When Agin woke again, night had already fallen. Moonlight spilled without reserve across the long street stained red with blood, bringing a bone-piercing chill.
Woo...
The air reeked of rust and blood. From time to time, a sea breeze swept through the silent streets, scraping against the coarse sand and gravel as it lingered at alleyways and intersections, producing a hazy, indistinct whimper that sounded like someone screaming in agony.
Staring at the darkened pool of blood on the ground, Agin muttered to himself.
"Did I... survive?"
He clenched his fists, his nails digging into his flesh as blood seeped out drop by drop.
"Was I... the only one who survived?!"
The confusion in his eyes slowly cleared.
Agin bit his lip in anguish.
Defeat!
Complete defeat!
And this defeat was entirely his responsibility.
He had misjudged how necessary it was for them to join forces with Lowett, resulting in devastating losses for the entire pirate crew.
One could even say... they had already been wiped out!
"But at least Captain Krieg escaped... right?"
Suddenly remembering Krieg's escape, Agin forced his aching, exhausted body upright and disappeared step by step down the end of the street.
As dawn broke, Agin rowed a small boat to a patch of sand protruding from the water near Vicero Island. The tiny sandbar rose less than half a meter above the surface and would be submerged with even a slight tide.
This was one of the places where Krieg had buried his treasure.
Krieg did not treat his men like people, nor did he trust the pirates he had hired with money.
Thus, he never kept treasure aboard his ship, instead burying it separately. Only he himself and his most trusted subordinate, Agin, knew the locations.
"Someone's there!"
Seeing the bright orange campfire, a