Volume 0 Chapter 6: Doomsday of the Expeditionary Fleet
Translator: The Light
Edits by Hira
The Archbishop, Stanley Barry’s original intentions were to use some stunning magic on Bella and blame her earlier rampage on being possessed; clearing her name. After all, she had killed almost a hundred soldiers along with a Viscount and a holy knight. Normally such an action would be unforgivable, but given Bella’s identity as a holy knight she would be given some lenience.
Barry was forced to give up on this solution by the two abnormally frightening gazes that he felt watching his every motion. He was sure that if he made any move to interfere with Bella, even if it was for her own good, the owners of the gazes definitely would not keep silent. Unfortunately the owners of the stare were still completely out of his view.
“I deny your terms! Gramps Archbishop, I’m a pirate; there is no turning back for me anymore!” Bella said, even as her eyes betrayed her belief in his words.
“Then how about you promise this old man something?”
“I’ll try to, but tell me what you want first”
“If... No, when you beat this old man, I hope that you won’t hurt the others and let them leave the ship themselves.” Archbishop Barry looked into Bella’s eyes as he was talking, hinting at something.
This old man wasn’t simple. Bella could see he was intending to throw the fight so the men on the boat would have a reason to leave, and she would be able to obtain a new ship.
“Alright, I promise you that. Now, I’m not going to hold back!”
Bella mimicked the pose that Bernard had taken in their fight earlier and charged. She was mimicking his ‘Knight Charge’, but due to her lack of a lance, she could only bring her buckler in front of her to use as a battering ram while charging.
Archbishop Barry gestured with both of his hands and a wall of visible light appeared in front of him. Bella collided directly with the wall and with a bang her shield blew apart.
“Bless the god of light! The Archbishop won...” their cheers were cut off by another loud sound. Bella had not stopped charging after her buckler was ruined, she continued her warpath and smashed through the wall of light.
As Bella reached the Archbishop with her charge, his face was frozen in shock. He only managed to it shake off when Bella reached him, her fist aiming at his chest.
“You’re strong girl! We’ll meet again” Archbishop Barry caught Bella’s fist in one hand. He seemed to have a protective spell cast on it as he didn’t seem to take any damage from Bella’s punch. He used his other hand to swiftly shove what felt like a piece of paper into Bella’s free hand. “Take this.”
After this, the Archbishop’s body flew back across the deck. As Bella’s figure had blocked the views of the others; it gave the illusion of him being sent flying by Bella’s punch, and as they had already seen a holy knight face the same treatment just several moments before, they did not suspect anything.
Bella looked at the Archbishop. To others it may have looked like Bella had sent him flying, but she knew that he had done this to himself. Right before he hit the water, Bella saw him stop in midair and glance towards her with a grin on his face, before turning around and gliding towards another ship. Bella was at a loss for words... The Archbishop knew flight magic...
After seeing that the Archbishop had also been defeated, the surrounding soldiers quickly scattered to find planks and barrels that would keep them afloat and jumped into the sea for their lives. The deck that had hundreds of men mere moments ago was now vacant, save for Bella and quite a number of corpses.
“These guys... they didn’t even take care of the bodies!”
“Sister your clothes are pretty much done for...”
Mia and Angel finally came out of hiding.
As Bella looked down she could not help but feel a little depressed., Her body might have been impenetrable by weaponry, but her clothes were not. Her underwear was clearly visible between the cuts, but fortunately the underwear in this world was rather conservative, almost to the point of thermal underwear in her past life, so not much was actually seen.
She looked at the piece of paper in her hand. She didn’t recognize any of the densely written characters, but she was able to pick out the image of the church’s cross of light. The characters on the paper were probably some sort of special code within the church that didn’t exist in Felia’s memory, leading to Bella not being able to comprehend either.
“Do you guys recognize the words on this paper?”
“No, I’ve never seen this before; but look, their warships are approaching again.”
Before the three of them had a chance to further investigate the characters on the paper, the nearby warships came in support of the one that Bella had commandeered.
“Damn, do these bastards not know the value of life?!”
“Sister, don’t go; you don’t want people to think you’re an exhibitionist right?”
Angel held onto Bella’s and as she was about to prepare for battle once more.
“There’s no problem, my underwear doesn’t expose much...”
“No, I don’t want you to go, I care.”
“Me too! Why should you show anyone else!”
Both Angel and Mia grabbed one of Bella’s arms, stopping her. Bella looked curiously at the two lolis, she didn’t understand where their sudden strong emotions came from.
“Alright... Mia can you see if you can create something like this?”
Bella used a piece of wood she found on the deck to trace the shape of a cannon and described how it worked based on her memory; it would be amazing if Mia could replicate one.
After hearing Bella’s description for a cannon, Mia was shocked; but shook her head after thinking about it.
“It’s my first time hearing of a weapon like this, I can probably make it, but we don’t have enough metal onboard.”
“Then can you make this?” Bella then traced the design of a simple catapult.
“There is no problem if we make it out of wood, but we only have large enough material for a few smaller ones.”
“It’s fine as long as we can make it, Angel can you get some helpers for Mia?”
There were two warships flanking Bellahey were the ones who had saved the earlier soldiers and sailors that had bailed from her ship.
They weren’t willing to fight a boarding battle after hearing that the intruder on board had killed almost a hundred men, including a holy knight, single-handedly. Not to mention the Archbishop whose fate was still unknown to them. One of the captains, Sir Brooke decided to instead sink her ship from a distance with fire arrows.
Right before they entered arrow range, Sir Brooke noticed a bunch of sailors on the deck of the other ship manning wooden constructs; hadn’t all the crew bailed? Why were there still people on board? Had the information he received earlier been false?
What he didn’t know was the sailors were not living people, but risen corpses that Angel had summoned using the bodies left on board. As he was hesitating whether or not to fire on the other ship, the opposing side made the first move, and Sir Brooke saw several barrels of flaming alcohol flying his way.
A barrel of alcohol landed near sir Brooke and exploded before he had a chance to respond, sending him straight into the embrace of his God.
After a few volleys, the two ships closest to Bella had disappeared in an eruption of fire caused by the explosions, terrible screams drifted from within; making it a bit hard for Bella’s heart to bear.
Mia had only heard the basics on how gunpowder works from Bella and immediately used the strong alcohol in the ship’s storage along with some catalysts that she had procured herself to make an explosive fluid similar to nitroglycerin. Bella was thinking that she shouldn’t teach this loli such dangerous stuff anymore and replace the lessons with something more normal instead.
Bella was scared that Mia might go down the wrong path when she observed her excitement; let’s not let her make any more dangerous weapons..
With the advantage in weaponry, Bella cut through the warships like butter, destroying five ships in rapid succession and heading straight to the centre of the envelopment. The other warships were wary of their weapons and did not pursue them, watching as Bella headed closer and closer to the heart of the fleet.
“What’s going on?” A dragon descended from the sky, it was a western dragon that was about 8 meters from nose to tail. The dragon’s body was covered with red scales and its muscled pair of red wings flapped during its descent; it was probably a fire type dragon. On the back of the dragon stood a young knight of approximately twenty years of age, clad in golden armour.
“Mister Shawn! It has been a while, eh?”
“No need for honorifics between us, master Stanley. If you don’t mind me asking, how were you wounded?”
Dragon knight Randall Shawn was surprised by the trail of blood trickling from the Archbishop’s mouth. How strong was the opponent to have wounded Archbishop Barry?
*cough* *cough* “Thanks for your concern, this wound isn’t much. Would you mind taking this old man back to the reserves with your dragon?” The Archbishop wasn’t faking his injuries; although he was able to block Bella’s strike completely because he shoved her the piece of paper with an unprotected hand, he received some damage from theã??Knight Chargeã??.
“This... alright, climb on sir!” Shawn hesitated, looking at the flames leaping from the nearby ships, quickly deciding to prioritise the safety of the Archbishop before returning to check what was happening to the fleet. What he didn’t notice was that the Archbishop briefly showed a sly smile, as if he had accomplished some dastardly deed.
___
Currently, on the deck of the surrounded black warship, the holy knight Richard was showcasing his power, with a deft swing of his shield he swatted a nearby demon soldier. Not far from him the other holy knight, Isaac, had also forced back the demon soldiers that had surrounded him. The current battlefield was in their advantage, luckily Archbishop Nicholas had sealed away the most powerful demon with the demon sealing cross. If she had been free to roam the battle, not even Shawn, the dragon knight, could guarantee a win against her.
Under the mast, a fat priest was chanting some form of spell from the book in his hands. Not far in front of him was a girl kneeling on the deck; there was a swirling hexagram beneath her, seemingly used to seal her powers. It seemed that she was quite powerful as a normal demon coming into contact with the demon sealing cross would have immediately turned into ashes, while the girl was only unable to move.
“Where is that old obstinate Stanley? Even if he doesn’t want to come over, why is he not sending the holy knight Bernard? We would have been able to return to this female demon already if he had.” Archbishop Nicholas grumbled while looking at the girl. Currently, the girl was also enduring her own rage, she would have shredded the fat priest if she hadn’t fallen for some treacherous bastard’s plot.
At this time, a nearby warship changed course towards them; from the flag that it flew, it seemed to be the ship of Archbishop Barry.
“Reinforcements are coming!”“ the human soldiers’ morale skyrocketed while that of the demons plummeted. They were unable to run, but it would be a massive disgrace if their princess was captured by the human church so their only choice was to fight to the end.
“Bernard! Come help me!” Richard yelled. He saw an armoured figure come over from other ship, but it wasn’t the holy knight Bernard; instead it was a female knight clad in full plate. The only thing that he could discern of the woman was her blue eyes and the locks of golden hair that did not completely fit inside her helmet. The style of the armour was definitely that of a holy knight, but Richard recalled that the expeditionary navy had not left port in the Octavian Empire with any female holy knights.
Richard was about to ask her to identify herself when he saw that she had reached out a gauntleted hand, seemingly for a handshake.
This little knight was shy enough to ask for a handshake in this situation? His knightly demeanour prompted him to stretch his hand out to receive the greeting. However, as soon as he clasped her hand, Bella fiercely threw Richard off the ship in one swift motion.
The other people on deck were shocked by the strength of the woman. Anyone throwing a holy knight as simply as they would a sack of potatoes was hard to believe.
“What are you doing!?” The other holy knight, Isaac, demanded.
“Have you never seen a robbery before, uncle?!”
Bella removed her helmet and looked at Isaac innocently. She wasn’t scared of the face filled with rage that stared back at her, she currently wore the holy knight Bernard’s spare suit of armour, modified to fit her by Mia. Her previous equipment was of low quality and she was quite eager to field test her new toys.