Chapter 218: The Tin Knight and The Singing Bones (6)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 218: The Tin Knight and The Singing Bones (6)
“Wait! This girl is your companion, isn't she? Do you think I'm just bluffing?”
As Cap'n Bill spoke, he dangled the girl—Rapunzel, no, the one now named Trot—who was tied up in ropes, over the side of the ship.
If he let go, Trot would plummet without any chance to break her fall.
But Dorothea’s response was cold.
“Hey, you. You must have been human before you ended up in this state, right? So think carefully.”
“About what?”
“Let's say you're going on a trip and you board a ship that isn't yours for a short while. There are other passengers on board, hitching a ride just like you. The voyage ends, you part ways with them, and then one day, they suddenly show up and say, ‘Oh, my friend, my companion! In the name of our friendship, please lend us some money! And while you're at it, it'd be even better if you put up a few of your organs as collateral.’”
“What kind of bastards are they? I’d chop them up and feed them to the fish.”
“See? Even you think so. You can't call someone a companion just because you shared a boat ride, can you? I have nothing to do with her, so do whatever you want.”
“Hmph.”
Realizing things weren't going his way, Cap'n Bill's face twisted grotesquely.
Unlike a normal skull, which had no function for displaying expressions, his golden skull could shift and morph as freely as soft clay.
However, despite her outward appearance, Dorothea wasn't feeling so calm herself.
Why did this skull have to show up now of all times? And why is she caught by him?
Few things were as futile as negotiating with a hostage-taker.
There was no guarantee that the other party would honestly release the hostage even if you did as they asked.
No, in most cases, the standard outcome was for the hostage to meet a bad end after the negotiation was over.
While it was possible to buy time with negotiations to stage a rescue, that would reveal to everyone present that Trot was valuable as a hostage to Dorothea's party.
That had to be avoided at all costs.
Having already provoked the Tower of Control in every way imaginable, if it was revealed that Dorothea's party had a friendly relationship with Trot, it was as clear as day what they would do.
It would be a different story if Trot were officially affiliated with one of the magic towers and could be protected, but seeing her tied up like that, it seemed she hadn't even taken the entrance exam yet. All the more reason to be careful.
While Dorothea was lost in thought, the situation grew more urgent by the second.
“You there! Weren't you going to comply with the investigation? Back that ship away at once!”
The voice of the Tower of Protection’s guard captain grew sharper.
After all, one glance was enough to see that Cap'n Bill and his crew were far from ordinary, and their ship radiated a mysterious magical energy.
Furthermore, the cannons mounted on the ship were all aimed at Dorothea's party. With the Tower of Protection's forces and Cap'n Bill's crew facing each other with Dorothea's group in the middle, it was the perfect setup for a misunderstanding, making it seem like the cannons were aimed at them.
“Tch, fine then! Enough with the cheap tricks! This time, I'll make you pay for what you did! Men, prepare for battle!”
“Aye, Captain!”
“If you continue to disobey orders, we will commence our attack! Stand down at once!”
“We’ve given them enough warnings! We must attack now!”
Amidst the rising voices from both front and back, the party whispered amongst themselves.
“This is a complete mess.”
“Wh-what do we do now?”
[The ‘Tin Knight’ suggests that since things have come to this, you should drag them into a free-for-all and have both sides annihilate each other!]
“No, how many times do I have to tell you we can't harm the Tower of Protection? We have to at least look like we're trying to avoid a fight. That way, even if we raise hell later, they'll still leave room for negotiation.”
[The ‘Tin Knight’ states that just waiting around like this won't solve anything!]
“No, well, you have a point there.”
Just as Dorothea, growing tired of the escalating chaos and repeated provocations, was about to say 'to hell with the plan' and just wreck everything…
[The ‘Tin Knight’ changes his mind and says it seems the problem will be solved even if you just stay put this time!]
“What?”
FWOOOOSH!
Far in the distance, across the strait, a massive surge of mana erupted.
It was a vast discharge of mana, so immense it made the skin tingle despite the considerable distance.
At first, she thought the Tower of Control, which they had left behind on the other side of the strait, was casting some large-scale magic. But on a second look, the location was slightly different from where they had come from.
More importantly, it lacked the complex, jumbled feeling characteristic of magic cast by multiple people in cooperation.
It meant the mana originated from a single source.
Among the people Dorothea knew, only a handful were capable of such a feat.
Fzzt-fzzzt-fzzzt!
Across the strait separating the island and the continent, dozens of magic circles unfolded like stepping stones.
The circles were inscribed with numerous complex magic characters, but there was only one Dorothea could recognize.
<Acceleration>
“Hey, you…!”
Before Dorothea could finish her curse, “you crazy bitch.”
Before Cap'n Bill's crew and the Tower's mages could grasp the situation.
The White Knight, with Gale on his back, charged across the sea from the other side of the strait at a terrifying speed.
And collided directly with Cap'n Bill's pirate ship, which lay in his path.
BOOOOOOM!
Normally, if something the size of a person crashed into a massive ship at full speed, the ship would be fine. If anything, the person would be turned into a bloody pulp.
However, it was a different story when the object in question was the White Knight, buffed to the gills by the white witch.
A bizarre scene unfolded, like a chariot wheel being sent flying by a praying mantis, as Cap'n Bill's golden ship was launched into the sky.
A chorus of indescribable screams erupted from the sailors.
Like beads spilling from a bowl, the sailors were scattered across the ground. Only Cap'n Bill tried to fight back against the approaching White Knight, but as the Tin Knight had experienced before, the fully-buffed White Knight was like a human-sized siege weapon.
A strike of overwhelming power shattered Cap'n Bill's defense in an instant and decapitated him.
“Wh-whoa!?”
Freed from Cap'n Bill's grasp, Trot spun through the air, trying to break her fall. But no matter how skilled she was in martial arts, it was impossible to move as usual while tightly bound by ropes.
She squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for the coming impact.
Just then, someone gently wrapped an arm around her waist, caught her in a princess carry, and landed softly on the ground.
A beautiful face with blonde hair and blue eyes looked down at Trot with a gentle smile.
Gale, dressed in an outfit reminiscent of a magician—she must have taken a liking to the one she wore in the library world—gently escorted Trot.
Faced with the imbalance of someone who looked like a fairy-tale princess but acted like a prince, Trot's expression went slack with dazed admiration.
“Are you alright, miss?”
“Y-Yes.”
“I’m glad.”
Gale produced a card from thin air, held it up, and swiped it across the ropes binding Trot.
Without any apparent force, she merely grazed the surface, yet the ropes were cleanly severed without leaving a single scratch on Trot.
Every single one of her actions was needlessly cool. She was, after all, the white witch.
As the pirates, who had been thrown to the ground and were struggling to get up, were subdued one by one by the Tower of Protection's forces, Gale turned to face Dorothea.
“Dorothea! Leaving a job to someone and then taking off on your own is incredibly rude, you know! No, I can let that slide, giving you the benefit of the doubt, but there's something else I absolutely cannot forgive! I heard everything from Sig! You took him out of the battle to keep me from getting involved, didn't you? Please don't underestimate me! Did I look like someone who would be afraid of something like that? I'm disappointed! Dorothea? Are you even listening?”
“…Hey. Before all that, don't you have something to say to me?”
“Hm?”
Gale tilted her head, then looked Dorothea up and down.
Seeing Dorothea soaked from head to toe in seawater, Gale said.
“Dorothea, I know you must be excited to be at the sea, but if you're going to swim, shouldn't you at least wear a swimsuit?”
“You're the one who drenched me, you damn bitch!”
Dorothea's staff swung at Gale's head with full force.
But the white witch, as always, effortlessly dodged the attack by simply leaning her upper body back.
Dorothea shrieked.
“Hey! Tin Can! It's time for the battle you love so much! Go slice her up!”
[The ‘Tin Knight’ states that calling a berserker into a friendly squabble will do no good!]
[The ‘Tin Knight’ also points out that fighting Gale here and now will only complicate the situation that was just about to be resolved!]
[The ‘Tin Knight’ politely advises his thoughtless master to learn to read the time and place!]
“Who the hell are you!?”
While the master and servant were squabbling back and forth, the White Knight rejoined the group, clutching Cap'n Bill's head in one hand.
The spear in his other hand was in constant motion. This was because golden, dust-like particles were constantly gathering below Cap'n Bill's head, attempting to regenerate his body, forcing the knight to continuously chop them away.
It was a sight so bizarre it was hard to tell whether to find it funny or frightening.
“You damn wench, you've really done it now…! Are you with those meddling bastards too?!”
“Wow. You can talk pretty well in that state. A blessing? A curse? It seems you're defined as ‘immortal’ on some conceptual level. Dorothea, is there any way to deal with this? If we leave him, he'll just revive and attack again.”
“Stop trying to act like nothing happened and apologize, you.”
Dorothea glared resentfully at Gale, clearly hating the feeling of being soaking wet, but she eventually sighed as if she had no choice.
This was the second time they had been attacked by Cap'n Bill, and the third time they had encountered him.
It was an undeniable fact that they needed to deal with him somehow.
“This isn't what it's originally for, but it's an emergency, so I have no choice.”
Dorothea twirled her left hand in the air as if swinging an invisible weight, and her chain ring transformed into a birdcage.
“The cage is the right size, but the opening is too small for it to fit. Tin Can, split this head open for me.”
[The ‘Tin Knight’ says to leave it to him!]
“St-Stop! Stop it, you evil things!”
The tin cutter snipped away, and the pieces of Cap'n Bill's skull, like a bizarre puzzle, were crammed into Dorothea's birdcage.
As Cap'n Bill's head began to regenerate inside, Dorothea spoke to it.
“Who's a pirate calling evil?”
Isn't this scene, no matter how you look at it, pretty evil? thought Adelaide and a few others, but they didn't dare say it out loud.
It was a time-honored tradition that nothing good came from getting on a witch's bad side.
With Cap'n Bill dealt with, all that remained were the forces from the Tower of Protection.
Glancing at the guard captain, who wore an expression of complete bewilderment, Gale asked the party.
“So, what's the plan now? It would be great if you could explain the situation.”
After a brief, hushed discussion.
Gale Elilaz, a 4th-rank mage of the Tower of Protection and the direct disciple of the Witch of the North, stepped forward and spoke.
“I need to see the Tower Head, so could you please clear a path? Oh, it would be even better if you could guide us directly. And I'd like to entrust the pirate ship and the other pirates to your custody.”
“……”
It was a silence that seemed to hold a great many unspoken words, but what could they do?
Such is the law of a society built on connections.