Out on the water, a skull-and-crossbones flag marked with a scarlet claw snapped in the cold wind.
The pirate ship itself was dark and low, oppressive despite being barely half the size of Lambert’s merchant vessel.
Magic arrays lined both sides, driving it forward at a speed that had no business belonging to something that size, a black shape cutting across the churning waves like some kind of giant fish.
On its deck stood a crew of pirates in strange, mismatched clothes, faces set hard, blades catching the light with a cold gleam.
One look at the ship was enough to send Lambert into a full panic, and the champagne bottle slipped right out of his hand, hissing as it spilled across the deck.
“Faster!
Faster!
Get us moving, shake them off!” he shouted.
Not that it would help.
The pirate ship, running on pure magic, was already far faster than his hybrid single-masted “Wind Demon” could ever hope to be.
But panic doesn’t listen to logic.
People in that state reach for whatever feels like safety, whether it actually is or not.
Even when it’s completely useless.
The man at the helm understood that perfectly well, and pushed the lever forward anyway, wringing every last bit of speed out of the engine.
Just as he started to swing the ship around, one of the Black Pheasant Legs mages stopped him cold.
“Hey!
Don’t turn tail and run from a fight!
Isn’t this exactly why you hired us, Black Pheasant Legs, in the first place?” Under the crew’s stunned stares, Dash shouted, “What’s there to be scared of, they’re just pirates!
Bring the boat closer!” Is that supposed to be a pep talk?
Sitting under a parasol, Chase tossed a pastry into his mouth, casual about it, his opinion of this particular Black Pheasant Legs mage shifting a little.
Just a little.
Confidence shading into arrogance, mindless as it sounds, can actually be useful.
Especially against pirates.
But this is a merchant ship.
Most of the people aboard are regular workers without much nerve for a fight.
“Are you out of your mind!
You want us in direct confrontation with those pirates?!” Just as expected, Lambert looked appalled at the suggestion and stormed over to grab Dash by the collar, his belly bouncing with the motion.
All he wanted was a way out.
A little humiliating, maybe, but compared to the pale, shaking crew huddled in the corner, Lambert was actually holding up pretty well for a captain.
“Mr.
Lambert, please, calm down.
Leave the fighting to us.
Just get yourself to the cabin.” Ina, the mage with the short, fiery red hair, stepped forward to settle him down, pointing one slender white finger toward where the pirates had appeared.
The pirate flag snapped in the wind, and within a matter of seconds, the ship had closed to the merchant vessel’s stern, barely a few hundred meters between them now.
“It’s over.
It’s over…” At the sound of the pirates’ wild, gleeful shouting, Lambert’s whole body went slack, and he collapsed to the deck, his round face filled with despair.
Ina didn’t hesitate.
She barked instructions to the crew around her, loud and clear.
“Anyone who can still move, get everyone else below deck, now!
Don’t worry, we will protect all of you!” While she organized the crew, she caught sight of Chase out of the corner of her eye, still eating pastries without a care in the world.
Why is this guy so calm?
Is he too scared to even move?
Or…
is he just not scared at all?
There wasn’t time to work it out.
Ina turned instead to her two teammates, expression hardening.
“Dash!
Bob!
Get ready to fight these pirates with me!
We are not letting a single one of them set foot on this ship!” They’d worked together long enough that teamwork came naturally by now.
A single glance was all it took to understand each other, and the three of them moved into formation at the stern, one up front, two hanging back.
Their whole job was to stop the pirates cold and keep the people and cargo on this ship safe.
The moment they took their positions, machinery began grinding to life on the pirate ship’s stalled turret.
A dark purple magic circle flared, energy gathering steadily in the barrel of the cannon, kicking up a violent gust of wind across the water around it.
It was a small magic cannon, aimed dead center at the merchant ship’s magic sail.
“Dash, I’ll buff you, block that attack!” “Bob, get ready to counter!” Ina had already worked out exactly what the pirates were after.
The magic sails were the whole power source for a ship like this.
Lose them, and the ship became a sitting target.
She raised both arms, palms aimed at Dash, the same big, brash Dash whose reckless confidence Chase had found weirdly reassuring a minute ago.
“Armor Enhancement!” At Ina’s sharp command, two magic circles bloomed and wrapped Dash’s body in a thick layer of light.
Oh?
An Enhancement Mage?
Chase, sitting off to the side enjoying the show, looked mildly surprised, and raised his eyelids to get a better look at Ina, her short red hair whipping in the wind.
Compared to how common fire magic is, Enhancement magic’s pretty rare.
Support-type spells, cast on a specific target.
Shame her reserves are so low, though.
Whatever boost that gives him can’t be much.
Chase let out a quiet breath and turned his attention to Dash as he twisted into motion.
The man’s short-sleeved shirt and overalls had already burst open across bulging muscle, the fabric giving way to reveal a build built entirely for close combat.
Probably running some kind of superhuman strength magic.
Close-combat focused.
So why wear overalls if you fight like that?
Complete waste of a good outfit.
Even idiots like Natsu and Gray know to strip down first.
Chase kept the thought to himself and turned to the last member of the team.
Bob unfastened the iron case strapped to his back in one smooth motion and drew out a magic sniper rifle.
Using the magic circle built into the scope, he held his breath, made a few small adjustments, and locked onto the pirate captain sitting behind the rest of his crew.
Smart.
Take out the leader, the whole thing probably falls apart on its own.
Go for the one in the black top hat.
Melee, ranged, support, all three covered, and they made the call and moved in seconds.
No wonder they were confident enough to think they could hold this ship on their own.
There’s real skill there.
Just not much of it.
Chase shook his head and looked away, going back to his pastries.
The captain matched Marshall’s description exactly, which meant this was, without a doubt, the group he’d been sent after.
Other guilds had sent A-Class mages after them.
S-Class mages, even.
Every single one had met the same unknown fate.
How exactly are three mages from a small, unremarkable guild supposed to stand a chance against that?
A deep rumble tore through the air like the roar of some massive beast, and the pirate ship’s cannon fired a burst of compressed light that ripped across the water, faster than Bob’s rifle could even track it.
“A magic cannon?
I’ll crush it!” Without a shred of hesitation, the enhanced Dash leaped high into the air, not to strike the attack down, but to block it outright with his own body.
He raised one fist overhead, the magic circle spinning across his knuckles, and brought it down with everything he had against the incoming blast.
A deafening crack followed, smoke and dust rolling up in a thick cloud.
When it cleared, Dash lay twisted in the wreckage of the fallen mast, badly hurt, coughing up blood, unable to move at all.
The merchant ship, its power gone, lost all speed and drifted to a dead stop on the open water.