“Honestly! I worked so hard to get assigned to Zhejiang, and I barely even got to visit Botan Temple!”
The princess was grumbling at the ship’s railing, looking visibly irritated.
She glanced at with a face that said, we understand each other, right? sympathize with .
Honestly, she was always a bit of a headache—but what could I do? We needed her help.
So I answered her complaint with all due courtesy.
“Why’s that?”
“Because of the recent increase in pirate attacks, the local governors of Zhejiang submitted petitions to the court. After reading them, His Majesty has been sending secret orders...”
“Secret orders?”
“His Majesty keeps sending secret orders, saying he’s worried and suggesting that I, being frail, should go sowhere safer. So what am I supposed to do? If I leave it alone, he’s going to have reassigned again. I have to get rid of the pirates, that way he won’t keep talking like this.”
It seed the Emperor really doted on the princess.
I an, it’s not like pirates would ever actually invade the city walls... right?
“But the city should be secure. His Majesty seems to be worrying a bit too much.”
“Well, not right now, but there was a ti when pirates actually attacked the city.”
‘So they have gotten inside before.’
I thought she was exaggerating, but apparently pirates had once broken through the gates.
In that case, it made sense the Emperor would be worried—especially if he cherished the princess that much.
Still, the princess was clearly frustrated.
She’d gone through all the effort of arranging a fake marriage to get stationed in Zhejiang where Botan Temple was...
Only to end up facing reassignnt again.
‘Wait, has she been hunting the pirates herself?’
Listening to her words, it sounded like the princess had personally gone after them.
nd now that I looked at her, her cheeks were a little darker than before—sunburnt, maybe.
When I first t her, her skin had been pale as snow.
“So you’ve been going after the pirates yourself?”
“Yes. I convinced my teacher and have been working with the disciples of Botan Temple and the governnt troops. That’s why my skin’s gotten rough from all this sea wind!”
She touched her cheek with a frown.
I had been wondering why she wasn’t training at Botan Temple like she loved to—now I knew why.
Still, it felt a bit excessive that she had to go herself.
“If the Lord of Seorinak Fortress is there... is it really necessary for you to go? You could’ve just sent soldiers.”
I an, there were military officers for that sort of thing.
At my question, the princess sighed and replied, looking annoyed.
“There’s a reason. Iju is a rainy, hot region where many minority groups live. In recent years, pirates have started settling there in larger numbers—and now, so martial artists who fled from the central families have joined them too. They’ve beco seriously powerful. So the military alone can’t handle them. There are martial artists among them, after all. And with people trained in internal energy rowing their boats, their ships are way too fast—we simply can’t catch up.”
“Have you considered attacking Iju directly?”
If you can’t catch them at sea, hit their base.
She grumbled at the question.
“Of course I have! We tead up with Lord Bukgeom and launched a subjugation campaign. But the mont they were attacked, the bastards fled into the eastern mountain range—and their ships just vanished back out to sea. We couldn’t catch them at all.”
“Ah...”
Yeah, if that’s how things were, I could see why they’d be difficult to deal with.
I nodded, and then the princess’s tone suddenly shifted, her eyes lighting up.
“But then, right when I was wondering what to do—your letter arrived! And I rembered your daughter flying through the air. That was it! You always seem to show up right when you’re needed!”
“R-right.”
I felt the heat in her gaze.
As I gave her an awkward reply, she said sothing utterly absurd.
“My master told ... this is destiny!”
“Destiny? Between you and ?”
I glanced sideways—
Hwa-eun’s eyes were wide with disbelief.
If it weren’t the princess, she probably would’ve grabbed her by the hair.
But then the princess added sothing that brought Hwa-eun’s face back to normal.
“Yes! My master said, in my past life, I helped you a lot. So now in this life, you’re helping .”
“Y-you an... a past life?”
“Yes, a past life.”
“...Strange. I don’t rember anyone like that in my past life.”
“Yes!”
“...No, never mind.”
‘The head of Botan Temple’s just a spiritual scamr, huh.’
Sure, they say her martial arts are slow to develop, but now I was pretty sure she was a quack.
That’s when Do Sagong’s voice ca from the bow of the ship.
“So-ryong! Smoke is rising over there—it looks like a fire!”
We’d been traveling along the coastline, keeping an eye out for any pirate activity.
At his words, I turned my eyes to the distant shore—
Smoke was rising from a small village.
“Cho!”
I told Cho to fly up and use his sight enhancent to check the village.
What ca into view were n dragging people onto boats.
Their shirts had been thrown off, and their sun-burned bronze skin was visible.
They waved swords, threatening the villagers.
Most of the village was already in flas.
“Princess! They’re pirates!”
“I knew it!”
As Cho dove back down, I shouted while the princess pulled out a horn from beneath the ship’s deck.
-Buuuuung!
This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.
As the horn’s sound rang out, four warships trailing behind us answered with war drums.
-Boom boom boom!
The warships and ours picked up speed, slicing through the water.
A commotion broke out in the village harbor.
The pirates, who had been dragging people along, suddenly threw them aside and scrambled onto their ships.
Two small boats pulled out of the harbor.
Their sails were already folded—they were rowing hard and gaining speed.
Our ships couldn’t catch up.
“They’ve got oars, like the boats used by the Wae people. And our ships are flat-bottod, while theirs seem to be sharp-bottod ones.”
This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.
A flat-bottod ship, like ours, is stable but slow.
A sharp-bottod ship slices the water and moves much faster.
But at ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) this point, I wasn’t worried about flat or sharp.
Who cared about the shape of the boat?
I silently sent a ssage to Cho.
‘Cho? Can you drop off, then punch a hole in the bottom of that boat trying to escape?’
-Chorrt! “How big a hole?”
‘Big enough for you to fit through.’
-Chorrr! “Got it! I’ll catch up and poke a hole right away!”
Cho dropped gently back on deck, then dove into the sea with a splash.
He extended his antennae like a periscope and swam like a shark, darting through the water.
‘Missile away.’
That boat’s fate was sealed.
As for the other one—ti for the next move.
“—Yeondu!”
-Shaaa!
“You see that boat over there?”
-Shaaa!
“Fly over and crush the deck!”
-Shaaaaaaah!
If there was one thing that changed when Yeondu reached adulthood, it was speed.
Before, it felt like she was just drifting through the air.
Now—perhaps thanks to the power of Cheongyu, the Sovereign of Gold and Crown—she was fast.
Not floating anymore—actually flying.
At my command, Yeondu shot up into the sky and launched herself toward the distant fleeing boat.
***
“Damn it! Just because we were delayed, they threw out all the fresh girls—!”
Jin-gyu, the leader of the Black Water Thieves, shouted in frustration from the deck.
They had co to capture new won, since the last batch had either died or gone mad, and to loot food and valuables—
but all the won they caught today had been tossed overboard.
There were even two particularly fine ones among them, making the loss even more bitter.
Girls like that weren’t easy to co by...
“We didn’t have a choice. The ship was already loaded.”
Just like the subordinate said, the ship was already packed with plundered food and goods—
they wouldn’t have been able to escape from the military ships with any extra passengers on board.
So the mont they heard the military drums, they had no choice but to throw the won overboard and board the ship in a hurry.
“But Chief, wasn’t it a fun sight earlier? Heheh.”
“You bastard! Do you only eat once a day or sothing?! Shit. Why are those damn soldiers still showing up on land these days...”
Jin-gyu cursed, both irritated and regretful.
“Row faster! I’ve been hearing rumors that martial artists are tagging along with governnt forces these days.”
“Yes, Chief!”
And his mind drifted back to a mory.
“Man, that wench from the Ak family... she was really strong!”
Jin-gyu, once a fad martial artist from the Central Plains, had beco the pirate leader of the Black Water Thieves based in Iju.
A few years back, he’d made a fatal mistake—
He’d encountered a beautiful woman on the road, lost control of his desires, and assaulted her after knocking out her attendants.
The problem? She turned out to be a mber of the Shandong Ak Clan.
“Shandong Ak Clan? We won’t let you live!”
“Shandong Ak Clan?!”
Just as he was about to leave after severing her ridians, those shouts rang out.
Jin-gyu slaughtered everyone on the scene to keep them quiet—
but it was too late.
The martial artists of the Ak Clan later examined the corpses, discovered traces of his techniques, and joined forces with other sects to put a bounty on his head across the entire Central Plains.
And so he had no choice but to flee to Iju, where he eventually rose to lead a powerful band of pirates.
“But why are they chasing us so long today?”
Jin-gyu was just rembering the tender flesh of that Ak Clan girl when one of his n shouted.
He turned to look, and sure enough, military ships were pursuing them.
“That’s strange. They usually give up quickly...”
Normally, the governnt ships would stop after a short chase and return to check on the village that had been raided.
After all, they knew they couldn’t catch the pirates’ faster ships.
He enhanced his vision to check:
One of the five ships had indeed turned toward the village, but the remaining four were chasing his ship.
“What a waste of effort. Even with a tailwind, they’ll never catch us.”
That was when it happened.
“Waaahhh!”
“Chief! Chief!”
Screams echoed from the ship sailing beside his.
“What the hell’s going on?”
Jin-gyu ran to the side, gripping the rail, and looked toward the sound—
The other ship was listing badly, taking on water.
His n were scrambling on the deck, yelling frantically.
“H-help us!”
“The ship’s taking on water!”
“What?! Did we overload it?”
For so reason, the ship was flooding.
Jin-gyu shouted to his crew.
“Turn around! Dump so cargo if you have to, but bring them aboard!”
“Yes, Chief!”
Cargo could be replaced, but martial artists were rare.
Even if those n had been drifters from across the Central Plains and not entirely trustworthy, he couldn’t operate as a pirate without them.
In Iju, a pirate crew’s strength was asured by how many martial artists it had.
If he lost half his trained fighters now, the Black Water Thieves would be reduced to gutter scum.
The governnt ships weren’t closing in too fast yet—
they had ti to recover their n.
Just as Jin-gyu turned the bow of his ship—
“T-th-th-th-that!”
One of his n started stamring in panic.
Normally he’d snap at such nonsense in a situation like this, but when he turned to look, the man was pointing toward the sky.
Following his finger, Jin-gyu saw sothing flying above—
“Huh?!”
He gasped for breath.
And no wonder—there was a massive snake flying in the sky.
“W-what the hell is that?!”
At first, Jin-gyu thought maybe it was just so spiritual beast passing through.
The snake rose higher into the air—
but then it suddenly dived, as if plunging into water, straight toward Jin-gyu’s ship.
“W-watch out!”
It was definitely targeting them.
Jin-gyu shouted in alarm, gripping the railing—
-BOOM!
The enormous snake crashed down at high speed, slamming through the center of the deck and splitting the keel in half.
The bow and stern lifted into the air like broken wings, and Jin-gyu, along with his pirates, were scattered in every direction.
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