Chapter 1: Ⅰ. Pirate
Early winter.
Surrounding the tavern in the outskirts of the city, all the pillars and roof beams made of elm had aged into shades of dark yellow and black.
In the damp environment influenced by the East Sea monsoons, the slightly moist central hearth fire crackled and burst with splintering sparks.
The pervasive scent of the sea emanated from the leather greaves, and the shiny metal tools gleamed with a sharp luster. The craggy bodies were covered in bullet holes from firearms and fierce scars, and firelight flickered wildly in the defiant eyes of the desperadoes.
Waiters' fingers trembled, women covered their faces to weep, and the tavern owner's complexion was ashen.
All the patrons had already fled in panic, seeking refuge from the vicious and ruthless bandits.
The notoriously infamous organization on the East Coast of the Beima Duchy, the Black Sail Pirate Group, was "working" here.
Captain Liszt followed three principles in his dealings, which allowed him to survive for a decade in this treacherous different world without any external modifiers and without speaking the language.
The first one was that if one isn't vicious, one cannot stand firm.
It's about presentation when doing business; it doesn't matter if you're truly vicious or not, but you have to make others believe you are.
His weapon was a blood-stained Chain Mace. Its wooden handle was capped with an iron shell, chaining together two spiked iron balls as large as half a head. He used two because Liszt considered it a noble form of area damage. This was his secondary weapon for dealing with underlings.