Ever since the Suez Canal opened, Austria's export trade to Asia had surged sharply, accompanied by an equally sharp rise in maritime accidents.
To keep maritime trade routes open, the Austrian Navy had launched multiple operations, sweeping away pirate strongholds one after another.
The pirates hanged in harbors had already numbered over a hundred; naturally, even more had been shot dead on the spot.
The anti-piracy campaign had proven remarkably effective. Whether or not someone backed them from the shadows, no country openly supported pirates.
The navies of every nation had taken part in the pirate hunts. Recently, the probability of ships encountering accidents had nearly exceeded one percent.
Tales of sea monsters had also been surfacing with increasing frequency. Even Franz could not make sense of the truth. More than a thousand witnesses claimed to have seen the pirates—people from every country among them.
Of course, these sea monsters were not all that terrifying. The fact that their witnesses were still alive was proof enough. They remained within the bounds of scientific explanation—nothing more than enormous creatures with formidable fighting strength.
Fire-breathing sea monsters did not exist, though water-spewing ones were plentiful. They possessed no magic, could neither fly through the heavens nor burrow through the earth; they merely stirred up trouble in the sea.
Many sea monsters simply looked strange, flashing past people's sight without attacking ships.
Who knew whether they were mild-tempered, or whether ships simply lay outside their dietary range? Come to think of it, who would be interested in lumps of wood and iron?
The claim that they attacked ships to eat people was even more laughable. That little meat would not even fill the cracks between the teeth of such colossal creatures. There was no need for them to attack ships over it.
Catching