Chapter 16

  Elfnapped

  NAME: Pirate Swabbie

  RACE: Human (Dungeon)

  AGE: 19

  LEVEL: 10

  CLASS: Pirate

  STATUS: Patrolling

  I lower my thumb and forefinger from around my eye and swear. Not out of frustration, though there's plenty of that. The one I Identified from hiding is one of dozens of figures, all patrolling the area of a concealed cavern dock, complete with a full-sized ship. No, I swear out of shock.

  Pirates. Actual, real swashbucklers were the last thing I expected to find in a dungeon. Though I suppose, technically, "real" might be a bit of a stretch. They're actually dungeon monsters, not real pirates.

  Given the way dungeons work, the real pirates must have been using the cove as a base when the dungeon expanded, or maybe even first appeared. Yet these pirates don't look primitive, despite that having surely been centuries ago. Either the Furinshao Empire has stagnated longer than I would have ever imagined, or the dungeon has been drawing from its tourists to keep them updated.

  ... I'm deeply bothered that I don't know enough about this world's history or how dungeons work to be able to tell which one it is.

  The pirates come in different categories. If this were a game, they'd probably be mostly palette swaps, but here, they're much more varied, as much as I would expect to see from real people. Swabbies seem to be the lowest tier and are by far the most numerous. After that are melee Swashbucklers and crossbow-toting Sharpshooters, all with the adjective and class of Pirate. Above that, and much rarer, are the Pirate Commanders, who direct the lower groups.

  Oh, and they're all beautiful young women. I'm starting to see why men are discouraged from coming here. I'm saying it now, I'll bet the captain's a slightly older woman, just enough to get away with an Ara Ara. Or, since they all seem to talk in cliche pirate speak, Arrrrah Arrrrah.

  ... I miss having someone groan at these things.

  Wait, why are they talking in stereotypical pirate sounds? These aren't pirates from Earth, and even if they were, they wouldn't be from the Caribbean. These pirates would be from the other side of the planet. I'm briefly reminded of the famous Chinese pirate and wonder how similar the eighty thousand under her command might be to these women.

  ... Maybe they aren't talking in stereotypical pirate sounds? Or rather, not the ones I'm hearing. What if that's translation by the Essence? Whatever their language entry is, it's just, "Generic Pirate Nonsense," and so that's what I hear.

  They definitely elfnapped Ayre, though. I arrived in time to watch them wrestling some struggling form below deck. Watching was all I could do, though. There's no way I could charge through the whole mess of them.

  Oh, could I kill them? Individually, absolutely. Even the commanders are only level 18. I've got no doubt that my gun could double-tap the lot of them. The problem is that it doesn't take a tactical genius to see that the moment I start shooting, they're all going to dogpile me.

  I'd need a machine gun nest to survive. Even with 150 Agility, I can't fire my pistol fast enough, and that's assuming a bottomless magazine, too, which I definitely do not have. If I lasted long enough to need to reload, I'd never survive doing it.

  So how do I go about rescuing Ayre? Who knows what they're doing to him in there?

  While I'm stewing over this problem, I notice one of the Swabbies break away from their group and head off a bit. She's blonde and looks about my size, but her only equipment is the clothes on her back and a small, curved sword at her hip.

  Hmm ... An idea begins to form in my mind, and as I quietly make my way around toward her, I open my menu to go ahead and purchase the Martial Arts skill. I know basically what I want to do, so hopefully the knowledge of how to do it will allow me to overpower the girl quickly and quietly.

  If there's one thing that I'm absolutely certain Hollywood hasn't misled me on, it's that pirates are crazy for treasure. They're greedy and can't resist the golden gleam. I don't have much in the way of gold on me, as the empire uses printed coins of assorted shapes, but I have plenty of things that are equally shiny.

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  I gauge where she's going and pull out the golem core and an armful of the crystals I got from the Forest Cavern dungeon, then put them where she'll see them, but will have to walk even further away to investigate. Then I move into position and pray she'll not call her friends over in her excitement.

  That bonus luck must be working overtime, because the girl sees it almost immediately. The glimmer enters her eyes almost comically literally, and she creeps over to it like she's afraid the pile might disappear if she startles it.

  I almost feel bad as she moves right past my hiding spot, but I remind myself she's a dungeon monster, not a real person, and a sea bandit at that. Pretty sure somebody once said bandits aren't real people, either.

  With an additional silent reminder that this is for Ayre, I jump out behind her and wrap my left arm around the front of her neck and my right arm back behind her head, and I squeeze.

  She struggles a lot more than I anticipated, but I'm able to maintain control and she can't scream. It's the longest ten seconds of my life before she finally goes limp in my arms, but I hold it another twenty just so she doesn't turn around and wake up on me before I finish.

  I can't kill her. If I do, she's going to disappear and probably take everything I need with her. If I take too long, though, she'll wake back up before I've got her secured. Instead, as quickly as I can, I strip her down to her undergarments and tie her to a stalactite, with a gag tied around her mouth so she can't scream for help.

  Only once that's done do I check on the one potential hiccup with this whole plan. If the monsters in a dungeon are aware of something happening to one of their own, the whole shebang goes up in smoke.

  ... No, the pirate patrols are still milling about without a care in the world. Good.

  I change out my outfit for that of the swabbie I've just accosted, then put my belt and holster back on and fasten her sword to it. So far, so good. I was honestly halfway worried they'd disappear the moment they were separated from her, but maybe I only have to worry about that if I leave the dungeon.

  She's got a burlap sack with a few tins in it, so I move my extradimensional storage to it for now and slide my own bag inside, completing the look. After that, I go to gather up my shinies I'd used for bait, but after a moment of consideration, I leave a purified crystal in the only pocket she's got left for her being such a good sport.

  She came to while I was getting changed, and pulls against her binds, trying to get free. She does pause her struggles when I give her the crystal, though.

  "Sorry, my little doppelganger," I apologize with a wave of my hand as I turn to leave. "Time for me to set sail!"

  *  *  *

  It's true that dungeon monsters based on the human races can't be understood through the translation effect of a Hero's Essence connection. With that alone, I can't make sense of what they're saying. It all just sounds like they're all the most enthusiastic participants of Talk Like A Pirate Day.

  Maybe it's because I've been talking with a monster since I came to Dabun, but as I listen to them chatter from the shadows, I can still kind of get an idea of what they're saying. The longer I listen, the more it starts to make sense.

  Little surprise, they're talking about pirate things. How they can't wait for the patrol duty to be over so they can head back for a drink. Of rum, of course. How they can't believe somebody handed themselves over to one of the patrol teams. I have a feeling I know who that is, poor Ayre probably thought they were adventurers.

  From what I can gather, they're keeping Ayre on the ship, but somehow seem to intend on having him join the crew. I can't deny that the mental image of Ayre cosplaying as a pirate is cute, especially on a crew with a sense of fashion like this one. But I also can't figure out how they could expect to turn him into a dungeon-bound monster.

  Maybe they don't know the difference? Maybe they don't know they're dungeon monsters? Maybe the dungeon makes new pirates by making an arcane clone of the original? I don't know. There's just not enough information.

  What matters right now is that I know roughly where they're keeping Ayre, I can roughly understand what they're saying, and I have a rough idea of what I'm going to have to do next.

  Totally going to work out just fine.

  I wait for the next patrol to pass, then slip into the rotation. I don't stand out too much despite being on my own. There are other single individuals going about, ones that got slowed down by something or another, and their groups didn't wait for them.

  Another thing I'd studied while watching them was their patrol patterns, and I'm confident I know the shortest one to the ship! Let's see, left, right, around the boulder, up the slope, right, left-- No, left, then left again, then--!

  I take a wrong turn and walk right smack into another pirate, this one a redhead that looks like one of the swashbucklers. And she is not pleased.

  "Arrrrr! Ahoy, swabbie! Yarhar long arm under!"

  I, uh ... think what she meant to say was, "Hey, watch where you're going, Swabbie! Stick to your path or you'll be getting disciplined!" It really is kind of an impressively compressed language.

  I try to remember all of the most stereotypical pirate sounds I can think of and focus on what I want them to mean. "Ahoy, matey, skipper roll me under!" I'm trying to say, "Sorry, mate, I'm getting tired and lost track of my turns."

  ... Miraculously, it seems to work, and her angry gaze softens. "Yar, fresh waters sealegs. Cap'n on deck an' nary a blue."

  I'm getting the hang of this. She's assuming I'm new and haven't gotten used to all of the activity yet, so she wants me to head back to the ship and let the captain know there doesn't seem to be any other intruders.

  I can work with that! In fact, it's exactly where I wanted to go! Thank you, bonus luck!

  I give her a salute and do my best to say, "I'm on my way, Boss Lady! I'll let her know!"

  She gives a firm nod and dismisses me, then heads on with her rounds. Presumably, even if they can't find anything, they've still got to keep looking until they're relieved or given orders to stand down. It's actually impressive how well-organized they are. Either the Captain commands a lot of respect from her underlings, or a whole lot of fear.

  I'm hoping the former.

  Confident in my ability to communicate with monsters and making a mental note to make Kyuuga a carrot cake for inadvertently teaching me, I break from the formations and take the shortest line to the docks.

  A pair of commanders are standing guard at the gangplank, itself, but all I have to do is tell them that I was ordered to report to the captain, and they let me through without so much as a second glance.

  And with that, I'm on the deck of a real pirate ship. I suppress my giddiness at the thought and focus on what I need to do next: Find Ayre, and hopefully avoid finding the Captain first.

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