“What’s this now?”
One large member of the gang swaggered up and blocked my path.
“My name is Howell Crave. What are your names?”
“Just pretend you didn’t see anything and move along, mister.”
“That was what I was going to do, but I can’t anymore.”
“Why not?”
“The friend lying on the ground there said he wanted to be my navigator.”
The apparent leader looked at me as though I were absurd.
“Then you’re the captain who hired this brat?”
“Strictly speaking, not yet. But I’m thinking of hiring him now. May I take him with me?”
“Hmm. Then is this yours, too?”
He shook the greenstone. He was showing off something he had extorted that openly. I did not know whether he was bold or stupid.
“It is. I gave it to Lorenzo as a bonus.”
“You must have money to spare, giving alms to a little brat, too.”
The man mocked Lorenzo. Lorenzo, who spat out mud, spoke.
“You don’t have to help me……”
“Shut up. You.”
The leader pressed Lorenzo’s face into the ground. No matter how smart or grown-up he acted, he was still a child. There was nothing he could do in the face of indiscriminate force and violence.
“If you want to take him with you, you’ll have to give us some money.”
“I intend to pay him two gold coins a week.”
“……Two gold coins? You’re joking, right?”
The man’s expression stiffened, but I had never been joking. When I took out two gold coins and tossed them to him, he caught them.
“Le…… Let go!”
As Lorenzo struggled in a voice that sounded as though he could barely breathe, the man grabbed his hair and pulled his head up.
“Cough, hack.”
“Is that true?”
“……It’s true. My value is different from trash like you.”
“Ha! This is ridiculous! Fine!”
The man turned to me.
“Then let’s do this. I’ll lend him to you for a year, and you pay me. I’ll make it cheap. One hundred gold coins.”
“Come on. Lorenzo is the one who will work, so why would you get paid?”
“Because he’s under me right now. Does that explain it?”
“No. Not at all.”
“You really don’t understand words.”
The thugs began to surround me, inching closer. But why was that? I was not afraid. They were clumsier than the bandits I had met in Semeln, but there were two more of them.
Click.
They drew small knives. Pocketknives that were easy to conceal. Perhaps because it was late afternoon, no one was in the farmland besides Lorenzo, the gang, and me. The thugs must have known that when they drew their knives.
“……Are you going to kill me with those knives?”
“Yeah. If you don’t want to die, hand over all the money you have and get lost.”
The men surrounding me slowly moved closer, holding their knives up threateningly. Looking at the leader who was keeping Lorenzo pinned down, I spoke.
“Do you know what kind of age we live in?”
“What kind of nonsense is that?”
“The age of firearms and gunpowder.”
I drew my pistol, aimed at the leg of the thug directly in front of me, and fired.
Bang!
With the gunshot, the thug fell as though he had slipped. His kneecap had been blown away, and his leg below it bent at a grotesque angle.
“Aaaaaaagh!”
It was a scream full of pain. Startled by the sudden gunshot, the other thugs hesitated and backed away. The leader, who had also looked surprised for a moment, shouted.
“Rush him! He only fired one shot!”
Certainly, I might have been defeated if I had still possessed only one gun. An individual was powerless before a crowd. Did that mean an individual could never beat many people? No.
“It’s not like I only have a gun.”
Humans used weapons because they were weak. I drew the Key That Opens the Night. It was twilight, as darkness began to fall.
Shhh.
It was not fully dark, but the light was stained red and dying as well. That was why.
Click.
I could open them.
“Aaaagh!”
The arms of the first two men to charge at me opened. Perhaps because it was not dark enough yet, the arms did not open all the way. Half-severed, they hung limp. But even that was enough to send the men collapsing to the ground.
“Aaargh!”
The last man rushed at me, erasing his fear with a wild scream. Compared with Ines—the weeping skeleton—his movements were markedly slow and clumsy. I caught the wrist of the hand that thrust out a pocketknife and stabbed his forearm.
Click.
A hole opened in his forearm. Slashing could attack a long distance at once, but stabbing seemed more efficient. It had not shown this much power when I slashed.
“Aaaaargh!”
Naturally, the man with a hole in his forearm dropped down as well. I knew from having been pierced once myself that it had to hurt a great deal.
‘He probably can’t even think, let alone move.’
I walked between the men crawling like insects and approached the leader.
“D-don’t come closer!”
The leader held a pocketknife to Lorenzo’s neck. Perhaps he had been too excited to control his strength properly, because the blade had gone slightly into Lorenzo’s neck, and blood ran down it. Lorenzo only frowned and did not groan.
“Just try coming closer. I’ll cut this bastard’s throat!”
“You can’t cut a throat with that. Even with a larger knife, it would take a long time.”
“……What?”
The man looked at me as though I were a serial killer. It was not something I had done, but something that had been done to me. It felt a little unfair.
“Still, it could be fatal. What do you want?”
“Nothing! I don’t want anything, so get lost!”
Perhaps he found it too humiliating to ask me to spare him, so he demanded that I retreat instead. But he had made one mistake.
Crunch!
He had been so wary of me that he was not watching Lorenzo. Lorenzo bit down on his wrist with all his strength.
“Aah!”
Startled by the sudden attack, the man dropped the pocketknife that had been his lifeline. I did not miss the opening. I closed the distance and shoved his face.
“Guh!”
He fell down in an unsightly heap. Lorenzo, who had been panting while facedown, pushed himself up from the ground. Wiping his nosebleed with his forearm, Lorenzo looked away as though embarrassed and muttered,
“Thank you. ……Captain.”
It occurred to me that perhaps the reason Lorenzo had been late the first time was that he had gotten into a dispute with these men, too. I approached the leader, who had fallen backward.
“Don’t come closer!”
“Give us the money. You took silver coins from my navigator, too, right?”
“I’ll give them to you! No, I’ll give them to you, sir!”
The leader hurriedly pulled out a money pouch and held it out to me. Perhaps he had extorted people other than Lorenzo, because it was quite heavy. I took two gold coins and three silver coins from it, then handed them to Lorenzo. Lorenzo spoke quietly.
“They took my compass, too.”
“He says you took his compass, too.”
“Here it is!”
I took the compass as well and handed it to Lorenzo.
“Thank you.”
“Sure. If you’re grateful, work hard.”
I approached the leader, who was hesitantly backing away. His body flinched.
“You hit my navigator, so I’m going to take some compensation for the damage.”
“Th-that’s all I have. I really don’t have anything else!”
“Then you’ll have to pay with your body, I guess.”
The man began to cry and beg. He even dropped to his knees and rubbed his hands together desperately.
“Don’t kill me. I don’t want to die. Please.”
“Didn’t you say you were going to kill me earlier?”
“No. No, I didn’t. I was only trying to scare you. It’s true.”
“I was only trying to scare you, too. I won’t kill you. It’s not like I’m a pirate captain.”
I was a ghost ship captain, not a pirate captain. I crouched in front of him.
“But I said I would take compensation, so I will. My navigator has a bloody nose.”
I clenched my fist and punched him in the nose with all my strength.
***
Lorenzo and I ran away. Since a gunshot had been heard, someone would surely come to check. Lorenzo looked up at me.
“Is this really all right?”
“Murder is already punishable by hanging. Roughing up a few thugs won’t change anything.”
“Did you really need to give them your name? It will cause trouble.”
“It will cause trouble. But I’m not ashamed of what I did.”
“……You’re a strange person, Captain.”
Lorenzo and I reached the shore near the cliff where I had hidden Salkenia. Seeing Salkenia for the first time, Lorenzo could not hide his surprise.
“A ship? This is?”
“Cool, isn’t it?”
“Uh, um, I don’t understand how it floats on the sea.”
“I wonder about that, too.”
At a glance, Salkenia looked as though she needed repairs. But there had been no problem sailing her, and Salkenia had said repairs were unnecessary, so I had left her as she was.
“But why did you hire me?”
“Because I like you. And you showed me your ability.”
“But those aren’t…… practical abilities needed for actual navigation.”
He was right. Lorenzo’s reasoning, memory, and ability to find routes were outstanding, but those were only some of the many abilities a navigator needed.
“I wasn’t looking for a great navigator. I’m a beginner captain myself.”
“Then what were you looking for?”
“I needed someone who could go with me to the end of the sea.”
Lorenzo looked up at me for a moment. He seemed to be thinking about something, so I did not press him further. Soon, as though he had finished thinking, Lorenzo spoke.
“How far are you planning to go when you’re only hiring me for money?”
“It’s just an expression. An expression. You have no sense of romance.”
Lorenzo and I climbed the rope ladder. Lorenzo looked rather unsteady because of the beating he had taken earlier, but he somehow managed to climb onto the deck on his own.
Clack, clack, clack.
The moment we stepped onto the deck, Perero came into view. He held a cutlass and was staggering toward us for some reason. Lorenzo took a tense breath, but he did not hide or run away.
Clack…… clatter……
Perero wiggled his finger bones as though he were about to carry Lorenzo off. I hit Perero on the head.
Clunk.
Perero’s skull came off. It fell onto Lorenzo, who was standing directly in front of Perero. Lorenzo caught it by reflex and made a strange sound, perhaps surprised by what he was holding.
“Eek?”
Perhaps he found Lorenzo’s expression amusing, because Perero’s head chattered its teeth and laughed in Lorenzo’s hand.
Clatter, clatter, clatter!
I took the skull and returned it to Perero’s body. It seemed he had dropped it on purpose to tease Lorenzo.
[As Salkenia’s boatswain, Perero welcomes the new recruit.]
Salkenia, who had appeared at some point, relayed Perero’s words. Ines and the other skeleton sailors appeared afterward. Taking a deep breath as though he had made a decision, Lorenzo looked straight at them.
“This is Lorenzo. In terms of experience, he’s a newcomer who just joined.”
I grinned at Perero.
“But he joined as the navigator, so he outranks you.”
Looking considerably shocked, Perero dropped the skull he had been putting back in place.