Chapter 218: Chapter 135: Items Should Be Treasured With Great Care Part 2

「T, this is…… They looked like a combination of rotten fish and decomposing corpse.」

「So, that would make them…… Human-fish zombies?」

About one hour after the initial meeting I could see groups of pirates loading crates of provisions and weapons onto their ship, reading themselves for departure. Their ship was considerably large, but not nearly as large as the ship that was going to the other continent.

I left the communication with Strude to Rust and Mold, since the guy seemed to be genuinely scared of me.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

「Well I’ll be damned, those markings are way more effective than I would have thought……」

「Well yes, that’s to be expected! The aura of the Vorpal Soul you emit is so strong, Sanraku-san, that anyone who dares to approach you can’t help it but to feel intimidated!」

「More like I was aiming at them with a sharp object or something along those lines……」

It seems that the curse marks even started to affect people now, which may prove to be quite annoying in the future. On the other hand, seeing that sh*thead Strude starting to act like a scared kitty was simply priceless. I’d totally do it again if I could.

I don’t know if that’s the rule in this game, but seeing the pirates load up normal weapons onto the ship made me worried. After all, if it was indeed a Ghost Ship, normal weapons wouldn’t be able to do much damage to it that way.

「Could it be that this Ghost Ship is not the real enemy…… but some kind of a sea monster, like Kraken?」

The ship itself also had a weapon installed on deck, however it wasn’t it’s normal ship cannons but rather a huge balistas. And seeing that there was no barrels of gunpowder, so I guess that it maybe relies on magic to some extent? But wouldn’t they still be normal weapons? So does that mean only Legacy Weapons would be able to be of any use in here?

「Does that mean it’s going to be a sea battle?」

「I’m going to be the first one to make it on board!」

「…… Oh well, since I’m always doing crazy stunts, at least I won’t have to worry about getting a sudden attack of sea sickness.」

「???」

Fighting aboard a ship is not as straightforward as it may sound. It’s like trying to fight a literal storm. You may think you’re ready, but a storm will always be a storm. Unpredictable.

Weapons sway left and right, your legs are getting all wobbly, and you can’t properly aim with your guns because of all the shaking and turning right in the middle of the sea. That last part does not affect me all that much, but all the things before that are something it would be advisable to take countermeasures against.

「Stable foothold…… Management of recast time…… Stopping the shaking…… Watch out for the AI behavior, both the enemy’s and that of friends……」

「Sanraku-san…… Sometimes you say things that are harder to grasp the meaning of than incantations for magic spells.」

「I wouldn’t call it like that, besides it’s not that complicated or hard…… It’s merely a simple logic put to practice…… Hm?」

In ShangriLa Frontier, the ancient super-advanced civilization made intelligent robots, but the origin of the civilization of this game is rooted in medieval fantasy and magic, correct? That is why you can see so many strange sights that you wouldn’t be able to normally see in reality.

That is why things like moving cargo or building stuff still required a whole lot of manual labor to get done, which required a hefty amount of strong men.

「And what’s that…… an octopus? Are we really going to have to deal with kraken?」

No, it was too small to be just that. Monsters that sink ships are much bigger in games, so it was most probably an oversized squid or something alongside those lines. And what are those barrels? They need three people to carry properly?

If they wanted to use those barrels as containers, then we have a certain problem with that. …… But as I was thinking that, the machos that were carrying them came to a stop right next to us, setting the barrels down with a loud THUD! noise.

「Kyah!」

「Waah!」

「Gueh!」

「Oh, oh, oh! The specialty of the “Red Whale Pirates”, barrel delivery, is now completed!」

「Oh, you there, rich-looking lad! You’re the company of those two, right? You’re certainly a piece of work!」

「Eh? Ha? Ahh…… Hmm?」

The machos all laughed and then went away without saying anything more. …… No, that’s not what’s important here right now. More importantly, the barrels they carried here.

「W, what the hell did just…… Eh, hibyu! Ekhem, cough! S-Sanraku, -san!?」

「Now I know just how a laundry must feel…… Huh, where are we? What is this place!?」

「Wait…… Akitsu, Akane…… -dono…… You’re going to crush me!?」

A knight player wearing a destroyed armor that looked like rusted or cracked ground.

A ninja player wearing a fox mask, one of the selected few besides me who had the privilege of entering the Bunny Court.

Then, a white cloak screamed out loud, being crushed by the ninja who was wearing it.

「Eh, why?」

The company that was together fighting Luukan just a couple of hours ago was once more completed, and we all looked at one another in confusion, not understanding what was currently going on.