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Chapter 46: Follow Me to Your Death!
Chapter 46: Follow Me to Your Death!
Perhaps it was because of his startling appearance, but the laboring slaves were left speechless, their eyes fixed on Sag.
"There!"
In the distance, a group of guards with guns ran towards them from the other end of the bridge.
Sag merely glanced at them and kicked out with a light blue slash, slicing through the guards' bodies and sending a gust of wind their way.
Zip!
The guards' bodies staggered, and blood spurted out as they fell to the ground.
Bang!
A laborer slave loosened his grip, causing the building materials he was holding to crash to the ground. Stones scattered across the bridge, the clatter bringing everyone back to their senses.
One of the burly men asked incredulously, "Are you here to save us?"
"Save you?"
Sag bared his teeth in a sinister grin. "As pirates, we can be happy, carefree, and unrestrained, but we do not save people! I am not here to save you; I am here to lead you to your deaths!"
"Follow me, and you may die tomorrow, perishing in the vast ocean. Refuse, and you will remain here forever!"
Sag held out his hand towards them. "Choose! Will you toil endlessly here until death, or will you embark on a journey to the sea and follow me to your death?"
...
"Do you think Sag will be able to recruit followers successfully? They are slaves, after all—slaves with a 700-year history. Are they suitable to be pirates?"
On the black ship, Reneetia sat on the ground, tinkering with a small tool hammer in her hands as she spoke.
The hammer was disassembled, revealing intricate parts that would make anyone dizzy just by looking at them.
Anyone with mechanical knowledge would immediately realize that the hammer's mechanism couldn't be operated, except by some miraculous means.
Standing beside her, Lily was carefully wiping her thin sword with a cloth when she paused at Reneetia's words and glanced up at the massive bridge above, responding calmly:
"People must rely on themselves. Only by awakening themselves can they truly be free to control their destiny. Sag has brought an opportunity, but it is not a handout; it is a choice. Those who yearn for the ocean and freedom must be prepared to face death."
"As expected of someone from the royal family, Lily. I couldn't say those things," Reneetia remarked.
"It has nothing to do with being royalty," Lily replied. "It's a lesson learned from enduring a long period of adversity. You'll understand when you're older, Reneetia."
Lily smiled faintly, swung her thin sword, causing it to shine with a golden hue in the fading daylight, and then sheathed it.
"Yes, grow up," Reneetia murmured, stealing a glance at Lily's chest, which jiggled as a result of her sword-swinging action. She clenched her small fists and added determinedly, "I want to grow up, too!"
"Then you must eat well," Maryka, who had approached them, said with a gentle smile. "Only by eating well can you grow up quickly, and your eating habits are quite irregular, Reneetia."
"Is that so?" Reneetia asked, taken aback.
"Of course, little Reneetia," Maryka said, ruffling Reneetia's hair affectionately as she, too, glanced at the huge bridge. "I wonder how many people the captain will bring. How much food should we prepare? It seems we don't have enough ingredients. Ah, what a happy dilemma."
For Maryka, being able to freely cook and find ways to feed people under good conditions was a very fulfilling task.
"It would be nice if the warships over there could spare us some ingredients, but I suppose that's unlikely," she continued, looking to the side with a soft smile. "However, as pirates, we can always take what we need. We'll leave them enough to eat their fill, and the rest will be ours."
"Warships should have plenty of ingredients... Wait, warships?"
Lily nodded in agreement, but her voice trailed off halfway through her sentence as she unconsciously followed Maryka's gaze.
"Lily! Reneetia! Maryka!"
Several pirates called out in fear from the lookout platform on the mast. "A warship is approaching!"
Reneetia assembled her tool hammer, using her ability to twist the hammer's handle, causing it to extend, and then she hoisted it onto her shoulder. She stood up, baring her small fangs.
"It's just a warship. Why are you all so startled? We've robbed plenty of them before," she said, her voice trailing off as she stared at the approaching dog-head warship. Her large, lively eyes narrowed.
"Th-the navy..." she stuttered, unable to form a coherent sentence.
"What's wrong?" Lily asked, puzzled.
While encountering a warship was certainly surprising, it wasn't unprecedented. They had come across too many warships in the past.
In the beginning, they had avoided confrontations with the navy to prevent their broken ship from being sunk.
Chapter 46: Follow Me to Your Death!
"Now, he's changed ships. Just the cannons on that ship are enough to suppress a single warship, even if the one coming at us from the sea is much larger than the ones we encountered in the East China Sea."
"Reet, is this the main Navy warship? It is quite large, but it's not something to be afraid of. Even without Sag, we can fight them," Lily said.
"It's not that simple," Maryka said, her voice also turning low. "Lily, you've been locked up in the palace since you were young, so you don't know. That ship isn't an ordinary Navy warship; it's..."
Anyone who could receive information would recognize that dog-headed warship.
The ship with the distinctive logo was constantly featured in the newspapers, and its owner was none other than...
"The Navy hero!" Reneetia finally exclaimed. "It's Karp!"
...
On the bridge, Sag's words plunged the people into a brief silence.
After the silence, a man suddenly laughed: "What are you talking about? Why would I go and die?"
But he stopped halfway through his sentence, staring dumbly at the fallen guards as if he had lost his voice.
They had been captured and forced into slave labor, enduring inhuman treatment. Yet, even so, they wanted to live.
It was because they wanted to live that they gritted their teeth and persevered, becoming numb to their slave existence over time. They simply worked day after day, thinking that it was better to live one more day.
After all, no one wanted to die.
But now, a sudden intruder had come and told them he would take them to their deaths. Of course, no one would agree with such a ludicrous proposition.
Yet, even as the words reached their tongues, they couldn't bring themselves to utter them.
Sag's unrestrained and carefree face stirred something within them.
It was like the freedom they felt as toddlers running by the sea, the jealousy they felt for a girl they liked, or the heated argument that led to a physical fight.
It wasn't that these memories were particularly remarkable, but rather the sense of freedom they brought.
Back then, they were free and could decide for themselves what they wanted to do.
Death was indeed terrifying.
But...
The man subconsciously looked at the shackles on his hands and feet, then turned his head to gaze beyond the bridge, at the vast ocean.
That was the ocean!!
Clank!
The sound of the dragging shackles attracted everyone's attention. A burly man, standing at an imposing height of three meters, dragged his chains toward Sag.
The scars on his face made him look fierce.
But they all knew that when this fierce-looking man had first arrived, he had been a clean-faced youth with a kind smile.
Those scars had been beaten into him.
The burly man even opened his mouth to reveal that his tongue had been cut in half, and he lifted his shackled hands.
The meaning was clear.
Cut these chains, and I will follow you.
"Sure."
Sag slashed his hand through the air, his hand like a knife cutting through the shackles. With a single strike, he severed the thick iron chains binding the man's hands and feet.
The burly man's eyes lit up with excitement, and he ran straight toward the ocean.
"Hey, what are you doing!"
Sag grabbed the burly man's clothes and pulled him back.
"There's no need to jump into the sea. At this height, even the seawater won't spare you. I didn't mean for you to die right now. Just follow me, and I'll find a way for you to get down from here," Sag said.
He looked at the others and asked, "So, who else wants to follow me to their deaths?"
"Do you have a way to directly get out to sea from here?"
One of them looked down at the ocean below and asked in confusion, "But even a warship's cannons can't blow up this bridge."
Sag clenched his fist and said, "Of course a warship can't blow up the bridge, but I..."
"What does it have to do with a warship?"
He must have remembered wrong, because he had already changed ships, hadn't he?
Sag subconsciously looked to the side. Below the bridge, on the sea's surface, his black ship was sailing at full power, and behind it, a massive dog-headed warship was in pursuit.
At the same time, Reneetia's familiar voice seemed to be coming from the black ship, amplified through some sort of loudspeaker.
"Sag, Karp is here! Hurry up and escape!"
Boom!!
A massive impact struck the spot where Sag was standing, sending him flying and slamming him into the bridge. The impact created a dent in the bridge and kicked up a cloud of smoke.
"Puahahaha!"
Within the smoke, a figure could be seen, head thrown back in raucous laughter, his robust voice echoing: "You want to take away the people of the Kingdom from this bridge? Well done, you little rascal, Sag!"
(End of Chapter)
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