Book 0: Chapter 4: Helplessly Dragged into a Naval Conflict
Book 0: Chapter 4: Helplessly Dragged into a Naval Conflict
After some time, Bella opened her eyes and scanned her surroundings. Angel and Mia were standing where she had seen them previously. Bella had successfully merged with Octavio Felia’s body and was able to feel the armor’s pressing weight. It should be the same set that Felia was wearing.
“Can I return to my previous form?”
“Yes, you’ll be able to return when your current body is sleeping or meditating. This body is just a disguise for you.”
Bella relaxed after hearing Mia’s reassuring explanation. If she couldn’t return to her original body it would be awkward to interact with any other villainous bosses as a holy knight.
Luckily, the princess dressed more decently. Bella finally managed to escape her commando state that she had been experiencing for the past couple of weeks.
Even though Bella had solved her own decency problems, there was still the matter of Angel and Bella’s attire. While discussing earlier, Bella found out that Mia was also commando underneath her shrine maiden robes. Is going commando now a prerequisite for being a villainous boss?
Bella held onto the sword Princess Felia was clutching tightly before her death; it seemed quite light in her grasp. The armour that she was wearing was also heavily damaged, probably unable to be used again.
“I feel bad for this sister, all her equipment is pretty average and not much better than a soldier’s standard issue. It’s a miracle that they lasted her so long.” Mia took a few glances at Felia’s equipment and dismissed it as average quality.
“Really? The decorations on the equipment looks like they were made by a skilled artisan.”
“I don’t know how humans determine the quality of equipment, but I believe that a real weapon doesn’t need to be fancy and luxurious to kill.”
Mia turned around while she spoke and operated some mechanism on a candle stand not too far from where they were standing. One of the four walls of the church submerged loudly, exposing the armoury within.
All of these weapons were devoid of decoration but radiated a threatening aura. Bella went to reach for the thin sword closest to her but was timely stopped by Angel.
“Sister, this is a death type weapon and your current body is that of a holy knight. Your original body won’t be affected but this body will be destroyed.” Fortunately, Angel managed to prevent Bella’s impulse from getting the better of her.
The three of them decided to spend the night in St. Emilia church as the night was already nigh. At midnight the vicinity of the church was eerily silent. Normally there would be all types of monsters in the area, but due to the three terrifying existences spending the night in the church, the monsters dared not approach.
The three of them laid down on the empty floors of the church. The two lolis had already fallen asleep on either side of Bella, each claiming an arm for their own. Her arms felt like they had lost all vitality, seemingly transforming into warm, inanimate pillows. Even though the sights of the two sleeping lolis were very tempting for her, she reconsidered when she remembered their identities. What an unfulfilling night…
___
Early next morning, the three of them returned to the beach. Only the remains of the fleet’s ships were left behind, but all the bodies had disappeared. It was unknown whether they were dragged away by monsters or had been zombified, leaving the ships themselves.
Bella didn’t plan on returning to Coristel continent using these blood covered ships. First of all, they were only three people. There was no way that they could operate a ship this size. Secondly, this fleet was all a trap in the first place. If she were to return as Felia after everyone in the fleet had supposedly died, she would be sure to become a scapegoat.
Bella summoned a few undead who were once carpenters and tasked them to utilize some planks from the large ship in order to construct a smaller wooden boat.
“Mia, do you know any special abilities the holy knights have? I didn’t receive any strong abilities when I took possession of Felia’s body.”
“Sister, you’ve basically been reborn. What finishing and special abilities sister Felia had learned before have all disappeared with her soul.”
“Then I…”
“The church has ways of detecting whenever a holy knight dies so your identity as a holy knight is pretty much gone. This is nice too as the church can no longer track your activities. However, it doesn’t hurt if you want to start training as a holy knight from the beginning. Felia had trained her body for sixteen years so you no longer have to worry about fitness.”
Bella used Felia’s memories to find the royal sword of the Octavian Empire(Knights). This well crafted short sword was given to every member of the Octavian royal family. Felia carefully placed it at the back of her closet. It seemed that she had not forgotten that she was a member of the royal family.
They weren’t able to find any currency onboard much to Bellas’ dismay. Does this princess not bring any money with her when she leaves the house? Bella allowed Angel to take her undead to search the rest of the fleet and not a single piece of currency was seen. They didn’t bring any money for they knew that they wouldn’t have any use for it. It seemed like this fleet was really sent to die.
However, they did find quite a bit of dried food, though only enough to last Bella a few days at sea. After she merged with Felia, she could no longer go without eating. Felia’s body was human so she would feel hungry if she went a while without eating. The feeling of hungriness gradually spread throughout Bella’s body. She didn’t dare to wait and see if she could starve to death.
It only took half a day for Angel’s subordinates to create a small wooden boat. Bella also discovered a naval map of the world on Felia’s bookshelf on which were drawn four continents and countless islands of various sizes. Bella had trouble reading the characters on the map. The map was probably rather old since it was wrinkled and written in a more ancient text.
“Sister take these.” Mia handed Bella a pair of makeshift gauntlets and a shield. She had used some of the armour scraps remaining on the ship to create these.
“Alright, let’s depart! Do we need to do anything about the monsters and the undead remaining on the continent?”
“No, I think… soon… Time is ticking, if we don’t leave now we can’t follow the wind out to the ocean anymore.” Mia changed the topic before finishing her sentence. Bella didn’t bother to dig deeper. The three girls boarded their sailboat. Bella had Angel instructed the undead set fire to the rest of the fleet, sinking them to the bottomless abyss of the sea.
___
As the wooden boat surfed the wind out of the continent, the monsters and undead left behind on Alfred continent were prepared to rampage but were forced to stop when an intense pressure started diffusing from the gates of hell at the centre of the continent.
Two small shadows walked out the gates with unsteady footing, supporting to each other weakly. It looked as if they were heavily wounded.
“Where is chief? Has she still not arrived?”
“She is still at the rear fending off those tough Saviors, but it shouldn’t be a problem for chief. This dimension still isn’t destroyed? It can’t be… our three companions who had arrived before…”
“Damn, our companions were…”
“The two of them almost fell to the ground in agitation, but the shadow that exited the gate to hell shortly after calmed them down.”
“Chief are you alright?”
“I’ve disposed of that batch of Saviors, but there have already been five that arrived in the dimension before I could get to them. They’ve probably already rooted themselves pretty deeply. It’ll be quite a hassle to get rid of them.”
“That shouldn’t be possible. Shouldn’t only one Savior and one Destroyer reincarnate in a single plane?”
“This plane’s Creator doesn’t seem to be present and I’m not sure if they were eliminated by our three companions who came before us. Currently, this plane has no limits on the number of Saviors and Destroyers that can exist.”
“The three of us are not in fighting condition, let’s find a place to recover. We will make a memorial for the three companions who were lost along the way.”
___
Currently, Bella’s group were already long gone and naturally didn’t know that there were three companions who came looking for them. They also didn’t know that their companions had dug graves for the three of them. Unfortunately, Bella had burned all the ships before they had left, unknowingly screwing over their companions and causing them to be stuck on Alfred continent for quite a while.
As she couldn’t read naval maps, Bella pretended to be a lost cargo boat wandering around trade routes. There were bound to be merchant ships that would pass by. The plan was to get help from one of them to return back to Coristel continent.
They drifted along the route for a day. Just when they was fussing over their shortage of dry food, they saw their target. It wasn’t a merchant ship, however, they encountered a fleet of warships. They were the same model as the ones that had landed on Alfred continent but carried different flags. It looked like they weren’t from the Octavian Empire(Knights).
This fleet was surrounding a large black warship, not caring for Bella’s small boat.
“This counts as naval combat?” Bella was speechless. She thought that she would be able to see the epic standoff between navies using cannons just like the Napoleonic wars, not some primitive ship boarding with hand to hand combat. Whatever, their fighting is none of our business. It would be best if we get ourselves out of here, we’re not a bunch of busybody heroes.
“Admiral, there is a small ship over there. It might belong to one of the demons.”
“Open fire! We can’t let any of them get away.”
“But the sail seems to be that of the Octavian Empire?”
“The Octavian Empire expeditionary navy uses the same large warships as us, this small ship is clearly an imposter. Anyways, if anything happens the church we’ll take care of it. What are you scared of?”
The ship closest to Bella turned its prow towards them, it didn’t take long for a wave of flaming arrows to fly towards Bella’s small boat.
“What the hell… are they revoking human rights from the peanut gallery?!” Several flaming arrows hit Bella before she could react. Just when she thought that she was about to die (again), she realized that the arrows didn’t hurt her.
It was as if the arrows had hit a wall of metal, bouncing off her and before falling pathetically into the water. The same couldn’t be said about Bella’s armour which was already tattered beyond saving as many arrows found a new home lodged inside it.
“You don’t have to be so shocked sister. When Felia was reborn she got the blood from the three of us so normal physical wounds won’t even scratch you. No need to be scared.”
Mia’s explanation helped Bella to restore some peace of mind. But when she saw that her boat had started to burn rather fiercely, she became frustrated again.
“Damn it, these bastards! Angel, change course towards them. I’m going to steal their ship!” Bella decided to forcibly take their ship when she saw that her own ship had already started to sink. She didn’t need to be scared of anything as long as the enemy didn’t have any cannons.
“Captain, that boat is heading towards us rapidly!”
“It’s only a small boat, at most it could carry twenty-so people, we have five hundred on this warship. They are just coming to deliver military exploits. Everyone get your weapons ready to have a celebration, archers keep up your volley, don’t stop.”
The captain of the ship, Viscount Joseph, looked at the small ship that was coming closer. Evidently, he didn’t put them on his mind as there was no way the small ship could do any decent damage to their warship. When the ship got closer, he didn’t even have a chance to examine it closely before a large flaming chunk of metal flew at them with astonishing speed. One of the soldiers who was near the warship’s rail was sent flying. He was dragged by the chunk of metal far over the opposite side of the ship, not even given the chance to let out a sound.
“What kind of monster has such great strength? Archers hurry up and…” Viscount Joseph’s panicy voice was cut short by a flying short sword that punched through his armour and pinned him to the mast.
Bella climbed up the ladder on the side of the warship that was originally designed for boarding enemy ships. She had already thrown her damaged armour and short sword as ranged weapons, and boarded only with the metal gauntlets and buckler.
The people on the ship had yet to free themselves from the horrors of having their captain nailed to the mast when a horrible shriek brought them back to reality. Bella had flung one of the soldiers near her right into the ocean. The soldier nearest to him was about to raise his sword against Bella, but was greeted by a punch which threw him back several meters. It kindly ushered his spirit to the underworld.
“Everybody don’t be scared, she’s only one person!”
Bella looked a little helplessly at the enemies who came at her like a swarm of bees. She had thought that they would retreat after she had killed their captain, not continue to charge at her recklessly.”
“It seems that humans can only hurt each other…” Bella pulled her sword out of the captain and wielded it in a defensive pose, preparing to engage the oncoming soldiers.