Chapter 64

As they talked further, Turan learned that Tasan's use of “elder brother” meant nothing so grand as becoming sworn brothers. It simply meant that he respected Turan as a person and considered him a better man than himself.

In other words, this did not establish some lord-and-vassal relationship obliging one to obey and the other to protect. Turan had no objection to the man deferring to him, but being called elder brother by someone nearly a hundred years his senior certainly felt bizarre.

Tasan, too, seemed to have regained some composure after his impassioned declaration. Embarrassment and self-reproach now colored his voice.

“Anyway, elder brother... I understand what you want. I'll take responsibility for getting those people home. Naturally, there's no need to pay their passage. Isn't that right!”

“Yes, Captain!”

The officers standing behind Tasan shouted in unison. A few seemed to be sighing over the expense of sending their ships back and forth, but they appeared to be trying not to let it show. Turan, however, shook his head and objected.

“No. I'd feel more comfortable giving you something.”

If he could not eradicate piracy from the South Sea, it would at least be better for the more decent pirates to prosper. But if Tasan sent the abducted people home for nothing, the Red Whale Pirates' finances would suffer, and their strength would inevitably decline with them.

More importantly, if Turan later discovered they had failed to do the job properly and came to punish them, couldn't they plead the need to make a living? He wanted to leave no room even for that excuse.

“Wouldn't the ship we came on be enough?”

He had initially intended to use the minerals obtained on the island, but on reflection, the ship seemed a better substitute. It was smaller and shabbier than the one he had sold in the North Sea, but a sailing ship was still a sailing ship.

Tasan adamantly refused, insisting there was no need. But when one of his sharper-looking officers earnestly appealed to him about their finances, he soon accepted with a dejected look.

“Ahem. It's embarrassing to accept payment for doing the right thing, but refusing would trample on my young elder brother's dignity. I'll do plenty of good deeds from now on so you won't regret giving us the ship!”

“That's all I ask.”

And so ended a peculiar negotiation in which the giver tried to give more and the recipient tried to accept less.

* * *

Once their discussion was over, Turan had the people aboard the pirate ship disembark and rest on the island. Some whose homes were far away might face quite a long voyage, and they needed to recover their strength first.

A few of them, mostly women, said they had no confidence they could make a life for themselves even if they went home, and asked to follow Turan instead. But ordinary people would be little more than cumbersome burdens to a man traveling alone. Once he distributed enough money for them to settle down wherever they chose, they tearfully accepted his decision.

Turan did not spend the rest period idling, either. First, he extracted information about the Covinus Pirates from the pirates he had brought from Parayan Island. Cross-checking it against information from the Red Whale Pirates taught him a great deal, from their organizational structure and defenses to the abilities and equipment of their leader and officers.

Meanwhile, whenever he had time, he used stealth to roam the Red Whale Pirates' base and spy on their internal affairs. He expected that, among themselves, they would show sides they concealed from guests. Fortunately, he was able to conclude that they were not particularly two-faced.

Of course, some of the rank-and-file and mid-ranking pirates resented Tasan's policies and secretly wanted to indulge in murder and plunder. But at least that was not the prevailing sentiment. Had there been not a single person like that, Turan would have suspected magical brainwashing.

Even amid all this activity, he occasionally joined Tasan for drinks to build their friendship. In doing so, he learned something surprising.

“Solif came here?”

“He did! A true man's man.”

Tasan nodded, looking nostalgic. It had even been the Red Whale Pirates who told him about the saltpeter on Parayan Island, though they had not known at the time that the miners were abducted laborers.

“He said he'd come because he was curious about my bloodline ability. Apparently he was looking for someone strong who could swim well.”

Solif had been disappointed to discover that Tasan merely possessed an ordinary Strongman bloodline. Nevertheless, they had become friends and spent several days drinking together.

Turan thought he knew what Solif had been looking for. One of the bloodlines contained in the Mimic Holy Relic was called Waverider.

And from their earlier conversation, Solif had learned somewhere that one of the drowned god's bloodline abilities granted exceptional physical prowess and swimming skill, and was searching for the god's descendants. Though if any descendants truly remained, they would surely have been widely known by now, so his search seemed to be heading in the wrong direction.

Three days passed in this flurry of activity. With everything more or less settled, Turan announced his intention to leave.

“Will you really be all right alone, young elder brother?”

“Yes. Having someone with me would only make things more troublesome.”

Tasan groaned, plainly unconvinced, but Turan truly found it easier to be alone. That way, he could freely use his stealth ability and the Spirit of Fire.

Before leaving, Turan offered Tasan some advice that doubled as a warning.

“Some of your men may have other ideas, so make sure they know this. I'll check later to see whether the people I protected made it home safely. If anything goes wrong, they'll have made an enemy of a wizard strong enough to destroy the Covinus Pirates single-handedly.”

“I'll remember that,” Tasan replied solemnly.

* * *

Naturally, since the Covinus Pirates' territory lay toward Parayan Island, Turan had to head northwest again. The journey had taken three full days by ship, but flying with Vije brought him back in a matter of hours. However much he used wind to speed a ship along, there was an enormous fundamental difference between sailing and flying.

The pirates' corpses still lay abandoned on Parayan Island; apparently news of their annihilation had yet to spread. After confirming this, Turan continued north, stopping on islands several times to compare his position with the nautical chart he had memorized. Despite a few wrong turns, he found his first objective late that evening.

'This is Mikan Island, and the one over there is Binatu Island... Good. I'm nearly there.'

The Covinus Pirates had three main bases. Their arrangement formed a perfect triangle on the map, earning them the name Three Brothers Islands. Covinus and his officers normally sailed back and forth between the three, so Turan would have to visit them to find out where they were.

Flying over one of them, Binatu Island, Turan activated the Holy Relic's senses. There were roughly two hundred pirates, ten knights, and one noble...

At first he wondered whether the noble might be Covinus, but the man's mana was far too weak for that. He was barely above the minimum threshold for a noble. He was probably one of the senior officers.

After spending a considerable time analyzing with his eyes closed, Turan concluded that there were no civilians at the base.

'Good. Let's make this quick.'

Simply charging in and beating them to death would not be particularly difficult. But he intended to annihilate his unsuspecting enemies before the night was over, so he needed to conserve his mana and stamina. The best way to conserve both was to expend a different resource instead.

Turan instructed Vije to circle the base, then began scattering the Spirit of Fire. Now that he had a plentiful supply of hundreds of kilograms, there was no reason to hold back.

Hidden by the darkness, the pitch-black powder fell from the sky and spread on his wind magic throughout the pirates' quarters. Then came the explosion. A hideously loud roar, light, and flames erupted, collapsing buildings and bursting the pirates' bodies apart.

Turan continued setting off explosions, using the Holy Relic's senses to ensure none of the fleeing men escaped him.

Two hundred, a hundred and fifty, a hundred, fifty... The last survivors were three or four knights and a single noble hiding in the stone fortress at the center of the base. A few handfuls of the Spirit of Fire had spared him the labor of killing hundreds of scattered men one by one.

'It really is harder to kill people indoors. And if stone buildings have thick enough walls, I can't completely destroy them...'

It felt easy to extend the range of an explosion using the Spirit of Fire, but difficult to increase its intensity. After all, even the first time he had seen it, an entire sackful had exploded without killing him outright.

Committing this new information to memory, Turan entered the ruined pirate base with Vije. The corpses inside the central fortress were at least intact, perhaps thanks to the stone ceilings and walls. Blood ran from their eyes and ears; the pressure of the explosions had probably killed them.

In its deepest chamber, he found the surviving knights and lone noble.

“Y-you are...?”

Looking at the noble with his half-burned mustache and trident magic tool, Turan recalled the information he had obtained from the Parayan Island pirates. His name was Vagos, a noble of a water-controlling bloodline and one of Covinus's trusted men.

“Where is Covinus? Tell me and I'll give you an easy death.”

“Why would someone as powerful as you launch an attack like this?”

“Because I don't like what you people do.”

Turan did not tell them that they were dying merely because they had abducted a few people and forced them to work. Dying for an even more absurd reason would make their despair all the greater. Vagos's eyes widened as he screamed.

“Bullshit! I'll die before I betray our big brother! Everyone, atta—”

Before he could finish, explosions sent the knights around him tumbling in all directions. Turan had carried small amounts of the Spirit of Fire on the wind and detonated them precisely in front of their bodies. His recent field test had taught him how much was needed to kill a knight. None survived.

Vagos, too, was rolling across the floor, but unlike the others, he had not been caught in an explosion. A sling shot Turan had prepared in advance had torn off one of his legs, leaving him no chance to use his prized trident magic tool or his water magic. Turan seized the helpless man's head and spoke.

“Now you're the only one left.”

“U-ugh!”

Vagos looked terrified, not daring even to attempt resistance. How could this man still have so much strength after unleashing such tremendous magic over and over? He had to be among the strongest even in a great house. No, perhaps he was a monster on par with a House Head. Unaware that the explosions had not been produced by mana alone, Vagos could reach no other conclusion.

Yet even before such an opponent, he gritted his teeth and held firm.

“I won't... betray my big brother...”

“Is that so.”

Turan looked down at Vagos with cold eyes, then broke his neck. Corrupt shepherd though the man was, Turan chose to respect his determination to remain loyal to his own.

* * *

Contrary to his expectations, there was little wealth stored in the ruins on Binatu Island. Presumably most of it was aboard Covinus's flagship or in warehouses on whichever island he occupied.

After dispersing the nobles' and knights' mana and gathering the valuables, Turan sank the handful of ships he could not take with him anyway, then flew straight to the second island. Unfortunately, Covinus was not there either.

'Should I call this bad luck or good luck?'

He was whittling down his enemy's forces before they could prepare, but he had actually hoped to kill Covinus immediately, cut off his head, and then mop up the disorganized rabble. However much Spirit of Fire he possessed, it remained a finite resource. Using mana was preferable.

By the time he had bombarded two islands and rested enough to replenish his mana, it was already deep into the predawn hours. If Covinus was not at the next island either, he was probably sailing somewhere, and things would become quite a nuisance.

'Just be there this time, will you?'

With that thought, Turan arrived at his third and final destination, Deben Island, only to frown at the presences he sensed. One noble on par with Solif, three weaker than that but stronger than Turan, and seven weaker than Turan but still equal to ordinary House Heads...

'What is this now?'

No matter how he considered it, that was an absurd level of strength for a band of pirates. A force like that could deal a meaningful blow even to the Dark Elf subjugation force Maysa had led. Had a mere pirate possessed such power, he would long since have unified the South Sea and established a great house.

Turan landed on the island's shore, dug a small burrow, and hid Vije inside. He was worried some noble might capture her as had happened before.

“I'll be back soon, but even if I don't come, don't leave until you're really hungry. Once you come out, get away from this island. Understand?”

[Be careful!]

Finally, after leaving plenty of jerky and water, Turan activated his stealth and slipped inland. Naturally, a band of pirates had made no preparations against Zahar's stealth ability, and he entered the fortress without difficulty.

Checking their presences, he found that most of the nobles seemed to be sleeping together upstairs. Only two remained belowground. The strongest noble's presence came from below.

'Let's check down there first...'

For several minutes he moved slowly, wary of a repeat of his discovery by Lida. When he reached the dungeon beneath the fortress, his eyes widened at a wholly unexpected sight.

'What's that?'

The first thing he saw was a young noble lounging against the bars. Beyond them, astonishingly, lay Solif, a battered wreck and tightly bound.