Sailing the Foreshadowing Seas
The journey to the Grand Pirate Alliance Headquarters, marked by a big, cartoonish 'X' on their magically appearing map, took three days.
Three days of Kenji failing to catch anything but seaweed and Elias failing to suppress his inner critic.
"Kenji, you have to lean into the drama! This is the slow burn before the storm!" Elias lectured, pacing the deck of the Salty Hope. "You should be brooding over a past failure or, at least, polishing a weapon."
Kenji sighed, staring forlornly at his fishing line. "I don't have a tragic past, Elias. I had a pretty normal childhood until I stole the Scroll of Moderate Good Fortune. And I don't have a weapon, just the scroll, which might spontaneously give me a coupon for a slightly sturdier fishing pole."
"See? That's your tragic backstory right there: the crippling mediocrity of your plot device!" Elias threw his hands up. "It's a goldmine of emotional resonance!"
Elias, meanwhile, was preparing his own limited arsenal. He had 170 SP left. He debated purchasing the D-Tier Plot Device (Lost Key/Map Fragment) for 50 SP, but decided it wasn't immediately necessary. Instead, he invested in something he knew he'd need for the upcoming spectacle.
Purchase Confirmed:[F-Tier Weapon Upgrade: Wooden Training Wand] acquired (10 SP).
Purchase Confirmed:[Item: Emergency Confetti Bomb (Mildly Sparkly)] acquired (100 SP).
Purchase Confirmed:[Item: Box of Moderately Stale Crackers] acquired (20 SP).
Remaining SP: 30.
He now held a simple wooden stick that looked suspiciously like a dried-out piece of driftwood—the Wooden Training Wand—and a box of stale crackers. The wand felt remarkably light, yet he knew the System wouldn't sell him something truly useless. It was a blank canvas waiting for A-Tier Plot Armor intervention.
"The crackers are for psychological warfare," Elias explained to Kenji, who was now tying a knot in his fishing line that looked utterly ineffective. "Imagine the fear in the eyes of a starving pirate when I nonchalantly munch on a perfectly good cracker right in front of him."
The Inevitable Confrontation
On the morning of the fourth day, the Salty Hope crested a massive wave, and the sight that greeted them was truly spectacular.
A crescent-shaped formation of dozens of massive, heavily armed pirate ships lay ahead, effectively blockading the entrance to a sheltered lagoon. At the center of the formation was a colossal, three-masted flagship bearing the terrifying black flag of the Grand Pirate Alliance.
On the deck of the flagship, hundreds of pirates were gathered. But one figure stood out: a mountainous man with fiery red hair, a massive mechanical prosthetic arm, and a beard woven with iron rings. This was clearly the Mandatory Final Boss of the Arc, Captain 'Crimson Fist' Ragnarok.
"Holy cow," breathed Kenji, his eyes wide. "That's… that's Trope 13: The Impossibly Large Enemy Force. We can't fight that, Elias! We need to retreat!"
Elias leaned on the railing, the wind whipping his cargo shorts. "Nonsense, Kenji. This isn't a military strategy game; it's a shonen narrative. Scale means nothing. Look at that captain. He's clearly over-designed. Massive shoulder pads, three belts, visible anger issues. He's built for a two-episode fight, not a strategic naval skirmish."
Suddenly, a voice boomed across the water, amplified by what Elias assumed was a rare, magically enhanced conch shell.
"WE SPOTTED YOU, INTRUDER! YOU ARE THE LANDLUBBER WHO HUMILIATED IRON JAW JACKIE! I AM CAPTAIN RAGNAROK, AND YOU WILL BE SUNK!"
Elias raised the wooden wand he'd just purchased, feeling utterly exposed but narratively secure.
"Alright, System, this is the climax of Saga I. I need maximum Plot Armor effectiveness. Let's deploy Trope 14: The Underestimated Protagonist Power Reveal."
The Salty Hope, in comparison to the massive pirate fleet, looked like a lone rubber duck in a bathtub full of sharks. The entire alliance began to slowly close in, cannons loading, harpoons ready.
Deploying the Wet Noodle Wand
Elias took a deep breath. He held the simple wooden wand out over the water, concentrating not on magic, but on narrative expectation.
"Captain Ragnarok!" Elias shouted back, his voice surprisingly clear. "I have come to critique your alliance structure! It's too centralized, prone to internal conflict, and far too cliché!"
Ragnarok roared with laughter. "You insult the Grand Alliance with a stick?! Sink him, men! I want that civilian's head!"
Dozens of cannons fired. The projectiles were massive, whistling spheres of certain destruction.
Elias braced himself. This was it. The moment Plot Armor had to pay off.
Plot Armor (A-Tier) Triggering: Narrative Inversion
Just as the cannonballs were about to strike the Salty Hope, they suddenly stopped mid-air, shimmering with a faint blue light. They didn't fall into the water; instead, they reversed direction.
It wasn't a magic spell or a physical counter. It was a narrative reversal. The flow of the story simply demanded that the initial attack fail in a spectacular, surprising fashion.
The cannonballs flew backward, not just toward the pirate ships, but specifically toward the weaker joints and rigging of the ships that fired them.
KABOOM!
The sounds of splintering wood and panicking pirates echoed across the sea. Only the flagship, protected by higher-tier defenses, remained undamaged, but the outer ring of the fleet was in chaos.
Kenji gaped, dropping his useless fishing line. "Did... did you just use a Reverse Damage Reflect Jutsu?"
"No, Kenji. I used a Narrative Expectation Subversion," Elias corrected, lowering his wand. "The narrative needed me to look powerful, and the simplest way was to make their power mine, just for a second. Now, for the finishing move."
Elias pointed the wooden wand directly at the colossal flagship. He didn't cast a spell. He just applied another layer of Plot Armor to the stick itself.
**Plot Armor (A-Tier)** Applying Buff: **Unexpected Elemental Utility** to F-Tier Weapon (Wooden Training Wand)
The wooden stick instantly became saturated with water, transforming into a Wet Noodle Wand. It didn't look threatening, but it now possessed narrative authority over water movement.
"Captain Ragnarok! You rely too much on your big, predictable ships! I use the fundamental power of Contrived Water Displacement!"
Elias swung the Wet Noodle Wand, aiming not at the ship, but at the ocean just beside it.
Instantly, a massive, impossible column of water—a towering whirlpool localized precisely at the flagship's hull—erupted from the sea. The column wasn't violent; it was simply immense and unstable. It lifted the giant flagship straight out of the water, placing it in an embarrassing, tipping vertical position.
Ragnarok and his hundreds of pirates slid down the deck, screaming, piled up near the bow of the now airborne ship.
Elias wasn't strong enough to destroy the ship, but Plot Armor ensured he was strong enough to make it narratively inconvenient.
"See, Captain? Vertical ships are notoriously bad at sailing," Elias pointed out. "Now, I'm taking the island. You have two hours to reorient yourselves before I start looking through your private stash of 'hidden treasure' and 'powerful, cursed artifacts'."
Ragnarok, upside down and looking directly at Elias, screamed, "I'LL KILL YOU, YOU NARRATIVE FREAK!"
"I doubt it, Captain. You still have a flashback arc and a redemption moment scheduled for Saga II," Elias said dismissively. "Now, Kenji. Let's go ashore."
As the Salty Hope sailed toward the lagoon, gliding past the confused, damaged, and vertically challenged pirate fleet, a new notification flashed.
MISSION COMPLETE: Minor Saga Climax (Pirate Alliance Defeated)Reward: 300 System Points, [Skill Unlock: Minor Object Conjuration (Random Junk)]Status Update:Current Tier: E+ (Seafaring Protagonist) -> D (Low-Tier Conqueror)Plot Armor Charge: 50% (Exhausted from Narrative Inversion)System Points (SP): 330.
"D-Tier already! We're moving up fast!" Elias beamed. "And 330 SP! I can finally buy that D-Tier Plot Device!"
Kenji was still staring back at the floating pirate flagship. "Elias... that was truly terrifying. You're terrifying. But... you just gained Minor Object Conjuration (Random Junk). What does that even mean?"
Elias grinned, tapping the new skill. "It means I can summon random, non-useful stuff. Perfect for distracting the next mandatory guard."
He concentrated and immediately conjured his first object: a single, glistening, but slightly sticky lollipop wrapped in paper.
"Excellent," Elias declared, unwrapping it. "A distraction, a snack, and a potential moral compass for a lonely henchman. The plot thickens, Kenji."
Kenji just shook his head, looking from the candy to the floating pirate flagship. "I think I prefer the Moderate Good Fortune scroll."
Elias just laughed, tasting the oddly watermelon-flavored lollipop. "Trust me, Kenji. In this Multiverse, a random lollipop is often more powerful than fate itself."