by Ryota Hori
But all the while, they were unaware of the presence gazing at them from the darkness...
♱
Dawn rose and sunlight shone over the town. The bonfires, which were kept lit to stave off monster attacks, had concluded their role and were put out.
“Good morning, Master Ryoma.”
It was dawn, but the time was a bit after five in the morning, perhaps too early to wake up. And yet, Ryoma answered Laura’s visit clearly, as if he’d expected her.
“Oh, good morning, Laura. What’s up?”
“Sakuya has returned.”
“So the smallfry finally took the bait, huh?”
Laura’s words alone gave Ryoma a clear image of the situation. Or rather, he’d prepared this bait for months. If his ‘prey’ wouldn’t bite, all that effort would have been for nothing.
“It is likely.” Laura answered in a detached manner.
Ryoma, by contrast, curled his lips up in a vicious smile.
“It’s time to clean this peninsula up, then.” He whispered, to which Laura nodded silently.
♱
“I see. Small wonder that those cretins had the gall to crawl back here,” the woman said, taking a swig from her jockey.
Her hair was a pale shade of blonde, dulled by exposure to the sun. One couldn’t call her ugly, but her facial features were extremely plain. She was short, and on top of that she wasn’t very endowed in terms of her bosoms, either. As such, she was quite a homely-looking woman.
And yet, not a man in this city dared look down on her for this reason. This woman had a confidence that allowed her to survive in a man-dominated society, and it manifested in the way her eyes glinted like blades and the sheer pressure her gaze gave off.
Her name was Luida. She was also known by the pseudonym ‘The Sea Serpent,’ and was one of the rulers of this city, alongside Henry.
“I guess the sharks are gonna be full tonight, considering they have the balls to bring up this story here...” The bald man sitting opposite of Henry whispered, agreeing with Luida’s words.
This man’s name was Andre. His pseudonym was “The Tidal Wave,” and he was something of a hulking giant, boasting upper arms as thick as a woman’s waist. He tapped his cleanly shaved head and turned a questioning glance at Henry.
The three of them sitting around this round table were the rulers of this city, and each of them was a captain that led a crew of pirates. They each had a galleon as their flagship, as well as medium-sized ships — caravel- and carrack-type ships — plus a collection of small-sized vessels. Together, the three of them and their crews laid waste to the seas around the Wortenia Peninsula.
That day, they held their monthly meeting. And this time it was an important meeting, one that would decide the fate of their city. The biggest point of concern was the actions of the peninsula’s new owner, Ryoma Mikoshiba. The pirates made their base in this land because it had been abandoned by the Kingdom of Rhoadseria for many years. But now, there was a new entity with legislative authority in Wortenia, and this wasn’t something they could ignore.
“You really think so?” Asked a low, collected voice.
Henry wasn’t one to usually remain silent after being told such an implausible story, but today he was different.
It makes sense they’d be suspicious. I wouldn’t believe it either if I was them.
Henry himself couldn’t believe his subordinates when they gave their report. Only after he tore the skin off their backs a few times and they screamed in agony did he agree to let them take him there to see the thing for himself. Seeing that their report was undoubtedly real, he had no choice but to accept they weren’t lying.
“Lemme ask you again. Do you really think what I just told you is some kind of stupid horror story?” Henry asked.
Luida shrugged, while Andre simply held his tongue. It was a hard story to swallow. No one would believe that a city was built within a mere two months in a cursed place like the Wortenia Peninsula. But on the other hand, the two of them knew of Henry’s abilities.
He was one of the bosses that operated this barren city with force, and they knew better than to doubt him. He wasn’t protected by being born into privileged, noble status. If Henry were to show any sign of weakness or ineptitude, he would immediately be gutted and cast into a watery grave. The fact he was still alive was all the evidence they needed of his capabilities.
“I did everything I could given the situation. I considered landing and checking it out myself, but there was always the possibility of it being a trap.”
Henry glared at the other two sitting down at the table, as if asking if they had any complaints about his judgment. The gazes of the three intersected across the round table.
“A trap, huh... Yeah, I can see that.”
“The fact he’s prepared shows just how serious this Mikoshiba bastard is.”
“Exactly.”
With Henry’s final word, the three of them fell quiet. Andre and Henry had looked into what kind of person Ryoma Mikoshiba was. A long silence hung over the room. The critical question their lives depended on was what were they going to do going forward.
“I say we go for an all-out offensive,” Andre, the most aggressive and assertive of the three, suggested. “There’s around three or four hundred of them. But put together, we have over five hundred men. We should be able to brute force through them.”
His title of ‘Andre the Tidal Wave’ was given to him for the way he staged assaults. He tempted the enemy into range like a receding wave, and then crushed them with overwhelming force. It was more than just a simple charge of brute force. He studied the enemy carefully before launching a surprise attack —a tactic that wasn’t at all simple to perform. It was Andre’s ability to successfully stage such attacks that made him one of the rulers of this city.
Henry shook his head in denial of this suggestion, though.
“No, messing with them for no reason would be bad... If they were unprepared it would have been one thing, but they might be ready for us. They’re no match for us in numbers, but they have some experienced mercs there.”
Henry would normally be on board for Andre’s suggestion, but things were different this time.
“There’s just too many unpredictable factors... And yeah, fighting on land isn’t our specialty, either. But what do we do, then?”
Andre himself had his doubts, and didn’t seem bothered or annoyed by Henry’s denial. True, the pirates had the numbers advantage and were experienced fighters. But that experience was mostly in fighting on the sea. They had won countless battles against countries or other pirates in naval combat. But when it came to combat on land, their experience was limited to raiding villages, where the objective wasn’t to fight, but to steal.
And on top of that, their greatest weapon always was the element of surprise. They were used to attacking careless citizens, but lacked the military prowess to stage a frontal assault on a city that was prepared to defend against them.
“Then, what? Decide to go with non-interference and stay here?” Luida spoke up, having watched over the conversation silently so far.
They might have been on the same peninsula, but the inlet where Ryoma’s base and this town were located was separated by a dense forest swarming with monsters. Their city was also built on an inlet surrounded by cliffs, and it was built so it wouldn’t be easily detected. Luida’s idea was a passive one, but not at all a wrong one. ‘Luida the Sea Serpent’ was a tenacious woman, and knew how to bide her time.
“And wait for a chance to present itself, huh...?” Henry muttered.
Luida smirked and nodded. Most people would choose to act and strike assertively, but few would consider waiting. Luida reigned as a superior to others because she knew to bide her time until those who were in power during her generation would grow weaker.
And she didn’t just wait. As she built up her strength, she also sabotaged her opponents, making sure their moment of weakness would come that much faster. Like a pois
on that gradually spread through one’s body... This was why they called her the sea serpent.
But Henry once again shook his head and gave his own answer.
“Yes, those are both options. But I think that in this case, we’d be better off if I negotiated with Baron Mikoshiba.”
Andre and Luida eyed Henry suspiciously. What he’d just said struck them as all too unexpected.
“Negotiate with him...? Like, lull him into a sense of safety so we can attack him?”
“It’s not a bad idea, but we should probably assume Mikoshiba’s gonna be wary of us. ’Sides, he doesn’t strike me like the kind of man who’d let down his guard just because we invited him to cooperate... Assuming the rumors about him are true.”
While it was said brutes are never graced with wisdom, Andre was more intelligent than most. That was perhaps to be expected given his past as a trader who traveled across the different nations. Had that large, out-of-season storm not sunk his trade cog and left him in massive debt, he never would have become a pirate.
Of course, no one would really sympathize with him given that he killed three of the men who came to collect on his debt with his bare hands. But that just went to say that even if he wasn’t shying away from solving problems with brute force now, it didn’t change the fact he’d once built up a large fortune with nothing but his silver tongue. Of the three of them, he had the keenest eye when it came to discerning the nature of others, honed from countless business exchanges and negotiations.
According to what Andre’s spies had pieced together, Ryoma Mikoshiba was a man skilled in strategy who fundamentally didn’t trust other people. On top of that, he was cautious enough to not make himself appear too dangerous to those around him. Andre’s experience told him that Ryoma would have made for the best ally imaginable back in his merchant days. But conversely, opposing him meant putting one’s life on the line.
Earning the trust of a person like him with the hopes it would make him lower his guard wouldn’t be easy. At worst, their attempt to trick him would result in them being tricked instead.
But Henry shook his head yet again.
“That’s not what I meant... The negotiations are just a starting point. By the end of this, I want to make us work under Baron Mikoshiba’s wing. For real.”
“...Did you go crazy?” Andre asked.
Henry shook his head silently.
“I’m sure the two of you already know...”
Henry didn’t specify exactly what it was that they supposedly knew. This was something everyone who lived in this city knew in the back of their minds, and it was a much larger problem to the three bosses than Ryoma Mikoshiba was.
“Yeah... We don’t have much of a future right now. But still...” Andre let out a heavy sigh.
“I dunno about this,” Luida gave a small nod. “How do we know Mikoshiba will even be willing to negotiate with us?”
Henry met their skeptical gazes directly.
“But you both see where we’re going with this pirate business, right?”
The two fell silent. This was proof enough that Henry’s words had weight to them. In practice, they didn’t make much profit from pillaging. Looting a village could earn some money in a short amount of time. Despite being exploited by the nobility, commoners were capable of saving up some money, which was the prime target of any raid.
In terms of agriculture, it was like what happens when one sows all their seeds without leaving anything for next year, consuming all the crops. Nothing was left in the end, which meant this wasn’t a source of constant income.
So what were the pirates to do? One option was to pillage a village or town and leave it in shambles, only to extort tax from surrounding cities. Pirates were merciless, and would kill, rape and sell off to slavery any woman or child they might run into. That image would weigh down on the hearts of the powerless civilians and make them bend to the pirates’ demands and pay up. Anything to be safe...
The same could be said for attacking merchant ships. Any ship that crosses the sea routes could be attacked. Pirates appear out of nowhere, and take both one’s life and their cargo. But people rarely crossed those sea routes, since pirates often took a good share of each trade ship’s cargo as ‘tax’ for safe passage. And any refusal to pay meant that ship’s current trip would also be its last.
Of course, periodic sacrifices were necessary to keep up that menacing image, but pirates didn’t always plunder until nothing was left. But the pirate crews led by Henry and the other two left only scorched earth in their wake. Whenever they attacked villages, they stole everything and killed everyone, and the same was true when they attacked ships. Any surviving passengers were sold off to slavery, and they took all the cargo for themselves.
They’d been acting as such with a quickening pace for the last decade, and whenever they came across new prey, they plundered it until nothing remained.
“Yeah, I know... Recently we have to sail too far to find prey.” Andre spit bitterly, to which Luida nodded.
Ships sailing from the northern regions of the western continent had stopped using the northern sea routes. At present, the only ships periodically sailing through those waters were ships from the port town on the eastern tip of Helnesgoula. From there almost all the traders went via land route to the center of the continent, and from there on to the trade city of Pherzaad. When it came to ferrying a large number of supplies, going by land was much more bothersome and cost much more in labor costs compared to taking a ship. But it was still preferable to being robbed blind by pirates.
All of that could be attributed to Henry and his cronies’ vile methods.
“Still, we can barely get by with the profits we make right now... We can’t live as good as we did before.”
There weren’t as many citizens in this town as there were before. The population only increased by several people a year, and hardly ever by more than ten people. But people wandered into the city over the course of some ten odd years.
The reason for it was rather clear. The Empire of O’ltormea consolidated control over the center of the western continent and assertively invaded their neighbors. As a result, fighting became more rampant across the continent.
Following O’ltormea’s example, the other large countries had also begun increasing their territories, absorbing the smaller countries that once dotted the western continent as a result. In the process, many people were forced to flee their homes. Of course, a large portion of those chose to live on as subjects to their conquerors. But many others refused to bend the knee to the invaders and sought their fortune in new lands.
In fact, many who were once in the privileged classes were forced to pick between exile and execution, and chose the former, effectively becoming vagabonds. Many of them died far away from home, but a few fortunate ones managed to reach new regions and make a new life for themselves.
And of those, a few of them wandered into the untamed lands of the Wortenia Peninsula, forming this nameless city.
“Our assumptions at the time were wrong. Looking at the situation, I don’t think there’s any arguing against that...” Henry said begrudgingly.
“Admitting that now isn’t gonna get us anywhere.” Luida told him in an attempt to come across as comforting.
At the time, they only had one choice they could take. And looking at it now in hindsight, when the conclusion was in plain sight, made it clear they’d made a mistake. One could understand their zeal at the time. Numbers meant strength, and even one or two more citizens meant their city was that much more resilient in the face of a monster attack.
Little by little, their population grew, and they naturally rejoiced at seeing their city grow and flourish. All the more so, when considering that it was hidden from the eyes of other people. At first they only accepted those who managed to get through the forest, but things gradually began to escalate. They sent their ships across the different ports, and invited promising people to join the pirate’s life.
<
br /> At first, everything went well. The numbers of the pirates grew, and the scope of the towns and ships they could attack grew. They no longer had to fear the units occasionally sent out to exterminate them. The seas around the Wortenia Peninsula quite literally became the pirates’ territory.
But Henry and his comrades had no way of knowing that their actions would go on to pry Hell’s gates open.
Their city’s population grew. Thanks to that, the attacks from the monsters infesting the area started to decline. Their population grew further. The scope of the cities they could raid grew. They were on cloud nine. And for that reason, they forgot one simple fact.
That they themselves did not produce anything. That their tolls and the taxes they collected from many towns were not bottomless.
And as they haphazardly let their population grow, the funds they received from tolls and took from the towns became incapable of supporting their numbers. And once the balance was broken, things would never be the same again.
They increased their numbers for the sake of gaining more profit, but having more people meant they needed an even larger income. And so their life as pirates became a cycle of barely being able to claw to life.
Their only choice was to go on raids more frequently. They built their hideout in Wortenia, a region in which being self-sufficient was exceptionally hard, and this left them with no other way of getting by.
“We went too far. No one passes through these waters anymore, except for a few brave fools, and we already took everything we could from any port town we can reach.”
Andre and Luida were silent, but their eyes shined bright as they realized the meaning behind his words.
“But that’s exactly what gives us the edge we need to negotiate with Baron Mikoshiba. We can sell him our strength.” Henry said.
“Negotiations, huh...?” Andre said, stroking his beard.
His senses as a merchant told him Henry’s idea had merit to it. He could hire them as a navy, or use them as guards for when he traded with merchant ships. But the question was whether Ryoma Mikoshiba was the kind of man who would realize the profit to be had in this. Pirates were a hated profession, after all, so it would require a great deal of magnanimity to tolerate the idea of employing them. People with hard-rooted perceptions of good and evil were hard to negotiate with. So it all hinged on just how capacious his mind was...