Insistent Assistant 3 (Patreon)

Insistent Assistant

Chapter 3

-VB-

I didn’t feel bad for the pirates at all. Now, I would normally not say anything that heartless because, for some reason, I become extremely serious around people and need a bit of time to understand anything other than sarcasm or a blatant joke, but these pirates deserved it.

They’re pirates. Since when did they not deserve punishment for the misery, poverty, trauma, and death they left in their wake?

Eventually, I also got up and fought to kill.

They were scum.

They were pirates, and not like the adventuring ones like Luffy and his crew who really shouldn’t be labeled pirates if it wasn’t for their insistence that they were pirates.

So why?

I coughed out the last of the bile that had just bowled me over.

I looked down at my hands for a moment before standing back up. Looking at the headless corpse that lay on the beach in front of me, I had to ask why I felt bad about killing scum.

It had to be because I didn’t expect it, right? I mean, they came up to us with the intent to harm. I was justified in this. I was defending myself and ridding this world of trash.

So why did I just throw up as if this was horrifying?

It had to be because I wasn’t used to this.

I looked back up at the rest of the pirates still fighting Thorkell fruitlessly. Even if all of them were normal people, Thorkell was someone on par with actual power armor. There was no way he was going to lose.

I wondered if Thorkell threw up on his first kill … or if he was born on the battlefield.

I took a deep breath and let it out as steadily as I could.

Then I marched back into the killing field.

If I sucked at killing, then I would improve. In this fucked up world, anything else would be accepting this place’s cruelties with open arms.

Kill or be killed.

Luffy had the plot armor, but I had no guarantee of it.

I took a step, and then two, and finally sprinted back into the fight.

I jumped up wordlessly and swung.

One of the pirates saw me coming and warned the guy I was after. That pirate, my target, turned around with a flintlock pistol in hand. Unfortunately, he was not made for this kind of high-speed combat, so he had no time to attack before my fist came swinging in and struck his face. I felt his bones crunch underneath my fist before my fist drove in deeper and caved in his face.

I pulled back, not wanting to go overboard again, and moved on. The center of the guy’s face was flattened parallel to his neck; there was no getting up from that if you were a normal.

The pirate who spotted me first cussed me out - “CHICSHOOOO!!!!” - and raised his saber and pistol up. The latter fired, I winced when I felt it wheeze by, and intentionally stopped just outside his reach. He didn’t expect that, though, and swung his saber.

I jumped right in as he tried to stop his own swing momentum.

I landed a palm strike to his elbow and winced again when I heard the bones snap and the pirate screamed. I followed the palm strike into an elbow strike, hitting the pirate on the neck, and I winced again as I felt his neck shred underneath his skin. Knowing that this was not enough to kill a man outright, I spun into the elbow strike, came around, and landed another elbow strike with my other arm but struck his temple this time.

His thin temple bone shattered underneath my strike, shredded his brain (my blow doing most of the work), and left him dead instantly.

I may not be good or enjoy it, but I definitely did not wish to be a person who prolonged someone’s pain.

“Attaboy!” Thorkell laughed. I looked at him and he was covered intermittently in blood and gore. And using a poor bastard as an improvised blackjack.

… Yeah, that guy’s definitely dead: half of his head missing, bones broken at almost every major joint, and bleeding profusely.

“I saved their captain for you! Come and get him!”

I raised an eyebrow and looked towards said “captain.”

He did have the look for it Tricone hat, fancier clothes, and a saber that actually looked like it was worth a damn.

He also pissed himself and too utterly shocked to fight back.

I looked down at the saber my latest kill had. It was chipped all along its blade. Picking it up from the still-warm hand of the dead pirate, I walked over to the captain.

And then I remembered something. The pirate ship was not on the beach. They came here using only rowboats. If we tried to get aboard the ship. We … would need a “pass” to get on.

The captain made for a good pass.

I looked up towards the ship. The sound of fighting shouldn’t have reached them, and a person looked like an ant from where I was, meaning that unless they had a spyglass, then they would be completely unaware of what happened here.

“He might not need to die,” I said somberly as I turned to Thorkell. “We do need to get on the ship, and the captain here… sorry, lieutenant here will get us on.”

Thorkell looked at me in surprise and then at the captain. Then he grinned.

“I like that. I knew you were good for something.”

Maybe it was the familiarity or the battle high but I kicked Thorkell in the shin.

-VB-

That’s how we found ourselves on the pirate ship. We rowed one of the boats, had the now-lieutenant tell the pirates to drop the ladders down, and then we just waltzed on as if we owned it.

Because we did.

Thorkell showed them all why mutiny would not be a good idea by grabbing one would-be literal backstabber and slowly popping his head off and forcing everyone to listen to the man scream, gurgle, and then pop.

Yes, the bones literally popped loudly enough for everyone to hear.

I almost threw up again.