"Damn it! What the hell is going on?"

Lor panted hard, his chest rising and falling like a bellows.

He stared at the bloody scene on the deck, his face dark with fury.

As a veteran guard of the Black Shell Trading Company, he had dealt with the ocean year-round and knew these monsters all too well.

Sahuagin.

These fish-like monsters of the deep sea had always been known for their cunning and cruelty.

They roamed the shipping routes in packs like greedy Gnolls, attacking passing vessels and plundering their goods.

But precisely because they possessed intelligence no weaker than Humans, they had always picked soft targets.

They either attacked coastal fishing villages or raided small merchant ships.

Large, well-built merchant vessels like those of the Black Shell Trading Company had always been targets they avoided at all costs.

But today...

"Watch your back!"

His companion's scream pulled Lor's thoughts back to reality.

He watched another guard's chest get pierced by a Sahuagin's rusty harpoon. Blood splashed across the deck in a horrific fan.

Lor roared. Ignoring the bone-deep wound on his left arm, still gushing blood, he raised his iron sword again and charged.

"Clang!"

The ring of colliding metal numbed the web between his thumb and forefinger.

This strike, which he had been certain would land, was easily blocked by the Sahuagin.

"Damn it! Since when did these beasts get this strong?"

Lor cursed inwardly and was about to pull back.

But the Sahuagin's scaled webbed foot slid strangely through a pool of blood, its wet claws dragging a sticky trail across the deck.

At the same time, the dagger in its hand changed direction, scraping a dazzling trail of sparks along his sword blade.

"Screech!"

Amid the tooth-aching friction, the shadow of death closed in. The dagger's edge expanded in Lor's pupils.

"Am I going to... die here?"

Just then, a silver flash streaked past like a meteor.

"Pfft!"

After the muffled sound of a blade entering flesh, the Sahuagin's ferocious expression froze.

Its scale-covered head tilted, then hit the deck with a thud, splashing dark green blood.

Lor stood there in a daze. Only when that familiar figure flicked the blood from his blade did Lor wake from his shock.

"L-Lord Roland?"

"Don't lose focus!"

Roland shouted sternly, his gaze sweeping over the Sahuagin still climbing over the rail. His brow tightened.

His voice was cold and steady, carrying unquestionable authority.

"Gather the remaining guards and form a defensive line! I shouldn't need to teach you these basic tactics, should I?"

"But, my lord, you..."

"Leave this side to me."

Hearing those decisive words, Lor's gaze lingered briefly on Roland's young face, and hesitation crossed him.

But immediately after, he recalled Colin's repeated instructions from before.

"This honored guest is quite capable. You must treat him as respectfully and politely as possible, understood?"

At that thought, his hesitation vanished. He answered loudly.

"Yes!"

Then he turned and rushed toward the other side of the deck to gather the surviving guards.

The Sahuagin clearly had no intention of letting this easy prey escape. They hissed and pursued him.

However, their path was forcibly cut off by a longsword gleaming with pale light.

"Clang!"

Amid the dull clash of metal, Roland's wrist sank slightly, and surprise crossed his eyes.

"Not bad strength..."

The corner of his mouth lifted. The practiced technique granted by [Short Weapon Mastery] made his wrist turn lightly, and the sword edge flowed aside like water.

The mithril-forged blade traced a sharp arc through the sunlight. Before it, the hard scales covering the Sahuagin's body were thin paper.

"Pfft!"

Blood sprayed. The Sahuagin's burly body was split in two and crashed heavily onto the deck.

However, their companion's death did not make these bloodthirsty predators retreat.

On the contrary, the smell of blood completely inflamed their savagery.

They let out piercing shrieks, gathered in groups of three to five, and launched a storm-like siege against Roland.

If it had been an ordinary person, facing such a dense offensive, he would likely have died on the spot.

But to the current Roland, it was hardly worth mentioning.

He did not even need to use any Traits or Combat Techniques. Relying purely on his physical strength, he harvested the monsters before him with precision.

Yet as he killed these fishmen, a strange look entered Roland's eyes.

"Something's wrong..."

He sensed an abnormality.

Ordinary monsters, such as the Goblins, Kobolds, and Gnolls he had encountered in Blackwater Territory...

For them to know how to use weapons was already rare, much less any real combat skill.

Most of the time, they fought by relying on brute force or speed, swinging their weapons wildly without any technique to speak of.

But the Sahuagin before him were completely different.

Their harpoon thrusts were vicious and tricky, their dagger slashes swift and precise. Their movements were so practiced that they were no worse than formally trained soldiers.

Every strike went straight for a vital point, and their coordination was terrifyingly tacit.

"No wonder Lor and the other elite guards couldn't hold them off... Is this also an effect of the recovery of Mana Elements?"

The thought had only just flashed through Roland's mind before he denied it.

"No!"

As sword light danced, he keenly noticed an even more crucial difference.

Their eyes.

Whether it was a weak Goblin or a powerful mutant monster, even if it could not understand Human language, emotions Humans could comprehend would still appear in its eyes.

Fear, greed, fury, or contempt.

But from beginning to end, there was not the slightest fluctuation in these Sahuagin's eyes.

There was only slaughter.

A pure, cold, nearly fanatical desire to kill.

They looked like they had been drawn by something, or controlled.

"A little strange..."

Roland frowned, but the longsword in his hand did not pause.

Amid the hum of the blade cutting through the air, Sahuagin fell one after another like cut wheat.

Behind him, Lor, who had reorganized the guards, also led his men forward to support the fight.

Under Roland's lead, the battle quickly turned.

The Sahuagin line was forced back step by step. In the blink of an eye, they had been pushed to the edge of the rail.

Fewer and fewer enemies climbed aboard, and they could not even keep up with Roland's killing speed.

Inside the cabins, the honored guests who had been panic-stricken finally breathed in relief.

Through the portholes, they looked toward that unstoppable figure with eyes full of reverence.

However, among those admiring gazes, a brown-haired young man seemed especially different.

His long fingers plucked the strings of a harp. His emerald eyes stayed fixed on Roland, revealing a complex expression.

Curiosity, surprise, and nearly imperceptible excitement.

Just as everyone thought this attack was about to end in victory...

"Boom!"

A dull, massive impact came from beneath the ship, and the entire merchant vessel shook.

Everyone on the deck instantly lost their footing, and several guards even fell to the ground.

"Sharks... it's a pack of sharks!"

Accompanied by a guard's heart-rending shout, the longsword in Roland's hand drew a silver arc and cut the Sahuagin in front of him in half at the waist.

Then he turned sharply and looked in the direction of the others' terrified gazes.

Beneath the surface of the sea, several enormous shadows were swimming madly.

They were five giant sharks, each more than twenty feet long, their gray-white bellies appearing and vanishing in the dark seawater.

They darted back and forth beneath the hull. Every movement stirred up muddy whirlpools, and they always seemed able to find the vessel's weakest points.

This kind of tactical coordination was absolutely not something ordinary sharks could accomplish.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

One impact after another made the entire merchant ship sway violently.

Barrels rolled across the deck, landing with muffled thuds.

Several guards lost their footing and fell into pools of blood.

Screams rose one after another from inside the cabins as the honored guests huddled together in terror.

"Hold steady!"

Lor roared, his voice carrying an obvious tremor.

At that moment, a sailor lifted a hatch cover, stuck out his head, and shouted,

"The lower hold... the planks in the lower hold are about to crack!"

At this critical moment, an ethereal song echoed across the sea.

That voice was cool and clear as moonlight, yet carried the mysterious rhythm of the deep sea, making everyone stop.

Looking toward the sound, they saw a brown-haired young man standing at the bow.

His long fingers caressed the harp, and from his slightly parted lips flowed a melody that seemed to pierce the soul.

As the song rose and fell, the sharks beneath the sea reduced their speed. Even the murderous intent in the eyes of those savage Sahuagin began to fade, replaced by cunning.

However, when their gazes touched the corpses of their companions on the deck, that cunning froze and transformed into terror.

The fishmen's webbed claws scraped wet trails across the deck as they retreated.

Yet that fear vanished in an instant and was replaced again by pure desire to kill.

Just as the fishmen tightened their grip on their weapons and were about to move again, the distant, churning sea returned to calm.

Aside from the black-robed figure standing on a broken plank, only a stretch of crimson blood remained on the water.

The enormous tentacles that had stirred the seawater moments ago had already vanished.

It seemed to be a signal to retreat.

The fishmen let out piercing shrieks and withdrew together to the edge of the rail.

With a series of splashes, within moments, the dozens of fishmen on the deck and around the hull had all disappeared into the deep sea.

"Is it over?"

Roland scanned his surroundings. Only after confirming that the danger had passed did he release a long breath and sheath his mithril longsword.

Although the battle had not wounded him, that did not mean it had been easy.

With his current strength, even though these fishmen were far stronger than ordinary monsters for some unknown reason, none of them could defeat him one-on-one.

However, there had simply been too many of them.

He alone had killed several dozen.

Although his attributes had long surpassed the limits of ordinary people, his stamina was not infinite.

Continuously killing so many powerful fishmen still left him feeling fatigue.

If this had been on flat ground, without Lor and the guards' assistance, he probably would have had to rely on a mounted charge or activate [Fighting Spirit] to carve a path out of the encirclement of these fearless fishmen.

"My strength still isn't enough..."

He sighed inwardly and thought of the battle at Mist Creek Town.

Beckham had killed more than three hundred monsters with a single strike.

"Right now, although my attributes far exceed those of ordinary people, aside from [Fire Bolt], I lack large-area killing methods."

"And even [Fire Bolt]... unless I disregard Spirit consumption and go all out, it would still be hard to instantly annihilate a large group of monsters..."

Just as Roland was reviewing the battle, cheers sounded beside his ear.

The surviving guards raised their weapons and let out thunderous cheers.

"Mr. Roland!"

Lor dragged his injured arm over, his face filled with reverence.

"If not for you, then..."

"All right, Lor."

Roland patted the burly guard's shoulder and smiled.

"What you should be doing right now is bandaging your wound. And..."

He pointed at the corpses scattered across the deck.

"Cleaning up the battlefield, not praising me here. Isn't that right?"

"I'm not praising you. It's just..."

Lor, poor with words, tried clumsily to explain. In the end, he could only force out one sentence.

"Your strength... truly is powerful..."

After saying this, he turned and called the guards to begin cleaning the deck.

As the crisis passed, the passengers inside the cabins also let out breaths of relief.

Although no one dared step onto the deck, waves of cheers still came from within the cabins.

While everyone was immersed in the joy of survival, the brown-haired young man walked up to Roland.

He ignored the fishmen corpses and mottled blood covering the deck and bowed elegantly.

"Praise to the fearless hero! I am Galvez. May I ask your name, sir..."

"Elf? No..."

Roland noticed the young man's ears, slightly sharper than a Human's but not as long as an Elf's, and thought to himself.

During his stay in Far Harbor of the River Kingdoms, he had once seen several Elves from a distance.

Like the Elves he had seen on the deck when he first boarded, they all had exquisite features, long pointed ears, and an innate noble air. Their speech and conduct were always polite yet distant.

But the brown-haired young man before him was different.

Although his ears were pointed, they retained a rounded curve. His face was handsome, but lacked an Elf's breathtaking delicacy.

And for some reason, this young man gave off a frivolous feeling, lacking the steadiness ordinary people should have.

Recalling that marvelous rhythm from earlier, Roland lifted his brows and bowed in return.

"Roland. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Galvez."

"Oh! Mr. Roland!"

Galvez leaned backward exaggeratedly like a stage actor, speaking in an ornate tone.

"Your swordsmanship was breathtaking, but deadlier still was the shadow cast by your eyelashes... It pierced my heart and left a wound that shall never heal!"

As he spoke, his long fingers plucked the strings, and the harp immediately flowed with a fitting melody, accompanying this confession.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Galvez..."

The corner of Roland's eye twitched.

"Do you usually... speak like this?"

"Of course!"

The brown-haired young man nodded excitedly and leaned closer to Roland.

"To tell you the truth, after witnessing your heroic bearing in battle just now, I improvised a beautiful song for you. Would you like to hear it now?"

Roland was momentarily speechless.

This overly enthusiastic conversation, full of ornate diction, made him uncomfortable all over.

"Ahem..."

So after coughing a few times, he decisively changed the subject.

"Mr. Galvez, just now... was it your music that calmed those frenzied fishmen and sharks?"

"Precisely."

Galvez nodded elegantly, his voice as melodious as harp strings.

"Mr. Roland, music is the greatest creation in this world, the most beautiful bridge of communication between lives. Even monsters and beasts that lack human reason cannot escape its influence!"

After saying this, he paid no attention to Roland's increasingly strange expression and bowed once more.

"Please allow me to formally introduce myself, dear Mr. Roland."

He raised his head and looked at Roland with burning eyes, admiring an uncut jewel.

"I am an apprentice bard. At present, I am traveling the lands in search of heroic legends worthy of song, and you..."

The harp music suddenly grew impassioned, and Galvez's eyes shone.

"You are the protagonist I have been seeking for so long!"

"Bard?"

Roland automatically filtered out Galvez's praise and keenly caught this key word.

In an instant, memories from his previous life surged up like a tide.

In those Western fantasy stories or games, this occupation had always been an indispensable presence.

And in this world, this was not his first contact with bards.

In the village back in Blackwater Territory, several wandering poets had once stayed briefly.

But in his understanding, those people were no different from street performers, merely making a living through small tricks.

Aside from being eloquent, they were no different from ordinary people.

However, the song Galvez had displayed just now had completely overturned that impression.

"It seems that in this world, bards... may also be Transcendent Professionals?"

Just as Roland was about to ask more, a muffled sound came beside his ear.

"Bang!"

The black-robed figure who had been on the distant sea moments ago had now abruptly appeared on the deck.