Chapter 1732 - 240 - The Battle at the Black Pole (7)

I boarded one of the bodies onto the ship so I could get a closer look at the dead. Judging from the condition of the corpse and its complexion, it seemed like the person had been killed about a day ago. There was a wound that looked relatively recent, and from the way it had been inflicted, it appeared that someone had stabbed him. Several of the others had similar injuries as well, although their wounds weren't exactly the same, since some of them looked as though they had been slashed instead.

Just by looking at their clothes, it was pretty obvious that these people had been merchants. Their clothing was still fairly recognizable despite the state of their bodies, and there were various goods and pieces of equipment scattered around the area. Judging from everything I could see, they had probably been attacked and raided by pirates.

At least, that was the most reasonable explanation I could come up with.

"It looks like we're heading into a rather rocky path," I said while looking over the bodies again.

"M-Most likely..." Serune replied hesitantly. "I mean, I didn't think pirates would actually come all the way out here and scavenge this part of the sea when they normally don't operate around this area."

"Hey," Shredica suddenly said from nearby, her voice immediately drawing my attention. "I think there's something ahead of us."

I looked toward the direction she was pointing, and after a few seconds, I realized that she was right.

There were ships ahead of us.

Quite a lot of them, actually.

I could easily count ten ships, and they were slowly approaching from several different directions. They weren't exactly making an effort to hide themselves either, which made their intentions pretty obvious.

Then I noticed the flag flying above one of the vessels.

The Jolly Roger.

That immediately answered the question of who they were.

Pirates.

"Well, it seems like they're trying to pillage us," I said while watching the ships gradually surround our position.

Unfortunately for them, they had chosen a particularly terrible target.

I wasn't exactly worried about being attacked by a bunch of pirates, especially when I considered the difference between their strength and ours.

"Wait, Leon," Serune suddenly said.

Her voice had become noticeably more nervous than before.

"That kind of ship..."

She pointed toward the largest vessel among the approaching fleet.

"This is the Pirate Queen's ship."

Pirate Queen?

For some reason, my first thought was whether she was going to have extendable arms or something equally ridiculous.

Maybe she was some kind of weird monster who could stretch her limbs across an entire ship.

That would certainly make the title memorable.

Still, that was obviously just a random thought.

Putting the joke aside, Serune's expression made it clear that this wasn't something I should dismiss.

"Is she powerful?" I asked.

"She is," Serune answered immediately. "I've heard that you're powerful, Leon, but she isn't someone you should underestimate either. She gained the title of Pirate Queen after defeating the former Pirate King in a duel, and according to what I heard, she won with one arm tied behind her back."

That description certainly made her sound dangerous.

"Well, I think I'd be able to handle her pretty easily," Shredica said.

She sounded remarkably confident about that.

"Wait a moment, Shredica," I said.

"What?" she asked while looking back toward me.

"Can you let me handle this?"

She stared at me for several seconds before making an expression of obvious disgust.

Whatever she was thinking at that moment, she was probably right about something.

I had absolutely no idea what kind of power the Pirate Queen possessed, and that alone made me want to deal with her personally. If she really was as strong as Serune claimed, then I wasn't about to waste the opportunity to test myself against someone like that. Then, maybe her ability was something that I want for myself that would make her someone I want to conquer.

So, at least for now, I was much more inclined to be the one handling this situation.

***

I stood on the deck and looked across the sea as the approaching ships gradually sailed closer to us.

The farther they came, the easier it became to see the people standing aboard them.

Most of the men looked exactly like the kind of pirates you'd expect to encounter in some cheap adventure story. They had rough appearances, ugly grins, and expressions that made it seem like they'd spent their entire lives making terrible decisions.

Several of them immediately started staring at us.

More specifically, their attention quickly settled on the three women standing behind me.

The way they were looking at them made their intentions painfully obvious.

They clearly thought we were nothing more than another easy target that had wandered into their territory.

As far as they were concerned, we'd probably surrender the moment they surrounded us.

They had absolutely no idea what kind of people they were dealing with.

I continued waiting for the Pirate Queen to appear, but strangely enough, she still hadn't shown herself.

I'd expected the person commanding this entire fleet to be somewhere nearby, especially after Serune had made such a big deal about her.

"Oi, bastard!" one of the pirates suddenly shouted toward me. "Get off the deck without any clothes on, and leave the women aboard this ship. Don't even think about doing anything suspicious or taking anything with you if you don't want to get sliced up."

I stared at him for a moment.

They wanted me to take off my clothes too?

That seemed unnecessarily greedy.

Although, considering how expensive my clothes were, I could understand why they were interested in taking them.

"I can't wait to strip that girl out of her clothes," one of the pirates said while staring at the women.

"Idiot, you can't do that, or you're going to walk the plank," another pirate immediately replied. "Their garments look expensive, so don't ruin them."

"Then we shouldn't do any stripping, but we can at least taste the girls, right?"

I stared at them in silence.

These guys were unbelievable.

I genuinely wondered where they had learned to talk like this.

Did they seriously spend all day thinking with their dicks?

Their lines were becoming so painfully cliché that I almost felt like someone was going to yell that we had entered the wrong chapter of a badly written pirate novel.

Still, I didn't let their stupidity distract me from what actually mattered.

I wanted to meet their leader.

If the Pirate Queen really was as powerful as Serune claimed, then I wanted to see her with my own eyes.

More importantly, I wanted to know what kind of person could command this many pirates while earning a title like that. Maybe I could ask her as well to lend her help on the war we were currently in.

So instead of responding to their threats, I simply looked toward the ships and addressed the men standing on the deck.

"I want to see your Queen first," I said calmly. "Can I meet her?"

The moment I asked that question, the entire group suddenly became quiet.

Nobody answered immediately.

There was a pause.

A very long pause, in fact.

The pirates looked at one another as though they were trying to figure out whether I had seriously just asked them that.

For several seconds, the entire situation became strangely silent.

Then one of them suddenly started laughing.

Another joined him.

Then another.

Within moments, the entire group burst into laughter as though I'd just delivered the funniest joke they had heard all year.