The Dragon Came Out and Breathed... Uh... Yeah, Breathed...
“A-a dragon came out and used its breath... uh... I mean, its breath...” one of the players muttered in a daze.
He was live streaming at that very moment.
Normally, his viewers loved him for how funny and quick-witted he was, but right now he was stammering.
The sight in front of him was just that shocking.
The comments on the stream were total chaos.
Truth be told, the player streaming hadn’t put much thought into it in the first place.
When the pirates had come swarming in and captured them, he’d figured he was done for.
Ah, damn. Guess I’ll die once and restart...
The penalty hurt, but it was already too late.
So he gave up and started streaming.
Getting captured by pirates was still pretty entertaining content, after all.
“Move it, move it!”
“No, why are you doing this to us?! Do you know how hard we worked?!”
The players protested the pirates’ suddenly changed behavior.
One of the pirates cleared his throat and said,
“Those merchant bastards deceived us.”
“What?”
“Too bad. You worked hard, and for that, I do feel sorry. But you’ll be hostages. If those merchant bastards keep acting arrogant...”
He didn’t have to finish the sentence. Everyone could guess the rest.
Fortunately, the pirates’ attitude wasn’t that bad.
Which meant the players’ hard labor on this island hadn’t been for nothing.
Still, prisoners were prisoners.
The players grumbled and began talking among themselves.
“What do we do? I don’t think we can stay here like this.”
“Should we just die once?”
“The merchant group might come rescue us.”
“Yeah, right. If they were willing to spend money for our sake, this wouldn’t have happened in the first place!”
“What do they mean the merchant group tricked the pirates? What the hell did they do?”
“Maybe they sold them fake goods or something?”
“What’s the point of figuring that out? We need to think about how we’re getting out first!”
“How are we supposed to get out on our own? None of us are combat classes.”
That was true.
Most of the classes gathered here were non-combat types—arts and crafting classes.
Tae-hyun going around carving up rankers with a blacksmith class was the weird part. Normally, most people like them had no confidence in fighting at all.
And it wasn’t as if this was some easy place, either. This was the island of the Caterand Pirates.
“Wouldn’t it be better to keep working here a little longer, get a quest from the pirates, and leave that way instead of trying to escape and dying for nothing?”
“That... actually makes sense.”
Sure, they were prisoners, but if they stayed, the pirates would obviously hand out quests eventually.
If they solved those diligently, their standing within the pirate crew would rise, and once that happened, all sorts of options might open up.
Whatever happened, it was better than dying during an escape attempt.
“Then I’ll just get back to work. I still have something the pirates ordered me to finish earlier...”
“Oh. I’ll go too!”
The players started pulling out their equipment one by one.
That was when someone spoke.
It was Kim Ji-sahn.
“He’ll come.”
“...?”
“He’ll come save us.”
“Who?”
“Kim Tae-hyun.”
For a moment, everything went quiet.
Then laughter burst out.
“Puhahaha!”
“Khahaha!”
Kim Ji-sahn asked, flustered,
“Why are you laughing?”
“What? You weren’t joking?”
“I wasn’t...”
At that, the others’ expressions stiffened.
He wasn’t joking?
“No, seriously, why would that guy come save us?”
“Exactly. If he were that kind of person, would he have tricked us into coming here in the first place?”
Kim Ji-sahn hesitated, then awkwardly tried to explain.
“Th-that was just... he didn’t explain everything.”
“Explain more or explain less, doesn’t matter. He’s not coming. If there was trouble, he probably ran.”
“He didn’t get caught, did he? Lucky bastard. Always conveniently somewhere else when stuff like this happens.”
“Seriously. He should’ve suffered with us.”
The others kept grumbling, but Kim Ji-sahn didn’t waver.
He believed in Tae-hyun.
Not because Tae-hyun was kind or benevolent.
Judging by the way he does things, there’s no way he’s the type to run just because trouble pops up!
Once he set his sights on something, he was the sort of madman who’d see it through no matter what happened.
That was the Kim Tae-hyun Ji-sahn knew.
And a person like that would run because of a little trouble?
No.
He would definitely come back.
And he had to come back.
Otherwise how am I supposed to learn blacksmithing from him?!
There weren’t many people in the world who could wait and believe that desperately—but then again, there weren’t many people who were owed something they wanted that badly.
“Ugh. I’m telling you, he’s not coming. Stop saying stupid crap and just clear quests. That’s what’s profitable.”
“He’ll come!”
“Then why don’t we make a bet?”
“A bet? What kind of bet?”
“If that guy really comes to rescue us, I’ll skip the boat and swim back to the mainland myself!”
“?!”
Kim Ji-sahn panicked.
Seeing that, the other man sneered.
“See? Don’t spout nonsense and just do your quests.”
“Fine! And if he doesn’t come, then I’ll be the one swimming!”
The people around them watched the exchange with great interest.
It was someone else’s problem, after all.
And when one of two people was definitely going to end up in the ocean, forced to swim all the way back to land, how could that not be entertaining?
But then things started taking a very strange turn.
Loud noises erupted all over the island, followed by the sounds of buildings collapsing...
And finally, a dragon appeared.
“?!?!”
“What the hell is that?!”
“Th-that’s a dragon, right?”
It wasn’t just the players who were shocked.
The pirates around them freaked out too.
“Aaaagh!”
“It’s a dragon!”
“Save me!”
The dragon’s mere presence was enough to throw the pirates into total confusion.
The pirates guarding the players split up and started running for their lives.
“Hey! Where are you going?!”
“Get back here, you bastards!”
A few pirate vice-captains shouted after their men, but the pirates had already descended into full panic and bolted in every direction.
Some ran toward where Denelson was, while others sprinted straight for the cliffs and hurled themselves into the sea.
The players could only stare in confusion.
“What is this?”
“Do we make a run for it now?”
“With what boat?”
“The pirates are scattered. Maybe we beat some of them down and steal one...”
“Aren’t there still pirates in other parts of the island?”
Then dragon breath began pouring down over the island.
KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWAAAANG—!
Everyone present gaped.
It was a sight none of them had ever seen before.
The island fortress, once so solid and sturdy, was being torn to pieces.
The player who was streaming stammered again.
“A-a dragon came out and used its breath... uh... I mean, its breath...”
Cough, cough, cough!
“You’re okay, right?”
“I-I’m fine... cough.”
This feels ominous somehow.
Tae-hyun fell into thought as he watched the Gold Dragon keep coughing dryly.
Coughing like that definitely wasn’t normal.
Still, thanks to the dragon, the situation had been completely overturned.
A storm of dragon breath had blasted across the entire island, and most of the fortress had been wrecked.
Once the kingdom navy arrived, they’d be thrilled to board and mop up.
Sure, there were still pirates down underground, but compared to the kingdom navy arriving fresh and battle-ready, they had no chance.
No matter how strong the pirates were, the kingdom navy wasn’t weak either.
“Khh... khhngh...”
When the breath attack ended and the dust it had kicked up finally cleared, someone could be seen kneeling on one side.
It was Denelson.
“You’re still alive?!”
Tae-hyun blinked in shock.
Strong or not, surviving that storm of dragon breath was ridiculous.
Grinding his teeth, Denelson tore a necklace from around his neck.
The necklace, marked with a strange pattern, gave off a faint blue glow before cracking apart with a sharp snap.
So he was wearing an expensive item.
Tae-hyun roughly understood what it was.
If he had survived dragon breath, that meant the necklace had held some kind of absurdly powerful defensive magic.
And since it broke, it was probably a consumable. Makes sense. If something could block dragon breath and still be permanent, that’d be completely busted.
“Who the hell are you?”
Denelson looked tattered.
The necklace had protected him, and the pirate mages had layered several defensive spells over him on top of that, yet the dragon breath had still been overwhelmingly powerful.
His HP had dropped drastically, and almost every item he had been wearing was destroyed.
Even the elite pirates who had been so strong were all dead.
The elite crew once called the Nightmare of the Sea had been wiped out just like that.
“Who am I?”
“Yeah. Who are you? What kind of monster brings a dragon here?!”
Denelson screamed and slashed his blade.
Tae-hyun lightly jumped off the ship and landed on the island.
He’d already created the situation he needed. Now it was time to collect the results.
The pirates were in ruins, and Denelson was down to just one weapon.
No matter how strong Denelson was, Tae-hyun still had Rufo and the Gold Dragon behind him.
If they fought now, it was a guaranteed win.
Kaka-kang!
Denelson blocked Tae-hyun’s sword and stepped back.
His movements were on a completely different level from ordinary pirates.
His evasive footwork was insanely agile.
“I admit it—I underestimated you. I admit you’ve won. But I, Denelson, will never die alone! I’ll drag you to the underworld with me!”
Pirate Captain Denelson has activated Pirate’s Curse!
This is an unavoidable curse.
You failed to evade it.
“?!”
A dark red chain appeared around Denelson’s wrist, then shot forward in an instant and wrapped itself around Tae-hyun’s wrist.
It looked ominous at a glance.
“What the... this is some clingy drowned-ghost crap...”
Tae-hyun cursed and glared at Denelson.
If the guy was handsome, then he should at least die cleanly like a handsome man. What was with this creepy vengeful-spirit nonsense?
Don’t tell me if he dies, I die too?
There was no way the curse was that absurd.
If he dies, maybe I take huge damage. Or maybe I can’t remove the curse until I kill him. Something like that?
Even Divine Authority hadn’t let him avoid it, and neither had his Luck. It had to be one nasty curse.
Seeing Tae-hyun falter, Denelson grinned in satisfaction.
“Khahahaha! Die!”
As Denelson swung his blade, blue streams of aura rose up and lashed at him like whips from every direction.
Can’t dodge?
If it had been an attack from one direction, he could have read it and dodged.
But a simultaneous attack from all sides, with nowhere to escape to, was impossible to evade normally.
Then forward it is.
Tae-hyun gave up on dodging and charged straight in.
The aura whips Denelson fired lashed across Tae-hyun’s back.
Evade successful.
Evade successful.
Critical hit!
“Kkh!”
His leg sliced open by Tae-hyun’s sword, Denelson cursed and stumbled backward.
Normally he would have dodged, but his movement had slowed while he was using the skill.
“A strange sword and strange techniques. For a cook.”
“What? Ah, sure. A cook... if that makes you feel better, go ahead.”
Tae-hyun slowly circled sideways again, keeping his eyes locked on Denelson.
The basics of fighting were simple: do what your opponent hated most.
And what would Denelson hate most right now?
The leg again.
“You little bastard!”
Denelson spat curses and thrust at him, but Tae-hyun pushed in anyway, fully prepared to take a hit if necessary, and slashed Denelson’s leg again.
Weak point struck
Hit the same spot you already hit.
Sure enough, blood was now pouring from Denelson’s left leg.