"Pass up the matchlocks!"

It was a sentence that caused Keziah to doubt whether he heard it correctly. "Matchlocks?" There was no reason or way for such a rare and valuable weapon to be on this ship. Or on any ship, to be exact. From what intelligence he had gathered during his quests involving military or nobility, he learned that weapons such as these were a prototype in everything but name. Not even used in battle as far as Keziah knew.

They weren't exactly new. The first ones were developed when Keziah was still attending banquets as a child with his parents. The design changed slightly over the years, obviously, but it still didn't allow for effective use in combat. They were powerful, sure, terrifyingly powerful, but they didn't fit on the battlefield. Mostly because there were so few of them. Barely enough to equip a battalion in a whole nation. Thus, they were mostly used by individuals. Guards, hunters, specialists. All employed by the crown, of course. Whichever of the four. Although, Keziah wouldn't be surprised if the ever-hungry-for-profit merchants from Thenlu League did get their hands on a few already.

So, how did these incredibly precious and potent tools come to be on a merchant vessel?

It was a question Keziah had to wait to ask, as the chaos of a close-quarters battle was already upon them.

The most eager pirates had already landed on the board. They were immediately engaged in sword fighting with the sailors. The sailors didn't immediately swarm them, as the pirates that initially made it through were few. Instead, they waited, well disciplined, for the big wave that would come through the boarding planks.

As soon as the fighting started, the orders of Edmund were being carried out. Five matchlocks were passed up through the trapdoors in the floor. The sailors were ready for them and they grabbed the guns as well as the lit match cords. After a quick and well-drilled action of preparing the gun to fire, the five sailors pointed the guns and shot.

Keziah felt the mana move beside him again. All five shots hit. Blood sputtered in the air as five heads gained an additional hole in them. One of those heads belonged to the pirate captain, his hat now marked with blood and flying a few feet away from its perch.

The gunshot and the subsequent smoke caused the pirates to halt their advance and turn their gaze to the five shooters. Said shooters, taking advantage of the momentary confusion and obstruction of view that their gun smoke provided, passed the guns down. Keziah knew a little about these weapons, and their one flaw was the time they needed to reload. It served basically just for the one initial shot, as the act of reloading in a close-quarters fight was impossible.

When the pirates started getting hesitant about the revelation of the unknown weapons, a voice shouted out to them again. This one was more gruff and direct than the former captain's almost melodic and dramatic voice. "Stop shitting yourselves and go! We have numbers!"

The new voice belonged to a relatively young man that stood with the pirates at their center. He was bald at the top of his head but had hair at the sides. His face was complimented by a scruffy beard that most likely was absent if the man had managed to get a razor near him. He looked to be in good shape. He wore a simple white shirt, halfway buttoned up, and wore that toothy grin that screamed "Finally!" to Keziah.

The swarm of bodies now poured through the two wooden platforms that were attached between the two ships. Sailors in the upper deck were severely outnumbered but held their ground before the rest of the crew came from below. They were hiding to trick the pirates into thinking that there were fewer sailors than there actually were. That's the explanation Keziah came up with, at least. He still wasn't so sure about this whole thing, as even when everyone crowded the upper deck of the Redemption, the pirates still had the upper hand.

"You stay with me," said Edmund, panting. His voice was strained, face riddled with swear, and veins visible on the sides of his forehead. "They will aim for me, certainly." He raised his head from his slouched posture and rested a hand on the railing of the quarterdeck, overlooking the battle. "Don't worry about my crew, they will manage. The fighting will be strongest here in a minute anyway."

Keziah studied the weakened captain. What he said was what Keziah had already somewhat guessed, but the state he was in could be troublesome. He must have used a lot of mana overthrowing those cannons, is what Keziah thought. His reserves must have not been that deep as a feat such as this shouldn't drain this much from a fully-channeled mage. "You okay?" asked Keziah.

"Yes, I'm fine," replied Edmund, taking deep breaths. "It's just… it's hard to control the bullets with that much precision. Takes a lot more than simple brute strength."

Does it? thought Keziah, not entirely getting what Edmund had said. He wasn't a Manipulator, and he wasn't an Earth mage either, which was what Edmund most likely had been. Some specialization which allowed him to control metal. That's what it had seemed in Keziah's eyes. Maybe it was different for Earth mages, but Keziah was a Manipulator before his accident, so he didn't have any real experience with it.

What he did know was that the accident somehow left him only with limited abilities as Creator that were present in all Manipulators. There always was a slight overlap between the two. Most Manipulators could create small quantities of their element, but used it rarely, usually when there were no natural elements to draw on. This was most prominent in Lightning mages, as natural lightning was rather hard to come by. Thus, somewhat luckily, Keziah retained some abilities from the accident that took most of his powers away from him.

Keziah found what Edmund had said as weird because he judged that manipulating five bullets already shooting in the correct direction would be easy as cake for him. Of course, even Keziah knew that he was prone to a big ego syndrome, but that was truly what he had believed. Precision came naturally to him, which was probably thanks to him needing to be precise every time he drew upon mana and circulated it in his damaged core.

It brought a sense of… appreciation for his magic that Keziah hadn't felt in over a decade.

"Huh," was all he could absently deliver in an answer to Edmund.

<Hey, kid,> said Augustus out of nowhere, <there are no mages among those pirates. You're free to run wild.>

Keziah, happy to finally hear Augustus's voice again, replied, <Someone finally stopped brooding and decided to come back to life, huh?>

<Yeah, decided that whatever that guy was, it's not worth bothering yourself about. What comes will come, you know?>

<That's a stance I would expect from me rather than you,> Keziah quipped.

<Yeah, well, sometimes you can be right,> admitted Augustus. <But focus now, they are coming.>

Keziah looked at the stairs leading from the main deck to the quarterdeck and saw a group of pirates running up them. There were two sets of stairs leading to the quarter deck. One was defended by two other sailors who were up there with Edmund and Keziah from the beginning — probably having the task of defending Edmund to be their assigned position in case of attack. The other was left for Keziah.

The stairs could fit two men, standing shoulder to shoulder, and the pirates would try to stretch that to its limits. They ran up to them, sabers and cutlasses in hands, ready to take them to the enemy captain and claim the glory. Instead, they were met by Keziah's boot.

He kicked the first one to have made it up the stairs right in the chest. Caught unawares, the pirate got the air kicked out of his lungs, along with some broken ribs, judging by the cracking noise, and flew backward. He caused all the other pirates behind him to also stumble and fall down the stairs, leaving Keziah with a smaller, more manageable group of yelling sword hands.

So Keziah got to work.

Augustus in his hand, he made use of the Unrotten blade's hook-like shape and swung the sword sideways, arm fully extended, hitting a pirate seven feet away from right in the throat. Thanks to the end of Augustus being double-edged, he could pull it out straight away. Keziah slit the man's throat from the inside, exposing his spine. Blood splattered across the wooden deck. Pirates, standing behind their now desperately gasping for air and glazed-eyed comrade, momentarily looked in horror at the sight.

"Who's next, boys?" taunted Keziah.