“Such an enormous amount of s.h.i.+ps. Why are there so many suddenly here at the Jigolaths?”
“They’re all phantom s.h.i.+ps. With all the phantom s.h.i.+ps gathered this is a disaster. All hands, prepare for battle!”
The huge fleet of s.h.i.+ps behind Weed’s s.h.i.+p were all Phantom s.h.i.+ps.
After reporting to Drinfeld the high-speed s.h.i.+p tried to turn back to the fleet but couldn’t veer off in time, seconds later the bow of the s.h.i.+p was. .h.i.t.
Weed’s Roar of a Lion rang out over the sea.
“All Phantom s.h.i.+ps! Prepare to fire!”
“Aye aye,….run out all cannons.”
“Was that run out the guns? My ears ain’t young no more, hey is that something trying to eat them?”
“Why isn’t it working?”
It was quite a sight to see the same scene was happening on board every s.h.i.+p of the phantom fleet. Seaweed had gown over the cannons after 50 plus years and the ghost crews were trying to cut away these tangles. Slas.h.i.+ng at the seaweed with their knives sparks flew about and landed on the primed wicks.
“Fire!”2
Kw.a.n.g Kw.a.n.g Kw.a.n.g!1
At that moment some of the cannons exploded since maintenance is not something phantom s.h.i.+ps take much care about.
“Was that proper cannon fire?”
One of the crew, a skeleton, then stuck its head into a canon to check conditions. This was after the wicks had already been ignited.
Kw.a.n.g Kw.a.n.g!
The cannon fired with a normal discharge and the skeleton’s head disappeared.
“Success. The cannonball fired properly. By the way, where’s my head? ”
The skeleton then wandered around on deck as a body looking for whatever might remain of it’s head!
“There’s no cannonb.a.l.l.s. Did somebody get the munchies awhile ago and eat them? Or maybe they were lost while playing with them?”
“There are no cannonb.a.l.l.s here, this is a merchant s.h.i.+p.”
“Lets use dried fish instead.”
Amongst the phantom s.h.i.+ps were those that had once been merchants or pa.s.senger s.h.i.+ps, those types never had cannonb.a.l.l.s to begin with. Of course it was always possible to capture guns and ammo from other s.h.i.+ps at sea if they didn’t have them.
“I’m going in. ku ku ku! Ok, Here I go!”
The ghost crews were entering their own cannons and firing themselves like cannonb.a.l.l.s. This crazy kind of behavior is relatively normal on board a phantom s.h.i.+p.
The cannonb.a.l.l.s fired by the phantom s.h.i.+ps flew in concert over Weed towards the high-speed sailing s.h.i.+ps. Columns of water soared high in the water around the high-speed sailing s.h.i.+ps, the accuracy rate was very low. Cannonb.a.l.l.s also exploded like fireworks as they hit each other in the air.
“Take evasive action!”
“We can’t avoid this many! Prepare the guns for a counterattack!”
The Captains of the High-Speed s.h.i.+ps had to try to prepare the cannons while their s.h.i.+ps used zigzag course patterns. But the Phantom s.h.i.+ps had just fired randomly without bothering to aim.
Most of them hit nothing but the sea but those that hit the High-Speed s.h.i.+ps exploded. The cannonb.a.l.l.s that pierced through the deck and hulls lit up the s.h.i.+ps with blazing hot b.a.l.l.s of fire.
Sections of the hulls broke off and flames began to start.
“Fire!”
The High-Speed s.h.i.+ps were trying to fire back yet with every cannonball explosion their s.h.i.+ps would shake violently causing the s.h.i.+ps to roll from side to side.
“Ku-he-he-he! Hu-mans.”
Even in the chaos Ghost crews began to board. Giant slippery tentacles sprang up from the sea s.n.a.t.c.hing sailors off the decks. Clinging to the hull the octopus-like-head of the Sea Monster began to rise out of the water.3
The Captain of the high-speed mission urgently sent a message to the Hermes Guild chat channel.
Stringer: We’re being attacked by Phantom s.h.i.+ps. This is an emergency we are being destroyed.
The Vice-commodore of the Haven Kingdom 2nd Fleet replied.
Pache: How many Phantom s.h.i.+ps are there?
During the Jigolaths engagements the Hermes Guild and the Haven Fleet shared a single chat channel, currently this channel was a hot topic and so had a lot of listeners from the Guild.
Stringer: Right now…there’s not much time to explain. This will be our last message as we’ll most likely be sunk. Our mission target; Weed’s s.h.i.+p, has transformed into a Phantom s.h.i.+p, we now a.s.sumed that he is therefore also responsible for the fleet of Phantom s.h.i.+ps that are attacking us. All our s.h.i.+ps will be destroyed in this battle! This is an A1 emergency request for aid!
Pache: How did the situation suddenly beco…acknowledged. We will be there A-sap.
By the time Drinfeld’s Main Fleet left the Unfreezing River and arrived at the high-speed convoy location they had all either sank or were on their way to becoming sea monster food.
They had gone looking for the High-Speed Convoy expecting to find Phantom s.h.i.+ps and Sea Monsters but even so they could not hide their shock.
“Well, though they told me ahead of time I didn’t believe it would have gone this far.”
High-Speed s.h.i.+ps that had Sea Monsters enclosing them looked to have had no choice but to give up. Ghost had boarded and were engaging in hand to hand combat on the s.h.i.+p decks. The hulls spat out flames and rolling clouds of black smoke. They had gotten here too late to prevent them from sinking into the sea.
“We won’t be able evade a battle of this scope.”
The tough part for the users of Drinfeld’s Haven Fleet was that they had only just left the mouth of the Unfreezing River. The position of the Phantom Fleet was waiting at the ideal location to open fire from the surrounding sea.
This meant that under the circ.u.mstances moving forward meant becoming nothing more than easy targets.
To gain his t.i.tle of Grand Admiral, Drinfeld had fought his way through hundreds of maritime battles. He had the skill to bring about a complete reversal.
“Phantom s.h.i.+ps couldn’t hit a barn door. All armor reinforced s.h.i.+ps to the front. Do not use evasive actions, bear straight ahead. 1st squad and 3rd squad will attack on the left and right flanks. They will attack from outside the Phantom Fleet range.”
Due to the huge number of Sea Monsters and Phantom s.h.i.+ps they were ready to hold their location and take them head on. Based on the sheer amount of firepower from the Phantom Fleet they were all hungry to annihilate the oncoming battles.h.i.+ps.
Drinfeld felt this engagement would lead to a huge naval victory that could make up for the past public failures.
Phantom s.h.i.+ps had only one way to gain rewards, that was through victory in a naval battle. Also they could earn fame just like the land users did when they looted dungeons.
It was also fairly commonplace for all Phantom s.h.i.+ps to house treasure and antiques.
***end chapter 084***
I’m sure you all got that this is the sound of ‘boom, boom, boom!
I think its more like ‘fire in the hole’ not sure. It only said Fire.
This was what it translated to, I triple checked for other words/idioms etc. but nope, octopus like head was it.
As always please keep in mind, this will not be a ‘perfect translation.’ I use machine translators and my reading of Korean is very minor at best. I do learn more all the time and I am always checking and consulting the Korean Dictionary. With all such translations I work very hard to stay true while also trying to bring some of the flavor of the characters and settings. All copyrights of this material belong to the author, Nam Hee-Sung.
*****end chapter 8 part 3 of 3*****