My name is Trident. Captain of the Barbarossa Pirates.
One day, that absolute idiot Ollie stole a gem called 'Tears of the Saint' from the Royal Cathedral. It's no ordinary rock—it's a crystallized mass of magical energy the Empire spent a century collecting. Without it, every defensive mechanism in the Empire shuts down. That means monsters flood the city.
And that's not all. After stealing it, Ollie had the nerve to say, 'That's half my objective complete.'
I chase him. I need to know why h
Crazy Ollie: A Thief's Requiem - The ghost of the crimson sea now awakens.
The heavy wooden door of the tavern swung open, and the air that clung to his skin was a thick blend of sea salt, cheap liquor, and sweat.
Lanterns suspended from the ceiling cast a dim glow through the stifling layers of smoke. Raucous shouts, the clatter of dice, the sharp crack of a tankard slammed against the floorboards — it all churned together, and tonight, the Drunkard's Horn was steeped in its usual feverish heat.
Trident swept the hem of his crimson longcoat aside and made for his usual spot: the stool at the very end of the counter, tucked into the corner with its back to the wall. A pirate captain could never know when some fool with a grudge might try to put a knife in him. Watching his back had long since become instinct.
Malena. The usual.
From behind the counter, a woman turned around. Her short, gray-streaked hair was tied back with a bandana. Sharp gray eyes swept over the drunken patrons in a quick, practiced glance before settling on Trident. The owner of the Crimson Smoke Tavern, Malena Fork. Once they'd called her One-Eyed Malena — a pirate queen who had raised hell across the Stormvale Strait and made it her hunting ground. Now she limped on an old knee injury, running this place and sorting through information that poured in from every corner of the world.
Hold on. I'll be right there.
She set the tankard in her hand down in front of a young sailor, then leaned across the counter toward him. The brass keyholder hanging from her neck gave a small, metallic clink. Against her weather-beaten skin, countless old scars stood out in pale relief.
Trident waited until she placed the amber rum before him, then took a single sip. Dry. A slow, spreading heat at the back of his throat. Between the fingers of his left hand, a silver coin turned over and over — an unconscious habit when he was thinking.
Trident. I've heard something unthinkable.
Malena's voice was small enough to be swallowed by the tavern's din, and strangely rigid.
"What is it."
She drew a short breath, then lowered her voice even further.
Your navigator. Crazy Ollie… That idiot's gone and done it.
Trident's fingers stopped. The silver coin hit the counter, the metallic ring sounding far too loud in his ears.
"What did Ollie do."
The capital. Right in the heart of Fortica, from the Luminous Cathedral. He stole the Saintess's Tear.
Something slammed deep inside his skull. The Saintess's Tear — the power source for the empire's defensive barrier, the Waltschild. A blue crystal into which generations of saintesses had poured their magic over a hundred years. Without it, the barrier that kept the monsters locked outside the cities would vanish.
Packs of Greywolves crawling out of the forests. Shadowmoths blotting out the sky by the tens of thousands. Tidalur surging in from the sea… Visions of hell flickered through his mind and faded.
Trident's grip tightened around the pewter tankard in his hand. His knuckles went white. A dull, crumpling sound — the tankard buckled inward. Rum spilled over, spreading an amber puddle across the counter.
That… absolute goddamn fool…!
His voice shook. Whether from rage or sheer disbelief, he couldn't tell himself.
Ollie had served as navigator for the Barbarossa Pirates for three years now. When it came to reading sea charts, no one could touch him, and whenever they made port, he always had his hands on every scrap of information imaginable — where he got it, no one knew. He wasn't the most sociable man, but his work was flawless. And he never laid a hand on a crewmate. Trident had believed, more than anything, that Ollie was a man who held the pirate code sacred.
Why. Why would he do this.
Malena was silent for a long moment. Wiping the spilled rum from the counter with a rag, she seemed to hesitate.
At last, she reached beneath the counter and pulled out two crumpled, folded sheets of parchment.
"Look at this first."
The first was a cipher — apparently something Ollie had left behind in his basement quarters. A meaningless string of numbers and symbols, but it seemed to be a set of notes detailing the Saintess's Tear's storage location and security arrangements. The plan, it appeared, had been in the works for quite some time.
The second was a copy of a top-secret directive leaked from the imperial capital. Trident's eyes raced across the cold, clinical text. *Due to the crystal's loss, the Waltschild will cease functioning within 72 hours. Monster incursions across the border are anticipated. Several dozen Greywolf packs, Shadowmoth swarms numbering in the tens of thousands, Tidalur passage through the strait—*
Seventy-two hours… Eight of those are already gone. That leaves sixty-four. If we don't make it in time, the whole empire becomes a feeding ground. Your ship, your crew — even Ragnaroka here won't come out unscathed.
Trident clenched his fist. The scar from the sea dragon's burn, running from his left shoulder down his arm, throbbed with a prickling heat. His old wounds always ached at the worst possible moments.
I'm taking the Red Bull out. Now. I'm going after Ollie.
He kicked the stool back and started to rise, but Malena grabbed his arm.
Her fingers were trembling, faintly.
"Wait."
Something heavy had seeped into her voice now, something that hadn't been there before. The noise of the tavern felt distant.
It was me… I was the one who fed him the information.
Trident froze.
"Ragnaroka's hiding places. The empire's internal intelligence on the Saintess's Tear… All of it. I guided him. For fifteen years, I couldn't forgive the empire for killing the man I loved. I knew Ollie was one of your crew. But when I realized what he was planning, I didn't stop him — I helped him."
Tears spilled from her gray eyes. They fell to the counter and mingled with the puddle of rum.
You…!
Surrendering to the surge of fury, Trident raised his fist. Malena flinched, shoulders drawing inward, but she didn't look away. It was the face of someone who had already braced herself.
But he couldn't bring the blow down.
The miserable truth was, Trident understood exactly how Malena felt. He'd seen it too many times — people who had someone precious stolen from them by the empire, who made revenge their only reason for living, who became blind to everything else. And besides, failing to trust his friend, failing to notice what he was plotting behind his back — that was his own failure as captain.
His fist slammed into the thick wooden pillar beside him instead. A heavy, dull thud, and the pillar groaned faintly. The skin across his knuckles split, blood welling up. The pain sharpened his mind.
…Talk. Tell me everything you know.
Wiping her tears, Malena retrieved one more sheet of parchment from a hidden shelf at the back of the tavern. This one was carefully sealed, and in Ollie's handwriting, it bore only two words: *For the Captain.*
"A secret letter Ollie left behind. He said to give it to you."
He broke the seal. Inside, the page was packed with cramped, meticulous script — the records of an investigation Ollie had conducted alone, into the empire's darkness.
The Velg Privy Council — a secret agency under the emperor's direct command. Its very existence was a state secret, unknown even to imperial citizens. The name of the organization appeared again and again: they had exploited the Saintess's Tear's power to threaten neighboring nations — *We'll shut down the defensive barrier* — and extorted tribute from them.
And on the final page, a single incident from fifteen years ago was recorded.
Off the coast of the southern continent of Kalista: Kanaria Island. A high-purity magic ore vein had been discovered, and the empire had moved to monopolize the mining rights. The island's inhabitants resisted. The imperial army was deployed — *All inhabitants executed for treason.* A massacre.
It was Ollie's homeland.
The burn on Trident's left shoulder throbbed again. Along with it came memories from twelve years ago, from when he was still young, still serving as a volunteer in the Imperial Navy. The great fire on the Glanz Plains. On that battlefield, where the barrier had destabilized and monsters had flooded in, he had ignored his superior's orders and saved a single child — the heat of that moment, the smell of searing skin, still clung to his body even now.
That bastard… Don't tell me he's planning to carry out his revenge alone.
At last, he felt he understood the meaning of the words Ollie had left behind. *Half of my objective is complete.* — Was he saying that stealing the Saintess's Tear was only half of his revenge? Then what was the other half? What was he trying to do?
Trident closed his eyes and drew a deep breath, as if to still his raging heart.
*(I have to stop him. With my own hands. He was my friend.)*
Not just to punish a simple traitor. Why had Ollie been driven this far? What was the truth the empire had been hiding? He would expose it all. And — if Ollie was trying to walk a path he shouldn't, Trident would beat him senseless and drag him back. That was his duty as captain.
When he opened his eyes again, the hesitation was gone from their deep navy depths.
"Malena."
…Yeah.
Tell the first mate. The Red Bull prepares to set sail immediately. We're going after Ollie. And you — find out what the Imperial Navy and the Peryton Trade Federation are up to. Any information on where he's headed, no matter how small.
Malena nodded deeply. In her tear-wet gray eyes, the light of the pirate queen she had once been was returning.
Understood. I'll do everything I can. …I'm sorry, Trident.
"Save your apologies for after I've brought Ollie back."
Trident rapped the counter lightly with his bloodied fist, then swept his crimson coat around him and headed for the tavern's exit.
He pushed the door open, and the cold night wind caressed his flushed skin. In the distance, he could hear the sound of waves. Stars were beginning to flicker in the sky above. In the free port of Ragnaroka, the night was just getting started.
The mast of the Red Bull, moored at the harbor, stood silhouetted against the moonlight. On that ship, he and Ollie had crossed the seas countless times. Through storms, through windless calms, through artillery battles with rival pirates — always beside him had been that silent man, glaring at his sea charts.
*(Wait for me, Ollie.)*
Trident murmured the words in his heart, then broke into a run down the stone steps that led to the harbor.
The voyage to stop his friend was beginning now.
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