Author Notes:
Pirates? What pirates? There are no pirates!
Anyway, it's yet another public release for OBOM. This time, I think I lay it in thick on the foreshadowing part, hahaha.
Hopefully, you all don't mind me doing my very best to transcribe whatever wild revelation that may or may not end in a cliffhanger to you, dear readers. More importantly, how are you all finding OBOM's pacing thus far, is it at a suitable, enjoyable manner? Do reach out to me about it by leaving reviews, comments, and Discord messages!
Moving on, shoutout to Private Darth_ Todes! Hope you enjoy the Early Access benefits, and that you have fun seeing our shenanigans in our Discord server!
Currently, the 25% discount is still running on Patreon, so grab it now and enjoy the benefits of reading OBOM, RM, and GSS ahead of the current public releases!
https://www.patreon.com/Heartbreak117
https://discord.gg/cVZxJ29ruh
https://www.webnovel.com/book/reich-marshal-of-the-belkan-reich_23809095505377305
https://www.webnovel.com/book/in-the-grimdark-sector-with-a-system_31596105108346205
https://www.webnovel.com/book/my-soul.-occupied-body---please-the-other-me...!_35377211308783905
https://www.scribblehub.com/series/2271569/reich-marshal-of-the-belkan-reich/
https://photos.app.goo.gl/waZgkRa3UQhqKQBi9
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"Your Highness!" A soldier, a Royal Guard of the Kingdom of Durandal, kneels on the ruffled, carpeted floor. "The pirates have boarded the Royal Yacht! You must evacuate to the Royal Chamber! This observation room is not as protected!"
Kneeling on one knee, the Royal Guard, a decorated warrior, frightens the Princess in front of him with his armor awashed with dried blood and blade marks. The sword he has sheathed prior still reeks of fresh kills, and his knuckles still bear the grim leftovers of bodies he has punched down. Gone is the orderly and neat appearance this Royal Guard has displayed daily for the Princess. Only a loyal God of War remains, for better or for worse. Yet, for the Princess to be shaken by his killing aura alone... There's much this Princess has to learn, but the Royal Guard is wise not to voice that thought aloud. Instead...
"My liege! Time is running out! We need to get you to safety...!" The Royal Guard urges, and this time, he won't take no for an answer. "Pardon my sacrilege, but with or without your agreement, I will take you to the chamber and seal it. No harm must befell you!"
The stern warning gets through at last, as the shaken Princess is jolted awake.
"Y-Yes... Yes! Go, protect me!"
"At once, Your Highness!" The Royal Guard stealthily exhales in relief before standing up to escort his liege. "Royal Guards, with me! Escort the Princess to the Royal Chamber! Everyone else is non-critical!"
"Yes, Lord Captain!"
Soon enough, the Royal Guards who have been staying out of combat to protect the Princess behind them join the previously kneeling Lord Captain. Together, they form a tight circle around the Princess and guide her across the decks of the Royal Yacht. Along the way, they come across scared servants of the Durandal Kingdom. Many try to seek the Royal Guards' protection, but the soldiers' priority has always been the Princess, so the Guards deter the servants away by displaying their bloodlust.
The Princess isn't one to care for her servants anyway. They can always be replaced. For the Royal Guards around her, this is a small blessing in disguise, as they don't have to waste time protecting deadweights. The brutality of pragmatism is on full display as they walk across ornate halls and chambers, ignoring any cry of fear or for help. Midway, they come across a group of retreating Royal Guards.
"Protect the Princess!" The Lord Captain shouts before drawing his sword.
With a couple of healthy Royal Guards, the Lord Captain charges forward to help his retreating subordinates, each more battered than the last, to make a clean escape to the backline. Like a fierce tiger, the Lord Captain and the two Royal Guards push back the overzealous pirates who have chased down the retreating soldiers, thinking they have broken the camel's back at last. With blades, pommels, fists, and kicks, the three valiant Royal Guards cut down a dozen burly pirates, men and women alike, before the enemy wised up to stop coming down the stairs that led down from the uppermost deck. Using the brief respite, the Lord Captain calls upon the mystical force that powered this world to his aid. And, with a mighty grunt, he slams the tip of his sword, now bristling with pale blue frost, into the expensive wooden flooring. A wave of ice crystal flashes outward and upward, completely encasing the stair in a wall of hard ice, ensuring no one else will be able to use the passage, for now.
While the tactical advantage of this is unquestionable, the effort required to form such a massive ice wall, plus the previous battles he has fought, has made the Lord Captain visibly out of breath. Still, his duty is not yet done.
"Form up. We need to move out before they can flank us."
The Princess' escort has bolstered in number, but not by much, with many of the Royal Guards protecting her either exhausted or injured. Normally, a Royal Guard can face a dozen of these pirate rabbles without breaking a sweat, owing to their heavy-duty armor, skill, and fighting experience. However, due to the clandestine nature of the Princess' cruise trip, only two dozen Royal Guards accompanied her on the Royal Yacht.
There are currently two large pirate warships docked with the Royal Yacht, a vessel that was purposefully made for sightseeing journeys. You can imagine the math on how overwhelming the number of pirates is when compared with the two Squads of Royal Guards aboard the royal vessel. As such, even with their gear and fighting experience, the two Squads of Durandal soldiers were overwhelmed from the first phase of the boarding action.
The desperate attempt to safeguard the Princess has now been made after the Lord Captain asked his most capable subordinates to maintain key chokepoints in the lower decks, using their lives to buy time for him to get the Princess to safety. It's an order the assigned Royal Guards carry out with unflinching loyalty and bravery, which both heartens and causes the Lord Captain grief. It's indeed an honor to command such valiant subordinates, and it's a great disgrace to order them to their deaths.
Things shouldn't have developed to this point if the Princess hadn't willfully stayed in the observation room, wanting to see how the Royal Yacht would leave the pirate vessels chasing its wakes in futility... Reality didn't meet the Princess' expectations, as it has shown so far.
Once again, the Lord Captain hides his displeasure deep beneath the grim visage behind his helmet's faceplate. Despite his failing stamina, the Lord Captain leads the remaining Royal Guards, always braving the first enemy blades and bolts so that his subordinates can better protect their charges. By the time the group has reached, has been chased, to the Royal Chamber on the yacht, the Lord Captain is sporting a crack on his once splendid armor, with blood dripping slowly out of it. Not a single remaining Royal Guard is left unblemished. Only the Princess and her frilly gown look to be the most out-of-place combination among the group of battle-scarred veterans.
"You two, escort the Princess inside the chamber, and seal it tight! Tight enough that a Royal Seal needs to be used to open that doorway! If need be, arm the self-destruction sequence before purging the Royal Chamber from the yacht. The detonation blast and the waves will take care of the rest!"
"But Lord Captain, what about yo-!" A Royal Guard hasn't raised his concern when the Princess rushes inside the chamber, shouting.
"Just do what he said!" The Princess seems heedless of the loyal Lord Captain's fate, among others.
Clearly, they could have been assigned a better liege.
Undisturbed, the Lord Captain nods while letting another soldier try to tend to his bleeding wound. "Go. Do the Royal Guards proud, and don't hesitate. Loyalty, above all!"
Striking his battered breastplate, the Lord Captain gives the men his greatest respect. It's an action that the surviving Royal Guards mirror.
"Loyalty, above all!"
Right after the brief, solemn farewell, two Royal Guards disappear into the Royal Chamber. The doorway is then immediately sealed, alight with magic circles and reinforcing runes. No one will be able to open it now, not even the Lord Captain and the understrength Squad of Royal Guards standing outside. It's even less likely that these pirates would have the magical finesse to bypass the magic and conventional locks that seal the Royal Chamber with the rest of the yacht. As the Lord Captain has said, only those with a Royal Seal will be able to open the chamber.
One may ask why the Lord Captain didn't retreat inside the chamber with his remaining men. The answer to this can't be any simpler:
There isn't enough space, nor supply in the chamber, should it need to be jettisoned away from the besieged yacht.
So, a valiant final stand is what the Lord Captain chose. No surrender. No retreat. Just one last fight.
Nodding in gratefulness to the subordinate who has bandaged his wound to the best of his ability, the Lord Captain pulls out his sword, marvelling at it for what's probably the final opportunity. It's a proud family heirloom of his. Silver in appearance, simple in flourishing, durable in combat. The family heirloom has claimed countless lives in its two centuries of service, evidenced by the minute fraying in the ancient inscriptions running along the blade. To the Lord Captain, he would wield no other sword than the one in his hand to serve the Durandal Kingdom. And it will be a disgrace for this heirloom to fall into the disgraceful grip of a shit-eating pirate. The Lord Captain will cast his sword into the deep sea if that's the last thing he can do before meeting his end.
Thinking thus far, the Lord Captain takes a deep breath. Nodding to his brothers-in-arms, he braces himself, sword forward, awaiting the pirate rabble that are no doubt causing a ruckus as they charge down the hallways of the Royal Yacht. Time seemed to stretch on forever, as the unbroken Royal Guards wait with bated breath, as the commotion grows bigger and louder, as it gets near them.
But wait.
"Something is wrong..." The Lord Captain mutters, his hands gripping his sword tightly.
"My Lord?" A subordinate of the Lord Captain asks, his voice tense."
"All the shouts, the screams I have been hearing... They aren't battle cries..."
"They're death throes."
The Lord Captain has just finished his grim sentence when, as if punctuating his words, a pirate comes stumbling out of an intersection and into the Royal Guards' hallway. Given the dangling gold accessories and looted armor plates on his body, and the remarkably well-maintained sabre in his hand, the pirate must have been an important figure among the invading rabble. Yet, as if not even registering the Royal Guards' presence, the frightened pirate immediately spins around to face whatever is chasing him.
The sounds of bolts tearing through the air can be heard as the pirate commander swings his sabre faster than the eye can see to cut them out midair. Swiftly, the pirate reaches into his belt to pull out a small crossbow and aim it in the direction from which the bolts came. But before the pirate can pull the trigger, his eyes go wide in panic as he tries to jump to the side, only for something so fast and bright to hit him. The pirate's left hand and left leg are turned into charred messes that soon disintegrate into motes of ashes upon coming into contact with a lethally condensed beam of thunderous energy. The bright light from it even temporarily blinds the Lord Captain and the Royal Guards.
By the time the Lord Captain can see clearly, something, or someone, is stomping down on the spasming pirate commander, who is going into shock from the traumatic injury. This person is not alone, as others like this unknown soldier, all dressed in black and silver light armor that protects only their criticals, are slowly filing into the hallway. Each of them seems to wield the same set of weapons, a one-handed sword plus a repeating crossbow. The latter is a weapon that tends to be considered weak in penetrative force and requires poison to be made lethal. It's a weapon that the Royal Guards have only ever seen one fighting force make good use of. Additionally, the black and silver soldiers have heavy-duty arm guards, and their great helms have red-tinted visors, a feature not typically found on normal soldiers. Again, only one fighting force the Lord Captain knows of would use red-tinted visors for their troops.
Upon seeing the insignia of the same great helm the new arrivals are wearing displayed on the background of a full black shield, the Lord Captain mutters the name, half in warning, half in expectation, that can be heard clearly by his men.
"Nightwatch... That means she is here..."
It doesn't take a genius among the Royal Guards to know that the Lord Captain has whispered in a solemn tone. The former Crown Princess of the Kingdom of Durandal, who has boldly discarded her rights to the Throne, is here. And she has come in full force, bringing along her famous Nightwatch Order, but not merely in their rescue, it would seem.
ClackClackClack
Her footsteps, echoing a chill that washes over the Royal Guards, are heard as she steps into the hallway. On her hips, the scabbard of the Kingdom's singular holy sword, the Durandal, shines a mystical light as she strolls past the fallen pirate commander. In tacit understanding, the Nightwatch soldier, who has been stepping on the fallen pirate, decisively stomps his feet on the pirate's neck, crushing his spine in a sickening crack.
There are other, more important pirates that they have captured alongside their warships, anyway.
The former Crown Princess, unlike her royal siblings, dresses not dissimilar to her Nightwatch subordinates, stops in front of the injured Lord Captain. To say the Lord Captain doesn't feel pressure from that soulless red visor staring him down would be a lie. But fortunately...
"The Watch needs you, Lord Captain Snow." What the former Crown Princess says is more than just an affirmation of the Lord Captain's skill and loyalty; it's an invitation.
"I am grateful, Your Highness, for your saving grace and the invitation. But my loyalty rests with the King and my current charge." The Lord Captain tries to make his refusal as polite as possible, not wanting to taint his honor by jumping ship nor slighting the powerful figure before him.
"Your loyalty is admirable, Lord Captain Snow. I wish Royal Father had assigned you a different liege." The formal Crown Princess simply states so before the door to the Royal Chamber suddenly opens from the inside.
Stepping out of the chamber, other than two of the Lord Captain's subordinates, is none other than the other, younger Princess of the Durandal Kingdom. Upon seeing the one with the Holy Sword Durandal attached to her hip, however, the young Princess bristles.
"Morgan..." You can feel the heat in her tone. "What? You've had your fun being a lapdog Knight Rider of the Theocracy, and now come running back to lord over this backwater place!?"
"How did you even know this place!?" The young Princess shouts, clearly perturbed by the presence of former Crown Princess, Morgan.
Instead of replying or even deigning the younger Princess a look, Morgan turns to the soldier who has crushed the pirate commander's life.
"Search everything."
"At once, my Commandant." Comes the raspy reply of the Nightwatch soldier, who then leads the other men and women in black gear to canvas the entire Royal Yacht for something, or someone.
For once, the Royal Guards collectively choose to stand down after receiving a shake on the head from Lord Captain Snow. This is not a fight they will ever win. The young Princess, seeing her bodyguards not doing anything, stomps a foot in anger.
"What the hell do you think you're doing, Morgan!? This is not your ship! You have no right to-!"
"Commandant!" A female voice interjects, having stepped into the hallway while holding something in her hand. Much like the others, one can hardly make out the visage beneath the nondescript black and silver armor and helm. "We found this in the servants' quarters below deck."
The Nightwatch soldier then gently places the object she is holding onto the outstretched palm of Morgan. It's a necklace with a lucky charm in the form of the Nightwatch Order's insignia. This type of necklace is rarely given out by Morgan's Military Order; those bearing a necklace are prospective members of the Nightwatch themselves, all talented and worth having. So, to safeguard these talents, the Nightwatch crafted these necklaces with a hidden tracking feature. And now, one bearer of the necklace is gone.
"The girl?" Clenching the necklace, Morgan asks concisely.
"Missing, my Commandant. We only managed to find her belongings."
That answer is clearly not the one Morgan wanted to hear, as near immediately, the entire hallway cracks and buckles as Morgan exudes an inhuman pressure that threatens to tear the damaged Royal Yacht apart if not for her subordinates still being on it. While the Royal Guards tense up, the Nightwatch stands stalwart as ever, already used to Morgan's overwhelming aura.
The young Princess, though, is clearly frightened, yet her aggressiveness rears its fangs once more when she sees the necklace in Morgan's hand. The young Princess's poisonous mouth has just opened when, faster than even the Royal Guards can track, Morgan has crossed the remaining distance and grips her younger sibling's neck in a vice grip.
"Do nottake me for a fool, Vivian!" Morgan directly grips her sibling off the ground, unflinching as the girl panics with arms and legs flailing as the air stops coming into her lungs. "Do you really think I don't know why you sail to the very limit of the chartered navigation map!?"
Morgan, in her seething rage, throws Vivian, her sibling, harshly into the wall. An audible crack can be heard by everyone as Vivian wails in shock and pain, having felt her arm broken by the force of her landing.
"You are lucky the Kingdom still has use of you, and Royal Father and Mother love you." Morgan steps to her wailing sister, who is clutching her limped arm in a mess of snot and tears, before stomping hard on her leg, enough to similarly make it a broken mess. "But make no mistake, Vivian, I will make your life into a living hell for what you've done to my subject. Not even Mother, for all the love she has given me, will change my mind."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"Sigh... Get this... Thing, out of my sight. Once we're done combing this yacht, prime it for demolition. Afterward, initiate a Search and Rescue operation. Similarly, work with the Theocracy to commission an Exploration and Mapping unit on this stretch of the sea. Dead or alive, I want Aurea found!"
"Yes, my Commandant!"