Adelaide was in charge of lookout duty on the ship the party was riding.

This was because, since obtaining the Belt of Amaryllis, her senses had surpassed even those of the Tin Knight.

As she was absentmindedly observing the surrounding scenery with her sparkling violet eyes, she noticed about three ships approaching from the opposite direction.

Given that this was a sea area where trade by ship was active, the sight of ships itself wasn’t particularly strange.

However, those ships advancing in a straight line, precisely towards the ship of Dorothea’s party, was clearly an unusual signal.

The three ships surrounded the party’s ship, then blocked their path by thrusting their hulls forward.

When Dorothea’s party was forced to stop their ship, after a moment, thick harpoons and hooks flew from the other side.

Thick and sturdy ropes were attached to their ends, and they crossed over to the party’s ship using these ropes.

Each process and movement was so smooth that it clearly wasn’t the work of amateurs.

Among those who set foot on the ship, a man who seemed to have some status shouted, “From now on, we be takin’ over this ship! Any scallywag who resists will be swimming with the sharkies, so behave!”

Along with this line that showed no intention of hiding that he was a pirate, the man grinned, as if showing off the sword scar on his face, and looked over the party.

So, how did the party react?

[The ‘Tin Knight’ expresses puzzlement as to why they don’t use cannons and attempt hand-to-hand combat from the start!]

[The ‘Tin Knight’ asks if the basics of naval warfare aren’t cannons first, then hand-to-hand combat later!]

“Well, they need to loot the ship, and if they sink it before looting, there’s no point. It’s not like they’re going to dive into the sea to retrieve goods.”

[The ‘Tin Knight’ raises an exclamation mark of realization!]

“So this is how pirates operate. It seems not much different from thieves on land.”

“My, weren’t there any pirate descriptions in the adventure stories Adel likes?”

“Strictly speaking, it wasn’t me but my brother who liked them, and the pirates in those stories were eaten by sea monsters as soon as they appeared, so they didn’t even have a single line of dialogue.”

Truly carefree.

The pirate’s face twisted in anger at the sight of the party chatting among themselves, completely ignoring the threat he had made.

If he had survival instincts that sensed something was amiss and focused on escape, this pirate’s life might have improved a bit, but having often tasted money recently, his fear had greatly diminished, and he raised his voice even more:

“Ye bastards, do ye know who we be to be so relaxed!? Where—”

The pirate’s words, thinking they needed to taste some bitterness to come to their senses, didn’t continue to the end.

Suddenly, a comrade grabbed his shoulder and started shaking him vigorously.

The pirate spoke in an irritated tone, “What the fuck is it!?”

The comrade didn’t answer.

No, not just the comrade, but all the other pirates around were also silent with pale faces.

Usually, they would have thrown vulgar jokes or jeers at the women, but now they didn’t even dare to do so.

At this point, even the pirate felt something eerie.

He quietly observed his comrades’ gazes.

His comrades weren’t looking at the four people in front. They were looking a bit further back.

The moment he saw the skeleton staring at him with empty eyes, the pirate froze without realizing it.

Clatter. Clatter.

One by one, new skeletons continued to appear on the deck through the stairs below.

At this moment, to the pirate’s eyes, the stairs from which the skeletons were emerging looked like the entrance to hell.

The pirate was a man of the sea.

He naturally knew the ghost ship legends circulating among sailors.

In thick fog where one could barely see a foot ahead. The eerie darkness when the sun had set beyond the horizon, or was setting.

A situation where it was unclear where one was or where their ship was headed. The song of the dead heard from somewhere.

Sails so worn and tattered they were full of holes and couldn’t properly catch wind, and even a wooden hull rusted and broken.

Fuck, not a single thing matches.

The pirate felt wronged.

The weather was clear without even a cloud, let alone fog, the sun was shining hot light from above, and the ship, far from being a dilapidated ghost ship, was a sleek, state-of-the-art vessel. If it hadn’t been such a ship, they wouldn’t have approached to pirate it in the first place.

But still, the pirate couldn’t understand why skeletons were casually pouring out of it.

The problem was, whether he understood or not, the other side didn’t seem to have any intention of waiting.

Clack, clack, clatter, clatter!

With the sound of hard bones, the white skeletons all rushed towards the pirates.

“R-run!! It’s a ghost ship!”

“Fuck, I thought it was strange that there were only beauties on deck! Now they’re even fishing for people!”

“They say if you die by their hands, you’ll wander the sea forever without being able to die!”

The pirates began to flee in panic.

The Tin Knight did ask his companions for agreement, saying that they seemed quite relaxed since they were explaining each one verbally, but the pirates were genuinely feeling threatened.

Though rougher and freer than anyone—at least they thought so—men of the sea were also that much more sensitive to superstitions.

The belief that if one was killed by the monsters of a ghost ship, one would become their comrade and wander the sea forever was one of the more famous superstitions, and even without such superstitions, there was no one who wanted to risk their life in a fight with no gain.

Even if they looted a ghost ship, they couldn’t use the crew as slaves, there was a high probability there would be no treasure on board, and even if there was treasure, taking it would likely bring a curse, so it would be stranger to have the will to fight.

The pirates rushed to return via the ropes they had used to cross over, and those who couldn’t manage that simply threw themselves into the sea and swam towards their own ships.

The sight of them charging in boldly and then desperately fleeing was quite comical.

Even Dorothea, who rarely laughed except when threatening others, let out a chuckle.

“This is ridiculous.”

“Are you going to let them go?”

“We can’t do that. They’re running away now because they’re scared of the undead, but if it wasn’t for that, they would have started slashing right away.”

Dorothea was about to do her usual “Tin Knight! I choose you!” but suddenly hesitated, then turned her gaze to Adelaide.

“Adel. Go and finish this up.”

“Yes.”

Adelaide, who received the order, nodded obediently, but the Tin Knight complained.

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

“Beer bottles should stay put. If you fall in by accident—“

──Pwooooooooo!

That sound suddenly rang out, drowning out all other noises.

The clattering of skeleton soldiers, the pandemonium of pirates, even the witch’s voice.

──Pwooooooooo!

Along with the whistle sound resonating deep in their bodies, that ship revealed itself.

A hull with a strange luster like ebony, golden sails embroidered with jewels bearing the symbol of pirates—the Jolly Roger.

On the deck of the ship, which was a work of art in itself, all sorts of bizarre-looking crew members were showing fierce killing intent, and the man standing on the bow was someone familiar to the party.

The leader of the Golden Pirate Crew, Cap’n Bill, threw away the whistle he had been blowing and shouted cheerfully, “Found you! Found you! Me has finally found you! Me feels like I be crying with joy!

“There’s so much me wants to say, but first, let me say this, mateys!

“—Eat this, ya damn bastards!!”

It was a masterful surprise attack, showing experience different from the juniors who had only boasted with words and missed their chance to attack.

Demonstrating a bold turning maneuver that seemed to disregard the wind, Cap’n Bill’s ship exposed its side.

And the cannons on that side all spewed fire at once.

Boom!

For the crime of being too close to the ship of Dorothea’s party, one pirate ship was pummeled by the cannons.

The pirates, who had fled from the evil ghost ship—which wasn’t actually a ghost ship—that was trying to lure innocent—in their own minds—people using the illusion of beauties—this was no mere illusion—as bait, were directly hit by heavy cannonballs and offered their flesh to the sea as sacrifice.

“Fire, fire! Fire before we’re hit!”

“We’ll all die if we run, anyway! Fight!”

However, pirates were also seasoned in fights on the sea.

While they might avoid and flee from a fight with the undead—something they had never experienced before—it was a different story in a familiar naval battle.

They forcibly cut the ropes connecting them to the party’s ship with swords and quickly entered combat maneuvers.

In the process, comrades who hadn’t managed to escape fully fell into the sea with the ropes or were crushed by the moving ship, but such was the loyalty of pirates.

However, it wasn’t easy for a ship that had once stopped to regain its momentum, and with another bombardment, the first pirate ship completely sank.

It was then, as the golden ship was aiming its gun ports to sink the second ship.

“Sir Tin, we need to block that.”

[The ‘Tin Knight’ says he understands!]

Boom!

Clang!

Two different kinds of sounds rang out in succession.

One was the sound of cannons fired from the golden ship, and the other was the sound of the Tin Knight, who had leapt from the ship, deflecting the incoming cannonballs with his shield.

The pirates were dumbfounded seeing the knight fall with a thud between them, and Dorothea frowned.

“Why are you saving them?”

“Well, if those people sink now too, we won’t have any means of counterattack.”

“Ugh.”

The ship Dorothea’s party was riding didn’t have cannons. This was natural since it was originally for transporting agricultural products.

It was unclear why that golden skeleton was suddenly attacking them, but if he kept firing cannons while maintaining a certain distance like that, they had no proper way to deal with it.

An alchemist would make a large ballista to respond, a wizard would counterattack with attack magic, but a necromancer had neither.

Although she was a bit slower to realize than Sophia, Dorothea wasn’t the type to hesitate during a fight.

She shouted to the pirates, “We’ll block their attacks, so counterattack!”

“Uh, uh, no, well.”

“Stop standing around and move!! Before I turn you all into undead and use you!”

“Ah, aye, aye! Cap’n!”

Although a strangely grating title was heard, now wasn’t the time to quibble about that.

And so, an unexpected naval battle began.

The golden ship fired cannonballs, the Tin Knight deflected them with his shield, and the pirates also responded with their own cannons.

Dorothea and the undead crew, though lacking cannons, focused on tanking with the defensive magic of Dorothea’s staff and Adelaide’s two-handed sword acting as shields.

But.

“Good, good! Ye need to have at least this much bite with how much grudge me has to repay!”

Cap’n Bill’s golden ship was too strong. No matter how many cannons the pirate ships fired, not a single shot reached Cap’n Bill’s ship, while in contrast, Cap’n Bill’s attacks steadily accumulated damage on this side.

No matter how capable the Tin Knight was at deflecting cannonballs with his shield, he couldn’t deflect cannonballs aimed at the lower part of the ship rather than the upper part.

In the end, another ship sank into the sea.

Dorothea gritted her teeth.

What should we do?

The distance to land was still far.

It was realistically impossible to keep running away while showing their back to an opponent with such excellent steering skills and naval combat prowess.

“W-we’re out of cannonballs!”

Unlike Cap’n Bill’s side, which showed endless quantities as if creating cannonballs out of thin air, this side had even run out of means of attack.

Seeing that there would be no more counterattacks, the Golden Pirate Crew’s ship could be seen calmly narrowing the distance and aiming its gun ports.

The maximum number of cannonballs that could be deflected at once was two or three at most.

If that attack was fired all at once, the ship might sink right then and there.

At that moment.

The Tin Knight jumped into the sea without hesitation.

Splash! Splash! Splash!

Like skipping stones, the Tin Knight’s body bounced repeatedly on the sea’s surface.

By releasing the mana stored in his shield in sequence, the Tin Knight’s body reached right in front of the golden pirate ship.

Slash!

The next moment, the golden ship was split horizontally.

The long line of gun ports, the crew preparing to fire the cannons, the large mast, everything without exception had to be split in half, separating upper and lower bodies.

But.

“Bravo! A splendid strike! But don’t expect to board me vessel for free!!”

Only Cap’n Bill didn’t allow the Tin Knight’s Severing Flash.

He leaped into the air and swung his cutlass at the Tin Knight.

The Tin Knight received Cap’n Bill’s attack, but because of that, he lost the momentum to climb onto the ship.

His heavy metal body fell into the sea.

Splash!

And, the black witch jumped into the sea without hesitation.

***

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