The sky turned orange as the night slowly approached.
Within hours, the sun would set, causing darkness to fall.
At the Pirate Battleground, sailing through the unpredictable waters, the black-sailed ship continued its journey without any interruptions.
However, at the helm of the ship, Leon already saw several islands with ships docked and some sunken ships in the distance, indicating a fierce battle had taken place.
Otherwise, the journey remained uneventful.
At Apollo’s cabin, seven individuals played cards—those were Ambrose, Apollo, Henri, Loki, Zero, Damian, and Jake.
Mars was in his own cabin, Ors was in his own, praying to a blood-soaked doll, and Leon was the helmsman for the voyage.
“Victory!” Damian grinned and placed his cards that showed a winning poker hand on the table.
“Again?” Henri grudgingly put his cards down. “You are cheating.”
“You sound like a sore loser, Henri.” Damian laughed and retrieved his winnings before handing them over to Ambrose, who placed them inside his inventory.
Apollo then began shuffling the deck, ready for another round of cards.
“The sky is getting darker.” Loki mentioned as he sat beside the round window. “We should’ve reached Necro Island by now. You think Mars has realized that yet?”
“If he had, he would be screaming through the ship by now.” Damian said with a grin and took a sip of his drink.
Others chuckled.
“By the way, Jake.” Ambrose glanced at the shy-looking young man, who had a lean and teen-like face with well-shaped features. “Since you are Starborn, how have you lived before meeting with Mars?”
“Uhm…” Jake cleared his throat and sat upright with some awkwardness. “W-well, I have been alone for my whole life. Starborns have many parents, and they are the stars in the sky.
“So, I haven’t really been alone per se, but I have lived in the mountains of Rechstein for as long as I can remember.”
Others stayed quiet while Jake spoke, and Apollo shuffled the cards.
“The stars taught me to hunt for food, and they always guided me if I was lost.” Jake then remembered a scene from his past.
“At one point, I became a folk tale of a monstrous child. That happened one summer evening. There was a village below the mountain I lived in, and that summer, they got attacked by the King of the Mountains.
“The King of the Mountains was a monstrous bear, three times as big as an adult man. Its roars echoed like thunderclaps.
“After hearing the screams of the villagers, I felt like I needed to help them.
“I was only about 12 years old at that time.
“After reaching the village, dead villagers were scattered about, and the King of the Mountains was right in the middle of them.
“As its eyes fell upon me, I froze in horror. I could feel my death approaching as it stormed towards me.
“But then, the stars taught me how to throw a punch—a simple straight punch.
“And I did.
“I threw a punch that went straight through the bear, killing it.
“The villagers who had survived looked at me with even more horror than when the King of the Mountains had attacked them.
“I didn’t really know how to react to that.” Jake chuckled nervously. “They then attacked me; I don’t know why, but then I retreated back to the mountains and never left.
“Then, one day, Mars appeared there. He apparently heard the tales of the monstrous child and talked about fate and some other things I didn’t quite understand.”
Others stayed quiet; even Apollo had stopped shuffling the cards as he looked at Jake.
“Stars told me to run away, but I was powerless in front of him. I tried the trick they taught me, so I threw a straight punch. Mars stopped it with his pinkie.”
Jake sadly smiled and said, “Then he took me here, and I sometimes wonder what would’ve been my fate without Mars. Have you guys also thought about it?”
“Little bit,” Apollo said with a hint of contemplation in his voice. “I thought I would’ve married a nice girl from my hometown from a fellow aristocrat family, made tons of babies, and followed my father in family business. But if I really had way more fate than an ordinary person, what would’ve happened to me…”
“Hmm…” Damian put his hands below his head and looked at the ceiling with a thoughtful look. “What would’ve been my fate…”
“Zero, you haven’t talked about your childhood much.” Henri looked at the white-haired young man. “Wanna tell?”
Others turned to the silent Zero, who hadn’t spoken a single word during their poker game.
“Hmm…” Zero nodded slightly and opened his mouth. “All I remember is a white room where they did experiments with me.
“Their experiment’s purpose was to create a perfect superhuman with enhanced abilities and no emotions.
“They injected me with thousands of different chemicals and subjected me to intense physical training.
“Each of those chemicals could’ve killed me, but somehow they didn’t. Those increased my reflexes to superhuman levels.
“Each subject in there was taught every language and given knowledge in various fields of study.
“They thought we would be perfect assassins.
“Then, we were injected with last chemicals they called “the final enhancement.”
After speaking the cursed name, Zero turned silent, and awkward silence hung above the room.
Then Zero took a deep breath and said, “It killed everyone, except me. I suppose my fate was to survive that shithole and do something with my life.
“Then Mars and all of you came, killed the scientists, and took me away from there.”
Zero then chuckled and scratched his snowy white hair. “Strangely, I feel indebted to Mars.”
“…” Damian looked in surprise at Zero. “But you are abducted, just like the rest of us, with your future taken away from you.”
“I know, but this place is still a thousand times better than that white room.” Zero lowered his head and then muttered. “However, even though I am indebted to him, Mars is still as bad of a person as those scientists.
“If opportunity rises, I would want to stop him from doing anything bad ever again. I want to stop all the bad guys.”
Ambrose silently looked at the white-haired young man and nodded thoughtfully. He knew that Zero was in a great dilemma about whether he should be indebted to Mars or not.
However, if they needed Zero’s help, he had a feeling that he would help.
“Mars has to be stopped.” Apollo said with a determined tone. “We might be the only people that can stop him. We cannot trust the inquisitors or the navy. They are corrupted, anyway.”
“Yeah…” Henri clenched his fists. “Ambrose and Zero, Mars is a bigger asshole than you might think.”
Ambrose and Zero turned to Henri and saw him surprisingly angry, which was a surprising expression in his face. They had mostly seen him smile.
“I was abducted during a school trip.” Henri said. “We were en route to the beach resort with a cruise ship, and then we got attacked by Mars.
“Mars slaughtered everyone—even all my schoolmates. We were only 16 at that time, yet he didn’t care and sank the ship to the bottom of the sea while he took me with him.
“He cannot be saved from the number of sins he has. He has to die. He has to!”
“Of course.” Ambrose looked at everyone and said boldly. “He’ll die.”
At that moment, a loud shout came from the deck.
“How come we haven’t arrived yet?!” Mars’ booming shout resounded throughout the ship. “Bloody hell, we should’ve arrived three hours ago!”
“And here it starts.” Apollo said and stood up. “Let’s make Mars’ day even worse, shall we?”