Two Alliances

From Xia Lun's surprise attack to the fall of the First Mate's gang, the whole thing took less than thirty seconds, even counting the standoff.

Close-quarters combat was always brutal and dangerous. Victory and death could hinge on a single instant, and the smallest mistake or moment's hesitation could bring an irreversible defeat.

The fighting was brief but violent, like sparkling water with the taste of blood.

But Xia Lun had won.

He drew the Revolver from his gun belt and loaded the last two bullets into its cylinder.

Click. The cylinder snapped shut.

Only then did Xia Lun let out a long breath.

He glanced at the captain lying on the floor and saw that her shoulder blade had been pierced, but her life was not in danger.

"Just a flesh wound." The captain sat up slowly, breathing hard, and grinned. "What about you? That shot didn't hit you, did it?"

Xia Lun did not smile. Lowering his eyes, he asked quietly, "Did you see the gray mist that came out of the bodies?"

The captain paused, then frowned slightly. "What gray mist?"

Xia Lun said nothing. He just watched her.

A moment later, her smile turned cold. She gave a bitter laugh. "What, you've barely finished off the First Mate, and now you want to kill me to keep me quiet? Go on, then. No need to make excuses. I'll take what's coming to me—I wasn't exactly acting in good faith when I shouted for help."

Xia Lun looked away.

People in the Scenario really could not see the gray mist released by the bodies.

"I did see gray mist," Xia Lun said truthfully. "Focus on your injury for now. I need to think."

With that, he quickly checked what he had gained.

Information streamed past the corner of his vision like spilled mercury.

[Specialization detected. Specialization confirmed: Cold Weapons Use—Short Sword (Basic).]

[Cold Weapons Use—Swords (Basic) (Progress: 50% → 62%): You have undergone basic training in armed combat. You understand the importance of controlling distance and maintaining proper blade alignment; you also know how to grip and wield sword-type weapons correctly.]

[You are far better than a beginner, but that is all. Given time, you may learn to wield sword-type weapons proficiently.]

[Specialization progress!]

[After a difficult battle, your understanding of Firearms Use has deepened.]

[Firearms Use (Mastery): 22% → 26%]

Xia Lun blinked. After a moment's thought, he arranged the Specialization levels he had seen so far.

Novice, Basic, Proficient, Mastery.

There might be higher levels, but he had not encountered them yet, so he set them aside.

As Xia Lun understood it, a Specialization represented his command of a particular discipline.

Compared with an ordinary game, Specializations were like player skill, Specialties were like stats, and skills were roughly like mechanics.

In most games, stats and skills might matter more. But "Investigator" was almost indistinguishable from reality. Without armor, everyone was a glass cannon.

A solid hit meant serious injury at the very least, if not immediate incapacitation. That made combat skill vastly more important.

Xia Lun kept reading.

[Specialty information unlocked.]

[Specialty "Mass Murderer" (Locked) (7/100): Bodies litter the ground, and blood flows freely! Having killed so many, you are more likely to frighten others into submission when intimidating them. Once you acquire this Specialty, you will also be able to harm spirit-type ghosts through physical force. Over time, this Specialty can slightly increase your mental strength.]

The First Mate's gang, plus his younger brother, made exactly seven. This Specialty must unlock through killing.

Even killing lots of people counts as a Specialty? Xia Lun was speechless.

He looked at the final lines as he thought.

[Tip: You have a large number of Memory Points. You can unlock Masteries and learn Specialties and skills in your sleep.]

[Through killing, you have gained access to numerous Specialties and Masteries that can be redeemed.]

In a place this intense and stressful, when am I supposed to sleep? Xia Lun grumbled inwardly.

Meanwhile, the captain had grown increasingly uneasy.

The terrifying captive who had taken down the First Mate's whole gang in seconds had suddenly started acting as though he were having some kind of breakdown. First he had said a string of bizarre things, then he had stared at empty air...

If he were merely mad, that might have been manageable. The problem was that he was frighteningly good at fighting.

Never mind the absurd feat of tangling with that monster and blinding it. Just watching him take on several men at once had left her shaken.

She had spent years as a privateer and had seen plenty of capable fighters. But she had never seen anyone devise a plan so decisively and carry it out with such precision.

In a way, she had even glimpsed something almost graceful in that string of savage killings...

In short, the man was so formidable he hardly seemed human.

And now he did not seem entirely stable.

Pretending to be calm, she slowly took her Pipe and flint from her coat pocket. She put the stem to her lips and blew out the ash. Only then did she realize that she was trembling with fear.

She had always considered herself brave, even reckless. Now she could barely hold her Pipe steady.

A moment later, her eyes shifted. Perhaps this was also her chance to regain her position.

With that thought, she spoke up. "Hey, friend, want some? Top-quality stuff. Scarlet Lantern Island tobacco, reserved for the governor's mansion."

Without waiting for an answer, she went on. "Don't let the hallucinations bother you. Spend long enough at sea and seeing or hearing things is perfectly normal.

"I often see ghosts coming to claim my life, but none of them are real. I'm not making this up: pressure on the mind can do more damage than a hundred cannons."

Xia Lun blinked, then shook his head as if waking from a dream. "No, thanks. I quit smoking long ago."

"I'm Geliide. Before I went to sea, I worked as a mercenary for a while. Before that, I was a merchant. What about you?" The captain smiled earnestly, showing teeth yellowed by tobacco.

She had already planned what to say next. If he asked about her past, she could tell him a tale of hardship, mixing truth and lies about how she had been framed and exiled.

In her experience, people were emotional creatures who often confused sympathy with affection. If she could win his favor, she could try to use it.

"Me? Just call me Xia Lun." He paused, then gave her a faint, knowing smile. "Carpentry takes years to learn."

After a brief pause, he continued, "Geliide, you don't need to test me. I'm a good person. I don't generally hurt people unless they give me a reason. You're safe right now."

"Hiss—"

Startled, the captain drew sharply on her Pipe. Two streams of thick smoke poured from her nostrils, veiling her narrowed pupils.

She looked at the blood all over the floor and the mutilated bodies, at a loss for words.

Could a good person slaughter a group of men, then stand expressionless beside their corpses?

It was absurd.

And why was he refusing to follow her script?

Unwilling to surrender control of the conversation, she pressed on. "Then why did you—"

"I killed them in self-defense. They wanted to kill me. Was I supposed to let them?" Xia Lun gave her a searching look and cut her off without ceremony.

For some reason, the captain felt as though he had seen straight through her intentions.

She frowned slightly.

"Listen," Xia Lun said, his voice low. "The monster is nearby, and we're short on time. I'm only going to say this once."

"As a captain, you've done a poor job. The First Mate built enough support for a mutiny right under your nose. You lost control of your ship long ago.

"And now you're badly hurt. Even if you make it back on deck, you'll be in danger."

The captain said nothing.

His words stung, but they were true. She had tried to win him over precisely because she needed his fighting ability to protect herself.

"But Geliide, I can help you. Right now, I'm the only one who can." Xia Lun looked up, his tone softening. "I can help you regain control of the ship."

The captain's heart beat faster, but after a moment, she forced down her eagerness.

"What do you want?" She licked her dry lips and narrowed her eyes.

"I killed the First Mate, and he had already gained some control of the situation. If I return to the deck alone, any followers he has left could easily turn everyone against me."

Xia Lun spread his hands, speaking frankly.

"You need someone who can fight, and I need the legitimacy you have as captain. I want to use your authority to justify killing the First Mate. He was a traitor, and I was the one who executed him."

The captain took another draw on her Pipe and studied him. "That's awfully... honest of you. Hell, I used to think you were the sort who never told the truth."

She still thought so, in fact. But a few polite lies to smooth things over never hurt.

"If we're going to work together, I'll tell you everything I know." Xia Lun smiled easily, his voice sincere. "There's plenty we can do together."

Having lived two lifetimes, Xia Lun naturally took nothing a pirate captain said at face value. He was merely offering a few pleasantries of his own.

Such words might sound heartfelt, but they conveyed no more than "Nice weather today" or "Have you eaten?"

The speaker forgot them as soon as they were said, and the listener never took them seriously.

Still, Xia Lun understood one thing: whatever either of them was thinking, he and the captain now had something that could be called an alliance, however fragile.

Its fate would depend not on their pretty words, but on what each of them chose to do.

"Can you move?" he asked, offering her his hand.

The captain hesitated, then took it and struggled to her feet.

"I'm lucky to be alive. The bullets and blades all hit my left shoulder," she said. "They missed the bone and went through the flesh."

"Then we'll go through the gap above the table. I have a grappling hook." Xia Lun pulled it from his belt. "That way, we can avoid the monster."

Squelch.

A barely perceptible sound came from beside them. Xia Lun turned instinctively, and his scalp prickled.

A tentacle reached in through the doorway like a probe, with a pirate's head impaled on its tip.

As if sensing something, the head rose slowly on the tentacle. Countless writhing black tendrils pushed out of its shattered eye sockets, while red flesh dripped from it like melting wax.

The monster was right outside the door!

The captain's pupils contracted. She took a hard pull on her Pipe. "Well, this is enough to turn my guts inside out."

The head impaled on the tentacle opened its mouth and made a series of groaning sounds. This time, though, Xia Lun somehow understood them.

"Xia Lun. Peace. Truce. You can still turn back."

The monster can talk?! Xia Lun was stunned.

Wait. Why can I understand it?

A prompt from when he had entered the game flashed through his mind.

The Temporary Language Comprehension skill!

It did not apply only to human speech. It included the monster's words, too.

So the "normal route" through this Scenario was probably to stay among the captives and survive the first massacre, then use that language skill to become the sole means of communicating with the sea monster.

Once a Player controlled communication with the monster, the pirates would have reason to keep him alive. Maintain the balance of power between the two sides, and surviving six days would not be difficult at all.

That also explained the game's difficulty. During the public beta, even unprepared Players had survived at a rate as high as seventy percent.

Ironically, he had first attacked the monster, then slaughtered the pirates, leaving the two sides in a different kind of balance.

But why did the monster leave captured crew members alone?

Was it some sort of protection built into the game?

Thoughts raced through Xia Lun's mind as the monster made the corpse repeat itself.

"Xia Lun. Peace. Truce. You can still turn back."

"All right. Let's talk first." Xia Lun narrowed his eyes and forced the other thoughts away.

"You understand my words?!" The monster sounded excited. The pirate's head on its tentacle burst apart.

The captain stared in disbelief. "You can understand the monster? Wait, it can communicate?"

Xia Lun gave her an almost imperceptible shake of his head, and she understood at once.

The monster understood human speech. The last thing a negotiation needed was someone interrupting. If it discovered that the two of them wanted different things, it could turn that knowledge against them.

The monster might not be intelligent enough for that, but it never hurt to be careful.

"You are strong. I am strong. No need to fight to the death." The monster dropped the shattered pirate's head and hissed, "Carry me to Perilous Earth Island. You survive."