Bone Armour Rises Over Blue Harbor
Contact with the outposts, barracks, and every other garrison guarding the island had been severed as if it had never existed at all. Blue Harbor's entire defensive capability had, for all practical purposes, gone dark — and with every passing minute, the situation would only grow worse.
"We've lost contact with Count Finch as well."
The head butler heaved a long, deep sigh.
"It seems he's engaged the pirates in battle — or has run into trouble of his own."
At those words, the maids murmured among themselves, faces drained of color. Even the Old One family's necromancer, their single greatest asset, could not be reached. The situation had tipped from dire into despair.
"Just as the Kizen student said. Something has happened to the base itself."
The naval commander finally abandoned the radio and tucked the receiver into his jacket pocket.
"But the troops still on the ground will be fighting. I'll do what I can — gather whatever survivors remain and establish a defensive line."
Shring!
The commander drew the sword at his hip, and the other soldiers followed suit, blades whispering free of their scabbards.
Then it was the butler's turn to speak.
"Then we shall secure an escape route—"
"Taking a ship off the island right now would be more dangerous, not less. The pirates are bound to have blockaded the waterways."
Simon said.
"Every outpost and the entire naval force has been neutralized, completely and perfectly. This is a plan that was prepared long in advance, down to the last detail."
"Hm."
The air around them grew heavy. The commander spoke again.
"I agree with the Kizen student. If the coastal outposts have all fallen, there's nowhere to run. Our only choice is to hold this island."
He said it while looking straight at Simon.
"Kizen student. Might I ask for your help? With you on our side, it would make all the difference in the world—"
"I'm perfectly willing."
Simon gave a wry smile and glanced down at Shun, who was still clinging to his leg for dear life. Simon was on bodyguard duty; Shun's protection came before everything else.
"Simon."
"Yes, my lord."
"I'm... I'm fine."
Shun peeled himself away from Simon and slapped his own cheeks, once, twice. Then he set his jaw, resolve hardening his eyes.
"As the lord of Blue Harbor — and as your client — I'm asking you this. Forget my safety. Save the people."
A low murmur rippled through the onlookers. Simon crouched down until his eyes were level with the boy's.
"Shun. I've got a bad feeling about this. Someone might be after you."
"Saving the townspeople comes first. I'll pay whatever additional fee you want. Please."
Trembling, Shun bowed his head.
"Please save Blue Harbor. And everyone in it."
"..."
He had made up his mind. Small and young as he still was, the boy had genuinely earned the count's title — Simon couldn't help but think so.
Simon bowed his head in return.
"I will follow your orders, my lord."
They split their strength three ways. Shun, the head butler, and the family's guests would fall back to the mansion and fortify it — that side already had defensive facilities of its own, and butlers who could fight. The naval commander would head for the barracks with his soldiers; rounding up the scattered troops and rebuilding their fighting strength was the urgent priority.
And Simon—
Thud. Thud.
—was walking alone toward the beach where the pirate ships had first made landfall. Of the three ships, he had judged the largest and most ornate to be the most likely home of the captain. Take out the captain, and the rest of the rabble would collapse on their own. Combine what remained of Blue Harbor's naval forces with that, and the situation could still be salvaged.
Pier! Can you hear me?
Ever since the pirates had launched their attack, Pier's avatar had gone silent. Evidently the other side had been swept up in the chaos even before Simon was.
I'll do what I can do first, then.
Past the mansion and into the streets of Blue Harbor proper, a vision of hell spread out before him. The beautiful city had been pounded into a sea of flames by bombardment, and from every direction rose agonized screams and the desperate cries of those dragging themselves through the wreckage.
Simon pressed on through the choking smoke and searing heat, and at last he spotted a crowd of townspeople huddled near a fountain. A handful of sailors were holding the line against the pirates, but hopelessly outnumbered, they crumbled after barely any resistance at all.
"Please! Not that — anything but that! It was my father's—!"
"Gets on my nerves."
A man who had clung to his father's keepsake, begging, was kicked brutally to the ground.
It was pillage in its rawest form, stripped of every pretense. The pirates ransacked buildings at will, pocketing anything of value, and the moment anyone showed resistance they swung their weapons without a flicker of hesitation.
"Hey, hey! You gonna drop the sword or what?"
"You filthy—!"
Simon caught sight of a lone sailor facing off against the pirates. They were holding a blade to a hostage's throat, sneering.
"Huh? Really not dropping it?"
Splutch!
A pirate behind them swung his blade, and a hostage burst open and crumpled.
"KYAAAAAH!"
"Honey!!"
"Still not dropping it?"
Next an old man fell, spraying blood; then a young man after him. The hostages wailed, paralyzed with terror. This was no ordinary hostage gambit — they were spending prisoner lives like pocket change.
The pirates were playing games.
These bastards are completely out of their minds.
The sailor shook where he stood. For all he knew, more would die in the time it took him to close the distance. He lowered his stance and made a show of laying his sword down.
"W-wait! I'll drop it! I'm dropping it, so just calm—"
Crack!
In that instant, a pirate who had crept around behind him clubbed him across the back of the head. The sailor dropped where he stood.
"KA-HAHA!"
"Easy! Too easy!"
The pirates swarmed in and began stomping the fallen sailor, one-sided and merciless.
"Can't even tell a war from a border skirmish, huh? A few damn hostages croaking means you come IN, you idiots!"
"Fat, lazy bastards, spoiled rotten by peace!"
From behind a building, Simon watched it all and bit his lip until it ached.
Dropping a few pirates would be trivial. But if he rushed in carelessly, the hostages' lives were forfeit.
Worse — down one of the alleys, among the kneeling prisoners, sat a keg of explosives. The pirates had ordered the hostages to hug the keg, and now the townspeople huddled around it in a shivering knot, trembling like leaves.
[Boy! Can you hear me!]
Just then, Pier's avatar finally spoke into Simon's mind.
Pier! Why so late?
[A pirate ship came at us from this side! I'm fighting right now!]
Will you be all right on your own?
[Krahaha! A trifle like this? Barely worth swinging at! But more to the point — you succeeded at Bone Armour with a summon-type skeleton for the first time yesterday. Am I right?]
Yes! I did. Why do you ask?
The corner of Pier's avatar's mouth curled upward.
[Then I hereby give my permission! Try Bone Armour with a legionified undead. Freely! Without restraint!]
And that was the end of Pier's message. Whether he had plunged back into the fray, his voice cut off there.
Alright.
He had no idea what Pier was playing at, but there was nothing for it except to see it through.
Simon called out a great number of legionified skeletons from his subspace, and then summoned the mental imagery that would sharpen his concentration.
I can't focus.
He could see embers tumbling on the wind, drifting down.
Still too fast.
Simon clenched his teeth.
His heart soared. As though his consciousness had leapt clean out of his body, his senses began to sharpen, finer and finer.
Slow down. Slow down. Slow down.
Slowly — but surely — the falling embers lost speed, until they drifted past like slow motion.
Simon nodded once, and slowly stepped out from behind the building.
Crack!
Wham!
The man who'd had his father's memento torn from him was being kicked over and over by the pirate. Simon's rage flared, and his right arm shot out toward them.
Bone Armour!
The bodies of two skeletons rattled apart into pieces, and the bones went flying straight for the man.
"Wh-what the—?!"
The pirate stumbled backward in alarm.
The flying bones began latching onto the man's body one by one. Arms, legs, chest — bones snapped into alignment, linking together in tight, precise order.
And only then did Simon understand.
Why Pier had forbidden him from practicing Bone Armour with legion-type skeletons.
This is so much easier!
He had never needed to practice with these at all.
Each legion-type skeleton possessed a vivid, distinct ego of its own — and each one knew exactly which points to seek out and lock into. All Simon had to do was coordinate the whole. It felt as though he simply completed the blueprint in his head, and the skeletons read it and assembled themselves accordingly.
Master Bone Armour with summon-type skeletons, and mastery of the legion-type would follow naturally.
Clack!
Clack!
Clink!
The man inside the bone armour swayed unsteadily. Into the gaps of the pitted, hole-riddled bone shell, bones flew in from the air and slotted home with crisp, percussive precision — like precision-machined blocks.
The man looked down at himself, bewildered. Some unknown point in the last few seconds, his entire body had been sheathed head to toe in armour made of bone.
"Wh-what did you do to me!"
The panicked pirate stomped down on the man's chest — but thanks to the bone armour, the man felt nothing at all.
Then the man's body moved on its own, and his fist smashed into the pirate's face.
BOOOM!
With an impact like a cannonball, the pirate gushed blood from his nose, spun three full revolutions in midair, and skidded across the ground, teeth scattering and flashing in the sunlight.
"Hey! What the hell happened!"
A fellow pirate came sprinting over at the sight.
Crack!
This time the fishmonger belted him across the back of the head. The pirate's head rammed clean into the wooden crate beside him and stuck there.
"I-I didn't do anything! Why is my body moving on its—?!"
Shfffff!
The Bone Armour covering the fishmonger peeled away as though shed from within and streaked off toward its next destination.
"KYAAAAH!"
"Hold still, will ya!"
"Please, don't do this!"
A vicious-looking pirate was toying with a woman tourist, leering, tongue flicking, mind drowned in base appetite as he pawed at her clothes — and then skeleton bones began snapping onto her body, clack clack clack.
"I said knock it off!!"
Sobbing, she flailed her hand up and slapped the pirate across the cheek.
And then—
BOOOM!
The pirate's body soared several meters into the air and crashed back down to the ground.
The woman clapped both hands over her mouth, staring at her own palm in utter disbelief.
"Kill this bastard right now!"
"Stomp him!"
Simon's arm was a blur of motion. Bones streaked toward the sailor too — the one sprawled on the ground being trampled one-sidedly after the blow to his head — and dressed him in Bone Armour.
"Uh, uhh? This bastard's getting up!"
"He's still got strength left?!"
Five grown men were stomping him down, and yet the sailor was pushing himself up off the ground, palms flat against the stones. No matter how they kicked, all they bruised was their own feet.
"RRRRGGH!"
With a strangled roar, the sailor heaved them all off. The pirates went flying like bowling pins and tumbled across the ground.
"You little—!"
One pirate charged in, sword flashing.
But with a bright ting!, the blow skated harmlessly off the Bone Armour the sailor wore. It was as though the armour itself were alive, moving to meet every strike.
"No way! What the hell IS that thing!!"
The moment he felt the pirates' attacks simply stop working, courage came flooding out of the sailor in a torrent. He seized a pirate by the head and drove him straight down into the ground.
CRUNCH!
The floor tiles shattered as the pirate's head buried itself in them.
"Ha... hahahaha!"
Impossible strength. The sailor stared down at his own body, hardly able to believe it was his.
"Move it, you—!"
A young woman leapt three meters into the air and drove a flying kick into a pirate, sending his body crashing through the wooden house behind him.
"You garbage perverts! You're all DEAD!"
Crunch!
The florist hoisted the carriage he used every day over his head barehanded and began swinging it through the pirates like a club.
"Finally! The strength of my youth awakens! Back in my day, I'll have you know—!"
A great counterattack by the townspeople had erupted out of nowhere. Ordinary citizens who had been taking a one-sided beating were now, the instant a skeleton's bones were draped over them, wielding monstrous strength and overwhelming the pirates outright.
"Y-you bastards!"
One pirate bolted toward the powder keg where the prisoners were huddled and raised the torch in his hand.
"All of you, on your knees, you lunatics! Or I'll burn the whole lot—"
Shlk.
The pirate's eyes rolled back, and he dropped straight to the ground.
It was the old man — one of the hostages — who had crushed the back of his skull. Clapping the dust from his palms, the old man looked down at the Bone Armour sheathing his gaunt frame and smiled.
"Sir!"
Simon had emerged into the square by then, shouting.
"Please get rid of that thing!"
The old man took one look at Simon and grasped the situation instantly.
"So you're the one who dressed me in this! Understood!"
The old man heaved the powder keg and hurled it into a pile of garbage at the far end of the deserted plaza. With a BOOM!, the keg exploded harmlessly against the rubbish.
"Hngh!"
Simon's concentration peaked, and he swept his arm out to the side. The old man's Bone Armour dissolved and reformed around the body of the man still fighting the pirates.
"I've been waiting for this!"
The man sent a pirate flying with a single uppercut.
Right side.
The armour stripped away from the man and flew through the air once more. A woman clutching a child was falling from a fourth-story building, fleeing the flames.
The Bone Armour wrapped around her body mid-fall — and absorbed the impact of the drop itself. She stood up without a scratch.
Left again.
Recover two suits to the square.
Reinforce the fountain side.
Simon, submerged completely in the flow, was raising his Bone Armour control to the level of art. His arm moved in a ceaseless whirl — dressing the townsfolk under pirate attack in bone, stripping it off, redirecting it, over and over without pause.
No more victims. I'm saving every last one of them — not a single soul left behind!
Simon's eyes went wide and fierce. Ten suits of Bone Armour were tearing through the city in a frenzy, aiding people at every turn.
By now, the townspeople had figured out who was behind the mysterious suits.
"That's a Kizen student, isn't it?"
"It is! The one they interviewed at the exhibition!"
"Kizen is helping us!"
"WAAAAAH!"
Even the citizens who had been getting battered one-sidedly were fired up now. Some had taken to begging outright — dress me next, dress me!
And Simon put them to enthusiastic use.
"Sir! Put that on and clear out the pirate pack holed up in that alley!"
"You got it!"
"Ma'am! Two pirates, straight ahead!"
"Leave 'em to me, kiddo!"
The tide turned in the blink of an eye. The pirates, with no training at all among the townsfolk to account for, were being rolled back by sheer numbers of ordinary people.
"Look over there! It's that little brat's doing!"
"Grab him first!"
Several pirates spotted Simon and charged at him in a pack.
Simon, focused entirely on dressing distant strangers in Bone Armour, had no idea what was happening around him.
"Student, look out!"
"Careful!"
The people around him screamed. The pirates curled their lips into sneers, blades rising to slash down at Simon—
Crack!
Shlk!
THUD!
Out of nowhere, from three directions at once, the florist, the sailor, and the young tourist — all clad in Bone Armour — came flying in with kicks that booted the pirates clean off their feet, then touched down on the ground.
The pirates' bodies sailed dozens of meters before slamming into walls and houses and crumpling where they landed.
"OOOOOOOH!"
"NICE!"
Simon wiped the sweat dripping from his brow with his sleeve and flashed a grin.
"Alright — let's keep the counterattack going."
One single person could change the course of a battle.
This was the moment the people of Blue Harbor came to understand the greatness of a necromancer.