Chapter 357 - Visit
While everyone was staring at Ignác with gazes full of fear, Ceni was pulling his arm like a child. And standing next to him she really did look like child.
Ignác was over 9 feet tall even while sitting. He was almost 3 times as wide as a normal human being making Ceni look even smaller.
"Uncle~! I'm bored!" she pouted, trying to make him move but failing completely. The other 6 people looked on with horrified expressions. Even if she was a princess, she must know who, or rather what this person was!
Ignác, a real-life Cambion!
Cambions were offsprings created from the mating of true demons and humans. They were not that uncommon in this world where demons roamed the plane of mortals in the shadows.
But most of them followed in the footsteps of their demonic parents rather than accept their human natures.
Ignác was one such being. That was his natural appearance which induced fear in everyone that crossed his path. No one knew how old he was or how powerful exactly. Cambion's had extremely long lifespans so it wasn't easy to trace back their origins.
But Ignác had been serving as the captain of this ship only for a little while now. This was his second journey and the underlings assigned to him were still not used to his presence. To them he was both an enigma and a source of constant fear.
"Little girl..." a hoarse voice rang in the room. It sounded like it was coming from every direction at once, well every direction but Ignác's. A couple of the other individuals took a step back, grasping the edges of their uniforms as tightly as they could.
Ignác turned to face Ceni, and she looked back at him with an innocent face, completely devoid of fear.
"...you are still as mischievous as ever."
Ceni gave a proud grin in return as if he was praising her.
He then slightly opened his fingers and the coin raised up into the air on its own and returned in between them like it had never left in the first place. It was almost as if time itself had wound back.
Out of the 11 other people in the room, 4 had a drastic change of expression upon realizing what had happened. Alte slowly came forward and gave a bow from the waist.
"It is a pleasure to meet master Ignác once again. The king sends his regards."
He sounded neither proud nor too overly subservient which actually made Ignác take another look at him. The blue fire in his eyes burned brighter for an instant before returning to normal.
"Child, you have grown up well. Your future is very bright, having even obtained 'that' thing."
Alte who was pretty confident just a second suddenly faltered and looked up at Ignác respectfully.
"Thank you, sir."
Their interaction made the rest of the observers let out a few breaths of relief. It seemed like he was already acquainted with the princess and her caretaker.
*Beep*
*Beep*
*Beep*
The hologram on the table suddenly changed color and turned red from blue. The view zoomed in suddenly and showed one of the four hangers located in the back. Inside it were a few dozen bright red orbs of light that kept undulating incessantly.
All 6 of the other people in charge of different departments on the ship ran to their respective stations.
"Impossible! How did they break through?!" a middle-aged man asked. His left hand was made of metal which almost broke the screen as he tapped in repeatedly.
Another man who was probably the second in command going by the medals pinned on his chest frowned. He took out the cigar from his mouth and let out the smoke.
"They didn't, they just walked in! The hanger door was opened from the inside," as he finished speaking, a video started playing on the biggest screen in the room.
It showed the hanger which was filled with the ship's crew. They were running about prepping a few different aircrafts inside when the main hanger door suddenly opened on its own and a completely black vessel flew in silently.
This vessel looked nothing like the other pirate ships that were flying about. It looked much more advanced. Its design was sleek and with its small size, it looked more like a large sports car than anything else.
The entire crew was taken aback by the sudden appearance of the vessel but before they could react, the vessel's top opened up and 9 people walked. That's when the video cut out.
"How old is this footage?" one of the female department heads asked.
"Just a few minutes old."
"Bring up the direct feed from the crew's spirit bands! Find out what's happening," the man with the cigar ordered. The man with the metal arm got to work clicking away on his screen, but halted just a few seconds in.
"What?"
"There are no life signatures inside the hanger. Everyone is dead," he replied with an ugly expression. Over 300 crew members had perished within a matter of minutes.
Ceni who was nonchalant about everything until now suddenly became serious.
In their line of work, getting attacked by pirates was nothing out of ordinary. They would attack and sometimes break in from one corner or another and steal a few trinkets or kidnap a few people, but that was it. But they always maintained a baseline.
The powers that owned these ships wouldn't bother with something so small but if they directly killed so many crew members that worked for these powerful clans, then they would do everything in their powers to destroy the pirates responsible for such actions.
Neither party wanted such an outcome so it never came to that, well until now. If they were willing to directly kill so many crew members, then they were ready for war.
"Uncle Ignác, let's go take a look. I think they might be waiting for us," Ceni said without looking away from the screen. Ignác followed her line of sight and slowly nodded his head while getting up.
"Let us pay them a visit."