"Damn it…"
Chainman didn't even get a chance to catch his breath before Hermes was on him again.
In a flash, Chainman rolled aside—barely dodging the first wave. But dodging once didn't mean dodging twice. Hermes stuck to him like a shadow, relentless, suffocating.
Pfft!
A fresh blood hole opened in Chainman's shoulder.
If he'd been half a beat slower, that finger would've punched straight through his heart.
"Brat—you've gone too far!"
"Shameless! Despicable!"
Chainman's curses didn't slow Hermes down. The pressure only got heavier. The wounds on Chainman's body multiplied.
Then the tone changed.
"Let me go," Chainman gasped. "I swear I won't come after you!"
"I'll give you everything—my treasure, all of it!"
The man who'd been roaring threats a moment ago was now begging, voice shaking.
A perfect display of the iron law of the sea:
Tough guys only stay tough until they see the coffin.
Hermes didn't answer. He just kept driving forward.
Chainman's eyes snapped open—wild, desperate.
"Fine! If I'm dying, I'm taking you with me, you bastard!"
He stopped defending entirely.
He went for the trade—life for life.
Crack.
Hermes's face tightened.
The chain whipped across his ribs—two of them snapped clean. The scabbed-over wound on his back tore open again, hot pain blooming down his spine.
A cornered beast bit hard.
Chainman staggered, froth and blood bubbling from his lips, glaring at Hermes like he wanted to burn him into the afterlife.
"I can't die like this… If only—"
He never finished.
Hermes's finger had already been there.
A clean punch through the heart.
Chainman's eyes widened—then dimmed.
His body pitched forward and hit the floor with a wet thud.
"Captain! What happened?!"
"Enemy—where's the enemy?!"
The door slammed open.
A flood of pirates burst in with weapons raised—
…and froze.
Their captain lay in a pool of blood. The ship's doctor was dead beside him.
"...It's him."
"The kid who killed Captain Joya."
"Pirate hunter—Hermes Jormungandr!"
"Captain—!"
"Oh no… the captain's been taken out!"
For a heartbeat, nobody even thought to shoot.
Shock hit too fast.
Then greed caught up.
"Fire!"
"Kill that brat!"
Chain Pirates' second-in-command and third-in-command barked the order—already imagining how sweet life would be once they took the captain's seat for themselves.
Pew-pew-pew—!
Gunfire filled the room.
Hermes shrank to five millimeters, and the bullets turned into a storm roaring overhead.
He bounced, zigzagged, ricocheted through the chaos like a flea possessed.
Nobody could track him.
"AAH—!"
A scream cut through the noise.
Hermes had already slipped in close.
He expanded to full size—
Finger Pistol.
One strike.
Then he shrank again and vanished.
Over and over.
A pirate would fall, dead-eyed and bleeding, before anyone even understood what had happened.
That size-changing ability was beyond unfair.
The attack arrived before the target even saw the attacker.
"What the hell kind of power is this?!"
"How are we supposed to hit something that small?!"
Fear spread fast.
Their captain was already dead.
No one wanted to die for a throne someone else would sit on.
"Retreat!"
Second and third immediately ordered their own people to pull back. They needed to preserve manpower—because now the real battle was internal.
Hermes didn't chase.
He had what he came for.
He grabbed his spoils and disappeared into the base like he'd never existed.
News exploded through Mayute Town not long after.
Chainman was dead.
And with it, Hermes Jormungandr's name rang even louder.
If killing Joya could be called luck…
Then what was this?
"...What?"
"Even Chainman got taken out?"
At the Twin-Wheel Pirates' camp, Captain Kokos sat with a grim face.
First Joya.
Then Chainman.
Put that together with Hermes's "profession," and it was obvious what this was.
A hunter was cleaning house.
"Captain, it's confirmed. Chainman's dead. Their crew's in chaos."
"Should we move in and absorb them?"
A subordinate's eyes gleamed.
They'd already grown fat off the Dog-Dog Pirates' leftovers. If they swallowed the Chain Pirates too, Mayute Town would be theirs.
Maybe even the whole Prodence Kingdom's coast would feel their weight.
Another man—sharper—cut in.
"Captain… we might be next."
That quiet sentence tightened the room.
Kokos's bounty was the highest in town.
If Hermes needed money, Kokos's head was a walking fortune.
"Don't talk nonsense."
"We didn't even provoke him!"
"Chain Pirates didn't provoke him either," someone shot back. "And their boss still got cut down."
"He's a pirate hunter," another muttered darkly. "We're literally his paycheck."
A thug laughed, full of blind confidence.
"Hah! Our captain isn't as weak as Joya or Chainman. If that kid shows up, we won't even need to move. Captain will handle him alone."
Kokos's face didn't change.
But inside, something twitched.
He'd fought Joya and Chainman plenty of times. He knew exactly how hard those two were.
He could injure them.
He could force them back.
But killing them clean?
Not without paying in flesh.
So if Hermes could do it…
That meant Hermes wasn't a joke.
And Kokos survived by doing one thing better than everyone else:
staying cautious.
"Tighten up," Kokos ordered. "Call our men back. For now, don't provoke that pirate hunter."
"We'll swallow what's left of the Chain Pirates first—then we'll talk."
"Yes, Captain!"
The Twin-Wheel Pirates moved out, already eyeing the chaos like vultures.
Meanwhile…
Hermes dragged his blood-soaked bundle back to the same clinic.
The old doctor was flipping through a magazine when the door creaked open.
He looked up—
and nearly choked.
"K-Kid… you—"
He remembered Hermes. Too well.
A week ago this kid had walked out stitched up like nothing mattered.
Now he'd come back drenched in fresh blood again.
"Fix me," Hermes said simply.
He tossed the bloody bundle onto the floor and stripped down to nothing but his underwear.
Old wounds had torn open.
New wounds had split.
And the worst was his chest—swollen in a way that screamed broken bones.
He'd been running on sheer tension. Now that he relaxed even slightly, the pain flooded in like a wave.
The kind of pain that made your soul taste metal.
"You went 'earning a living' again, huh?" the doctor muttered, already pulling out tools with practiced hands.
"Something like that." Hermes tried to loosen his body.
His neck veins bulged. Muscles trembled uncontrollably from the pain.
No anesthesia again.
Just teeth and willpower.
"Hold still," the doctor said, grim. "This is going to hurt."
He started setting bones.
There was a lot to do.
An hour later, Hermes's upper body was wrapped in bandages like a mummy.
The doctor wiped sweat from his brow—half exhausted, half satisfied.
And the stack of beli in his hands looked beautiful.
This kid was his best customer.
"Listen," the doctor said seriously. "For your own sake… you need to rest for a while."
"Appreciate the advice."
Hermes waved once, then walked out—
leaving nothing behind but the swagger of a man who refused to die quietly.
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