Editing Godhorn Tech:Volume2 Chapter5 (section)

===Between the Lines 3===

Onelife Shiftup was officially known as a pirate.

There was no doubting that. Finding the criminal city comfortable and choosing it as your home were enough to know someone had something to hide, but he was a known threat who gathered people into a professional criminal group that sailed the sea.

Yet his large-sailed pirate ship looked downright carefree.

It was a Godhorn Tech named King Knot.

Onelife himself had slain the Wicked God and broken off its horn.

Perhaps he only had the luxury of peace because he was surrounded by the greatest power out there.

“Captain.”

A new pirate in a short-sleeved sailor uniform and shorts hopped up and leaned out over the railing. The new pirate was peering out with an extendable telescope and were young enough to appear androgynous.

“Some light is reflecting near the horizon at 5 o’clock. It’s an SOS.”

“Hmm, from a merchant ship?”

The large and muscular man named Onelife Shiftup crossed his arms and listened to the response from the newcomer who kicked their skinny legs with their belly resting on the railing.

“Hard to tell since they’ve almost fully sunk, but I think it’s a warship. Ah ha ha. Maybe they ran right into a reef. The sail is dyed with a gear pattern, so I think they’re from the Republic.”

That made them an enemy of the pirates.

The criminal city did not belong to any country, so it had no military or police agency. The Bodenburg Company’s private troops took the role of knights and guards…but that was just something they did and it was not supported by any international treaties.

So at times, some people with way too much time on their hands would sail out to the distant sea and wipe out every pirate they saw, all in the name of preserving the peace out at sea.

A young man walked over and joined the conversation.

Their criminal group was quite polished as an organization, but their ability to freely share information allowed them lighter footwork.

The young man used the number and position of the gears on the sail to decode the ship’s affiliation like he was identifying a constellation.

“What is a C1 fleet doing this far south? Their glider cannons require frequent resupplying. Hm, are they trying to cover up some kind of scandal maybe? Come to think of it, a lot of Republic funding earmarked for tracking down a Wicked God horn has gone missing recently.”

The skinny young man wore glasses and had an intellectual look, so he was basically asking for a nickname of ‘strategist’, ‘scholar’, or ‘string bean’, but all his information came from the light and frivolous rumors running rampant through the criminal city. In a city where outlaws of various cultures interacted, there was no shortage of gossip and scandalous information. It was their ability to sniff out what was real and what was fake that allowed them to skillfully evade the surprise inspections made by the Bodenburg Company’s private troops either late at night or early in the morning.

At any rate, the sinking ship was Onelife and his crew’s enemy.

But that man among men did not even hesitate.

“Understood. Prepare the rope and boats. How many empty barrels do we have left? Gather them on the deck so we can dump them in the water as floats.”

Outlaws were not generally in the habit of helping those in need.

For one thing…

“What are we even doing? Didn’t we start this hoping to be a naval rescue squad?”

Yes, Onelife’s crew were not thieves who attacked other ships.

The criminal city on the southern end of the continent received a lot of naval traffic, but it was also known as a dangerous region of sea full of reefs, rapid currents, and fierce and violent oceanic Beast Novae. Ships could not even get through if the pirates did not fight the monsters and bring down their numbers (mostly for their own purposes). And since the criminal city was not supported by any specific country, it had no naval rescue squad to help any sinking ships or stranded crews.

So Onelife and his crew had decided to make one themselves.

They had been attacked for it and forced to arm themselves.

They had done so by retrieving the wooden boxes thrown into the ocean by sinking ships. The one exception was their Wicked God horn.

The androgynous young newcomer cackled with their soft stomach resting on the railing.

“We can’t help it. Naval accidents ''are great for meeting new people''. We’d normally never get to meet kings, nobles, holy men, or millionaires, but even they’ll grab a commoner’s hand when they’re drowning out at sea. And once they owe you one for saving their lives, you’re set for life. You can’t guarantee it though, so it’s more like a big lottery.”

“Some people can guarantee those things. Unlike the children’s story about the glass slipper, there are ways of getting ahead outside of those fancy balls us commoners aren’t allowed in. If you calculate everything out and follow a plan while purchasing enough lottery tickets, it counts as a financial investment giving you a stable fortune. Those greedy people think we’re interfering with their business of probability and statistics. It’s pathetic.”

Onelife sighed from his nose as the short kid and the glasses man spoke.

They had saved any lives that would be lost at sea and they had protected those with the same ideals. And eventually, he had become known as the strongest pirate.

He had ended up the exact opposite of what he had wanted to be.

He was sick of stealing. He had grown accustomed to fighting. He had lost count of how many times he had stolen to protect people, let a dangerous weapon sink into the depths, and freed slaves packed tightly into the limited space below a ship’s deck.

“Your thoughts on the matter don’t change what’s happening before your eyes. You can worry about those philosophical issues after saving all the drowning people out there.”

“Yeah, I suppose so.”

“Ideally we’ll be discussing what a great job we did in a bar supplied with barrels upon barrels of bourbon. Gah hah hah!!”

That man at the top did have his thoughts, but he knew it did no one any good if he let his crew see the worry on his face.

“Are you ready, men!? We’ve got some rescuing to do!!!!”