Officers

After learning everything he wanted to know, Dunn mercifully had his men kill all the prisoners outright.

He watched the pirates cautiously carry the bodies past him, and the awe in their eyes as they looked at him.

Dunn was very satisfied.

Although a reputation for brutality did not sound particularly pleasant, it could extinguish any improper thoughts among the pirates under him, who had grown somewhat full of themselves after their recent advancement.

After all, not a single pirate wanted to experience that horrific keelhauling firsthand.

This counted as an unexpected bonus from his revenge.

Clap! Clap!

Once the pirates had cleaned the deck, Dunn clapped his hands, drawing everyone's attention.

"Everyone has advanced. This is a very good start."

"It means there isn't any trash among you that needs weeding out."

Seeing the awe in the pirates' eyes, Dunn was very pleased with this spur-of-the-moment undertaking.

Everyone had advanced to the second tier, he had instilled fear in the pirates, and he had resolved the lingering obsession left by the body's original owner. Now this body belonged entirely to the present Dunn.

Moreover, the dissipation of the original owner's lingering obsession had increased Dunn's intelligence by one point. His intelligence had finally reached the average for an ordinary person.

"Although everyone already knows, I'll still make this official."

"Annie is our first mate and chief navigator, and Green is our helmsman."

Dunn then looked toward Martin, who was hiding off to one side with Hall, pulled a key from inside his coat, and tossed it over.

"Martin is our head cook. You'll be responsible for the cold storage key."

Cold storage was where ingredients were kept aboard the ship. During the hot summer, the crew also often took rum from their reserves there to chill, so to some extent, its key represented a measure of authority.

Martin accepted it with a broad smile. No one had any questions about this. After all, he was the only cook aboard, and his cooking was particularly delicious.

Dunn then scanned the crowd before finally settling his gaze on Hans. He took out another key and tossed it over.

"Hans, you'll be our rigging master. This is the storeroom key."

By now, even the slowest crew members knew that the captain was promoting officers, and their eyes immediately turned toward Dunn with burning eagerness.

Although most of the pirates knew their chances were slim, what if? After all, they were all second-tier professionals now. Who was any worse than anyone else?

Hans accepted the key with a composed expression, while the others who had joined the ship with him cheered.

Although the veteran crew resented a newcomer being promoted to officer, they had no choice but to accept it. For one thing, this was an appointment made by their captain, Dunn.

For another, Hans's biological level was now 8, the highest among all the pirates, and he was one of only two pirates who had obtained four career skills.

The only career skills he had not obtained were Rankyaku and Geppo. In fact, perhaps because these two career skills were more difficult, none of the pirates had obtained either of them.

Thus, although the veteran crew offered no congratulations, they did not say anything to spoil the mood either.

"As for the boatswain..." Dunn surveyed the new and veteran crew members, who had clearly split into two groups, and after a moment's thought, said, "I'll leave that to you to decide by vote. Give me the result before tonight."

With that, he ignored the uproar among the pirates, turned, and went into the captain's quarters to rest.

As soon as the original owner's lingering obsession dissipated, Dunn, who had been affected by the original owner's fury, immediately returned to normal. Remembering Owen's mangled, bloody body made his stomach churn.

The deck still reeked of blood, and the heavy stench made Dunn's stomach keep contracting. To avoid losing his composure in public and undermining the brutal image he had just established among the crew, he could only return to rest as quickly as possible.

After Dunn left.

Watching the pirates canvass for votes all over the deck, almost coming to blows in the process.

Annie said to Green beside her, "So that's it. We still underestimated this captain of ours."

"First, he recruited a batch of new sailors, splitting the sailors into two groups, old and new."

"Now he's using this election to deepen the division between the two groups, or even split them into more than two groups, so they have no chance of banding together."

"And during the plundering just now, he used punishment to reveal his brutal side and intimidate these pirates, who had just grown full of themselves after advancing."

"That way, this ship full of professionals who can't unite will neither be able nor dare to do anything against the captain."

Green frowned and asked Annie, "It's just an election. How could it divide the pirates? Hans's little group only has six people. They can't challenge the seventeen veterans in a vote. They should know that themselves, not to mention Hans is already the rigging master."

"There may only be six of them, but they're more united. Hans can keep a firm grip on those six votes."

"The veteran crew may have seventeen people, but they also have more ambitious people, and no one can firmly hold everyone else down. Once the votes are split among three or more people, Hans's group will have a very good chance of taking the boatswain position too."

"If someone else in Hans's group becomes boatswain, wouldn't Hans be able to use the authority in his hands to bring the sailors together again?" Green asked Annie in confusion.

"If the veteran crew are all fools who can't read the situation, then it doesn't matter if Hans's group gets the boatswain position." A cold smile curled Annie's lips.

"If the veteran sailors split into three or more groups because there are too many ambitious people among them, letting newcomers like Hans lord it over them, they'd be doing well not to fight each other. How could they possibly unite?"

"Besides, they couldn't sincerely accept Hans and the others either."

"When the ship splits into several little groups that hate each other, that will be the best possible situation for our captain."

"Now we just have to see whether the veteran crew are all fools!"

It had to be said that she lived up to her upbringing in a great family. Although Annie had not been raised as an heir to the family head and had not studied power politics in depth.

After watching Dunn's actions, she had still ultimately managed to roughly guess his intentions.

Dunn had initially recruited sailors on Greenleaf Island precisely so that the new and veteran crew could check and balance each other. However, because of the unexpected incident involving the [Golden Tangerine], he had left after hastily recruiting Hans and his five companions.

Fortunately, Hans and the others were quite capable and sufficiently united.

There was also the fact that Dunn had let the monthly wage of two gold coins simmer overnight before explaining the details, creating a rift between the two groups right from the start.

As for establishing a brutal image, that could only be called a happy accident.

"...Campbell, was it? Have the family look into him." Thinking of the information obtained during the interrogation, Annie spoke to Green with a thoughtful expression.

"Understood."

As it turned out, there were still clever people among the veteran crew. In the end, a veteran named Lewis was successfully elected boatswain. His biological level was 7, and he was the other [Pirate] besides Hans who had obtained four career skills.

Before dinner, Lewis received the ammunition storage key from Dunn.