“……Eve, what are you doing?”
Eve, who was rolling her fists as if polishing a weapon and vigorously wiping them with a handkerchief, glanced at Sen and gave a slightly chilling smile.
“I’m getting ready.”
“Getting ready?”
“Yeah, there’s something I promised.”
Sen couldn’t follow what she was talking about and blankly stared back at the shore.
Realizing that she had never actually been to the distant sea while living with the Chokugen Faction, she suddenly felt a desire to go there herself.
‘What the heck is the Chokugen Faction aiming for?’
She was clueless about working with pirates. Although Sen hadn’t officially become a member yet, the cold higher-ups had praised her as the most promising talent.
‘My head hurts.’
A bittersweet taste stung her tongue, mixed with the sharp saltiness of the sea, making her feel like rinsing her mouth right away.
‘This isn’t the time for that.’
All the evidence of dragonkin among the pirates had died, and she didn’t know where they had hidden the corpses, but they had stupidly resorted to such brutal methods.
Sitting still like this made her think she would end up paying compensation, and Eve let out a snicker beside her.
“Don’t think too seriously.”
“Hmm?”
“We shouldn’t take our eyes off our original target.”
“……Ah.”
A reaction as if she had found something she had forgotten.
The substantial compensation, the pirates, the blood-stained memories of the past, and the Cardinal’s pressure.
Feeling that so many situations were tightening around her, she sensed her perspective had narrowed. This wasn’t the reason she had come to this land.
To meet Dragoness Zane through Dragon God Shakallim. And to get help to prevent the impending apocalypse.
“Compensation is nothing but a trivial matter. There’s no need for us to take responsibility for it.”
“……That’s true.”
“For now, we need to pretend to be shaken so we can stay close to the Dragoness!”
Eve was polishing her fists as if podo-podo sounds would erupt from them. She seemed done, but was checking her weapons for the coming war.
“There’s plenty of evidence lying around. The Cardinal’s pressure isn’t a big deal.”
With Eve’s warm voice wrapping around her, Sen felt a weight lift off her heart. She admitted that she had become anxious the moment she realized the connection to the Chokugen Faction.
“Oh, Sen. I think I might hit someone for quite a while, can you teach me how?”
“Hitting someone for a long time, you say?”
“Yeah, around a hundred times?”
“……I can at least tell you how to put some power into it.”
“That’s enough!”
Eve immediately pretended to throw a punch while Sen began correcting her posture beside her. It was a bit sudden, but since it was her friend’s request, she started to teach.
“Oh?”
As Eve was throwing punches toward the shore, she casually pointed her finger toward a spot her gaze had landed on.
“It’s ships?”
“Hmm?”
It took a while for Eve to put her glasses back on after taking them off to exercise, but all Sen had to do was turn her head.
She could see a flag with a skull pattern on a black background waving mercilessly atop the approaching tall ships.
*
“Cardinal, do you truly believe this is what the Dragon God desires? How can you be so brazen!”
Inside the tent, Dragoness Zane was fiercely reprimanding Cardinal Theosender. Not only had they killed all the prisoners, but it was equivalent to openly erasing evidence.
“Do you think I would collude with you to give false testimony? I’m the only one who can cast two votes in the Oracle. The dragonkin don’t take my words lightly!”
The Dragoness, fed up with the unreasonable actions, wanted to shout even more fiercely, but Cardinal Theosender responded coldly, unlike usual.
“Lady, if they get evidence here, you will die.”
“……What?”
She didn’t quite understand what he meant, but Theosender began to berate the naive Dragoness, wondering if she still didn’t get it.
“On the day we set sail, the 730th Oracle was conducted. It was about removing you from your position.”
“W-What do you mean? By what right do the Elders remove me!”
“It’s already been voted on, and it’s over. Nothing I could do to stop it.”
With sincere eyes filled with emotion, Cardinal Theosender began to plead with the Dragoness.
“Lady, you cannot let yourself be seen by the Elders right now. If you side with the humans here, all that awaits you is an unjust accusation and a cruel execution.”
“Ah……”
The Dragoness had thought about this for a while.
She had realized that the current system was indeed quite grotesque.
The system of the current dragonkin was heavily tainted by the lingering echoes of the old Dragon God.
When the Dragon God spoke, they followed.
It was a very simple structure, and yet the Dragon God fell into a deep slumber.
Although the supreme authority disappeared, it wasn’t enough just to replace it with a mere Dragoness, so they elected Elders, but…
As time passed, there were too many Elders.
The fact that she could cast two votes in the Oracle was certainly a significant weapon, but in the end, the remaining twelve votes banded together to drive her out, resulting in such chaos as a haphazard operation.
“I’ll explain to the humans that you’ve made remarkable contributions in assessing the compensation. So please, just stay still. Rely on me.”
“That can’t be……”
Being stripped of the title of Dragoness, potentially bearing false accusations, and possibly facing execution pressed down on Zane, but she opened her mouth trying to conceal her trembling shoulders.
“Zane! Enough already!”
Cardinal Theosender finally began to unleash his anger at Zane.
“I swear to protect you! Damn it! Are you stupid enough to cling to such useless obstinacy and wait to die? There’s a lifeline in front of you, so why not grab it? Foolishness!”
“C-Cardinal?”
Startled by the sudden change, Zane called out to him, but his words flowed out like a bursting dam.
“Stay still, got it? I’ll talk to the Elders properly. You just need to marry me and live by my side.”
“……”
“Do you think your words hold any weight? But you won’t even get a chance to speak; what nonsense are you spouting!”
In a fit of irritation, Cardinal Theosender seemed to have stoked his emotions, but took a deep breath, calming himself back down.
“Just understand? Stay still. Then I’ll take care of everything.”
To become your savior.
Whispering that into Zane’s ear, Theosender slowly turned his body. Outside, a commotion was brewing.
As Theosender exited the tent, Zane, her trembling body desperately trying to embrace itself, slowly knelt.
She wanted to pray.
In this situation where she felt like she could collapse any second, Zane knelt to hide her fragility.
It wasn’t a problem to lose the title of Dragoness, and it was fine not to be able to commune with Dragon God Shakallim in the future. Becoming Theosender’s wife?
Such a sacrifice meant nothing to her.
However, the fact that even such sacrifices wouldn’t change anything…
That the result of her last desperate struggle was merely to save her own skin made her feel sick and pathetic.
Why.
Why had it come to this?
The days when everyone lived equally laughing under the Dragon God’s blessing were shorter than she had expected. It was only now that Zane realized the reason the God had closed His eyes.
The tent’s entrance slowly opened, and a man with light footsteps entered.
“The situation’s better than I thought.”
Holding ropes for binding.
“Are you feeling seasick?”
*
“Damn, they’re real pirates, huh?”
Her throat, which had just been shouting at Zane, now stung.
While swinging his sword and desperately shouting orders, he was caught off guard by the sudden appearance of pirates.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Continuous cannon fire echoed.
‘Damn it! I really thought they wouldn’t come to the Royen waters!’
Cardinal Theosender had thought there wouldn’t be a chance of seeing pirates, so he had sent the troops meant to stop them to Salaman.
His confidence stemmed from the humans being on-site for verification, not to fend off pirates.
Having been attacked twice, maybe because of that, it wasn’t like his response was careless. The Heretic Inquisitors who were specialized in magic had forcefully countered the cannon fire.
Ultimately, the cannon fire stopped suddenly and without warning.
“Do they think cannon fire is ineffective?”
If that were the case, the pirates wouldn’t engage in close-quarter combat, so Theosender assumed they would naturally retreat.
Feeling the honor of having successfully repelled the pirates for the first time weigh on his shoulders, Theosender…
Pew!
The cannon fire erupted again.
But it wasn’t cannonballs.
“Humans?”
A human curled into a ball flew in place of the cannon fire. Coated in mana, he landed without any impact and immediately drew his sword.
“Gah! Let’s goooo!”
And that wasn’t all.
Other pirates were likewise coated in mana as they poured in this way. The close combat unfolded without needing the ships to dock.
At first, it was laughable.
The notion that they dared to engage in close combat against them was amusing, but the fight with the pirates, eager to win at all costs, turned out to be more troublesome than expected.
Amidst the cannon fire that came along with the humans, strange projectiles mixed in. They spread throughout the battlefield, making faces sting and forcing tears to flow.
“It’s tear gas!”
For the dragonkin with sensitive senses, this was the worst battlefield.
She wondered how the pirates even had such things, but the pirates masked their mouths with hoods they wore around their necks as if they were familiar with it.
Those hoods had a spell on them that allowed for smooth breathing.
“Form up! Create a formation with magic! Don’t let these ruffians set foot in our territory!”
Theosender demanded they create a mana barrier to push back the gas, and the Heretic Inquisitors desperately complied with the order.
In the end, the pirates charged into the tear-gas filled area and were set to combat against the mana barrier.
While they were surprised by the sudden attack, they knew that the Heretic Inquisitors would prevail if they fought head-on.
Slowly pressing on, they expanded the area of the barrier as if they were playing a game of territory. Theosender wore a relaxed smile, but then his smile froze at the sight far away.
At the far end of the battlefield.
He saw the face of Zane, bound hand and foot, being kidnapped by the pirates.
“You scoundrels! How dare you lay a finger on my partner!”
Blood rushed to his head, and he felt dizzy.
No!
The only woman fitting for him, in a position of Cardinal, was being dragged away by mere thugs.
He instinctively bit his lips hard enough to draw blood at the thought of what she might be subjected to if she were taken aboard that ship.
“Stop! I said stop!!!”
In the heart-wrenching pain, he quickly drew his sword and charged at them.
But the kidnappers were already on a boat heading for their pirate ship.
