Actually, at first, Duval and the others had been dead set against letting the Sunny approach the large Marine battleship anchored nearby, doing who knew what.
After all, the Sunny was merely a two-masted schooner with a slight edge in speed. As for its armaments, the only thing worth mentioning was the Lion's Roar Cannon at the bow, which they barely knew how to use. And then there were the few pitiful cannons along the rails...
In any case, they had never thought taking those on in a head-to-head cannon battle against a large Marine warship would be a good idea.
But they had no choice. Under orders from their Queen Annie, they gritted their teeth and reluctantly let the Sunny creep toward the edge of the Marine vessel.
And then...
To Duval and the Flying Fish Riders under his command's utter astonishment, the Marine ship did nothing when it spotted them. It didn't react at all. Its cannons didn't slowly extend from their ports and aim at the Sunny, as they had imagined. The whole massive ship simply stood silent on the sea.
Then, when the Sunny slowly drew alongside the other ship and stopped, and the puzzled Duval and the others could finally see what was happening on the huge deck of the towering Marine warship, they all drew in a sharp breath.
It turned out the Marines hadn't failed to react to the Sunny's arrival because they didn't want to. Rather, the deck of the Marine battleship was covered in strange Marine statues, with only one lone officer among them. He held a katana, wore a mohawk with dark-purple hair tied behind his head, and had on a pale-purple pinstriped suit beneath a white Marine coat.
"Strange..."
"Hey!"
"Boss! What's going on over there?"
"Why have they