It's been half an hour.

The boatswain stared at the door of the captain's quarters and noticed something unusual. When the captain wanted to meet the messenger alone, the boatswain did not interfere much. This sophisticated man followed his father on a boat at the age of twelve. He had worked as a fisherman, a smuggler, a guard, and a shipwright, and he knew that a large part of the Coast Guard's prosecutor's income came from bribes from smugglers and pirates everywhere, so if the captain was willing to negotiate this time, it showed that the captain had ideas for additional wealth, and the boatswain was not willing to touch the mold and spoil the captain's interest.

But it had been half an hour, and he wondered why the negotiations had lasted so long, for it had reached the most critical moment for pirates, who most of the time would pay a considerable amount of money and promise more in return after fleeing. In this case, it is not a reciprocal bargain, and the captain only needs to simply say "deal" or "not enough". So, something should have happened in this negotiation.

The boatswain looked at the hatch and gently pressed his waist knife.

Inside the hatch, Lily Marlene's dagger never left Huo for a moment. Arcadio the second's throat. She demanded a contract or kill Cesar in front of the captain and slit his throat. Arcadio II's face was clouded: "It's useless for you to kill both of us, the people on this ship will not retreat when they see our corpses, but will kill all of your crew." ”

"Sure, your crew will avenge you, but are you really willing to be a cold corpse?" , said the woman named Lily Marlene.

"Then you can kill it. Within an hour of my death, you and your crew will be hanged from the mast. I swear. ”

Lily Marlene gave a beautiful smile, maintaining the strength of the dagger in her left hand and snapping her fingers in her right hand. The Salander and his assistant jerked Cesar's arm violently, and a crisp sound was heard, and the Salander licked his lips and let go of Cesar's forearm. Cesar's forearm drooped down and was placed at a strange angle, which was a sign of severe dislocation. Beads of sweat began to ooze from Cesar's forehead, and the veins on his neck bulged, and the skin from his face to his neck turned blood-red from congestion.

"You reckless fellow, I'm not going to just end you up. You'll watch as all the joints under your hands are snapped and wriggling on the ground like a caterpillar. Then you will be treated in the same way, and finally it will be the time of death. Sometimes, life is more terrible than death", the dagger gently stabbed into my father's neck, and a drop of blood condensed in the epidermis and slowly slid down the skin. "And you don't want to die, or you'll scream when I just took you under control with my dagger. Then the three of us will be chopped into meat sauce by the swarming soldiers, and you and your lieutenant will not be in the current situation except for a hint of fright. But you cowardly sent away your soldiers, and now you tell us how brave you are. Joke! ”

My father's face became even more gloomy, "Let me tell you, the Rodok Navy is no longer the bureaucratic sick cat at sea that it used to be. You're smart enough to trust your men's judgment that just outside the door is a group of the most elite soldiers. But do you know what's the scariest thing about them? It is they who are loyal to accusations above to someone. They will not stop and be overwhelmed by the safety of one or two people, they will calmly go to harvest the lives of the enemy, and then try their best to rescue me. I'm not trying to gamble my life with you, because as you say, I'm not that brave. But what I want to tell you is that you are not going to succeed in trying to hold me hostage to thwart the Duchy's navy against you dirty pirates. ”

Lily Marlene slapped her father in the face, "Who told you we were pirates?!" What do you professed righteous people know? ”

"Not a pirate? A ship equipped with pirates, using pirate tactics, fleeing when encountering the Principality's Maritime Guard, and shooting first when the Principality Coast Guard approaches, actually claims to be not a pirate? A man who bribed me with three boxes of unknown or simply stolen property said he wasn't a pirate? A female captain who did not hesitate to betray her hue to approach and kidnap a naval officer who was willing to meet you actually said that she was not a pirate? The father asked sarcastically.

"You know what. My father died at the hands of you hypocrites who profess to be righteous. The Rhodoks seem to be serious and want to fight pirates and save people's lives. Do you think this is true? Well, that's just a pretext, because now that the maritime merchants have monopolized overseas trade, and the nations have divided up the sea routes, when the Rhodoks went to the sea, they found that everything was gone, so they ordered their army to attack the Salanders and the other maritime merchants of the Free City to expand their own trade. In order to find a good excuse for himself, he also called it a fight against pirates. Do you think pirates are idiots? At present, only Rhodok has legislated that slavery is not allowed, are pirates stupid? To transport people to Rhodoc? The real people who did the human trafficking led the captives through the mountain passes with ropes and sold them to the empty, labor-urgently needed farms of Vekia and Nord, who would transport this 'cargo' that could die at any time by sea? The captain showed no weakness.

After listening to the captain's argument, my father tried to move his head, for his neck hurt from the dagger, but Lily Marlene did not let up and did not allow her captor to move. All my father could say was, "Oh? You're not pirates, are you? So many Swadia prisoners who were bought from the docks were unwarranted? I have heard that hundreds of slaves are bought by unknown maritime merchants every day in Sharitz, and not long ago we found a survivor of a wrecked ship around the Djerkhara Bay, and from her mouth we know what you are doing, and you think we don't know anything? I don't care what the army looks like in your impression. But the army I bring with me is used to protect the people, and if you buy them like animals, and let their families die, you are my mortal enemies. Whether I survive or not, I can tell you in no uncertain terms that I will stand in front of them, and you don't think I can compromise with you. I will purge every pirate until the human trade is wiped out once and for all. ”

"Good captain to protect the people. If it weren't for our gold, wealth, and women", Lily Marlene wrinkled her nose and was a little annoyed that she had accidentally enclosed herself, "You would be so zealous to fight the pirates you speak of?" I confess that my family has bought a large number of captives in Salander and Kugit, but do you think we are going to treat them like cattle and horses? No! We're going to redeem them and take them to a new country! There was no oppression, no poverty, no misery in that country. You say it's a sin? Nonsense! Anyone with a conscience and opinion should support our cause, but because of our family's conspicuous maritime trade, you are called human traffickers and pirates, and then take the opportunity to exclude them, which is really protecting the people! Lily Marlene shook her head, and her blonde hair, like a waterfall, swayed with it, showing a wonderful sheen.

When I heard this, my father was shocked, "You, you are the 'pioneers' who are going to go overseas to establish a new country?" ”

This mysterious group called the Pioneers was founded more than two hundred years ago, and people at first thought they were an ordinary brotherhood and ignored them. Over the past two centuries, the group has set up many schools on the continent of Calradia to promote content that the government encourages or discourages. Due to the radical ideology, such as the extermination of the class and the ouster of the emperor, the group was outlawed in the central areas of the empire, and gradually migrated to the periphery of the empire. They were found in the then emerging southern regions and in the settlements of the Nords of the North Sea, and legend has it that they were the ones who provided strong financial support to the Rhodoks during the later War of Independence. This group suddenly surfaced more than a decade ago, and they presented their credentials to all countries, asking them to recognize their national legitimacy. In return for their country's establishment on a small island off the coast, they are willing to use their strong economic and cultural backing to assist countries in making 'fundamental' improvements to agriculture, crafts and finance. Countries have reacted lukewarmly to the group, with Swadia even declaring it a cult and hunting down members of the 'pioneers' in the country. The pioneers' aspirations for a legitimate state were dashed. Governments have generally blocked information about the 'pioneers' because their platform is too tempting for the people, "equal land, equal status, peaceful politics", and governments fear that this small group will break the political foundation they have worked so hard to build. It is said that although Rhodok did not officially recognize the 'pioneers', there were quite a few people within the Rhodok government who were members of the 'pioneers', and even when Rhodoc founded the country, there were more or less traces of 'pioneers' in its founding program.

Over the years, however, the group has faded into obscurity due to the more consistent rejection of the attitude towards the pioneers. It is known only that it established a colony the size of a free city on an island in the middle of the sea, and experimented with social improvement on it. Most people think that these people are crazy because they try to free people from their shackles and live the life of gods.

My father had heard of this mysterious society, but he didn't think that it might be the people he was hunting down. In fact, many people do not resist this organization, especially the common people do not feel rejected by this organization, in people's impression, this organization is a group of some doctors with excellent medical skills, craftsmen with excellent construction methods, and ingenious mechanical masters. And there is a legend that when the Ranger City Chanda was burned, the battle flag of the Ranger King was taken to the overseas fortress of the 'Pioneers' by more than 100 surviving Ranger soldiers, and people said that the respected old lord of Chanda prophesied that the broken battle flag would return to the mainland before his death, and re-established the righteous creed on the ruins of Chanda, gathered the rangers, and assumed the role of maintaining justice in the Northland.

"Is there a difference for you? Now the mainland countries want to clean us up, in addition to our technology and funds. You naïve petty officers, each with their own thoughts, either because of greed or for the sake of the future, attack us without thinking." The more Captain Lily Marlene spoke, the more angry she became.

Her father couldn't believe her easily, "If you haven't done anything hurtful, why are you running away?" We have warned you more than once to stop sailing and be inspected. But you fled with a weak heart, and now you say that you are not pirates, and make us believe that you are 'pioneers', which is unacceptable. Besides, you are now holding a dagger to my throat, how can I trust you in this situation? ”

Captain Lily Marlene had an angry and sad expression on her face, "We are running away? I can tell you that our fleet could have gone to sea safely this time, but the Rhodoks refused to allow us to dock for supplies, so we had to leave the coast and continue sailing, and then there was a storm, and my father's ship sank in the Gulf of Djerkhara, and I think the wrecked ship you mentioned was his, and we only want to take our new inhabitants overseas, but the Rhodok fleet has made things difficult for us. If it were you, wouldn't you run away? ”

"You've said so much, what are you going to do with me? Do you want to sign a pact with me and let us go? You know that in diplomacy, a forced treaty is null and void, and I can tear it up at any time and order the sinking of your ship without shame. ”

"Yes, we're going to take away what keeps us safe, but it's not a pale contract, it's you that we're going to take. That way your soldiers will not risk killing the captain to exterminate us."

At this time, not only my father, but also Lily Marlene's Deputy Salander had a wry smile on his face, this naïve female captain actually came up with such a bad move. This trick is so flawed that it is simply unheard of to row a living person from one boat across half a mile of sea to another.

"Do you think it's possible?" The father asked, "Listen, if you're really a pioneer guy, you just have to let me inspect your ship." Once I have determined that you are not engaged in human trafficking, I will let you go, provided that you stop the boat unconditionally and stop the attack. You have no choice, and whatever you think, it is certainly not realistic to kidnap me, because my men have a thousand chances to kill you and your people in the process of getting me to your ship. ”

"Hmph, why should I believe you? An ambitious young man will sell everything", Lily Marlene's words in disguise of old age finally exposed her still immature mind, and the Salander who suppressed Cesar sighed in his heart that Miss was still a long way from being a qualified helmsman.

"You know, once you're on my ship, you can only trust me," the captain added.

At this time, the door of the cabin rang again, and it was the voice of the boatswain. "Mr. Captain, the Garcia sailor and the Enor sailor are fighting, do you want to come out and take a look?"

Cesar on the floor stopped writhing and suddenly became quiet. Suddenly. Captain Arcadio looked at Lilymarlene's face, and Lilymarlene pouted, motioning for him to watch and not forget the dagger around his neck.

The captain blinked and told the boatswain.

"Pull these two bastards away, send them to the second chamber to be locked up, and see what's there."

Cesar smiled, the second chamber was the arsenal of the White Dove Valley.