Two days passed and Shun could not understand where they should go to get to the island where the 16th Marine Division was located.
He tried to read the books given to him by the little man in the map store, but his reading comprehension sucked. Although he thought they should be closer than before, he didn't know for sure.
In 3 more days they were supposed to arrive, but he didn't know. Another problem was food. Shun bought for 15 days, but he hadn't counted Toma, so he figured it would last them 10 days or less.
Besides Po the first day because of the hangover, he was very hungry and ate more than the basic ration Shun had planned.
He decided to put aside his pride and told this situation to Toma. Who, to his bad luck, also had no idea about navigation.
But being 2 thinking brains, Shun thought they had a better chance of reaching the island.
However, this was not the case. 3 days passed and all they saw was a vast expanse of ocean, no island in sight.
"Why is this book so hard!?" asked Toma with some anger as he tried to read one of the sailing books Shun brought.
Even though Toma went to a school in the village, studying was never his forte, and even less so if he had to study a book hundreds of pages long on something he had no interest in.
'We're screwed... It's been 5 days and we haven't found any island' Shun thought with a frown as he looked at the normal compass.
He had already given up on using the navigational compass, he didn't understand it and didn't feel like trying to understand it anymore.
"If we keep going like this, we'll run out of food" Toma said to Shun with a worried look on his face.
He was going to starve to death before he experienced his first adventure of being a free man at sea ¿How stupid would that be? How would Isao, Silk, and the others react?
He imagined Isao telling him I told you so, and his motivation to understand the book and find the marine base increased.
"The rations should be smaller from now on" Shun said as he looked towards Po.
"Quack!" exclaimed Po with indignation in his tone as he went to sleep in the room.
4 days flew by. These days both Shun and Toma put all their energy into trying to figure out the navigation books and map to get to the island and not starve to death.
Food and water would only last them 1 more day, to their luck they could finally see an island in the distance.
"There it is, finally!" said Toma as he jumped with happiness and hugged Po.
Shun also smiled and sighed in relief, they finally found an island, although not sure if it was the island they were aiming for, as they had no idea where they were.
It had taken 9 days to find the island, that is, they had been sailing in circles for 4 days or something.
Shun quickly steered the ship towards the island, when they were closer, they could tell that it was a small island that only had one marine base.
Shun and Toma could distinguish 3 buildings, the main one was in the middle and had a strange appearance.
It was a semicircular building similar to an igloo, on top of it it had the number 16 and a marine flag, implying that it was the 16th Division. The strangest thing about the building was that below the number 16, it had the head of a mouse.
"Is that a mouse?" asked Toma trying to confirm if he was seeing right.
"Yes..." replied Shun.
Shun noticed the island's harbor which was quite large for how small the island was.
There were two marine ships docked in the harbor, one was larger than the other. Shun noticing how little room he had to dock the ship frowned, he had never tried to park a ship before and it didn't seem like an easy task.
"We'll have to park the ship, I'll try to handle it. You reduce the sails to slow down. Then when I tell you to lower the anchor" Shun said to Toma as he headed to the helm again.
"O-okay" said Toma a little nervously heading to control the sails.
Earlier Shun didn't know how hard it is to steer a ship, as Ralph and the others took over while he was in the captain's room doing nothing. Luckily he let Toma follow him as otherwise it would be impossible to handle the helm, sails, and lower the anchor at the same time.
As the ship approached the dock, the tension on board grew. Toma stood by the anchor waiting for Shun's command.
Shun started to maneuver the rudder trying to go towards the only possible place to dock, 'It's harder than I thought' thought Shun turning the rudder and trying to calculate not to crash.
"Now!" shouted Shun.
At Shun's shout, Toma immediately lowered the anchor. With a metallic snap and a distinctive whisper, the anchor began its descent from the side of the ship into the depths of the water. With a muffled thump, the anchor settled on the sandy bottom of the harbor.
Shun had slightly underestimated the distance between his ship and the marina ship at anchor. With a metallic clang and a dull creak, the hull of his ship scraped against the side of the marine ship.
From the small accident, the ship jerked Toma and Po had to keep their balance to avoid falling to the ground.
"Shit!" exclaimed Shun.
Finally, the ship stopped and stopped scratching the marine ship.
'Well, at least we made it to this damn island' thought Shun, for his first docking, he didn't do too bad.
"My ship! Can't you bastard drive?!" exclaimed an angry voice coming from the dock.
At the shout, Shun, Toma, and Po looked towards the dock and noticed a large number of people waiting for them, all wearing typical marine uniforms. In the center of these people, there was the one who seemed to be the leader and by his angry expression, Shun could tell that he was the person who shouted.
Shun and Toma upon seeing this person's face frowned. Not because they recognized him or anything, simply because his face is very rat-like.
His mustache was like that of a mouse and he wore a cap with the Marine insignia with two small mouse ears that seemed to come from his unconventional long suit. This consisted of a large uniform that reached up to his tall black boots, said uniform was adorned with buttons, shoulder pads, and the collar part folded outward with continuous blue lines.
'There is no doubt that he is the leader. No wonder the base has the head of a rat on top' thought Shun convinced.
"I'm sorry it's the first time I've ever docked a ship. By the way is this the 16th division?" asked Shun without giving much importance to the Marine leader.
Shun was the first time he had seen the Marines so closely. When he lived in the poorer neighborhoods of the Frauce Kingdom he rarely had the opportunity to see any. Still, seeing the appearances of these marines didn't seem like a big deal to them.
Except for the mouse-like leader, all the Marines around him wore a sleeveless shirt with the standard Marine colors, navy blue pants, black shoes, and a cap with the word Marine written on it.
On the other hand, Toma was looking at them with a lot of excitement and curious eyes.