Chapter 171

Posted by Kuze, ? Views, Released on January 26, 2025

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#171 Episode Tin Knight and the Short but Distant Voyage (3)

The lookout on the ship where the party was aboard was Adelheid.

Ever since she got Amaryllis’s belt, her senses had outperformed even the Tin Knight.

With her sparkling purple eyes, she was absentmindedly gazing at the scenery when she spotted a well-cleaned ship approaching from the opposite direction.

In a sea bustling with active trade, it wasn’t that strange to see ships around.

However, the fact that these ships were charging straight towards Dorothea and her crew was clearly a sign of trouble.

Three ships surrounded the one with the group, even blocking the path by turning their bows toward them.

As Dorothea’s group was forced to stop their ship, hefty harpoons and hooks suddenly flew in from the opposing side.

Attached to the ends were thick and sturdy ropes, which they used to swing over to the ship of Dorothea’s party.

Each movement flowed seamlessly, showing they were no amateurs at this.

Among those who stepped aboard, a man who appeared to have some status shouted.

“From now on, this ship is under our control! Anyone who resists will be fed to the sharks, so behave yourselves!”

With words that made it clear he had no intention of hiding his pirate identity, the man flashed a grin that showcased the scar across his face as he surveyed the group.

And what about the group?

[The Tin Knight expresses confusion as to why enemies are starting with close combat instead of using cannons!]

[The Tin Knight asks if the basics of naval combat aren’t to use cannons first and then board the enemy ship!]

“Well, if you sink the ship before raiding it, it’s pointless. It’s not like we’re diving underwater to retrieve the spoils.”

[The Tin Knight gets a lightbulb moment!]

“So pirates run their business like this. It seems not much different from land thieves.”

“Say, wasn’t there no mention of pirates in the adventure stories that Adel loved?”

“Strictly speaking, it was my brother who liked them, but those pirates were eaten by a sea monster as soon as they appeared, so they didn’t even get a line!”

Truly, they were oblivious.

Completely unfazed by the threats exchanged, the crew chatted amongst themselves, which twisted the pirate’s face in frustration.

Had he even had a survival instinct that sensed something was off, perhaps his life as a pirate would have improved slightly, but having tasted money lately, he had grown rather bold and raised his voice.

“Do you little brats even know who we are and are acting so casual?!”

He was about to finish his threat with something like, “You’ll learn your lesson,” but his sentence was cut short.

His comrade suddenly grabbed his shoulder and began shaking him violently.

“What the hell?!”

His comrade didn’t respond.

No, it wasn’t just his comrade; all the other pirates around wore pale faces and fell silent.

Normally, they would trade crude jokes or catcalls at the girls, but now they couldn’t even muster the courage to do so.

At this point, the pirate felt an unsettling chill.

He quietly glanced at his comrades’ expressions.

They weren’t looking at the four ahead. They were staring further back.

The moment he saw the skeletons staring at him with hollow eyes from that direction, the pirate froze without realizing it.

Clatter. Clatter.

One by one, new skeletons emerged onto the deck through the stairs below.

At that moment, the stairs from which the skeletons were climbing appeared to be a gate to hell in the pirate’s eyes.

The pirate was a man of the sea.

He knew of ghost ship legends circulating among sailors.

In the dense mist where one couldn’t see a hand in front of their face. The sun either had sunk beyond the horizon or was fading into an eerie darkness.

With no idea where he was or where the ship was headed, and the sound of the dead’s song echoing somewhere.

Ragged sails, riddled with holes and worn down to the point they could barely catch the wind; rusty, shattered wooden hull.

“Damn, nothing’s going right.”

The pirate felt wronged.

The weather was bright and clear, not a sight of fog or a single cloud, the sun beat down overhead with scorching rays, and the ship was a well-crafted newest model, not a worn-down ghost ship at all. If it had been anything less, they wouldn’t have approached it to begin with.

But why were skeletons casually pouring out from inside? The pirate couldn’t comprehend.

The problem was, regardless of whether he understood or not, the skeletons had no intention of waiting.

Clatter, clatter, clatter!

With the sound of hard bones, the white skeletons charged at the pirates en masse.

“Run, run!! It’s a ghost ship!”

“Damn it, I knew something was off when they only gathered beautiful ladies on deck! Now they’re bringing people in!”

“I heard if you die at their hands, you’ll roam the seas for eternity as one of them!”

The pirates began to flee in a panic.

Watching this, the Tin Knight observed that the pirates seemed surprisingly calm while he explained each one to his colleagues.

(Claiming to be) rough and free-spirited more than anyone else, yet they were also incredibly superstitious beings of the sea.

The myth of being killed by the creatures of a ghost ship and becoming their companions to wander the oceans forever was quite famous, and even if it wasn’t exactly that, there was no one willing to risk their lives in a fight without any benefit.

The pirates hurriedly tried to return through the ropes they had crossed, while those who couldn’t manage that leaped into the sea to swim back to their ship.

The shift from aggressively charging in to desperately fleeing was undeniably comical.

Even Dorothea, who usually wouldn’t laugh except when threatening others, couldn’t help but chuckle.

“What is this, are they kidding?”

“Are we just going to let them go?”

“Well, we can’t. Right now they’re running away because they’re scared of the undead, but if they weren’t, they would have immediately started swinging their knives.”

Dorothea began her usual “Go! Tin Knight!” but suddenly stopped and turned her gaze toward Adel.

“Adel. Go finish this up and come back.”

“Yes.”

Adel, receiving the order, nodded obediently, but the Tin Knight complained.

[The Tin Knight asks why he isn’t called!]

“Just stay still. If you fall off, it’ll be a headache—”

──Pwooooooo!

That sound abruptly drowned out all the other commotion.

The clicking of the skeleton soldiers, the mayhem of the pirates, even the witch’s voice.

──Pwooooooo!

A horn’s blast echoed deep inside, revealing the ship.

Its hull gleamed strangely like ebony wood, its golden sails adorned with jewels showing the pirate’s emblem (Jolly Roger).

On the deck of this ship, which was itself a work of art, all sorts of bizarre-looking crew members displayed a fierce murderous intent, with a man standing at the ship’s bow who was familiar to the group.

Captain Bill of the Golden Pirate Crew threw away the horn he had been holding and cheerfully declared.

“I found you! I finally found you! I feel like crying from joy!”

“There’s so much I want to say, but first, let’s start with this, my friends!”

“─Eat this, you damn bastards!!”

This was a clever ambush, unlike the inexperienced juniors who hesitated before attacking.

As if disregarding the wind, Captain Bill maneuvered with a bold sweep, exposing his ship’s side.

And all the cannons along that side fired off simultaneously.

Boom!

Because they were too close to Dorothea’s ship, one pirate ship got hit hard with cannon fire.

The wicked ghost ship (not) intended to lure innocent parties with the charms of beautiful ladies had to sacrifice its own blood to the sea due to the heavy cannonball collision.

“Fire, fire! Shoot before we get hit!”

“Anyway, if we run, we all die! Fight back!”

However, these pirates were experienced in sea combat.

Even as they fled from the deadly undead battle they had never faced before, they were well-versed in naval warfare.

They cut the ropes connecting their ship to Dorothea’s and hurriedly entered a combat maneuver.

In the process, some comrades who hadn’t managed to escape fell into the sea with the ropes or were crushed against the moving ship, but this was just how pirate camaraderie worked.

Nonetheless, a ship that had halted could hardly regain its momentum, and with another cannon firing, the first pirate ship sank completely.

Just then, the Golden ship lined up its cannons again to sink a second ship.

“T-in Knight, you need to stop that!”

[The Tin Knight says he got it!]

Boom!

Bang!

The two different sounds erupted in sequence.

One was the cannon fire from the Golden ship, and the other was the sound of the Tin Knight deflecting the cannonball with his shield.

The pirates were stunned at seeing a knight fall with a thunk among them, and Dorothea frowned.

“Why are we saving them?”

“Well, if those guys sink too, we won’t have any means to fight back.”

“Ugh.”

Dorothea and her party’s ship had no cannons. Naturally, as it was meant for transporting agricultural goods, this was expected.

Why the golden skeleton suddenly attacked them was unknown, but if they continued firing cannons while maintaining distance like that, they had no means to counter.

If it was the Alchemist, she would have created a massive ballista to respond, and if it was the Wizard, he could have retaliated with attack spells, but the Necromancer was neither of those.

Though she caught on slightly later than Sophia, Dorothea wasn’t one to hesitate in deciding amidst a fight.

She shouted to the pirates.

“I’ll block their attacks, so counterattack!”

“Uh, uh, no, that…”

“Stop zoning out and move!! Before they turn you into undead!”

“Uh, understood! Captain!”

Though something in her title felt oddly irritating, this wasn’t the time to nitpick.

And thus, an unexpected naval battle commenced.

The Golden ship fired cannonballs, the Tin Knight deflected them with his shield, and the pirates retaliated with their own cannons.

Although Dorothea and the undead sailors had no cannons, they did their part with Dorothea’s defensive magic from her staff and Adelheid’s twin swords.

But.

“Good, good! Now we’re talking! This is the kind of revenge I’ve been waiting for!”

Captain Bill’s Golden ship was too powerful. No matter how many cannonballs were shot from the pirate ships, not a single one touched Bill’s ship, while his attacks systematically piled damage onto their side.

No matter how capable the Tin Knight was at deflecting cannonballs with his shield, he couldn’t block those targeting beneath the deck.

As a result, yet another ship sank into the sea.

Dorothea gritted her teeth.

‘What do I do?’

The shore was still a long way off.

With an opponent possessing such superior steering and naval combat skills, it was impractical to keep running while turned away.

“We’re out of cannonballs!”

Unlike Captain Bill, who seemed to have endless supplies of cannonballs as if creating them out of thin air, their side had run dry of options for retaliation.

Noticing that they were confirming the lack of counterattacks, the ship of the Golden Pirate Crew steadily closed the distance and aimed their cannons.

They could only deflect a few cannonballs at a time, maybe two or three.

If they unleashed those all at once, their ship might just sink.

At that moment.

The Tin Knight jumped into the sea without hesitation.

Splash! Splash! Splash!

Like skipping stones, the Tin Knight’s body ricocheted off the water’s surface consecutively.

Releasing the magic contained in his shield one by one, the Tin Knight reached right up to the front of the Golden pirate ship.

Creak!

The next moment, the golden ship split horizontally in two.

The long row of cannons, the sailors preparing their cannons, even the tall mast were cleaved in half, leaving its upper and lower halves separated.

But.

“Oh! What a magnificent blow! But I can’t allow any stowaways!!”