"What, what did you say?!"
"Paradise exists! Absolutely!"
"Noce Mostro and his gang are monopolizing the map that leads there! That’s where they’ve set down the rare races, including the beastfolk they looted from us…"
From beyond the crystal sphere, the man let out an irritated sigh.
"Shut up! Weren’t you the one who said that if we just lured Noce Mostro and his officers out, we’d succeed! We moved exactly to plan! It was your hunting dog that ruined it!"
On the far side of the crystal sphere, something gave a small, breaking sound.
"W-what?"
"Impossible! We wagered all our ships to bait that devil and his damned officers! There can’t be—urk!"
KWOONG!
A sudden impact rocked the hull. The captains in heated argument lurched wildly, and the crystal sphere on the table rolled off to the floor. From where it had skidded into a corner, a flat voice drifted out.
"H-hey! Wait! Don’t tell me you’re pulling out now…?"
The leader of this pirate coalition, the one-eyed captain, shouted in a panic.
"Connect me to your master! I have a deal to offer! You won’t lose on it!"
"You son of a bitch! Hey? Heeey—!"
Just as the one-eyed captain was about to pour curses into the crystal sphere’s guttering light—
At that moment.
KWA-GWANG!
"Aaagh!"
"W-what the—!"
From the ceiling down into the cabin they occupied, a huge hole blew open. The captains sprawled in a heap, and the table they’d encircled shattered to pieces.
And in the dust-choked space, a shadow pushed itself upright.
"…What a farce."
A man holding a curved blade stained with blood in one hand, and with the other sweeping back his sea-damp black hair, swept his gaze around.
The captains, pushing themselves up, froze at the golden eyes that might as well have announced who he was.
"You dose the rabble and drive them in front, while the heads hide in a hole like this."
"N-Noce Mostro…!"
"How did you get here… my ship? My men?!"
The captains who had hurried to peer outside through the broken hull all gasped. A flat voice slid into their ears.
"Who knows. I don’t keep track of every hull I send under. Find out for yourselves."
"U-urgh…"
"That… can’t be…"
What spread before their eyes was a sea of death.
All those ships and troops they had bragged about were gone without a trace. Every time a black wave surged, wreckage that had once been ships briefly surfaced, then even that vanished.
All that floated on the sea was a Mostro pirate vessel far off with a plain black flag fluttering—and the ship these captains were standing in.
And even this last remaining ship was about to go under.
"Sorry excuses, ruining a good time…"
Noce bared his teeth, glaring at them one by one. Just before these bastards had stormed in, he had been holding the sleeping Aquila in his arms, enjoying a peaceful stretch.
He’d been looking forward to the face she would make when she woke, cradling him in those lovely red eyes of hers and recalling how she’d opened her body for the first time.
They had ruined all of it. By now, with the ship in an uproar, she would have opened her eyes alone in the bed.
"Because of you, I’ve become the bastard who abandoned his bride on the wedding night. Hm…?"
In truth, Aquila had woken and cheered at his absence, but Noce, not knowing this, ground his teeth.
With a murmur whose meaning they couldn’t grasp and a crushing, heavy killing intent, the knees of the other captains who’d barely stayed standing buckled one after another.
The vicious raiders who churned the sea wept snot and tears like they’d met a demon from hell, begging.
"P-please…"
"Spare us…! Spare our lives and we’ll never come near your waters again…!"
"Noce Mostro!"
But cutting off their pleas, the one-eyed captain bared his teeth and shouted.
"Paradise exists, doesn’t it!"
"Hm?"
"Don’t play dumb. You have the map to Paradise! The proof is that your ships, which never make port, never run dry of supplies! The slaves you stole from us—you’ve stashed them all there, haven’t you! Isn’t that right!"
"H-hey…"
The other captains stared at him like he’d gone mad, but blinded by vengeance and rage at losing his men, the one-eyed captain laughed savagely.
At the edge of his vision—and in Noce Mostro’s blind spot—the crystal sphere that had rolled away still hadn’t gone dark.
No turning back. Even if I die, I’ll drag those sly snakes into this and get my revenge on the Mostro bastard…!
"Paradise, huh…"
But the one-eyed captain’s thoughts stopped there. The monster that had been a pace away was suddenly right before his nose.
"Whether it exists or not, what does it matter? The only place you’re going is…"
Slice.
"…the bottom of the sea."
The one-eyed captain’s head flew into the air.
Until the moment he died, he didn’t even know he was dying, his face twisted with vengeful hate.
Watching the pitiful body roll across the deck like a stone, Noce gave his blade a light flick. Drops of blood beaded on the edge and spattered the surface of the crystal sphere that had rolled far off.
"Whoever you are."
Noce’s eyes narrowed, as if he’d known of the sphere’s presence from the start.
"If you want to be buried at sea instead of on land, keep scheming."
CRASH!
With a lazy sweep, his blade smashed the crystal sphere to pieces.
***
A lightless room.
As the dim glow of the crystal sphere on the table went out, a deeper darkness settled.
A black figure standing opposite bowed his head.
"…I have no excuse."
"Hm."
Seated in a large chair, another man hidden in thick night-shadows tapped the desk lightly with a fingertip.
It was a flat response, but the voice of the one bowing tightened with tension.
"You trusted my judgment and allowed the hunting dog’s deployment, yet I betrayed that expectation and let such irreverent words be spoken to you. Not even ten thousand deaths would suffice. I will accept any punishment."
"…Before reward or punishment, we analyze the cause."
A careless reply came from the dark.
"Why did my hunting dog fail? His ‘conditioning’ couldn’t have broken."
"…My guess is that there was someone in that pirate crew who handled ‘poison.’"
"Poison?"
"Yes. The deployed hunting dog is the finest specimen among those currently in training. Except for one thing—his poison resistance fell short of the target…"
"…"
"My apologies. I did not anticipate that requirement would affect this operation."
"Enough. I’ve never heard any intelligence that the Mostro Family has a poison-adept either."
The man in the shadows sighed.
"If there’s a profit here, it’s that we’ve learned information from base pirates can’t be trusted."
"…How do you judge this ‘Paradise’?"
"Well…"
They might be moronic pirates who can’t even grasp their enemy’s full strength, but their greed is never a lie.
The man smiled strangely.
"For now, we’ll reset our policy under the assumption it ‘does exist.’"
"Yes."
"Send the strays. If any survivors among them are confirmed, seize them and consign them to the Market. Worthless humans, but they’ll do as spectacles for the arena."
"Understood."
"And as for the ‘hunting dog’…"
The man, chin propped on his fist, let the corner of his mouth curl into a thin smile.
"Dispose of him on discovery. Ouroboros has no use for failures."
"All as DON wills."
The man who received the order left the room.
Then the man called DON let out an irritable sigh, as if he’d never smiled.
"Useless, the lot of them…"
Beastfolk and other non-humans—and, at times, even humans.
Gathering the most valuable beings regardless of race and trading them had brought Ouroboros immense wealth.
But its leader knew that the market which seemed eternal was nearing a limit.
The long ages of slave-hunting had drastically reduced the numbers of non-humans, beastfolk chief among them. The few they did find were so diluted with human blood that more often than not they earned a middling or low grade.
The land is bled dry. We’ll have to find a new nest at sea.
In the dark, greed gleamed in DON’s eyes.