Rigel looked at the ship trying to escape, gazing serenely at the compass, he sighed, these past two months had been difficult for him.
With his fame spreading, he struggled to gather the heinous criminals for Calypso. At first, he caught almost forty in Tortuga, but the number wasn't infinite, and it became increasingly difficult to find more.
Pirates are scum, but Rigel was looking for scum among scum.
In the following months, he continued his harvest, but what impressed him was that most of the "scum" he found wasn't even pirates.
Merchants, naval officers, random crew members, the compass could point directly at them, no matter how they hid behind fine clothes and cynical smiles. Rigel harvested slowly, but that's precisely why it took so long.
He now has ninety-eight captives, just two more and he could fulfill Calypso's request.
The fountain of youth also became famous when his idiotic pirates talked about it while they were drunk.
Rigel had already warned them to keep quiet, but even their loyalty didn't stop them from spilling the beans while drunk as skunks. Rigel thought his last warning had been enough.
It wasn't.
Rigel can finally use a punishment he's seen in many pirate movies, walking the plank.
Five of its crew members were forced to walk on a plank with their wrists tied in shark-infested waters.
Rigel looked at this coldly, these idiots couldn't follow simple orders, so he had to be firm and show them the consequences.
Because of those idiots, Rigel was directly attacked by a British fleet, 10 three-masted ships, full of cannons, came after him. That day, Rigel's black flag finally received some souls, thankfully, they were just Pirate Mobs.
Rigel admits that he underestimated the navy, in the end, he had to use the crown and turn the English ships against them. He also ultimately placed the ballista in Ragnarok.
The flag received 8 souls that day. Rigel, who had lost 13 crew members at once, thought about recruiting more, but thinking about those idiotic pirates, he decided to leave the recruitment for the future. For now, he focused on protecting the fountain of youth.
With the English attack, Rigel captured many captives, the good ones, those who had only justice in their hearts or were simply following orders, were abandoned on a deserted island, their fate left to chance. Most belonged to that group, more than 200 of them were left on the island. Rigel had no idea if they had survived.
The evil, hideous ones were sent to keep the other captives company, the evil, but not hideous ones, had another purpose. Rigel used Blackbeard's zombification ritual to create half-zombies.
Thus, he successfully created 15 zombies. The ritual had already made them loyal to Rigel, and along with the Aztec Rune, they were even more loyal. In the end, even with a certain degree of intelligence, they were very easy to control, and best of all, they didn't smell and obeyed all orders.
Rigel no longer needed to recruit pirates after that.
Calypso approached Rigel slowly, her steps heavier now, just enough for Rigel to hear her coming.
Looking away from the sea, Rigel glanced briefly at the woman, then looked back at the merchant ship.
"This time it's enough, there are 3 of them marked by sin." Calypso smiled at Rigel.
Rigel nodded, he was pleased as well.
Ragnarok slowly approached the merchant ship, the merchants were acting like headless chickens, trying to make the ship go faster, even throwing some of the cargo overboard.
Unfortunately for them, Ragnarok was anything but slow, even without Rigel using the power of the crown, with just the power of the Pirate Hat, there was no ship faster than his on the sea.
The merchant ship had no gunboats, but they did have two breech-loading swivel guns which they dragged to the stern of the ship and began firing at the Ragnarok.
Rigel almost laughed, a slight smile appearing at the corner of his mouth.
"Jormun, let's show them what firepower is!" Rigel said to the snake.
Jormun hissed, clearly excited.
"Fire." Rigel said simply.
The next moment, flames erupted from the two openings in the bow, directly hitting the ship and burning the gunners.
Calypso, standing beside him, spoke up. "Ah, you burned one of them, Rigel, now there are only two left."
Rigel's smile froze, his lips trembling, firing the flamethrower was fun, for a moment he forgot his purpose there.
With the ship's stern ablaze, Rigel sent Ragnarok surging along the side of the merchant ship. From Ragnarok, a group of pale men with white eyes leaped directly onto the opposite ship, they were the zombies created by Rigel.
They already knew what to do, lock everyone on board and avoid killing anyone.
Rigel didn't even need to move, the zombies did all the work. The merchants soon discovered that no matter what you did to the zombies, they simply ignored you.
It took ten minutes for the fighting to finally stop, when Rigel entered the opposite ship, nearly 20 men were tied up and kneeling in a row in front of him.
Rigel looked at them, most didn't even dare to look at him, and those who did, only stared at him with evident fear.
Rigel ignored them, picked up the compass and began to walk past them, eventually selecting two people, the ship's captain and another man with greasy hair.
"Take these ones, release the others." Rigel said, heading straight back to Ragnarok.
The man's and the captain's eyes filled with fear. "Sir, please! Let me go! I didn't do anything! I swear! It wasn't my fault."
There's something the captain heard, something he didn't tell the rookie, they say Rigel can sense sinners, he roams the seas capturing them like a demon of judgment.
Thus, the captain was the most nervous of them all, because he knew exactly what he had done. he killed his best friend to be with his current wife, he drowned his youngest stepson so that his son would receive more attention from his mother, he killed his wife's mother because she cost too much money to support.
His wife knew nothing of this, he would never tell her, but it was only now that he regretted his actions.
Not because of what he did, but because he became a merchant at sea, he should have stayed on land.