Rain ignored the man's last words and simply looked calmly over the carnage in front of him.
He quickly finished processing the system rewards.
This haul was quite good—those ten-plus pirates had contributed nearly ten thousand Sin Points in total.
Especially that last brute who died on his feet—his [Overall Ranking] came out as SR-rank, granting Rain a rather decent [Physique Inheritance].
He could clearly feel a powerful warm current merging into his body. The [Advanced] physique bottleneck that had been stuck for so long loosened slightly under the impact of this new power. The threshold of [Top-Tier] felt just a little bit closer.
Once he'd collected everything, Rain looked back at the beach.
"…Troublesome," he muttered.
Those pirates' bodies were all bisected with mirror-smooth cuts. He'd been too focused on showing off.
"Clean, precise cutting marks like that are not something a recruit should be able to produce…"
He'd been planning to step in and rough up the scene—add a few extra gashes to the corpses, punch some holes in the ground, make it look like a fierce back-and-forth brawl.
But the moment he stepped out of the shadows and moved closer to the blood-soaked sand, the thick stench of blood and guts hit him like a wall.
He glanced at the scattered limbs, some of them still twitching faintly, and his mild neat-freak tendencies flared instantly.
"Forget it…" He stepped back, grimacing, dropping the idea. "Too disgusting. Just leave it as is."
After a brief moment of internal conflict, Rain chose to simply walk away.
Before leaving, his gaze drifted past the bloody beach to the battered Marine warship.
He stared at the Marine flag, torn down and used as a rag, and stood in silence for a few seconds.
Then he stepped forward, picked it up, and buried it carefully in the sand.
In a voice only he could hear, he whispered:
"I've avenged you."
With that, he turned away without another pause and disappeared back into the jungle's darkness.
"One step at a time. Hopefully… the Marine woman chasing them isn't too sharp-eyed."
…
A few minutes later, in front of the waterfall cave—
Rain crouched down and rinsed his hands in the cold pool, then stood and walked back toward the cave, flicking the water from his fingers as if he really had just stepped out to take a leak.
By the time he returned to the food line, the chilling aura around him was gone, replaced once more by his harmless, good-natured smile.
"All right, I'm back." He casually took the leaf "serving tray" from Rosinante's hands. "Who's next?"
While the recruits shuffled forward, Rain picked up the teacup he'd left on a nearby rock and took a sip. It was still warm.
…
The next morning, a Marine warship slowly approached Gigantia's silent shoreline.
Gion stood at the bow, the sea breeze snapping her white Justice coat like a banner.
After days of pursuit, her silk-smooth black hair was a bit tousled, and her pale-pink shirt bore a few smudges from battle. None of it diminished her charm—it only added a sharp, dangerous edge to her beauty.
As the ship drew near and the crew got a clear view of the shore, a chorus of sharp intakes of breath sounded across the deck.
There, like the carcass of a beached steel beast, lay another Marine warship of the same class, battered and broken on the sand.
Gion stared at it, and the composure that usually sat lightly on her pretty face vanished, replaced by icy cold.
"We're too late…" Her hand tightened unconsciously around her sword hilt.
The ship touched shore, and Gion was the first over the rail, leading a squad of elite Marines onto the beach.
The scent of blood still hung in the air.
Ignoring everything else, she walked straight to the patch of sand soaked dark red by slaughter.
"Something's off."
She crouched to examine the bodies. When her eyes fell on the wounds carved into the pirates, her pupils shrank sharply.
The confusion on her face vanished in an instant, replaced by stunned disbelief.
This…
This was a perfect arc.
The cuts were smooth as glass, not a hint of tremor or hesitation.
The strike had been so light it seemed almost not meant to kill at all—like moonlight brushing across their bodies, soft and cold, almost careless.
And yet, in that gentle sweep lay the sharpest edge and the most absolute intent to kill.
"This is…" Gion murmured, as a swordswoman barely trusting her own eyes, "what… what a terrifying slash…"
She could picture it—blade light flashing, faster than sight, too light to even raise a whistle of air. By the time the enemy registered anything, their lives were already reaped by that pale crescent.
She stood up abruptly, going a little pale.
She quickly checked several more bodies. Each of them bore the same wound, in the same place: the same light, fatal moon-shaped arc.
Cold crept up her spine.
"This level of understanding and control over swordsmanship…" She gripped her blade, Kinpira, her voice dry, "might even be above mine…"
A monster with swordmaster-level skill… Just who was hiding on this island?
"Reporting, Rear Admiral Gion!"
Her lieutenant's voice snapped her out of it. He ran over, face grave.
"We've found three more bodies in the jungle. After confirming, this is all that remains of the Skull-Splitter Pirates—no survivors."
"All of them…" Gion repeated softly.
She looked at the battlefield, wiped clean by one person's hand, and a possibility flashed through her mind.
Some passing bounty hunter? she thought.
But that idea died as fast as it appeared.
"No," she shook her head. "Someone this strong wouldn't waste time as a bounty hunter."
"More importantly—if they were after the bounty, why leave the bodies here? No corpses, no payout. It doesn't add up at all."
She stood there, deep in thought, feeling her logic running into a wall.
She glanced down at her lieutenant, who stood at attention waiting for orders, and sighed inwardly.
If only some of Vice Admiral Tsuru's staff were here, she thought ruefully. A brain like that to help analyze things would save me a lot of headaches.
In the end, she pushed away that unrealistic wish.
As a commander, she knew exactly what needed to be done now.
"Enough." Her thoughts sharpened again, eyes turning hard.
"Get all these pirate bodies cleaned up. Then send a team aboard that warship to retrieve the remains of our fallen comrades. Prepare to return to base."
"Yes, ma'am!" The lieutenant saluted at once.
"And… what about the recruits on the island? Should we go question them?" he asked, hesitating.
Gion shook her head and glanced toward the jungle.
"No need," she said, voice calm and firm. "From how cleanly this was done, whoever it was clearly didn't want witnesses. Even if we go looking, the recruits probably won't have anything useful to tell us."
"Our job is to clean up this mess—then bring our comrades home."
~~~
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