Starting from Zero

Then I heard a clanking noise nearby as if an iron can is rolling on metal floor. Everyone watched in silence as a cannon ball slowly but surely rolled towards in front of me.

I put a foot on it to stop it in place.

Time stopped. No one dared to make a sound.

I waited for several seconds.

Phew, safe!

Big Pot left his cannon and looked at the cannon shot under my foot. "Scary. What just happen--"

Ka-Boom!

A savage force pushed me from under my foot, sending me upwards. All crew on board watched in silence as I flew into the clear sky. The force was so strong that I reached the clouds and not yet stopping!

When my mind cleared up, my first reaction is to spread my wing blades to regain control of my body. I\'m losing it for sure if I keep spinning like this! The explosion was pretty strong. My HP bar is empty again, my companions saved me with their HP. Barely.

The difference from last time is that I was caught by the explosion this time, rather than the iron ball. The excellent defense and my Collar of Protection saved me from death, but my face was still charred black by the fire. As for my armor...it\'s already black so no one would notice.

I kept my momentum still after some hard effort. Lucky flew up to gave me a lift down.

When I returned onto the deck, people are still surprised but no one said anything this time. I survived a shot to the face back there, so this is not entirely new.

What DID surprise me is that there is a hole on the outer shell of the crystal cannon. Well, not a hole, but an opening with the shape of a "大", obviously someone just went through there with their arms and legs wide spread.

People chuckled when they saw me staring at the new entrance, except for Big Pot, who explained to me with much embarrassment: "Sorry boss, that was... an accident."

I knew what he meant. So the explosion blasted me into the sky but pushed him flying into the cannon shield. I laughed along with them.

...But we have pressing matters right now!

"Chief mate!"

"Yes sir!"

"What just happened?"

"Report! We were attacked by two suicidal boats!"

"Huh? Didn\'t I tell them to take them out before everything else? And where did they hit? What\'s the damage?"

"They charged out from the midst of the enemy group, and they were too fast for us to intercept. One hit us from the starboard, one in the tail. They didn\'t connect with us. We already hit them. But the explosion was too close!"

"Damage?"

"The starboard was fine. We lost 37 oars and 237 paddlers, 313 injured. The cannon chambers are higher so they weren\'t affected. But the rear compartment suffered heavy loss. There is a big breach on the life boat room, we lost a hundred boats!"

Gale heard the report and put a hand on my shoulder. "Take it easy, this is only a small loss, I assure you. It\'s a bless you hit them halfway. You know, one of those bumped into our ship head-on and it broke us in half! You saw how much power they packed right?"

"I know! You know how much the ship costs. Now I have to pay more money to fix all these holes!"

"Yeah, fix. Our entire fleet is gone, I have to build another!"

"Guess we’re both unfortunate."

"Hey hey HEY watch out behind--"

A random cannon shot precisely hit me in the back. When I\'m still the air, I gave myself a serious question:

Why am I hit by these anti-ship weapons, THREE TIMES IN A DAY??

I kept flying until I crashed into something.

I removed some debris from on top of me and tried to get up. And I can\'t! One of my legs can\'t move! Is this a...cannon? My entire left leg was stuck inside the barrel of a cannon, and something deep inside caught my foot!

The attack was obviously from a cheapest cannon because it didn\'t cause much damage to my companions\' HP bars. It came from pretty far away too so there was not much power left.

I tried to survey my surroundings. I\'m inside a wooden room, with stacks of...cannon shells?

I\'m inside an ammo depot! So I\'m not totally unlucky. I crashed into this place but nothing exploded on me.

Someone approached the room. And they\'re not speaking anything I can understand. It\'s the Japanese! I fell inside a Japanese ship!

They must have sent people to check the damage. From how fast I crashed in here, I\'m sure they didn\'t see if that was a player or a round.

They already reached the door from outside. My father used to ask me to learn foreign languages, including Japanese. But I never did. I told him there’s no way I’d ever go to that place. But well, I was just too lazy.

I carefully climbed onto the ceiling. Thanks to all the spikes on my Dark Dragon Lord armor, I can easily fix myself onto it upside-down like Spiderman.

Someone opened the door. A ninja, and a...woman wearing something I don\'t recognize. I\'m pretty sure she\'s not a melee class though.

I kept balance by holding onto a beam using my elbow, then used my hands to create a makeshift knot with my dragon cord.

The woman bent over to check the damaged ammo container, patted on her chest in relief and spoke something to the ninja. I can at least understand the body language.

The ninja walked to the hole and poked his head out, checking the damage on the ship\'s hull, while the woman remained behind to clean up the scattered ammunition.

Chance!

I took out my lance silently. That took some time. I can only use one hand to hold a weapon like this now, while trying to keep the noise as low as possible.

I readied my lance, waited for the ninja to turn back and threw it at him. The sharp polearm easily pierced his body and brought him into the sea. Just what I was hoping for.

The woman heard the noise and turned to see the scene. When she failed to see any enemy, she was quick enough to check the ceiling. But I still had time to get my knot around her neck.

I activated the cutting attack and pulled on the cord. The woman\'s head left her body while leaking blood all over the room. I carefully jumped back to the ground while avoiding the blood stream.

I summoned my lance back as fast as I can since I\'m not sure if there\'s a distance limit for this. I don\'t want to lose my precious weapon down into the deep sea.

I moved to the big hole while carrying a cannon round I picked up, turned to face the room, and jumped backwards. With a strong throw, I hurled the cannon shot back into the room, aiming for the center of the explosives. Then I went into the water like a diver.

I felt a violent shock wave inside the water, which means my plan was a success.

I adjusted my posture and began to swim towards Bi-Lin. To my joy, I noticed that the Dark Dragon Lord outfit is waterproof! I didn\'t put down my visor in time so I\'m still soaked. When I closed the visor and cut the water flow, I found out that I can actually breathe. This is really nice stuff!

Since oxygen is not a concern now, I swam towards my ship while hiding under the surface. I caught a glimpse around the area when I jumped out of enemy ship, Bi-Lin is not very far.

However when I poked my head out of the water, a white flag with a red dot on it welcomed me. Oh shoot. Bi-Lin moved when I was swimming! I can clearly tell where it is because of its enormous size and that giant hole on the rear.

As I\'m thinking about how to return to the ship, something pulled me towards it with great speed. It\'s Loong\'er. I never witnessed her swimming speed from close up. This is impressive!

She took me back in a matter of seconds and sent me on board through the breach.

Now I found out something strange. Someone\'s talking, and I can\'t understand them! I looked around the outside of ship to make sure. Yes, this is the Bi-Lin. Why are there Japanese players up here?? We were occupied when I was gone? That can\'t be. More than 8 thousand people would take some time to deal with even if they stand there defenseless, which wouldn\'t happen in the first place.

Spies maybe?

I carefully approached the voice and finally saw the intruders. Five ninjas, all wearing the same deep blue ninja uniform. Four of them are carrying big backpacks behind their backs. They look pretty heavy. I wonder what they brought.

The vacant ninja seems to be their leader. He doesn\'t have any load but there\'s a long bamboo tube on his back.

I followed them as they advanced without knowing my presence. I contacted Hawk.

"Ziri? Where are you off too??"

"I\'m on the ship!"

"Which ship?"

"Bi-Lin of course!"

"But...where?" I saw him looking around. He can\'t see me, that\'s for sure.

"I\'m down at the fifth level! I went inside from that hole!"

"I see. Well get up here! We lost too many sailors and many cannons are left unmanned now!"

"I can\'t! Tell Big Pot and Passerby to come find me!"

"What for?"

"I saw five Japanese here, I don\'t think I can take them down all by myself!"

"Japanese? On our ship? You sure about that?"

"Do you think I would joke in such a time?? Make it quick! I don\'t know what they are doing but definitely not anything good!"

"Roger that!"

I cut the chat and continued to follow the intruders. I think they\'re looking for something.

The answer became clear soon enough. They\'re going for our ammo depot. So those backpacks...explosives! They are suicide bombers trying to blow up our ship!

I quickly sent a message to Big Pot and Passerby to tell them to be careful. The Japanese have already entered the door of their target. I sneaked beside the door, while Big Pot and Passerby arrived and did the same.

I lifted my visor and made a "shh" gesture, then peeked inside the room. The enemies are unpacking their explosives and placing them into the ammo stashes.

I drew my head back. First, I waved a finger in front of my face to tell Big Pot and Passerby to stay still. Then I made a drastic posture, indicating there are bombs in there. Next I pointed at the pair and then pointed to the ceiling. They instantly understood and climbed onto the ceiling beam, waiting for the ninjas to come out.

When enemies showed up, Big Pot and Passerby dropped and each took down a ninja. They are both Warriors, a direct hit from above is enough to insta kill a speed-based class.

Two ninjas in the back row were still shocked when I punched at their faces.

But man they\'re fast, they managed block my attack by grasping my wrists. They gave me a defiant smile when they thought they locked up my arms, but that smile turned into puzzlement as I gave them an even bigger smile. I forcibly pushed my fists downward, escaping their hands and thrust at their chests. Psh! My claw blades stretched out, piecing their throats without giving them any chance to say their last words.

The weight on my arms disappeared as the two corpses began to vanish. I kicked them aside to see the last ninja leader running back inside to detonate the bombs. He must have seen there\'s no way he can escape this so he\'s planning to sacrifice himself to bring the ship down!

I don\'t have enough time to catch him because he stayed closer to the explosives. I aimed at my Revenger at his back. A Soul Chaser bolt accurately penetrated his head, all the way to the forehead.

But the igniter he took out is going to fall into the bombs!

Big Pot and Passerby already saw the whole scene and they both covered their heads, ready to accept whatever\'s going to happen. However, the igniter disappeared when a shadow flashed in front of me.

It\'s Dart. I summoned him to stay on my shoulder just in case, now he did the job! I mean, he saved the entire ship, including everyone on it!

I really don\'t want to image what would happen if our main ammo depot blows up.

"Ziri? Situation?" Hawk pinged me.

"All good! That was too close. The bastards carried some dynamites to our ammo storage. Our ship was almost sent into the sky!"

Hawk doesn’t seem relieved as I expected. On the contrary, his expression turned dark.

"You\'d better come back quick or we\'ll get blown to the sky for real!"

"Eh? What do you mean?" I asked about the situation while leading Big Pot and Passerby running onto the deck. When we reached there my mouth fell open.

Along the area in front of our ship, hundreds of small life boats are packed together, with bombs on them! They\'re simply charging towards us while totally ignoring our fire suppression. They are trying to take us down no matter the cost!

"Archers! Area attack!"

Hawk is standing on the command platform, ordering our Archers to block those suicide boats. But there are still a good number of them coming through!

The crystal cannon is also shooting at the boats. Each shot would take out a small area of enemies but that\'s not enough.

A boat sneaked past our fire barrage and went close enough. Elfy immediately took aim using her bow at the edge of the ship, and released her arrow, towards almost straight below her. The explosion arrow detonated the boat. But it was too close to us, the blast power pushed Bi-Lin upward again. When the ship dropped to the surface everyone tumbled to the floor.

"We aren\'t going to survive many more hits like that!" Hawk panicked while looking at all the breaches along the ship.

"Another one! Over there!" Big Pot yelled with broken sound.

"You\'re not!!"

Elfy did her routine again. But this time she missed the mark. It\'s too hard to shoot at something while standing on a swinging ship!

"[Ray of Punishment]!"

A sudden lightening sunk the ship into the water. Violet\'s companion, Ashura, is holding his sword which is still giving out smoke. He saved us this time!

However, a third, fourth and fifth boat quickly approached us. We can\'t do anything now!

I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned to see Red Moon\'s face, a little twisted because of all the overexcitement.

"Red Moon?? Why are you--"

"Promise me! Help me occupy an enemy city for a day! And I\'ll protect your ship this time!"

She didn\'t even wait for my answer before she walked to the edge and...jumped!

I can\'t see what happened under the railing from my position. I only know that there is a golden beam, from which a shadow emerged and went towards the enemy boats at extreme speed. I can\'t make out what it is because it\'s too fast.

That...thing, bounced between the suicide boats in an blink of an eye, before ALL the boats just exploded where they were!

And now the terrible bomber crowd is nowhere to be found! I mean, the entire enemy kamikaze team was turned into smoking shreds before our brain can register what we just saw!

What on the motherland was that?? I\'m sure that thing can easily kill me in any situation and I won\'t have any chance to get prepared.

Could it be...?