Her Majesty’s Swarm - Volume 3 - Chapter 4

The Bloody Bay 

In one corner of Atlantica, there was a place known as the Bloody Bay. A bay only in name, it was the inlet where Blasco bred and fed his sharks. It owed its moniker to the fact that the water’s surface was practically always crimson with blood. Blasco had fed hostages who never fetched ransoms and traitorous pirates to the sharks. Thanks to that, the sharks infesting these waters had developed an appetite for human flesh. 

Even now they circled the inlet, their dorsal fins carving endless loops in the water. 

“Hey! Isabelle! What the hell are you doing?!” 

“Listen ’ere, Isabelle, we’ll make a spot for ya on the council, so please, jus’ spare us!” 

Achille and Blasco barked and pleaded as we carried them along the wharf overlooking the inlet. Just a little hop and one of these guys would splash down into the shark-filled waters. 

“Uh, I ain’t lookin’ to kill you,” Isabelle said, looking puzzled. 

I was a bit taken aback. I was sure she’d brought them here to turn them into shark food. But if that wasn’t the reason, then why? 

Achille looked baffled. “What are you—” 

“Lemme put it to you straight: you guys should hand over half of what you’ve got.” Isabelle gave them a nasty smile. “We’ve gotta run Atlantica, y’know? I’m sure that if you do that, the other pirates will forgive you.” 

“I’ll pay! Half, right? You can have half my fortune!” 

“Me too! I’ll give ya half!” 

Achille and Blasco started singing like an odd little two-man chorus. 

“Right, and where is that fortune of yours?” Oh, her smile was wicked. 

“In the treasure vault...” 

“No, no, that’s Atlantica’s fortune. Not yours. How much do you two have, personally speakin’? Right here on this island.” 

Oh, I see. That’s your angle. 

“Uh... Wait! I’ll give you half of everything we earn from now on! So... please!” Achille cried. 

“Why wait? We have half of all you’ve got right here.” Isabelle turned to me. “Could you lower ’em in? Just half of ’em, though.” 

“Two idiots going halfway in, coming right up,” I said. 

Isabelle’s plan was actually rather simple. I ordered the Ripper Swarms holding onto Achille and Blasco to lower them into the water. Little by little, of course. We were in no hurry. 

“Wait! Isabelle, I was wrong! I’m sorry, so please! Save me!” 

“You’re forgettin’ who made ya a halfway decent pirate inna firs’ place! Save us, dammit!” 

The two men were shouting at Isabelle for help, but perhaps they should’ve turned their pleas to the Ripper Swarms, given the situation. Soon the pirates were submerged waist-deep in the Bloody Bay. 

“Aaah! Aaaahhhh! Help meee!” 

“These are your goddamn sharks, Blasco! Do something!” 

They squawked at one another even as the sharks began circling them. 

“All right, boys, we’ll be claimin’ half of all you’ve got as tax for Atlantica. You can keep the other half.” 

What happened next, well... that will remain undisclosed. I will say, however, that there was a great deal of blood involved. Isabelle closed her eyes and enjoyed their screams as if they were classical music. 

Pirates will be pirates, I suppose. 

“Welp, I’d say that’s half of ’em down,” Isabelle said after some time. “Reel ’em up.” 

“Ripper Swarms, pull them out of the water.” 

The Ripper Swarms did as they were told, and sure enough, everything below the pirates’ torsos was gone. 

“We’ll be hangin’ their bodies to rot at Atlantica’s entrance until there’s only bones left. Should serve as a good example as to what happens when you try to pocket other pirates’ riches.” 

Decorating your cool secret base with corpses that look like that? What a waste... 

“Is your purge over now, Isabelle?” 

“Yeah. All that’s left is to seal our alliance.” 

Seeing that she was still willing to ally with me was a relief. If she’d chosen to betray me here and now, all of this effort would have been for nothing. 

We quickly wrote down the terms of our alliance with the pirates. 

Clause number one: “The Arachnea will periodically supply Atlantica with whatever assets it requires—in other words, riches from Maluk and Schtraut. Any resources the Arachnea does not use for buildings and unlocking new structures will go to the pirates.” 

Clause number two: “The pirates will proactively attack the Popedom of Frantz. The Swarm will aid them in these attacks and serve as reinforcements. Captains who find the Swarm unpleasant will not be forced to participate.” 

Clause number three: “Any loot stolen during these aforementioned raids will go to the pirates. As a general rule, the Swarm will not take any loot from the pirates of Atlantica.” 

“You sure you’re all right with this? These terms are tilted in our favor,” Isabelle said, giving me a look. “You’re givin’ us resources and lettin’ us keep all the loot. Don’t you need any of it?” 

“Hmm. Are you complaining?” Her consideration surprised me a little. 

Isabelle was a pirate, so I expected her to take anything she could get her hands on. I mean, she did raid our ports in Schtraut and claim the leaders’ treasure... Or rather, the treasure they appropriated and turned into the communal property of Atlantica. Acting as though she wanted us to ask for a little bit more seemed unlike her, to say the least. 

“I was just thinkin’ that if both of us don’t profit from this, the alliance won’t last. And we want you to stay on our side... for Atlantica’s future.” 

So she sees this as an investment. I guess that makes sense. 

She thought that the alliance would be further solidified if we were able to benefit from it as well. The Arachnea’s way of handling external affairs tended to involve force and carnage, so we weren’t quite used to the intricacies of diplomacy. Under normal circumstances, the Swarm didn’t really divide people into allies and enemies—only prey. 

Let’s have more civilized negotiations, then. Gotta hold on to that human heart, you know? 

“Then I want one-tenth of any loot you get that contains gold. We don’t need anything else,” I proposed. 

Gold was necessary for unlocking structures. 

“Well, ain’t you generous. Let’s make it a fifth. Gold’s easy to come by.” Isabelle smirked at having upped the ante. 

She was a good pirate and a respectable woman. It would have been fun to have her as part of my family. 

I wonder what my real family is doing right now... 

“Deal,” I said, shaking off the thought. “Just you meddling with Frantz’s navy is enough, you know. You don’t even have to share any loot you get from them at the moment. We just need you to keep them occupied.” 

“Yeah, we’ll handle it. Dealin’ with Frantz’s navy will be a piece of cake.” 

I certainly hope so. 

“That settles it, I think. Can you sign here?” 

I assembled the documents containing the terms of our agreement and placed them on the table. I couldn’t read or write in this common tongue, so I had Roland act as our scribe. Isabelle and I signed as Leader of Atlantica and Queen of the Arachnea, respectively. 

“This seals the contract,” Isabelle said. “Don’t worry, pirates know how to honor a deal.” 

She left the fact she couldn’t have staged the rebellion without us unsaid. Just as we lifted our pens, however, one of Isabelle’s men stormed in. 

“Sis! There’s something going on at the wharf!” 

“Goddammit, what now?!” Isabelle huffed and crossed her arms. 

“Let’s check it out,” I told her. “You don’t want them to rebel against your leadership so soon, right?” 

“Yeah... I’ve heard of short-lived rulers, but shit! I ain’t even been in control of this place for a day!” 

With that, the two of us made our way to the wharf. 

“I’m telling you, we can’t send out any ships right now!” 

“You coward! What kinda pirate’s afraid of those things?!” 

There was a dispute taking place on the wharf. A couple of captains were exchanging harsh words, and they looked just about ready to draw their cutlasses. 

“What are you arguing over, you blockheads?!” Isabelle shouted, barreling onto the scene. 

“Isabelle, this gutless prick’s saying there ain’t no way he’ll send ships out to sea! Says he’s scared of the sea serpents!” 

“Yeah, because those aren’t normal sea serpents! They’re massive, and it’s like they’re out to kill any human they can find! I was attacked by one of those things once, and that’s more than enough for the rest of my life! No ship of mine’s going out there right now!” 

Sea serpents... Must be like the one Sérignan and Roland fought a while back. 

“Is there some way to exterminate them?” I asked. 

“Huh? Well, usually two or three harpoons do them in,” one of the pirates replied bluntly. “But that big one, it didn’t matter how many we shot into it! It just kept movin’! It’s a bona fide monster!” 

“Hmm... That might be the same sea serpent we ran into recently. The Ripper Swarms stunned it with their venom, and Roland and Sérignan dealt some hefty damage to it. It didn’t die, though.” 

“You fought that thing? A wounded sea serpent?” 

A wounded sea serpent... That sounds about right. 

However, deep down, something was bugging me. 

Sea serpents might be a native monster to this world, but one of the game’s factions also employed them as units... Just like the wyverns. I hope it’s just a coincidence. 

“Seems like it. Is it really that much of a nuisance?” I asked. 

“Of course it is! It’s a freakin’ sea serpent! We can’t set sail in the same waters as that thing... It’ll turn our ships into driftwood and us into fish food!” 

“You lily-livered wuss! Just avoid the stupid snake!” 

Thus began another argument. 

Oh my. Pirates are rowdy, but they can be really cautious when it counts. Err, in a way. 

“Looks like you can’t hold up your part of the bargain until the sea serpent problem is under control,” I said to Isabelle. 

“Yeah, we gotta do something about ’em.” She shrugged and then took a deep breath. “All right, anyone who’s gutsy enough to join, step right up! I’m formin’ a sea serpent exterminatin’ brigade! We ain’t scared of ’em, and we sure as hell ain’t gonna let this one get in the way of our business! We’ll show ’em that Atlantica ain’t gonna bend to no sea monster!” 

“I’m in!” 

“Me too!” 

The pirates volunteered one after another. Savage as they were, these men were brave. Pirates might have raided helpless citizens to make a profit, but that didn’t mean they were cowards who would back away from a fight. 

In fact, this courage was what I liked most about Isabelle. Despite the fact that pirate society was dominated by men, she’d fought tooth and nail to claw her way up to captain. Even now, she was heading out to battle. Despite not knowing if she could win, she fearlessly stood up to the challenge. I greatly appreciated that about her. 

I can’t let someone like her die. Only nasty bastards like Leopold or Maluk’s knights really deserve that... Though I guess the rest of the world must think I’m just as vile. 

“They said harpoons can’t fell the serpent, though. How are you going to fight it?” 

“Heh, fire even more harpoons into it, duh! What did you expect? It might be a monster, but it’s still a livin’ creature. Poke enough holes into it, and it’ll drop dead.” 

Ugh, so you’re just going for the brute-force approach... 

I didn’t think that was going to work. All the pirate ships here put together would still struggle to handle a monster of that size. It could dive underwater and attack ships from there, and we didn’t have any sonar or depth charges, obviously. 

Trying to punch or poke their way through it would only end in failure. It was time to put aside the brawn and start relying on the brains. 

“Then the Arachnea will help you too. We’ll be in trouble if you can’t send out ships, after all. We’ll lend you our forces for this one.” 

“Oh, you wanna fight the sea serpent too, do you? Huh. Lookin’ forward to seein’ what you can bring to the table.” 

The Arachnea had no aquatic or naval units; only a limited number of factions had those. That wasn’t to say we didn’t have any means of attacking units in the water, however.