Trash of the Count's Family Vol 2. Chapter 498: The Prince and the Father (3)

“M-Moby—”

The captain was an islander belonging to Island 89, someone qualified to command a ship. The moment his eyes met the whale’s, goosebumps rose all over his body.

That enormous body was a being of the sea he could never have seen while lingering only near ports along the continental coast.

That was when it happened.

Meeeooow—

A cat’s cry rang out.

The moment he heard a sound nearly impossible to hear at sea, he finally noticed the cat perched atop the red-haired man.

“...Uh—”

But something was strange.

He was swaying.

Not the ship.

His body was swaying.

THUD.

His body collapsed.

His legs had gone numb.

The mist—

The mist was red.

Before he knew it, the mist had turned red and swept over the ship.

“Urgh!”

“Gah!”

He heard his men falling, groaning.

But soon, not a single sound could be heard. It was as silent as death.

Ah.

Had they all lost consciousness?

Or—

D-Dead—

As he felt his body stiffening, as he felt his mind fading, fear surged through him from head to toe.

SHAAAAAA—

Before the terrified captain closed his eyes, the last thing he saw was the gaze of the enormous whale rising up, splitting the surface of the sea.

The mist had already hidden the moon and stars.

But the ship beneath the whale’s shadow should have been swallowed by an even deeper darkness.

Damn it. To think I’d die like this—

The captain had deliberately avoided entering the battlefield, choosing only to linger near the port and plunder. He had never imagined he would die this emptily, and resentment filled him as he closed his eyes.

He could see nothing.

Only darkness welcomed him.

SMACK!

But he—

SMACK!

“Hrk!”

Soon had to snap his eyes open.

“Khehe!”

And he saw some thug-looking bastard staring down at him, laughing as though this was the most fun in the world.

“See? I told you this works way better than just waking them up normally!”

The handsome thug-looking bastard who said that grabbed him by the collar and moved his hand again.

SMACK!

“Gah!”

He had not realized it while unconscious, but the grip was terrifying. The captain felt his cheek swelling until blood gathered inside his mouth.

SMACK!

But the bastard hit him again.

“Guh, cough! W—”

The captain tried to say something.

SMACK!

But the bastard hit him again.

The captain could do nothing as he watched the man keep striking the same cheek, not even alternating sides.

Then—

“Archie. He’s awake now, so move aside.”

The moment someone’s voice rang out—

“Yes!”

The thug-like bastard answered casually.

SMACK! SMACK!

Then, with great enthusiasm, he slapped the captain twice in a row before stepping back.

THUD!

The moment Archie released his collar without the slightest attachment, the captain’s body was thrown down onto the floor.

“That sound was quite refreshing.”

“Heh heh. You flatter me.”

Cale ignored the warm exchange between the Heavenly Demon and Archie and walked toward the captain.

Behind him, the others continued talking.

“The mist and poison got stronger!”

“My paralytic poison and sleeping poison are amazing!”

“You did well.”

“You’re amazing too, noona!”

The average ten-year-olds had gathered in one corner of the ship and were praising one another.

On and Raon, in particular, praised Hong, and Hong kept wiggling in delight.

Regardless, Cale crouched in front of the captain.

“Hah, hah.”

The captain kept wiping blood from the corner of his mouth, his face full of confusion.

His mind had returned, but the paralysis had not fully worn off, and he was floundering when Cale opened his mouth.

“Young master.”

At that moment, Ron approached without a sound or trace.

Hrk!

Just as Cale flinched inwardly because Ron had approached far too silently—

“Shall I handle the interrogation?”

Ron smoothly drew a dagger and looked down at the captain’s fingers.

“!”

The captain’s body trembled at the words of this incredibly bloodthirsty-looking man.

“No. It’s all right.”

At that moment, the red-haired man answered gently.

The captain recalled the man he had seen before losing consciousness and realized he was the leader.

The captain immediately opened his mouth.

There was something he had learned while living as a pirate.

“P-Please spare—”

His mouth was split open, so he could not pronounce the words properly, but he tried desperately to speak.

“I-I’ll t-tell you every—”

I can tell you everything!

“I-I’ll give you any—”

I can give you everything.

“No. It’s all right.”

But the red-haired man smiled and waved his hand.

Unlike the chilling expression the captain had seen at first, the man now looked rather gentle, and the captain mustered his courage to speak quickly.

“P-Please spare—”

“No. It’s all right.”

“Please let me—”

“No. It’s all right.”

Hm?

Only then did the captain realize something was off.

He had just begged to be spared, and this man had said it was all right?

“Ah?”

Just as the captain realized something—

“So this is for signaling?”

He saw the orb that had been broken in half inside his coat now resting in Cale’s hand.

“Y-Yes! That’s right!”

The one who answered was not the captain.

Nor was it one of his men.

“!”

The captain saw a shabby, gaunt old man.

And beside the old man were several children and women.

They were the things he had tied up tightly below deck, the useless and few captives he had been wondering how to sell.

“I thought you only stole. But you were kidnapping people too. Tsk, tsk.”

The captain swallowed as he listened to the man who had slapped him speak with one leg crooked.

Because he could see his subordinates tied with the same ropes they had used to bind the people they planned to sell as slaves.

Cale spoke in a gentle tone.

“You said the allies who receive this signal will come?”

“Yes. Ships belonging to the same force within a certain radius will come.”

Island 89 ships nearby would come.

The old man answered so, then hurriedly continued.

“The Island 89 bastards have gathered in large numbers near the coast around this port to break out of their disadvantage! I’m certain at least five ships will come!”

This was because Island 89 was relatively close to the coast, and they could not abandon this territory when they had been profiting heavily from plundering.

Island 89.

As the name suggested, they possessed the eighty-ninth strongest force, which meant they were fairly powerful.

“Of course, their main force should be closer to Island 89 or in the central sea, but even the ones around here are strong!”

That damned old man!

The captain glared at the old man for babbling when he was supposed to be sold as a slave.

“......”

Then he froze and turned his head.

The red-haired man was still looking down at him with a smile.

“Hey! Lower your eyes! You pirate bastard!”

He did not hear whatever the thug-looking bastard beside him said.

Because the smiling red-haired man was terrifying.

That was when it happened.

Booooo—

A horn sounded.

It meant allies had arrived.

Even at that sound, the captain could not react at all.

Because of the indifferent words Cale had thrown down while looking at him.

“You made this annoying.”

TAP.

He shook out his hand. The orb fragments fell to the floor and shattered to pieces.

“Exactly. We’re pressed for time as it is.”

Alberu spoke calmly and looked around.

“Hmm.”

The Heavenly Demon also looked around, then pointed to one of the five approaching ships.

“That ship is the fastest and the best.”

He stood up and lightly rolled his neck. He looked rather restless.

But the Heavenly Demon saw someone and sat back down without hesitation.

“Sir Cale.”

Witira, who had been sitting near the bow, rose.

“May I handle this?”

Cale could sense that she was in a very bad mood.

“After the great general collapsed, it’s been like this everywhere! Everyone is trying to gain power, and they’re crossing lines!”

The old man had originally been the chief of a very small island and said he had lived without getting involved in conflict. As Witira listened to him, her expression had grown harder and harder.

“The sea has become filthy! It should not be like this! The Dragon King will be enraged! The sea folk should not be doing this either—”

The old man had swallowed his sobs and spoken in a trembling voice.

Witira had reacted to that.

“Sea folk?”

“Yes. The sea folk are the cruelest these days. How did the sea come to be covered in blood like this—”

The lamenting old man had been full of fear.

“Miss Witira.”

Cale answered her as she silently waited for his reply.

“Do as you wish.”

The moment he finished speaking—

“Archie. You take care of that ship.”

Witira gave Archie an order, then kicked off the deck and leaped into the air.

“!”

The captain’s eyes widened as he watched it all.

SHAAAA—

SHAAAA—

A woman with beautiful hair and eyes that resembled the sea.

Water surged into both her hands.

And toward the approaching ships, toward the ships about to unleash magic and arrows—

SHAAAA—

She swung her water whips without hesitation.

BOOOOM!

“Aaaargh!”

“The bow, the bow!”

The ship broke helplessly.

But the captain was not shocked by that sight.

The scene that followed astonished him even more.

SHAAAA—

The woman turned into a whale.

There was no mistaking it. It was the enormous whale he had seen before he lost consciousness.

A massive humpback whale.

That whale rampaged through the sea.

No.

It simply moved.

Swiftly and precisely.

And not a single ship could defeat that whale.

“Aaaargh!”

“S-Save me!”

The pirates’ screams were all swallowed by the waves the whale created.

BOOOOM! BOOM!

Ships shattered again and again.

But whenever the whale’s eyes occasionally appeared above the surface, they were cold.

The captain could say nothing. He remained frozen in place.

“......”

“......”

His men, who had come to their senses amid the commotion, could not say anything either. They trembled while bound.

This is on a completely different level from us—

Island 30.

No, the captain corrected himself. This was the same level as the powerhouses within Island 17.

He had never faced them himself, but the stories of those currently waging fierce war in the central sea naturally came to mind as he watched that whale woman.

And yet, he had never heard of a powerhouse like her.

A Whale Tribe beastman.

He had never heard of such an existence.

Among the people of the sea, among the sea folk, there were certainly no Whale Tribe beastmen.

Who in the world are they?

They seemed different from the outsider alliances that had been joining the battlefield lately—

The captain’s mind filled with confusion.

However, he could not let any of it show. He could not even breathe properly.

SHAAAA—

After leaving only one of the approaching ships intact, the whale came back toward this ship.

And on top of that intact ship—

“Kahahaha! Why are your arrows so weak?!”

“Gah!”

Archie was smashing pirates apart.

“Urgh, this d-devil—!”

“What? I’m not a devil! You rotten pieces of trash, who are you calling a devil?!”

THUD! SMACK!

Archie beat the pirates with great enthusiasm, over and over.

No matter how one looked at it, he could have easily knocked them unconscious and ended things, but he was deliberately hitting them in ways that hurt.

“Human trafficking? That is not okay, you bastards!”

Gah!

“You bastard, are you pointing a sword at me? You want to be sliced up?”

Aaaaaargh—!

“You’re the bastard who fired magic at me earlier, right? Keke. You want to die?”

D-Devil—

Cale watched the two whales smash everything apart, then spoke to his group.

“Untie all the hostages and move them over to this ship. We’ll go to that one.”

“Human, I can use magic to blow wind into the sails!”

“Yeah. Yeah.”

As the others moved to the other ship, Cale spoke to the old man.

“Elder, you’re a seaman too, aren’t you? Take these people and go to the port. Or go somewhere safe.”

Then he took out some money from his coat and handed it over.

It was part of the travel money that Dark Bear, who was frightening but cute-looking, had packed for him.

“Th-That—”

The old man hesitated, then asked.

“Who are you?”

These people.

There was something about them.

Though his island was small, the chief had survived this chaos until now by walking a tightrope for a long time. He thought the man before him was special.

Like the heads of the seventeen islands now in the central sea.

Grin.

Cale smiled.

It was completely different from his earlier gentle smile. This one carried a rather dangerous air.

Cale and Alberu had indeed had a conversation.

“We can find His Majesty and put the Oceanic Alliance under our feet too. The more forces we build to oppose Five Colored Blood in New World later, the better.”

“That is correct. Your Highness, I like how often your thoughts align with mine.”

Instead of answering, he turned away. The old man and the freed islanders followed his gaze with their eyes.

SHAAAA—

There stood a woman who had split the seawater and climbed back onto the deck.

Witira looked at the smiling Cale and smiled faintly in return.

She answered the old man’s question.

“We are not islanders.”

As expected.

They were not from this place.

Just as the old man thought that, Witira spoke calmly.

“But we are people of the sea.”

As though the sea surrounding her was her territory.

She spoke peacefully, and the old man could not answer. He merely swallowed.

Because, unlike her calm and gentle expression, the look in her eyes as she gazed across the sea was that of a predator, like the great general who had once ruled this place.

“Then we’ll be going, elder.”

They had been ferocious to their enemies, but they remained gentle and polite to them until the end.

They left, and those who had survived without being sold quickly came to their senses and headed for the port first.

And from their mouths, stories of the “people of the sea” began to spread.

*****

And those people of the sea—

“That ship doesn’t have a flag either! Attack!”

“Waaaaah—!”

Soon encountered pirates belonging to another island.

They tried to ignore them.

They had a ship now.

They had no time to deal with small fry.

But—

“Kahahaha! They must be newcomers! Kill them! Kill them and take that ship!”

“Are they outsiders? Then we’ll sell them as slaves! Charge!”

These bastards charged in without knowing anything.

BOOOOOM!

So they broke them again.

They had no time, so Witira simply smashed them with a body slam.

“Kahahaha! New ones! They don’t have a flag either! Attack!”

But more appeared.

Before reaching the central sea, there were far too many scraps that could not join the fierce battlefield, especially pirates focused on plundering and searching for prey.

BOOOOOM!

“Kahahaha! How do you like this Archie’s fists?!”

So they broke them again.

Of course, if there were hostages, they dealt only with the pirates and left.

“Oh! Prey! Let’s go!”

“Speed up! Bring the ship alongside! Attack!”

Pirate ships kept appearing.

BOOOOM!

BOOM!

So they kept taking care of them.

They either lightly broke them or subdued them.

And they kept moving quickly all the while.

Even so, there were too many pirate ships.

“......”

“......”

And when the sun rose—

“......”

“......”

Cale’s group had fallen silent.

They were very strong.

Had Cale not even held out against the third Emperor? His companions were all powerful as well.

In contrast, the pirates they had encountered throughout the night were not strong.

Compared to Cale’s group, they were weak.

“......”

“......”

But there were too many of them.

And whether they were stupid or simply did not think before acting, they charged in first no matter what. It seemed Cale’s group looked weak.

Cale stared blankly at the rising sun.

Archie muttered.

“Whoa, damn. More are coming.”

Choi Han let out a deep sigh, then patted Archie on the shoulder and said,

“Don’t sleep.”

“Ah, ah!”

Archie realized he had unconsciously dozed off, only to notice a pirate ship, and jolted awake in shock.

The area beneath his eyes was hollow.

Since he could move freely at sea, he had beaten up the most pirates.

Without a moment’s rest.

“Huh? Am I dreaming?”

However, he soon muttered again while staring at the rising sun beyond the horizon.

Because he could see countless ships approaching from far away.

“It is not a dream.”

Ron answered in a benevolent voice, then added,

“Judging by the flags, most of them are pirates. I can see ships belonging to the pirate islands whose vessels we broke as well. It seems they came to retrieve their ships.”

After night passed, more ships took to the sea.

“Ah.”

As Archie sat blankly on the deck—

Pat, pat.

As Ron patted his shoulder with a benevolent smile, as if encouraging him and telling him to go on—

“Cale.”

“Yes.”

“It will take at least another day to enter the central sea region.”

“Yes.”

As Alberu said, they still needed another day to enter the central sea.

“But we may become even slower.”

“