Chapter 61

“Did we fail…?”

“Yes, it’s true. We are already finished. Right? Otherwise, please tell me where we aren’t.”

“…Urgh…”

General Garden’s face hardened at Admiral Napoleona’s words.

However, despite his confusion, he couldn’t refute a single word spoken by this woman in front of him.

The pirates had definitively turned their backs.

Not just turning away, but now they were openly charging forward, weapons in hand, forming ranks.

And unlike someone lost in delusions, Garden was not so incompetent as to not understand what this meant.

He was already at a disadvantage compared to the Pirate King, and now his military force was dwindling.

Nevertheless, that bastard Commander had failed to keep even one of the subordinates in check, effectively turning half of their remaining military might against them.

And now, those pirates were directed their weapons not at the Pirate King, but at themselves.

Just as Admiral Napoleona said, even if they joined forces, it was too late; they were already at the point of resorting to fighting among themselves, which meant the situation was undeniably lost.

A complete quagmire.

At this, General Garden finally asked Admiral Napoleona.

“So… what happens now?”

“You will die.”

“W-what did you say?”

Napoleona spoke decisively about the worst possible outcome.

Garden, who had hoped against hope to find a sliver of light in the darkness, was momentarily speechless.

“You will either die at the hands of the approaching pirates, or you’ll meet your end by the Pirate King soon to invade this place. Or you might return defeated and be killed by the furious Duke Ocleang. There is no path left for us to survive.”

“…”

Admiral Napoleona drove home the fact that there was no dream or hope in sight.

Yet, indeed, her words held true; in this situation, there was no way for them to survive.

Staying meant death, fleeing also meant death.

With the only winning condition in battle removed, the future was already foreseen.

“Damn… I should have retired from the navy long ago…”

As he lamented his foolishness for not escaping right after being taken apart by the Pirate King, he fell into late regret.

At that moment, he seriously contemplated whether there was truly no option other than to defect…

“Speaking of which… General Garden.”

“What… is there something?”

“If… there were a way to survive this situation… would you choose it, General?”

“! Is there… such a way? If there is something like that, of course I’ll choose it! They say it’s better to crawl in a pigsty than to die here! I don’t want to die like this!”

Napoleona seemed to reignite the completely extinguished spark of hope.

In response, Garden clung to her words without even knowing the specifics…

Seeing his reaction, a quiet smile began to form on Napoleona’s lips.

*

The pirates were marching toward the position of the Frantz Kingdom Army.

Their combined force of 2000 warriors showed no signs of fear even against the 3000-strong Frantz Kingdom Army.

It was true that until now, the pirates had been largely overpowered in battles.

This was partly due to the Frantz Kingdom’s strong land forces, but ultimately it was because their captain, Elise, and Blue Queen had maintained a stance of avoiding conflict as much as possible.

It was a dirty and sly tactic, but it was a necessary measure to avoid provoking the Frantz Kingdom soldiers who bore the explosives at the forefront.

However, the incident where Blue Queen was attacked directly ended their patience completely.

At that point, they cast aside notions of alliance; whether these bastards died or they died, today they resolved to fight to the bitter end, fueled by fierce resolve, the pirates finally reached right in front of the Frantz Kingdom Army’s defense line.

Seeing the approaching enemy, General Garden immediately formed a battle line to respond.

Drawing his sword, he coldly shouted.

“You savage pirate scum! How dare you stab your ally in the back like this! Can you still call yourselves humans?!”

“Shut up. You were the first to stab us in the back. Surely you can’t claim ignorance of what you’ve done until now?”

“!…Grr…”

With a chilling tone, the White Shark, Elise, spoke.

Garden could only begrudgingly hold his tongue in response to the almost factual violence of her words.

In that brief moment of silence, Blue Queen stared daggers at him and said with seething rage.

“You have really pushed our patience far too long! We need to settle the debt! With interest added on top!”

Without pause, as soon as Blue Queen finished her words, the pirates took aim at the front.

Simultaneously, the Frantz Kingdom soldiers also readied their weapons aiming at the pirates.

A tense standoff ensued in a heartbeat.

In the now-frozen atmosphere, neither side dared to fire, cautiously assessing each other’s intentions.

They’d come this far, but issuing a fire order now would make it impossible to turn back.

The chance to take out the Pirate King would be lost entirely, and regardless of who won or lost, only a hollow glory filled with wounds would remain.

Though that dimwitted Commander Pierre had no inkling of this fact.

In any case, the two sides and their commanders were stuck, held back by their last lines of patience.

In heavy silence, they slowly began to regain their composure.

As much as they despised the idea, it would be too regrettable to end everything here.

Wasn’t this a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to hit the Pirate King?

Besides, while pirates could simply spit and abandon everything, the navy, including Napoleona, could by no means do that.

Unlike the free pirates, they were tied to their nation and bore the responsibility for any missteps.

As they chewed on their lips and maintained their brief silence…

-Bang!

“!”

“What?”

A sharp gunshot rang out from somewhere.

But…

It completely flipped the tense atmosphere that was already hanging by a thread.

“Fire… shoot!”

“Leave no one alive! Open fire!”

-Bam! Bam! Bam!

Thus began the raucous gunfight.

Whoever shot first became irrelevant.

What mattered was to eliminate the pirates before them… or the navy.

With that sole purpose, they unleashed their bullets, and the area was soon filled with dense chaos, blood, and gunpowder smoke.

“Gaaah!!!”

“Ugh…!”

Pirates screamed as they fell to the ground.

At the same time, some attacking naval soldiers also succumbed.

“Reload! Aim! Fire!”

-Bang! Bang! Bang!

Under Elise’s orders, the pirates poured bullets into the fray.

Having fought together in real battles more than once or twice, their aim was impressively accurate, even better than that of a regular army.

However, the Frantz Kingdom soldiers were no exception.

Though they were airborne troops like special operations forces, they were no strangers to land combat.

Moreover, they held the advantage in numbers and were on their home turf.

The fighting remained fierce even with the pirates’ surprise attack.

Meanwhile, among all this chaos,

Cheshire and Dust, with expressions that said ‘it has come to this’, looked toward her who was approaching them.

“Looks like we see each other often these days? Honestly, I’m starting to feel a bit fond of you.”

“You…”

The Admiral beamed a cold smile.

In response, the two immediately began to channel their magical power and aura against her.

At that moment.

“Hey!”

“!”

In an instant, Napoleona charged towards the two.

It was perfectly reasonable, given the battle at hand, but there was one curious thing.

That was, Napoleona had no weapon in her hand.

To be precise, it seemed she neither drew her sword nor showed any signs of intending to use magic.

As they questioned this fact, she reached them and spoke in a calm voice.

“No need to be tense, I’m not here to fight.”

“…?”

“What do you mean…?”

Her unusual reaction raised alarms.

Then, Napoleona lowered her voice just enough for the two of them to hear.

“From now on, I’m going to make my exit through this road. Take care from here on out.”

“W-what?”

An unexpected declaration of surrender… no, rather a defection.

Leaving them with a dense sense of foreboding, Napoleona vanished into nowhere.