The Ghost Ship Mary Celeste
The skeletons ground to a sudden halt.
Why on earth was this bastard suddenly turning on his own ally?
'Please don't attack...'
I silently prayed that the undead wouldn't pounce on me as I casually walked right up to them.
Then, throwing my arm around the shoulder of the most pathetic-looking skeleton, I raised my cutlass high and roared,
"Follow me!"
—...?
"I said follow me, you boneheads!"
—Clack... clack...?
The skeletons exchanged dumbfounded looks.
What was this?
He was standing on their side, so was he an ally?
Didn't he just attack a human?
He definitely looked like a human, though...?
• The passive skill [Speech] adds persuasiveness to your words!
• The skeletons have fallen into confusion.
• They are debating what to do with you. Due to the skill [Chaos], your Agility temporarily increases by 3.
• You have witnessed your own body burn to ash! Though you have returned from death and are alive, you occasionally exude an aura akin to a corpse!
• You are closer to the undead than any other living human!
'Nice... it's working!'
Skeletons, being the lowest tier of undead, were low in intelligence and highly impulsive.
Confirming that my plan was working, I drove the wedge deeper into the confused undead.
"Follow me!!"
As I dashed forward with my cutlass raised high, the skeletons, who had been staring blankly, began to raise their weapons one by one and follow.
—Clack, clack! Clack-clack-clack!!
Heh-heh-heh! Who cares!
As long as we get to kill more people!
• A horde of skeletons is following you!
• You have achieved the hidden achievement, [Fleshy Novice Undead Commander]! Your Charisma permanently increases by 1!
• The pirates have fallen into confusion upon seeing you lead the undead vanguard! Due to the skill [Chaos], your Luck and Intelligence temporarily increase!
"W-who the hell is that guy?!"
"How is a human working with the undead...!"
"Get that bastard over there!!"
—Clack-clack-clack!! Clack-clack-clack-clack!!!
Now that they had a target, the excited skeletons clattered their jawbones and charged in a swarm.
I mingled with the undead horde and swung my sword. A pirate struck by my blade cried out in frustration,
"Urgh...! You traitor! How can a fellow human take the side of the undead... wait? Why doesn't it hurt—"
"Play along and stay down!"
I kicked the pirate in the stomach, sending him flying.
I had only made a show of slashing him using the flat of my cutlass, but the dull-witted skeletons didn't suspect a thing. They simply scurried in all directions to finish off the lively humans.
After clashing blades a few times without anyone actually getting hurt, the quick-witted pirates caught on to my intentions and began to play along.
"I-if you can't beat 'em, join 'em!! I'm on the side of the undead now!!"
"Raaagh!! Long live the skeletons! Glory to the Lich!"
—Clack! Clack-clack!
'...There are always opportunistic bastards everywhere.'
As the crowd fell into deeper chaos, I felt my stats surge.
Meanwhile, realizing that the skeletons wouldn't attack them as long as they aggressively took the lead, the pirates went even wilder.
"Lord Undead!! There are plenty of fresh humans on the ship next to us!! Let's go slaughter them!"
"W-wait...! Why are you stabbing me?! I'm on your side! Your side!"
"I-I never liked you anyway...! Always talking trash behind my back!"
Madness spread across the deck like a plague.
With every strike of lightning, blades flashed, and unexpected screams erupted from all corners.
One pirate, having lost his weapon, grabbed a skeleton's femur and whacked the person in front of him on the back of the head. Elsewhere, a ghoul snatched a sailor's bandana, put it on, and cackled at its reflection in a puddle.
Black waves as tall as houses crashed down as if to capsize the ship, and the banshee's bloodcurdling wails rattled everyone's skulls.
It was a bizarre sight: pirates who had been at each other's throats just moments ago would find themselves swept up in a wave of bones, only to end up standing back-to-back, protecting one another.
A scene of collective madness!
'I'm the one who started this, but it's an absolute shitshow.'
• A great chaos has arrived!
• Who is ally and who is enemy no longer matters! Morals and ethics do not exist here! Now, this place is ruled by instinct over reason, and impulse over instinct!
• To Antagon, the clown born of disorder, a battlefield rife with slaughter and betrayal is like his own living room! Due to the skill [Chaos], your stats increase significantly!
"Bwahahaha!! Slaughter those bastards!! We need to survive first!"
—Clack! Clack-clack! Clack-clack-clack!
The allied forces of pirates and skeletons swarmed together and began raiding the adjacent ship.
But as the atmosphere grew increasingly feverish, I kept a cool head.
'I can't afford to act rashly.'
They say a bartender never drinks his own liquor.
The person at the center of the madness must take care not to be swept away by the crowd.
They might be roaming around as one right now, but once the slaughter wound down and a high-ranking undead arrived, the situation would change.
If a Death Knight witnessed this chaos, he would undoubtedly execute the ringleaders on the spot to restore order.
'I need to find a lifeboat and get out of here right now...!'
Clang—!
"W-who was that?! The bastard who just hit me on the head... was it you?!"
—Clack! Clack-clack! Clack!
I smacked a pirate on the back of the head, baiting him into a fight with a nearby skeleton, and quietly slipped away from the ranks.
Passing the tangled, rolling bodies of pirates and skeletons, I finally made it to the stern, where the lifeboats were kept.
My sole means of escaping this ship.
But all that remained there were severed ropes whipping emptily in the wind.
Staring blankly down the side of the ship, I saw a few low-ranking pirates already aboard a lifeboat, rowing furiously and cheering.
"Hurry up, everyone!! This ship is doomed!"
"Hehe...! We're saved!! Let's get out of here... wait, what's that?"
"The sea suddenly went dark..."
CRUNCH!!!!
In an instant, a shadow rippled beneath the rowboat, and a massive maw erupted from the depths, swallowing the boat whole.
The pirate crew vanished without a trace, leaving behind nothing but white sea foam.
'Dammit...'
That lifeboat had been my only way off this ship.
Though looking at how that turned out, I would have died even if I had boarded it.
I shuddered at the sheer cruelty of Velheim, which took delight in crushing hope, and racked my brain.
The plan to escape via lifeboat was a bust.
The undead legion was closing in from all sides in real-time.
There was no rescue coming, and house-sized monsters roamed the storm-tossed sea.
Of all the tools at my disposal, what could possibly get me out of this mess?
I pondered as I watched the lightning strike as if to set the ocean ablaze, and the swarming undead.
Then, a sudden idea flashed through my mind like a bolt of lightning.
A method no sane person would ever contemplate.
I muttered with a self-deprecating chuckle,
"Should I just go crazy and stir up even more trouble?"
If you're going to cause a ruckus, you might as well go all the way.
Why do you think the British Empire got away with all its atrocities?
Because they didn't do it half-heartedly; they did it thoroughly.
The option to escape by boat was already blocked.
If I couldn't run, my only choice was to break through the front.
Steeling my resolve, I curled my lips into a fierce smirk and whispered,
"...I need to take control of the ship."
To deceive even the high-ranking undead who would arrive soon, I had to stir up trouble even more thoroughly.
And taking control of the ship was the core of this plan.
And to do that...
I looked up at the structure protruding from a corner of the deck.
The place where the ship's captain, Barbo, would be holed up.
And Barbo could be summarized in a single word:
'Trash.'
The reason the player was imprisoned on this ship in the tutorial was precisely because they had been captured by him.
The fact that he was hiding away alone while his subordinates fought for their lives showed exactly what kind of character he had.
I had to kill him to take control of this ship.
The problem was that the captain's cabin where he was hiding became a completely sealed room once locked from the inside, making it extremely difficult to force open from the outside.
Coaxing a coward who was like a frightened turtle to stick his head out would be incredibly difficult, but fortunately, I had the perfect skill for this.
An active skill of the Rune of Antagon that consumes Mana to alter your appearance into that of a person or monster you have previously defeated.
Though it sounds useful, it has many restrictions. In-game, it was merely a trolling skill used to startle others or to PK unsuspecting newbies in low-level zones by disguising as a deer. It was one of the reasons the Rune of Antagon was so undervalued. However, if your sole, impure purpose is to stir up trouble, it is superior to any other skill.
I hid behind a mast out of everyone's sight and searched my memories.
'Tyrosh was hunched and thin.'
The basics of disguise lay in mimicking the appearance.
I vividly pictured Tyrosh's appearance in my mind.
The facial wrinkles weathered by the sea breeze, the filthy beard, and the teeth rotted black.
The hunched back of old age and the rolled-in shoulders.
Since he was a character I had seen so often during my gaming days, visualizing his exterior was easy.
• You have disguised yourself as Black Tooth Tyrosh!
• Though old and decrepit, he is still a highly infamous figure among the pirates!
• Because your synchronization with this body is imperfect, your stats are reduced.
It was a strange sensation.
Even though it was clearly my body, my field of vision was lower, and my back wouldn't straighten.
My body's reactions were sluggish, as if I were dead drunk, and executing agile swordsmanship was out of the question.
'Using this body for combat is out of the question.'
I had an intuition that even if I took the body of someone strong instead of Tyrosh, the result would be the same.
Having already known that the [Rune of Antagon] was not suited for direct combat, I paid it no mind and walked over to the captain's cabin, pounding on the door.
"Hey, Barbo! It's Tyrosh!! Open the door, quick!!"
"……."
"You fucking brainless captain! I know you're hiding in there, so open up!! I fled here too!"
"……."
...Tsk, is it not working?
Just as I was about to try another method, a faint voice leaked from inside the door.
"P-password!"
"...Password?"
"P-prove that you're really Tyrosh! T-then I'll let you in!"
"……."
Damn, was there such a thing?
If there was a password the pirates normally used, there was no way for a player to know it.
Instead, I focused on the character of Tyrosh.
'What kind of guy was Tyrosh?'
Wasn't he a hot-tempered veteran with so much seniority that even the captain and other pirates couldn't easily mess with him?
Due to his long life at sea, his speech was coarse, and he was an extremely impulsive man.
The moment I recalled that, I used my wits and kicked the door hard.
SLAM!
"You miserable bastard who deserves to drown in rainwater! Open this door right now! The undead are right at our throats! If I hear the word 'password' come out of your mouth one more time, I'll run my cutlass through your guts and feed you to the fish!"
As I roared in a raspy, hoarse voice, a pair of terrified eyes peeked through the viewport, followed by the clattering sound of a latch being unlocked.
Soon after, a pale man drenched in cold sweat pulled me inside and hurriedly locked the door behind us.
"Phew, thank goodness... T-Tyrosh, it really is you...! I thought the undead were playing tricks on me...!"
"You fool! Did you think I was some fake?!"
"H-eek! Don't shout! What if the skeletons hear you and swarm us! Fuck! A sudden ghost ship raid, does this make any sense?! Dammit, I knew we shouldn't have raided that cursed merchant ship..."
"...That merchant ship?"
"Yes! That cursed merchant ship where all the crew burned to death!! Didn't some ominous black-haired boy sleep peacefully in its hold? That bastard must have summoned this ghost ship!! He looked as pretty as a girl, so I brought him along thinking I could sell him to some perverted nobles for a high price, but...!"
"……."
"D-dammit...! We shouldn't be doing this, we need to discuss how to escape..."
"Doran."
"What?"
"The boy's name is Doran."
Plunge.
In an instant, a sharp pain tore through Barbo's abdomen.
A blade that carefully and surely snuffed out his life, as if gouging out his entrails.
The last thing the captain saw as he collapsed, clutching his stomach with a look of utter bewilderment, was...
The shimmering afterimage of the evil god Antagon, transforming back into a black-haired young man.