Chapter 4: Let’s Surrender Before We Lose

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Despite Cory’s reservations, the trebuchet was assembled with practiced movements—as if they had done this many times before.

The sail was removed and used to make a sturdy sling. Then, the chopped length of the mast was secured to the railing of the forecastle deck by its yard pole.

Butcha brought three cannons over to serve as the counterweight and Lightning tied the makeshift sling to the lowered end of the mast.

Captain Regi pointed the trebuchet at the warship closest to The Wingless while the other pirate dipped a cannonball into a barrel of oil.

As a learned NEET from the 21st century who studied physics, he knew what the pirates were trying to do. But it would have been the better if the pirates fired one of the cannons that now served as the counterweight.

‘D-Don’t the cannons work just as well?’ he asked even though it was too late.

Captain Regi turned to him with a smile as Lightning yelled, ’Take aim!’

Big Beard lit a match and dropped it into the sling. Fire enveloped the cannonball. Cory could feel the heat of the flames from where he stood.

‘We ran out of gunpowder,’ she replied. ‘There’s only enough left for our guns.’

‘…’

You don’t even use a gun!

The pirate captain turned back to her men and hollered cheerfully, ‘Fire!’

Butcha and Lightning, who were sitting on the mast to keep the counterweight in the air, jump down and everyone bolted out of the way.

The fiery cannonball flew through the air in a big, flaming arc and landed with a large splash…into the sea behind the enemy vessel.

‘My bad,’ Lightning said in the speechless silence that followed, ‘I made the sling too long.’

Captain Regi pursed her lips, but only for a moment. A cheerful smile lit up on her face once again. ’Oh well,’ she said, ‘it was better than last time.’

Last time?!

Hiddel Navy soldiers raised their swords and roared with renewed vigour, charging once more at the baffled pirates who were still trying to wrap their heads around what just happened.

Lightning was just about to ask Captain Regi what to do next when the female pirate leapt forward and jumped onto the railing in one step.

A cable shot out of the silver vambrace around her wrist and wrapped around the tip of the main mast. A well-placed tug sent her flying through the air, much like the fiery cannonball from before.

Only, unlike that cannonball, she landed squarely in front of the soldier who was about to cut her one-eyed bosun in two.

Her thin, silver cutlass drew a shiny arc through the air and clashed heavily with the soldier’s broadsword, forcing it to a stop.

The soldier’s eyes widened in shock.

The lithe, amber-haired girl smiled up at him. ‘Don’t attack my crew anymore. Put your swords away; we’re surrendering.’

Her iron cable released its grip around the mast and slithered back into the depths of her vambrace.

A stunned silence washed over the Hiddel Navy soldiers and the pirates.

Cory blinked in confusion.

‘Did ye hear Cap’n Regi say we’re gunna surrender or was it just me?’ Butcha asked Lightning blankly.

‘I heard it,’ the first mate replied. ‘I’m not dreaming, am I?’

‘But we hasn’t lost the battle yet,’ Big Beard complained. ‘Why are we surrendering now?’

Lightning blinked, an unreadable expression on his face.

According to her in-game profile, Regi was one of the best pirates in the world, always able to extricate herself out of impossible situations and emerge victorious in unexpected ways.

Not once in the entire storyline of the game did she ever surrender to her arch-enemy, the Hiddel Navy.

But now, in a sea battle right in front of his eyes, Captain Regi…surrendered?

There had to be a bug somewhere! Why did the real Regi seem like even more of a disappointment than the MMO’s version of her?

Thus, the epic sea battle that was building up with exciting fervour ended with the best pirate of Questasis getting cuffed and chained like cannon fodder.

The rest of her crew were likewise divested of their weapons and tied up together.

And Cory?

He was mistaken as one of the crew and bound alongside the disgruntled, sweaty pirates.

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