Gunpowder Plate Armor and the Magic Revolution

"Useless! Look carefully before you chop!"

Bilkin shouted a curse.

The young officer, pale-faced, gritted his teeth and delivered another blow, finally ending the pirate's suffering.

But the officers who witnessed this scene later panicked even more.

One after another, the knife failed to kill the target, and cries of agony rose and fell on the deck. Blood seeped down the cracks in the wooden planks, forming dark red streams.

The pirates watching the execution trembled even more violently, some even collapsing to the ground with their legs giving way.

Noze stood in the crowd, looking at everything before him, his stomach churning.

He had witnessed the bloodshed of the battlefield, seen the corpses of pirates lying in disarray, and had personally killed people in life-or-death battles. He thought he had long been accustomed to the taste of blood and iron.

But now, watching these people, bound tightly, being slowly swallowed by death amidst their painful cries, is truly heartbreaking.

He watched as the young officers who graduated with him went from trembling in their hands holding knives to gradually becoming numb in their eyes.

He felt a tightness in his chest, and an indescribable chill crept up his spine.

He ultimately couldn't remain indifferent to this brutal killing, but there was nothing he could do but choose not to watch.

Nozer slowly lowered his head, his gaze falling on his boots stained with dried blood, but the screams, the sound of blades cutting into flesh, and Bilkin's shouts still clearly penetrated his ears.

A hand gently patted his shoulder.

Noze looked up and met Andrew's gaze.

Andrew frowned slightly, his face not looking too good. He shook his head gently at him and whispered in a voice only the two of them could hear, "Even if they get to Monsoon City, they will still be hanged... It's all the same, don't overthink it."

"I know."

Nozer's voice was a little hoarse, "I just..."

He didn't know why he had this feeling, even though his hands were covered in blood, even though he had just walked out of a mountain of corpses and a sea of ​​blood...

He seemed unable to take this for granted like others.

Lucas stood on the other side, watching the execution scene unfold before him, his face expressionless. "Serves them right. When they were following Red Wolf to slaughter unarmed crew members, did they never think they'd end up like this? Not killing them even once is too lenient on them."

The pirates' cries of agony had no effect on Monet.

He remained leaning against the ship's railing, took off the cigarette he had been holding for so long, and rubbed it repeatedly between his fingertips, but still refrained from lighting it.

"We're running low on stock...we'd better be careful..."

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Half an hour later, the execution finally ended.

More than a dozen die-hards were all beheaded, their heads hung on the railing of the Shining Gold ship, facing Red Wolf's head on the mast.

The pirates who had been watching the execution were staggered and escorted back to the Fang.

The toothless man at the back glanced back at the row of heads hanging on the ship's side, his legs trembling. He scrambled into the cabin, as if looking any longer would make his own head the next ornament hanging there.

The sailors on deck were busy washing away the bloodstains with seawater. Bucket after bucket of seawater was poured down, and the dark red blood spread along the deck's texture, eventually flowing into the sea through the deck's drains.

But the lingering smell of blood still clung to the deck, no matter how much you brushed it off.

In a secluded, sheltered spot in the ship's deck, Bilkin, Monet, and Captain Evan of the Shining Gold stood together.

Bill King Kong wiped the blood off his hands with a canvas, casually tossed the dirty cloth on the ground, raised his chin towards the White Gull, and spoke first.

"I think we should just sink that wrecked ship. Keeping it is just a burden. Not only is a pirate ship unlucky, but we'll also need to send people to guard it on the way. If something goes wrong, it will delay our important business."

But no sooner had he said that than Captain Evan, his previous subservient attitude towards Bill vanquished, took a half-step forward. "Rear Admiral, absolutely not! This ship must not be scuttled!"

Bilkin paused, raising an eyebrow at him with a mixture of surprise and annoyance at being contradicted. "Oh? Why can't I carve it? Or do you intend to keep it as a treasure?"

"It's not a matter of whether it's a treasure or not, it's simply that it's impossible to carve it!"

Captain Evan patted his chest, his calculations crystal clear, and spoke at a rapid pace, like a machine gun, "Rear Admiral, do the math. In that battle just now, our Shining Gold used up almost 70% of its gunpowder, lost over forty swords, and there were the sailors who died or were seriously wounded—we need to send compensation to their families, right? And these twenty-odd officers on board, they've risked their lives with us; when we reach Monsoon City, we need to prepare some reward for their hard work, right?"

His words sounded righteous and reasonable, but anyone with eyes could see that the so-called officer's remuneration was just a pretext. If it came to actually distributing the remuneration, he would never take a single penny out of his own pocket.

"How are we going to fill these holes? We can't expect a shipfarer like me to lose everything we own, can we?"

Captain Evan grew increasingly agitated, even daring to take another half-step forward, facing Bilkin's blood-soaked body. "Besides," he said, "I risked the ship's destruction and our lives to bring you officers all the way from Herbert Harbor. Even if I haven't done anything meritorious, I certainly deserve credit for my hard work, right?"

"This ship was originally the White Gull, a legitimate merchant ship, not a pirate ship by nature. Now that Red Wolf is dead, I can tow it back to Monsoon City, find a shipyard, salvage it, and sell it for three thousand Orentia Gold Shields! This money can not only cover all the losses, but also give everyone a share of the profits. It's better than sinking it!"

"And the cannons and other things on the ship can't fit on the Shining Gold. If we scuttle the ship, all those cannons will sink with it. It's such a waste."

He finished his speech, reasoning with people and appealing to their emotions, making the accounts crystal clear. Even Monet, a civil official, couldn't find a single fault with it, let alone the easygoing Bilkin.

Bilkin opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but swallowed the words back.

As an army major general, he knew nothing about maritime transport, let alone the details of ship prices and losses. Moreover, Evan kept bringing up the officers' pay and the compensation for the fallen sailors. He couldn't very well say, "Don't worry about any of that, just scuttle the ship."

In the end, he could only snort angrily, "Damn it, you're right! Do whatever you want with the boat, but one thing: don't let it interfere with my business! If anything goes wrong, you'll be the first one held responsible!"

After saying that, he flicked his sleeve, turned around and walked towards the deck, too lazy to argue with Evan about these trivial matters anymore.

Only Monet and Evan remained in the same spot.

Monet still had that unlit cigarette dangling from his lips, his icy gray eyes looking at Evan with a half-smile.

Only when Evan felt uneasy under his gaze and subconsciously rubbed his hands together did he slowly speak, "You want to keep the ship? No problem. But tell me, where are the people?"