Chapter 20 - Somali Pirates (2)

“I'm only asking just in case, but what are the chances the information is wrong?”

“There don't seem to be any.”

Listening to Evan, Alon thought,

'... Why did Radan suddenly become a pirate?'

He had sent Radan to the port city of Laxas partly because of his talent for detection, but also because he belonged to the Sea God Clan—a race with scarcely even a handful of members on the continent, according to the game's lore. Of course, they looked much like humans, so most people couldn't tell.

But Alon, who had played through the game several times and delved into its lore, knew Radan was one of them. That was why he had recommended treasure hunting as a profession. As a member of the Sea God Clan, Radan could breathe underwater. With his talent for detection, Alon figured he could make money with ease by retrieving and selling relics lying beneath the sea.

Moreover, a treasure hunter could live comfortably for the rest of his life once he hauled up something truly valuable. With that in mind, Alon had given Radan a relic specialized for detection.

And yet he had become a pirate.

One of the great pirates of the Seven Fleet Isles, no less.

“He's become a bigger player than House Pallatio used to be...”

“... So he has.”

Evan was right. The pirates of the Seven Fleet Isles were pirate crews in name only. In practice, they were practically lords with territories on their respective islands.

And that wasn't all. At sea, their fighting strength was enough to hold their own even against the empire, which never fell behind in any war. The captains ruling the islands were all superhumans who had surpassed human limits, like Swordmasters or the barbarians.

In fact, according to the lore, the current generation of captains was far stronger than the last.

As his thoughts reached that point, a question suddenly occurred to Alon.

'... How on earth did Radan kill that superhuman?'

It was a reasonable question, since Radan's talent didn't lie in combat, but before long he came up with an answer of his own.

'It would make sense if Radan had fished out the cream of the crop among the ancient relics.'

An enormous number of ancient relics lay in the sea off Laxas, and plenty of them were ridiculously overpowered. Alon himself had once sunk three whole days into the treasure-hunting minigame to acquire a relic found in those waters.

... Granted, afterward he had grown so sick of the minigame that he never touched it again, but the relic he had earned through all that suffering had certainly been worth the grind.

In other words, if Radan had beaten the captain and taken his position through the sheer power of his gear, that was understandable enough.

“...”

Alon pressed around his eyes with his left hand for a moment, then regained his composure.

In truth, when he sent all the other Sins out into the world, he had allowed for the possibility that something like this might happen. He knew full well that the world wasn't so accommodating that everything would fall neatly into place as he intended.

Even so, it left a strangely bitter taste in his mouth, and he let out a quiet sigh.

... It was summer.

####

Across the sea from Laxas, a vast maritime city and the de facto heart of the Duchy of Corkia, lay seven islands.

Known as the Seven Fleet Isles, they had originally been ruled by the first pirate, Caldean T. Braven, who was now remembered as the Pirate King. But after Caldean died an anticlimactic death from heart disease, the Seven Fleet Isles split into seven separate domains, one for each island, and that system of rule passed down through the generations.

Those were the Seven Fleet Isles now known as a pirates' paradise.

Radan had become captain of First Fleet Isle, the largest of the seven, after killing its former ruler, the pirate Alcride Magni. Through “sacrifices,” Magni had received the Heavenly King's blessing and earned the epithet “Enemy Slayer.”

“...”

Now Radan gazed down over the island, letting out a quiet sigh.

First Fleet Isle was remarkably well laid out for a pirate settlement. Countless houses stood on the ground, while cliffs rose in a ring around the vast island. The houses built atop those cliffs made the whole place look like an enormous fortress.

But it wasn't the island's layout that occupied Radan's thoughts. It was the Great Moon.

'What...is the Great Moon, exactly?'

In truth, Radan had never given the Great Moon much thought. Not because he possessed some deep-rooted loyalty, but simply because he had little interest in him.

That wasn't to say he felt no gratitude. He understood his situation well.

It wasn't difficult to imagine what would have happened without the Great Moon: the slave trader who had captured him would have dragged him away, subjected him to experiments, and ultimately killed him.

Likewise, he knew that if the Great Moon hadn't brought him together with Yutia, he would never have awakened his abilities or gained the power he now possessed.

Even so, gratitude was all Radan felt toward the Great Moon. Rather than following the Great Moon's orders, he felt he was following Yutia's. Even the phrase “Everything for the Great Moon” was merely another of Yutia's instructions to obey.

That was why he had resisted when the first proper order arrived from the Great Moon. Like Seollang before him, he felt that going to Laxas was utterly pointless.

There were far too many people Radan needed revenge against.

He had to avenge his clan, slaughtered to the last member by the black things while living peacefully on an unnamed island unknown to anyone.

And he had to take revenge on the damned hunters who, after he and his parents barely escaped the black things and reached the continent, had taken advantage of their utter exhaustion to kill his parents and sell him into slavery.

To him, becoming a treasure hunter was meaningless. He thought the Great Moon's gift had nothing to do with the revenge he had originally promised.

Until he learned that the captains of the Seven Fleet Isles were the ones who had killed his parents.

“...”

The reason Radan had discovered the truth was simple. Every current captain of the Seven Fleet Isles wielded the power of the Sea God Clan.

The world believed they received the Heavenly King's blessing through “sacrifices.” In reality, they were wielding a power that could only be used by offering up part of one's own body for one's family and receiving strength through a sacred “ritual” from Clyard, the sea god his people worshipped.

The instant he realized that, he ran like a madman to the center of Laxas's square. There, he saw the tattered wanted posters for the Seven Fleet Isles, no longer updated because no one even intended to capture their subjects anymore, and became utterly certain.

The current captains of the Seven Fleet Isles were the men who had killed his parents when he was a child.

They had used his parents' bodies to obtain their power.

At that realization, rage, elation, and bewilderment welled up inside him all at once.

Even after being rescued and working with Blue Moon, Radan had never told anyone his story. Yet the Great Moon had given him an opportunity for revenge, as though everything had been arranged from the outset.

As though he were keeping his promise.

But an opportunity for revenge didn't mean he could act on it immediately. By any objective assessment, he couldn't defeat the captains who now wielded Clyard's power. He was certainly strong, but not strong enough to defeat men who had entered the realm of superhumans.

So he began pondering what to do, and before long he found the answer in the Great Moon's gift.

The gift, called Amrita's Goggles, made the countless relics buried beneath the sea glow, allowing him to find them with ease. Once he discovered that certain relics he excavated were more than sufficient to compensate for his lack of combat strength compared with the captains, he finally realized that all of this had been intentional.

At the same time, he understood the Great Moon's true purpose.

'Take revenge, and seize control of the Seven Fleet Isles.'

The moment Radan realized that, the Great Moon ceased to be someone toward whom he felt only a little gratitude.

Not only had he placed what he had promised Radan right before his eyes, he had even provided the power to take revenge. He had given him everything.

From beginning to end. All of it.

“Everything for the Great Moon.”

Radan murmured the words without realizing it.

Whatever they might mean to others, those words had once been nothing more than an empty phrase to him.

But...

“Everything, for the Great Moon.”

Not anymore.

The phrase was no longer meaningless to Radan.

Now, the words leaving his lips—

“... For the Great Moon.”

—had finally become an expression of trust.

####

About three months had passed since Alon heard that his fifth child(?) had become a Somali pirate.

As the tiresomely hot summer finally drew to a close and the forest began taking on its autumn colors, he boarded a carriage. He was going to attend the Grand Social Gathering hosted by House Rotegr every two years.

'I'd skip it if I could.'

Of course, while his body traveled in the carriage, his heart was filled with that sentiment.

His image as the mastermind of House Pallatio had largely faded after so long without any activity. The problem was that mockery had taken its place.

Still, he had resigned himself to the carriage because there was a rule governing all Asterian nobles concerning the biennial Grand Social Gathering.

Unless they had a truly exceptional reason, they had to attend at least once every two gatherings—a bizarre rule whose purpose he couldn't fathom.

At any rate, that was why Alon was now riding toward the Grand Social Gathering. Before long, he joined up with two other nobles.

This had been planned from the start. Every gathering season brought out mad mercenaries and bandits willing to target nobles, so they traveled together in a larger force from the outset.

As nobles, they had enough guards that even an attack rarely posed much of a problem. But fighting itself meant losing valuable troops, so they increased their numbers in advance.

To prevent anyone from even trying.

With those shared interests, Alon naturally found himself traveling with two other houses setting out from the east. Nothing of note happened that day.

... The problem came that night.

“Count Pallatio, isn't bringing only a single guard a bit much, even for you...? If you couldn't hire any because you're short of funds, I'd be happy to offer a little assistance.”

“Oh dear... I suppose your finances are rather precarious, having inherited your position so suddenly and by chance.”

“...”

Alon stared incredulously at the two nobles who had come all the way over just to mock him openly.