Chapter 4

Chapter 4 : Ghost Ship Mary Celeste

The skeletons stopped dead in their tracks.

Why the hell had this bastard suddenly started attacking his own side?

‘Please, do not attack me...!’

Praying inwardly that the undead would not swarm me, I calmly walked toward them of my own accord.

Then I threw an arm around the shoulders of the shabbiest-looking skeleton I could find, raised my cutlass high, and shouted,

“Follow me!”

—......?

“Follow me, you skull-headed bastards!”

—Clack... clack...??

The skeletons exchanged blank looks.

What was this?

Since he was standing on this side, was he one of ours?

Had he not just attacked humans a moment ago?

He definitely looked human...?

｢Due to the effect of the passive skill [Speechcraft], your words gain greater persuasiveness!｣

｢The skeletons have fallen into confusion.｣

｢They are deliberating over your allegiance. Due to the [Chaos] skill, Agility temporarily increases by 3.｣

｢You witnessed your own flesh burn away and vanish! Having returned from death, you are alive, but at times you carry an aura not unlike that of a corpse!｣

｢Of all living humans, you are a being closer to the undead than any other!｣

‘Good... it is working!’

Skeletons, being the lowest class of undead, were unintelligent and impulsive.

Confirming that the plan was taking effect, I drove the wedge in deeper with the bewildered undead.

“Follow me!!”

As I ran forward with my cutlass held high, the skeletons that had only been staring blankly began one by one to raise their weapons and follow after me.

—Clackclack! Clackclack!!

Heehee! Who cares!

As long as we get to kill more of them!

｢A group of skeletons is following you!｣

｢You have achieved the hidden feat, Fleshy Rookie Undead Commander. Charisma permanently increases by 1.｣

｢The pirates have fallen into confusion at the sight of you leading the undead vanguard! Due to the [Chaos] skill, Luck and Intelligence temporarily increase!｣

“W-what the hell is that bastard supposed to be?!”

“How is a human fighting alongside the undead...?!”

“Get that bastard over there!!”

—Clackclackclack!! Clackclack!!!

Once I gave them a target, the delighted skeletons rattled their jaws and charged in a wave.

I too swung my blade while mixed in among the undead, and the pirate struck by my sword shouted in outrage.

“Ghk...! You traitor! How can a fellow human side with the undead...? Huh? Why does that not hurt at all...?”

“Have the sense to fall down!”

The pirate I kicked in the stomach went flying backward.

I had only pretended to slash at him using the back edge of the cutlass, but the dimwitted skeletons suspected nothing and ran wild in all directions trying to butcher the lively humans.

After several such exchanges, where blades kept clashing but nobody was actually getting hurt, the quicker-witted pirates caught on to my intent and gradually began to go along with it.

“I-if you cannot beat them, join them!! I am on the undead side now!!”

“Uwooooh!! Long live the skeletons! Glory to the Lich!”

—Clack! Clackclack clack!!

‘...No matter where you go, there are always sly bastards like that.’

As people fell deeper into confusion, I could feel my stats rising sharply.

Meanwhile, the pirates realized that the more actively they charged at the front, the less likely the skeletons were to attack them, and so they became even more frenzied.

“Honored undead!! There are plenty of fresh humans on the next ship over!! Let us go slaughter those bastards!”

“W-wait...! Why are you stabbing me?! I am on your side! Your side!”

“Y-you always got on my nerves...! Always badmouthing me behind my back!”

Madness spread across the ship like a plague.

Each time lightning struck, blades flashed, and unexpected screams burst out here and there.

One pirate, having lost his weapon, grabbed a skeleton’s thigh bone and smashed it into the back of the head of the man in front of him. Elsewhere, a ghoul had stolen a sailor’s hood, put it on, and was giggling while admiring its reflection in a puddle.

Towering black waves crashed down as though they would overturn the ship, and the Banshees’ horrifying wails shook my skull into disarray.

Pirates pointed swords at one another and turned on each other, only to be swept together by a wave of bones and end up back-to-back, protecting each other.

A scene of collective madness!

‘I may be the one who started this, but what a complete shitshow.’

｢Great chaos has arrived!｣

｢Who is the enemy and who is an ally no longer matters! Morality and ethics are meaningless! This place is now ruled less by reason than by instinct, and less by instinct than by impulse!｣

｢To Antagon, the clown born from disorder, a battlefield rife with slaughter and betrayal is as comfortable as his own home! Due to the [Chaos] skill, your stats rise dramatically!｣

“Kahahahaha!! Crush those bastards!! Let us survive first, whatever happens!”

—Clack! Clackclack! Clackclackclack!

The pirate-skeleton alliance surged over en masse and began raiding the neighboring ship.

But the more overheated the atmosphere became, the calmer I forced myself to remain.

‘Do not act rashly.’

Was it not said that bartenders do not drink their own liquor?

The person standing at the center of madness had to be careful not to get swept away by the mob.

For now, everyone was moving as one, but once the slaughter wound down and the higher-ranking undead arrived, the situation would change.

If a Death Knight saw this chaos, it would surely execute the ringleaders at once and move to restore order.

‘I have to get into the lifeboat and escape while I still can...!’

Clang―!

“W-who was that?! The one who just hit me in the back of the head... was it you?!”

—Clack! Clackclack! Clack!

After clubbing a pirate in the back of the head and inciting a fight between him and the skeleton beside him, I quietly slipped out of the formation.

Passing through the pirates and skeletons rolling around in a heap together, I finally reached the stern, where the lifeboat should have been.

The only means of escaping this ship.

But all that remained there were severed ropes, flapping emptily in the wind.

When I stared blankly down below, I saw a group of lesser pirates already in the lifeboat, hurriedly rowing away while cheering.

“Hurry, all of you!! This ship is finished already!”

“Hihi...! We are saved!! Let us get out of here at on—huh? What is that?”

“The sea suddenly got dark...”

CRUNCH!!!!

In an instant, a shadow rippled beneath the little boat, and then an enormous maw surged upward and swallowed it in a single bite.

Leaving behind nothing but white foam, the pirate crew vanished without even a scream.

‘Goddamn it....’

That lifeboat had just been the only means of escaping this ship.

Though judging by what just happened, I would have died even if I had boarded it.

Grinding my teeth at Velheim’s viciousness, which trampled hope beneath its heel with such delight, I forced my thoughts onward.

The plan of escaping on the lifeboat had failed.

The undead horde was tightening its grip from every direction in real time.

There was no one coming to rescue us, and giant sea monsters roamed the storm-tossed waters.

Out of all the means at my disposal, what could possibly get me through this crisis?

I stared at the thunder striking as though it would set the sea ablaze, and at the undead below it, as I thought.

And then, suddenly, one idea flashed across my mind like lightning.

A method no sane person would ever think of.

Wearing a self-mocking smile, I muttered,

“How about I act completely insane and make this whole mess even bigger?”

If I was going to stir up trouble, I might as well do it properly.

Why else had the British Empire managed to commit every atrocity imaginable and still remain standing?

Because it never did anything halfway. It carried everything through thoroughly.

Now that the option of escaping by boat was gone, there was only one path left.

If I could not run, then I had to break through head-on.

Having steeled myself, I curled my lips into a savage grin and murmured,

“...I have to seize control of the ship.”

If I wanted to deceive even the higher-ranking undead that would arrive soon, then I had to stir up even more chaos, and far more thoroughly.

Taking control of the ship was the core of this plan.

And to do that....

I lifted my head and looked toward the structure jutting out from one side of the deck.

The place where this ship’s captain, Barbo, had shut himself away.

And if I had to sum Barbo up in one word, it would be this.

‘Trash.’

The whole reason the player had been imprisoned on this ship in the tutorial was because he had been captured by that bastard.

Could one not already see the man’s character from the fact that, while his men were outside risking their lives, he alone had shut himself away?

I had to kill him if I wanted to take command of this ship freely.

The problem was that the captain’s cabin, where he had barricaded himself, became a perfectly sealed room once the door was locked, making it extremely difficult to open from the outside.

Getting that turtle-like coward to poke his own head out was exceedingly hard, but fortunately, I had one skill perfectly suited for the job.

[Disguise]

A skill of Antagon’s Rune that consumed mana to change my appearance into someone I had killed in the past.

At first glance it sounded useful, but it came with so many restrictions that in-game it had mostly been just a trolling skill, used to startle people or to disguise yourself as a deer and PK clueless newbies wandering through low-level zones.

One of the reasons [Antagon’s Rune] had been so undervalued.

But if the sole purpose was the dirty business of stirring up trouble, then it could be said to surpass any other skill.

I hid behind the mast, where people’s eyes would not reach me, and searched through my memory.

‘Tirosh was hunched over and thin, was he not?’

The foundation of disguise was imitation.

I pictured Tirosh’s appearance in exact detail inside my head.

The wrinkles in his face, weathered by the sea wind, the filthy beard, the blackened teeth rotting in his mouth.

His back bent by age, his shoulders drawn inward.

He was someone I had seen so often since my days in the game that conjuring up his appearance was not difficult.

｢You have disguised yourself as Black-Tooth Tirosh!｣

｢Though aged and decrepit, he remains a figure of notorious infamy among the pirates!｣

｢Your synchronization with the original body is incomplete, causing your stats to decrease.｣

It was a strange sensation.

It was definitely my body, and yet my field of vision was lower, and I could not straighten my back.

My body felt sluggish, as though I were dead drunk, and agile swordsmanship was impossible.

‘Using this body in battle is out of the question.’

I had a feeling it would be the same even if I stole the body of someone stronger than Tirosh.

Since I had already known from the start that [Antagon’s Rune] was not suited for combat, I made little of it and went straight to the captain’s cabin, where I pounded on the door.

“Hey, Barbo! It is Tirosh!! Open up already!!”

“......”

“You fucking witless captain! I know you are hiding in there, so open the door!! I came running back too!”

“......”

...Tch, was that not enough?

Just as I was about to try another method, a faint voice came from the other side of the door.

“A-a password!”

“...A password?”

“Y-yes, prove that you are really Tirosh! Th-then I will let you in!”

“......”

Damn it, had there been something like that?

If the pirates had some sort of usual passphrase among themselves, there was no way a player could know it.

Instead, I focused on Tirosh himself.

‘What kind of bastard was Tirosh again?’

Was he not an extremely hot-blooded old soldier with enough seniority that even the captain and the other pirates on this ship could not touch him carelessly?

He had spent his whole life at sea, and so both his words and temper were notoriously rough and impulsive.

The moment I remembered that much, I acted on instinct and kicked the door hard.

Bam―!

“You rainwater-drowned bastard! Open this door right now! The undead are already at our very throats! If one more word about some fucking password comes out of your mouth, I will skewer your guts with my curved blade and feed you to the fish!”

When I roared in a voice rough and hoarse with fury, a pair of terrified eyes peeked out through the windscreen, and then I heard the latch rattle as it was hurriedly undone.

Soon after, a pale, cold-sweating man grabbed me and dragged me inside, then frantically locked the door again.

“Huff, huff... T-Tirosh, it really is you...! I thought perhaps the undead were trying some trick...!”

“You idiot! Are you saying I could be a fake?!”

“H-hiiik! Do not shout! What if the skeletons hear and swarm over here?! F-fuck! A sudden raid by a ghost ship, how can this be happening?! D-damn it, we never should have raided that cursed merchant vessel....”

“...That merchant vessel, you say?”

“Yes! That cursed merchant ship whose crew had all burned to death! Was there not some ominous black-haired boy sleeping peacefully in the hold below? That bastard definitely summoned this ghost ship!! He looked pretty as a girl, so I thought I could sell him to some perverted noble for a high price, and yet...!”

“......”

“D-damn it...! This is no time for this, we need to discuss how we are going to esca—”

“Doran.”

“What?”

“That boy’s name is Doran.”

Thrust.

In that instant, a sharp pain burrowed into Barbo’s abdomen.

A blade that tore through his entrails with careful precision, one that stole his breath for certain.

As the captain collapsed, clutching his stomach in bewilderment, the last thing he saw was....

The wavering afterimage of the evil god Antagon, changing into a black-haired young man.