparing the places the rescued natives were going to alongside Jackie and Nancy, Nik's wife.

  "Hey Robert, Dan's here. Over."

  "I hear you, over," Robert's voice came through.

  "I need you to have two tenders on the island ready at all times," he explained his plan, "I fear what would happen if a big wave of Harvesters came and the Voyager wasn't able to hold all of them back. Over."

  "Will set it up. Over," Robert replied.

  With that done, he could finally relax and consider the Harvesters the heaven-sent gift that they were. Dan was sure that Sam was almost up to tier 3 because of them and how his Swarmers were almost always hunting.

  The young man was still the fastest levelling individual on Voyager, though he did hear that Ruby, of all people, was giving him a run for his money. The Bloom-Mancer was growing so fast that it was astonishing.

  The stronger anyone on the Voyager got, the better their chances of surviving the craziness outside were, so Dan was happy that their people were growing as fast as they were. He was even considering leaving the coming waves of Harvesters for Sam and his Swarmers to deal with, hoping that it would be enough to raise him to tier 3.

  He would have loved to go for it himself, trying to grind for levels till tier 3 or at least level 18 for a new Voyager skill, but those were still too far. It would probably take him quite a while to even reach level 18, let alone tier 3. He felt that he wasn't that far from level 16 though, not that it mattered much, he had already decided that if the skill didn't seem to be specifically for Bonded Captain, it would have to be pretty overpowered if he were to go for it.

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  As he was still thinking about such things, he noticed the huge approaching form of the person he had been waiting for, Nik, the Supply Keeper.

  "Hey Nik, how are you doing?" Dan stood up as he greeted him.

  "Good, it's a bit nostalgic having to prepare everything for our new passengers, it's as if we've returned to the past, working on the last preparations before we head to the ocean." Nik smiled as they shook hands.

  Dan chuckled, it did feel like that somehow, the preparation before the passengers started boarding the ship, their excited faces and the laughter of kids, it was quite the experience really.

  "Now I feel nostalgic." Dan shook his head bitterly. "It's sad that we probably are never going to have such a similar experience again."

  "It's sad," Nik said, his booming voice teasing as he continued, "But who knows, we can start a cruising service when we are strong enough."

  Dan just chuckled as he brought the conversation back to the reason they had met in the first place.

  "So how is it? Do you think we have enough for all of them?"

  "We have more than enough." Nik nodded, turning serious too. "At the black market, we had resupplied with the idea that we should survive for months after, holding the rescued natives for a couple of weeks should be enough."

  "That's good to hear." Dan kinda knew that, but it was nice to hear it officially from the person responsible for their supplies.

  "Though there is a bit of a problem," Nik said, "It was brought up by Nancy, actually."

  Nancy, Nik's wife, was the ship's Executive Chef, she was responsible for informing Nik of what was needed by the kitchens and restaurants on the Voyager and the coordination between them. The Class she got was Master Coordinator, due to there being just a few people on the Voyager, she didn't have a lot to show for it, but Dan knew that if the number of people on the Voyager grew big enough, she would be quite valuable in making sure that everything was working well and without any trouble.

  "Oh, what is it?" he wondered.

  "It's about feeding them," Nik said as he scratched at his chin, "We can't possibly expect Raymond to feed close to 300 people on his own, no matter how useful and strong his Class is."

  "So what do you recommend, or more like what did Nancy recommend," Dan asked. He felt that the husband and wife had already come up with a possible solution before coming back to him about this.

  "The Voyager has many kitchens," Nik said slowly, "Enough to feed ten times that many people. Nancy said that she would choose a few of the rescued natives and have them help feed their people. It's within the control of her Class, so it shouldn't be that hard for her."

  Dan fell into deep thought, the idea seemed good, but a few things needed to be considered from the beginning if they were going to go for it. He gathered his thoughts and started speaking:

  "If we are going to go with that, we should choose their cabins based on how close the kitchens and restaurants are to them. Other than that, have Nancy prepare the meal plans before they are even on the Voyager and if possible use your Inventory skill to carry the supplies to the specific kitchens so they don't have to move around too much."

  "Those were all things Nancy brought up." Nik smiled. "That's why she's with Robert and Jackie, preparing for the coming natives."

  "That's good." Dan smiled, having dependable people to work with lifted a lot of the heavy weight off his shoulders. He then remembered something as he said, "There is something else that we need to take care of, there's a huge amount of mana crystals on the island, and I want us to take as many of them as we can."

  "How much do you think there is?" Nik asked.

  "A lot." Dan massaged his head, feeling a headache coming. Thinking back to the estimations he and Old Raily ended up on, he cleared his throat as he continued, "The Island most likely has around 120000 tons of mana crystals."

  Dan watched Nik's face turn blank at the number, and he understood what the man was feeling, he too had the same reaction when he realised how much they were working with after all.

  "We can at most have 4000 tons on the Voyager," Nik said, "And that would mean that we would fill a lot of the rooms with them."

  Dan nodded, he understood that just as well, the Voyager didn't have much space for cargo, she was never meant to be a cargo ship, and any free space was turned into cabins or entertainment venues for the passengers.

  "We will take as much as we can," He said with a defeated sigh, "I don't really feel like leaving that much fortune for that Archduke to collect when he sends another Deepdark here eventually."

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