As we had promised, we agreed to let them go after they had given us most of their cargo.
Surprisingly, Emilia did not demand them to hand over everything they had. She simply got them to bring out their valuables on deck and took around three quarters of it.
When I asked why, she explained to me with a grin, "If I were to rob them blind, they would have no cargo to sell and might be ruined after this. If I leave them with enough to break even, they would continue their trading and we might even rob them again~"
"But that's if we continue being pirates, right?" I pointed out.
She nodded, "That's right, but in terms of being merchants, I would now be aware of a certain Nyarel merchant group that may need some funding in return for favours~"
Right… Of course… I should have expected something like this from Emilia.
The cargo this group of Nyarels were transporting seemed to be a mixture of silk, food and gold.
Emilia chose to take most of the silk and gold but only took half of the food from them.
Under our watchful eye, the sailors on the merchant ship transported the goods over onto our ship via a gangplank laid between us.
I suspect that the fact we weren't robbing them blind also encouraged them to be more cooperative.
At least, that was my thought before one of them suddenly dropped the box they were carrying and lunged towards Ephyra.
The Siren was so surprised that she only managed to let out a yelp before the guy circled around her and pulled out a knife from his vest to hold it against her neck.
"Alright! All of you drop your weapons and step towards the far end of the ship right now!"
The other Sirens widened their eyes in panic and looked at Emilia.
She frowned at the guy before turning to the merchant, "I don't suppose you planned this after my generosity in leaving you enough to break even?"
Surprisingly, the merchant guy actually waved his hands in denial, "No, no! Absolutely not!"
The Nekomata then turned back to smirk at Ephyra's captor, "So a wannabe hero I see? Very well, I'll drop my weapon."
All of us watched as Emilia slowly unfastened her blade from her waist and made the action of bending down to place it on the ground.
The next moment, however, she had disappeared from where she was standing, leaving only the sword sheath behind that clattered noisily on the ground.
We then heard the sound of something else hitting the ground and I didn't need to look to know she had already decapitated the Nyarel that was holding Ephyra hostage.
Sure enough, there was a headless corpse wobbling behind the Siren unsteadily. Not only that, it seems like his arms had also been cut off as well, the two limbs rolling away on the deck beside the decapitated head.
Slowly, the body fell backwards with a loud crash, revealing Emilia standing a short distance behind it with a bloodied sabre.
She turned to face the other sailors, "Does anyone else want to try being a hero?"
Everyone looked at the dead body and quickly got right back to moving the goods.
Emilia then wiped her blade on the tunic of the dead man before returning to retrieve the scabbard.
Unbidden, Odeta went ahead to pick up the corpse and threw it into the sea before letting the two severed limbs and the head follow suit.
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I don't know if I should be worried that the only thought going through my head was that it would be a pain to clean the blood off the deck later.
The rest of the process was relatively smooth with no one else attempting anything else.
I was actually expecting someone else to try something like taking revenge for their fallen comrade, but surprisingly no one did.
Once the goods were on our deck, the crew of the merchant ship started to board their own ship once more.
This was proving to be a really easy raid so far, I didn't even need to do anything except to just stand here and look at them.
And as though the gods had heard me…
"Sh… Ship off the port stern!!" Delmare shouted.
I turned, expecting the ship to still be far away in the horizon, only to see that it was already close enough that we could clearly see the ship with our naked eye.
Since she wasn't specifically assigned to be on a lookout for ships, I guess that's the reason why Delmare only spotted it so late.
Emilia shouted at the merchant ship sailors, "Get a move on before I slaughter ye! Unhook and set sail!"
I went back to my position on the wheel as the others scurried to their own posts to prepare us to move.
Emilia joined me on the quarterdeck just as our sails unfurled and we started to pull away from the merchant ship.
The Nekomata pulled out her spyglass and pointed it at the ship Delmare spotted.
She let out a curse before turning to the deck, "Full sails! Full sails! Aster! Turn this ship with the wind! We have Pirate Hunters in pursuit!"
Oh… Pirate Hunters exist in this World as well I see.
Obeying her instructions, I used the flag to gauge the direction of the wind and spun the ship to sail with it.
Emilia looked through her spyglass again and frowned, "Damn… They're sailing on a Caravel too… We won't be able to outrun them with our cargo either…"
"Do we have to fight them?" I asked.
"If we don't have a choice… But not before securing our loot below deck first! I'll be damned if we lose any of them because of the fight! Miss Odeta! Help me move the boxes to the cargo hold! Lady Aster! Keep them away from us as long as possible!"
She then leapt over the railing, leaving me in control of the ship by myself.
Easier said than done, Emilia! How am I supposed to keep this ship ahead of them when I can't control the wind?!
…
Oh wait, I can?
I first tried firing a blast of air at the sail using [Breeze].
It didn't feel like it did anything so I started to spam it repeatedly, creating a sort of gale with it.
It definitely wasn't making us speed through the waves but at least it still gave us a little boost to remain ahead of them. This might be why there are Aeromancers on ships…
That was when I heard a loud boom and I turned to see that they had fired a cannonball at us.
The cannonball arched through the air and landed in the waters in between our ship, only to explode quite violently under the water a moment later.
They even have high explosive cannonballs… Alright then…
I realised that the shot was meant as a warning to us to surrender but obviously we're not going to do that.
Unfortunately, all of our cannons were broadside facing and we didn't have any stern or bow cannons which the other ship obviously had. So unless I turned this ship around, we could not fire back at them either.
That's not to say we were entirely helpless either.
I used my combination magic of casting [Ember] and [Breeze] together again, shooting the small ball of fire towards the enemy ship.
Unfortunately, since the wind was blowing against it, the fire only travelled for less than half the distance before dropping into the water.
Drat.
I guess I could also rely on my Tornado Bow or maybe even my [Laser] spell, but let's just leave that as an option first and wait for Emilia to return.
The merchant ship from before was also giving chase behind the Pirate Hunters, no doubt thinking they could reclaim their losses once we surrendered.
I continued to fire [Breeze] at our sail but the Pirate Hunter ship was slowly catching up to us, making me think they also had an Aeromancer in the crew. They then fired another cannonball and this one landed close enough that I felt the shockwave from here.
If Emilia isn't up here yet in the next two minutes, I'm turning around to fire my [Laser].
Looking back, I could see several Mahuns standing at the bow, all of them waving their fists angrily at me when they saw me look back.
A few of them even leered at me and made obscene gestures too.
Well, it doesn't take a genius to figure out they were fully intent on ravaging me when they caught up to us.
That's it.
I held the wheel with one hand and pointed my other palm towards their ship, charging up my [Laser] as much as I could before firing it at them.
The beam of light shot through the bow of their ship, cutting a hole through the wood at an angle that penetrated straight to the other side of the ship.
The Pirate Hunters on board gaped at me, but it didn't look like they were breaking off the chase yet.
So I lifted my palm and shot out another [Laser] this time aimed directly at the Mahuns who were making the obscene gestures.
The light pierced through the shoulder of one and the arm of another, causing both men to fall over on the deck.
That sobered them up and they began to panic, their ship quickly breaking off the chase to sail away from us.
The merchant ship also saw this and decided to cut their losses as well, leaving us free to escape with the loot.
I was feeling quite proud of myself when Emilia came back up again, looking confused to see the Pirate Hunters were the ones escaping from us instead of the other way around.
"Aster? What happened here?"
Right… I sure hope she didn't actually want to fight the Pirate Hunters for whatever reason…