SWNOVELXO Chapter 575: How They Became A Pirate
When we came up with the plan to have the two Leviathans fight, I was kind of expecting it to be a really huge and epic battle or something…
You know, those movies of giant monsters fighting each other with all those big effects and explosions happening all around them?
That was what I was expecting to see when I brought the Leviathan here to fight.
To be honest, that might have partially been my motivation to do things this way… But well…
Now it just looks like those kind of documentary where you watch two random animals fighting for a while then backing off before repeating that over and over again.
The snake Leviathan would bite at the fish Leviathan who would 'swim' back to avoid it. Then the fish Leviathan would try to bite the snake Leviathan and it would recoil back to avoid that.
And then they just kept doing it repeatedly.
In other words, it's fucking boring.
Come on!! I thought the snake Leviathan could warp around the place so why isn't it like teleporting around and doing some kind of flashy attacks with it?! It's like it forgot it could warp or something! Does it only use it to chase down prey and not use it in an actual fight?!
I even made popcorn, you know?! Like actual popcorn! And not just one as well, I made a variety of them including salted, sweet, caramel, and even honeyed popcorn!
The last one was more because of the girls requesting it than my actual desire to make it, by the way…
But the point is that I made us all popcorn because I was expecting to watch an epic battle unfolding in front of us and all I got was this!
My disappointment for this is immeasurable! Give me back my expectations!
Oh well… At least the girls all liked the popcorn I made and even the Pirate Lord said that it was the best thing he had ever snacked on when I gave him some. He emptied an entire bowl of it by himself too…
At least I know my food was making him compliant for now so I wasn't going to complain about that.
But it does present another problem to me now…
"Hey, hey. I'm bored. Is there anything to do in here?"
I turned towards the screen showing the Pirate Lord still in his Power Armour, "No."
Right now I was on duty to keep watch on the bridge so the only people that were awake on the ship were myself and the Pirate Lord.
And precisely because of that, this guy thought it would be a great idea to have a chat since he was so bored.
"Well how about you send something here to entertain me? I didn't think I would be this bored when I decided to stay on your ship…"
"I don't believe it's stated anywhere that we have to do our best to entertain you while you're here."
"Oh don't be like that, aren't I supposed to be your guest?"
"I'm not the one who decided to stay inside a Power Armour despite the fact that there are several different amenities to choose from if I just step out of the Power Armour."
"You already know I can't just step out of this."
"Bullshit. That is a decision you made by choice, not because someone forced you to do that."
Just saying… I had initially thought this guy would step out of his Power Armour to eat my food so I went back to check on the security cameras to see what this guy looked like.
Guess what?
He walked over to where I had placed the food and then crouched over the food with his Power Armour so that the torso part could open up and he could just eat the food while basically still being inside the Power Armour.
At that angle, I couldn't even see his hands at all since his Power Armour was completely shielding him from view.
Just how desperate can a person be?
"There's a reason why I've managed to survive for so long and even became a Pirate Lord. I'm not about to jeopardise that when I'm already so close to our objective. No, it's especially important that I have to keep my identity unknown when we're already so close to it."
I leaned back in my chair and raised an eyebrow at him, "Speaking of which… I don't think I've ever heard your story. I mean, I know that you are an ex-military turned pirate but I don't think I've heard about why or even what you're planning to do once you obtain the Pirate Hoard."
He let out a low rumbling chuckle, "Hahaha! What's this? Are you suddenly asking me for my life story or something?"
"You're the one complaining about being bored with nothing to do so unless you have some other plans on what to do with the time we have, why not talk about it? Or is that also some touchy thing that you don't want to talk about?"
He stayed silent for a good long minute and I thought that he might actually choose to keep silent until he finally responded in a rather soft voice.
"You haven't heard what they did to me, huh?"
"I'm assuming this 'they' you are referring to is the military or something."
The Pirate Lord nodded his head once, "That's right. There must have been news about me, right?"
I shrugged, "I don't know. In case you haven't realised, I've been living in the Outer Colonies as a Merc and never paid attention to whatever that doesn't concern me. And this is one of the things that do not concern me."
"Hmph, fair enough. Well, I suppose we don't have much to do either so I can just share a little… I wasn't just ex-military, you know? The unit I was part of… You could say we were special forces that were sent to make impossible missions possible. And just so you know Matsumoto is also part of the same unit."
"So does that mean he knows what you look like?"
"Maybe. But that's not important to this topic, is it?"
I shrugged in response before he continued, "Anyway… I could say that my unit was quite infamous during our time to those who know about it. We never had a failed mission and even if the odds were stacked against us, we still managed to complete whatever mission we were sent on. Until one mission in particular…"
"What, don't tell me you guys failed one mission and decided to just become pirates?"
"Hmph. Did you think we were that shallow? All of my men were people who had faced down impossible odds and lived to tell the tale. Even if they were to fail a mission or two, no one would begrudge them. No… We were sold out."
I raised an eyebrow, "By who? The government?"
"In a sense, yes. Someone who definitely did not deserve their position in the military wanted to get some achievement of their own and created their own unit that was supposed to be another group of elites. They did not like that we were still taking the spotlight and arranged for us to be eliminated on a mission."
I made a face, "What? That sounds incredibly stupid? Why would they even give up one of their most valuable personnel like that? That makes no sense!"
"Is this your first time dealing with people or something? Do you not know the extent of stupidity that a person might be capable of just to satisfy their own desires?"
Well... Ok… Point taken.
He continued, "We were sent off to extract some VIP in a hostile planet that was swarming with hostile alien creatures. We managed to do just that but the ship that was supposed to extract us had been sabotaged, the ship exploding while we were trying to flee from the planet."
I blinked at her, "So you guys fell back down to the planet."
"That's right. And that ship was our only way out of there."
"What happened?"
"Half of my squad perished instantly from the explosion, half of the remaining died on reentry, then the rest of us had to hold out on the planet as we had to fix up the ship before we managed to get ourselves out of the planet."
"You managed to fix it?"
"We were lucky. The explosion only took out a part of the engines so we could just patch that up and we were able to make our escape."
"So your mission still succeeded, right?"
He shook his head, "We only survived because all of us were wearing the best equipment in the military. For some VIP that was just a civilian wearing normal planet exploration gear? They died instantly."
"I still don't see why you need to resort to piracy after that? Just expose whoever set you up?"
"Were it so easy… When we were stuck on the planet, they had already made moves to label us as traitors and my entire unit was charged for treason. Everyone else that was not in the mission were rounded up and executed. Even when we escaped the planet, we found several ships waiting for us that immediately opened fire the moment they saw us. I suppose I should be flattered that they still thought we could survive despite all that and set an ambush for us above the planet."
"Damn… You sure were hated, huh?"
He let out a mirthless chuckle before nodding at me, "Hey, you got anything to drink at least?? Talking so much made me thirsty."
Hmph… Fine, let me fix this guy a beer…