Chapter 160: Whose Blood?
Beneath the table was a corpulent middle-aged man with a face full of jowls.
When the tablecloth was lifted, the man, dressed in noble attire, immediately wet himself in terror.
"Don't kill me!!! I have money, yes, I have money!!! As long as you don't kill me, I'll give you as much as you want!!!"
Feeling the icy gaze of Maude, the fat man's body trembled like a leaf.
"Get out."
Maude's tone was cold.
"Okay, I'll come out right now!"
The fat man actually rolled out from under the table, showing a strong will to survive.
Maude examined the rotund middle-aged man and asked, "What's going on with this room?"
"This, this…"
The man hesitated.
Click.
Maude used his thumb to push the hilt of his sword slightly out of its sheath.
The fat man shuddered violently, lowering his head and stammering, "This room is... is our private shooting range…"
"Shooting range?"
Maude glanced at the people tied to the crucifixes, his brows furrowing.
Lafitte approached a nearby table and lightly touched a bowl of soup with his finger; it was still warm.
It seemed they had interrupted the nobles' entertainment.
A shooting range?
What a twisted hobby.
Lafitte sneered and picked up a small crossbow from a chair, its size no larger than a short-handled flintlock pistol.
The arrows loaded in the crossbow were slim and delicate. Judging by their size alone, they would hardly be lethal without poison.
Lafitte handed the crossbow to Maude.
Maude took a look at it before turning his expressionless gaze toward the fat man, who was now half-dead with fright.
He had no interest in understanding this so-called shooting range any further.
Instead, Maude aimed the crossbow at the fat man's forehead.
Seeing this, the fat man, drenched in sweat, reeked even more of urine.
Thinking that Maude was dissatisfied with his explanation, the man frantically began babbling every detail about the shooting range.
Maude listened to a few sentences before tossing the crossbow onto the floor. Suddenly, he reached out and grabbed the fat man by the jaw, lifting his 300-pound frame effortlessly.
The fat man was terrified, his limbs flailing weakly as he emitted incoherent squeals.
Drip.
Urine trickled from the man's pants onto the floor.
With a flick of his arm, Maude threw the man toward the center of the room.
Thud.
The man hit the floor heavily, dazed and momentarily unable to move.
In the cell, the slaves who had been trembling in the corners were now standing behind the iron bars, glaring at the fat man with eyes full of hatred.
Maude stepped over the fat man and approached the crucifixes, looking at the slaves the nobles had treated as targets.
"Shooting," as the fat man explained, was a game devised by the nobles—a point-based competition with bets on the line.
Participants had to wager a million berries to join, and each round was limited to twelve players.
Players were given ten small arrows and a human target. Points were awarded based on where the arrows hit—harder-to-hit, non-lethal areas like fingers and toes scored the highest, followed by ears, palms, and so on.
Hitting a vital area, however, meant immediate disqualification.
The one with the highest score after ten arrows claimed the pool of bets.
Clearly, the nobles in this room had been seasoned players.
This explained the female slave, riddled with over sixty arrows yet still alive. The arrows had been deliberately aimed to avoid vital spots, concentrating instead on her limbs.
One male slave, his body pierced by over fifty arrows, looked at Maude from the crucifix. His cracked lips moved slightly.
"Please… end it for me…"
Maude said nothing, drawing his blade, Chidori.
The male slave's dull eyes suddenly brightened with a faint glimmer of hope.
But instead of granting the slave's request, Maude cut the ropes binding his body.
The man collapsed to the ground, staring at Mord with a confused expression.
"That woman can't be saved, but you're different."
Without waiting for a response, Maude freed the other slaves tied to the crucifixes.
Once the "targets" were freed, Maude walked to the cell door.
The slaves inside said nothing, but their eyes burned with newfound hope as they looked at Maude.
Ignoring their stares, Maude slashed through the lock and then turned away, heading toward the door.
"Lafitte, let's go."
"Hoho."
The two left the room.
They had barely walked ten steps when a blood-curdling scream echoed from the room behind them.
It was the fat man.
Lafitte glanced back, his expression calm. "We should clear out everyone on the ship."
"Including the slaves?"
"Yes."
"Unnecessary. I don't want Sunny to hate me."
"Understood."
Lafitte didn't insist.
He had no interest in the weak. His suggestion had been solely to delay the World Government's response.
Maude and Lafitte continued to the next room, dragging out two more nobles hiding under a bed and in a wardrobe.
Ignoring their pleas for mercy, Maude gestured for Lafitte to kill them.
They looted some jewelry—rings and necklaces—from the room before moving on to sweep through the rest of the ship.
Every noble they found met the same fate.
With a death feud already established, Maude didn't mind making the situation more chaotic.
"Lafitte, split up."
"Understood."
For efficiency, they divided their efforts.
This voyage, King Lowell of the Nandekar Kingdom had brought along many nobles on his royal ship, treating it as a long-term social event.
Little did they expect to encounter two reapers in the East Blue.
Maude scoured room after room, finding mostly gold and jewels, but no cash.
Upon entering another room, Maude saw a burly man chained to a torture rack.
"Another slave, huh…"
The room was bare save for the rack and a table covered with whips, pliers, knives, and hammers.
Maude's eyes returned to the man.
His muscular torso was riddled with scars from countless injuries—slashes, lashes, blunt trauma—numbering over a hundred.
Despite such severe wounds, the man's breathing remained steady.
Sensing Maude's gaze, the man slowly lifted his head, locking eyes with him.
His glare was piercing, as if looking at a dead man.
Perhaps it was this defiance that had earned him "special treatment," enduring torture until death.
Ignoring the glare, Maude approached and asked, "A slave?"
The man remained silent, his dull expression fixed on the bloodstains on Maude's clothes.
"Whose blood?"
After a few seconds, he spoke.
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