Using the shadow cast by the crow's nest, I arrived at the ship's center unnoticed.
After concealing myself with a wooden pillar, I peeked out to the right and surveyed my surroundings.
In front of me were two scrawny figures, each with a cutlass comfortably resting at their waist. After a minute of observing them, I noticed that the two had yet to turn their heads away from the sea.
They simply stared out into the sea into utter silence.
What the hell is so interesting about the sea?
Ignoring their peculiar behavior, I glanced to my right and saw that two more figures were there. Unlike the others, they were comfortably resting while talking to each other.
Far into the distance, I could spot the last member of the crew sitting down near the front of the ship, next to the bowsprit.
Since I was directly under the crow's nest, I could not observe the person up top, but repositioning and observing him would be impossible with the clock ticking.
The moment the rest of the crew was alerted of my escape, my death was inevitable. No matter how special I was, fighting 7 people and the captain head-on was impossible.
Stepping out of the nest's shadow, I quietly and carefully moved toward the two pirates conversating, using various things around the ship to hide myself.
Once near enough, I concealed myself with the shadow of the main sail and listened in on their conversation.
"Did ya hear boss is paying extra for this expedition?"
"No shit, why the hell did you think I signed up."
"just asking... relax."
" *tsk* just stop with the questions and keep drinking."
These guys really know nothing. Did they really blindly accept going on the expedition because of the money...?
Holding both daggers horizontally, I tensed my legs and patiently waited for the perfect moment.
After 10 more seconds, I saw both pirates pick up their glasses in preparation for a toast.
Like a cheetah, I lunged forward towards the table. Besides a faint scraping sound, no other sound indicated my movement.
Within a second, I was only a few meters away from the two oblivious pirates. In one clean motion, I cocked back my right hand and thrust it forward.
My weakness had become clear during my grueling training sessions with the bots. The reach of my daggers was not enough compared to other weapons.
One day, after consistently losing to the bot despite knowing its next moves, I chucked my right dagger with all my might. As a gamer, throwing things after a loss or defeat was normal, so this wasn't anything extraordinary.
However, what was special was that the throw managed to catch the bot off guard, as it had never expected to receive an attack while I was so far away. The bot determines its moves and attacks using a logical algorithm.
What logical person randomly hurls their weapon at you?
Thus, I created a new attack.
Back on the ship, the dagger gracefully flew through the air like an arrow. This dagger's target was the man's heart on the right.
Putting complete trust in my throwing skills, I didn't continue watching the dagger but instead raised my left dagger and pounced at the man on the left.
Although the training robots didn't have vital spots like a human's heart, I had trained myself to aim for the typical location of the heart during training.
If this pirate didn't die instantly, he would have time to alert the rest of the crew of my presence, effectively ruining my plan.
Before the pirate could glance away from his beverage, my dagger was already stabbed into his body.
His eyes lost their colorful luster, and his posture crumbled as he slumped onto his chair. A simple attack like this wouldn't be able to kill an awakened, but thankfully, I had confirmed that the crew were all mundane humans.
The wound left by my dagger was too small to be noticed by the surveyor up on the crow's nest, so a sigh of relief escaped my mouth.
However, the sigh almost reentered my mouth when I turned to face the other pirate.
He was breathing.., he wasn't dead.
But, then, why are his eyes closed?
"God damn it, Jace, did you throw your glass at me. It got into my eye."
After looking at the floor covered with shards of glass, I quickly realized the situation. My dagger hadn't missed his heart, but in a stroke of luck, the man had placed his cup right in front of his heart.
The dagger broke the cup, and the broken glass went into the man's eye, blinding him.
Is this what they call equilibrium?
He's lucky because he didn't die from the throw, but I'm lucky because he was blinded and not able to realize the situation.
Not knowing whether to thank the gods for luck or not, I grabbed my right dagger from the floor and stabbed it into the pirate's heart.
Leaving the two corpses, I returned to the ship's center, hiding under the crow's nest.
My next target was the man in the distance, but I could not reach him without being noticed. The path there lacked any shadows or things that could mask my presence.
Although killing the two pirates staring off into the sea would be much easier, there were more risks.
Due to their standing position, it would be impossible for me to make them appear alive to observer on the crow's nest, so it would only be a matter of time before I was found out.
There was also something else bothering me about their behavior. I doubted the captain was stupid, so why would he assign these two pirates the useless task of staring into the sea?
Attacking them seemed to be a bad decision.
It might have been my hunch or gut feeling, but then again, what was I without those feelings? Wasn't my ability to analyze and predict my opponents' moves just a hunch as well?
I was fully trusting my ability to foresee their moves, so why should I not also trust my hunch now?
Since the two pirates were facing the sea, the other pirate was a distance away, and the observer was directly above me, I could move around somewhat freely.
After climbing the ship's roping, I surveyed my surroundings from a higher height and noticed something that could help me.
A rope connected the sails on the ship so I could walk the rope to reach the opposite side of the ship where the lone pirate sat.
Of course, there was the risk of being spotted, but using the rope seemed to be my only option.
Not wasting any more time, I placed both my feet on the rope and stabilized myself before continuing.
Like a tight-rope walker in a circus, I slowly moved my right foot forward, then my left, and repeated that notion until I finally reached the end.
Stepping onto a wood plank right below the sail, I immediately looked down at the ship and saw the lone pirate sitting almost directly below me.
Readying my daggers, I gracefully leaped off the wooden plank and landed on the ship deck.
Shocked by the sudden noise behind him, the pirate turned around, but by then, it was already too late; my dagger was already embedded in his body.
Stepping out of the shadows, I retrieved my dagger and examined the pirate's body in hopes of finding something useful, but like the other corpses, there seemed to be nothing valuable.
Just as I was about to resume my plan and head back to the ship's center, a sudden noise sounded above me.
*CA-CAW*
Immediately tilting my head upward, a feeling of dread overwhelmed me as I noticed the source was not just an ordinary bird but the captain's parrot.
Attracted by the noise of the parrot, the observer on the crow's nest redirected his attention to the area, and there I was, standing in the plain sunlight with two blood-covered daggers.
"CAPTAIN, HE'S ESCAPED!"
On the opposite end of the ship, I could see a door swing open, revealing the captain's figure.
Tensing my legs and readjusting my grip on the daggers, I awkwardly awaited the captain's next move; however, he remained completely still.
Then, his figure suddenly disappeared from the quarter deck, and in the next moment, he reappeared only a few meters away from me.
My dragon eyes... how...?
My eyes were supposed to see all. However, they failed to catch his movements...
There is no way... just what is he?
Without waiting for me to recover from the shock, the captain drew his broadsword from his scabbard and charged at me.
This time, his moving figure was easily visible to my eyes.
Was he going slower?
As the charging captain neared me, I sidestepped to the right, avoiding the slash.
Without skipping a heartbeat, I immediately propelled my daggers upward, yet my daggers failed to hit anything.
The figure of the captain once again vanished and reappeared a few feet away.
"w-whats g-going on, m-my e-eyes..."
Not paying any attention to my words, the captain swung his broadsword, releasing a wind slash hurling right at me.
Seeing that it was my first time even fighting against a magic slash, I doubted my ability to parry it with my daggers, so I retreated backward, right out of the range of the wind slash.
Instead of releasing countless more wind slashes, the captain stood still and stared at my figure.
Was he out of mana already? No, that's impossible; it was just one slash...
After a couple of moments, the captain once again charged at me. Knowing he would predict my sidestep dodge again, I formed an X with my daggers and prepared to take broadsword on directly.
Under the weight of the heavy broadsword, my X formation didn't break. However, I was pushed back even further, too far even...
Not bothering to counterattack, I stepped back and took a quick glance at my surroundings.
I was at the very edge of the ship; one wrong misstep would cause me to fall into the sea.
Ah, this was what he was planning this entire time.
Defense would be impossible in this situation; I must take the initiative. Yet, how could I attack or hurt an opponent that could move faster than my eyes?
Realizing the captain was preparing another attack, I rapidly cocked my hand back, released my left dagger, and hurled it right at the captain. Immediately after, I followed the flying dagger and charged with my right dagger at the captain.
Oddly enough, instead of rapidly moving away like earlier, the captain raised his broadsword to deflect the flying dagger.
His broadsword effectively blocked the flying dagger as it rebounded onto the floor; however, I was already upon him right by that time, my right dagger swinging upwards in an uppercut.
However, the captain's figure disappeared again this time and reappeared a few meters away.
"w-what."
Now that I had some breathing room, I began analyzing the captain's fighting style; however, it just didn't make sense.
His irregular and long pauses between fights. His periodic use of rapid movement. His use of only one wind slash.
What if he's not moving...?
Subsequently, I voiced a possibility out loud.
"Teleportation."
The pauses for gathering mana, the volatile use due to lack of mana, and the one wind slash to conserve mana for teleportation.
Looking at the captain, I saw a crack in his confident demeanor. His usual impassive expression was replaced with one of shock.
Instead of taking the initiative once to attack, I took another glance around the ship.
Another thing that bothered me was the reason I had yet to use my time-slowing ability.
Where were the other crew members, and why were they not helping the captain fight me?
There was an all-out brawl, but the surviving crewmates were nowhere to be seen?
On top of the crow's nest, the observer seemed to be watching the fight with a bewildered expression, but, on the other hand, the two other pirates remained the same.
Simply staring out into the sea...
After recovering my left dagger, I refocused my attention on the captain.
Sure, I figured out he had teleportation, but how was I supposed to counter that?
How was I even supposed to beat this guy?
Saying this was an uphill battle would be an understatement; it was akin to scaling Mt. Everest in a winter snowstorm.
The open setting of the ship deck was advantageous for him as I had nowhere to hide. I couldn't just release a barrage of dagger attacks on him to draw out his mana, as I would be left open to his counterattacks.
But if I didn't constantly attack him, he would save up mana and teleport away whenever I did attack.
Isn't the first rankup supposed to be easy?
I'm just a humble E-rank trying to get to D-rank; what the hell is this?