"Bastards!" the man shouted from the floor of his home, his voice filled with raw anger and anguish. His fury was immense and justified: right before his eyes, the pirates who had broken into his house had brutally murdered his wife and stolen all the valuables he had spent his life accumulating.

"Shut up, asshole," the pirate snorted to the side, casting a contemptuous glance at the man. These words were followed by a scathing kick of a heavy boot to the face, knocking a tooth out of the unfortunate man's mouth.

Suddenly a joyous male voice came from the next room, "Found it!"

"Great! Where were they?"

"Under the floor."

Upon hearing the pirate's words, the ragged citizen's eyes widened with horror, and a grimace of despair twisted his face. This money had been inherited from his parents, carefully saved for a rainy day, a beacon of hope to recover from this nightmare. But now, before his very eyes, the last fragile thread of hope had been mercilessly severed.

"No! It's my last money, I can't survive without it. You monsters!" His desperate cry pierced the silence, mingling with sinister laughter and the sounds of looting.

The pirate ignored his pleas and moved into the next room, where his comrade was already filling a sack with jewelry and money. At a glance, the contents could be worth more than a million bellies.

"Ha ha ha, fortune is on our side today," he grinned gloatingly.

Suddenly, they heard a shout, a voice so familiar it could only belong to their accomplice, coming from the neighboring house.

With an unnaturally wide grin, the pirate said, "Looks like someone decided to play heroes. Haha, okay, I'll go check it out. Finish up and join me when you're done."

"All right," the other pirate replied obediently.

As he left the room, the pirate sneered at the crying man before stepping outside. The houses were made of dark wood, their boards weathered and etched with the marks of time. Some homeowners, fortunate enough to afford it, had painted their houses a pale white. Tradition forbade other colors, not through laws or edicts, but by custom. Most, however, left the wood in its natural dark shades.

With few exceptions, most of the houses remained modest one-story buildings, but sometimes two and three-story structures of the richest citizens rose among them.

After walking a few meters, the pirate approached the next building. This house was the most ordinary. The door was open, so he crossed the threshold without any difficulty.

The soles of his shoes made a monotonous creaking sound as he walked across the floor, his eyes darting to every little thing that caught his eye. Although the corridor was sparsely furnished, he took a couple of minutes to examine each detail with extreme care and attention.

The furniture was minimal, and the frills came as much from them as from the disheveled pages of an old newspaper, hastily glued together in an attempt to pass as a valuable book. He decided not to waste time sifting through every shelf.

He passed through two doors, checking the rooms behind each, and finally peered into the kitchen. His gaze was drawn like a magnet to a familiar body lying against the right wall in a sitting position, its torso covered in bloody spots from which small trickles flowed down, pooling on the cold floor.

Zing.

A sharp, loud sound of crossed blades echoed. Allen aimed to repeat his success, using the pirate's corpse to control the intruder's gaze. Despite his good idea, he unfortunately failed.

The pirate, not fully exposing his blade, blocked the chopping blow with ease.

"Pfft, cretin, did you really think I wouldn't notice David's missing blade?" The pirate's voice started in a scrambled tone, growing louder as he turned to the boy aiming for his life.

Allen took two steps back, holding his saber defensively in front of him. The pirate could see from the boy's eyes that he was still quite green, clearly uncomfortable with weapons. With a bright smile spreading across his face and his tongue hanging out, the pirate drew his blade from its sheath and stabbed downward.

Allen blocked the strike but was unsure of what to do next, having no knowledge of fencing. He didn't know how to move his blade away or create an opportunity to strike. While he pondered his next move, the pirate delivered a swift and powerful kick to his stomach, sending him tumbling back into the wall.

Without giving Allen a moment to recover, the pirate struck again with a vertical slash. Allen, still in the same motion, managed to block the blow with his blade held horizontally.

The pirate returned the saber to the position to launch the attack and repeated it. The blade followed the same top-down motion, but a few milliseconds before the blades crossed, he changed the trajectory, turning the blade to the side and then turning it back in a crescent moon-like motion.

The blade finally bore the victim's much desired blood, which it had absorbed from cutting through the skin and muscle of Allen's hand.

The boy let go of the blade in pain, instinctively jerking his arm to free the saber from his hand. The pirate, still smiling, kicked him in the stomach, making Allen twist and clutch his midsection.

The pirate leaned toward the boy and grabbed his hair, lifting his head to see his face. "Heh, that's a good face you've got there. You know, for killing my comrade and trying to take my life, I could end yours. Maybe even by brutal means. But I've got something better in mind." He spoke with an insane smile, staring straight into the boy's eyes and savoring his angry grimace. "I'll sell you. You'll make a great toy for some bastard who likes pretty young boys. And for a face like yours, he'll pay a lot... I've never met one like that before. Hahaha, I guess all the luck of your kind went into your face. It's just a pity you didn't have luck with anything else, hahahaha…"

Allen stared at him in silence, thoughts of vengeance filling his mind. 'I'll kill him. I'll kill that bastard…' His anger was now entirely focused on the pirate before him. He wanted to kill him and his entire crew. Gut them. Destroy them.

Pulling on his hair, the pirate lifted Allen to his feet, then cut him off with a powerful punch to the jaw.

Continuing to hold the boy's white hair, he dragged him to the hallway, where he threw him to the floor. Another pirate was already standing there.

"Take him to the ship and wrap him up."

"But I..."

"Do as you're told."

"Okay." Said the man and throwing Allen on his shoulder, walked outside and walked towards the ship.

The journey took nine minutes.

There was not a single pirate on the ship. Since they had left the ship, like a pack of wild, ravenous hyenas, they had rushed to the island to give vent to their dark desires, plundering and raping the inhabitants.

Their ship was large and imposing, made of wood as dark as the night sky, which gave it a harsh and menacing appearance. At the end of the bowsprit was a red apple made of wood. The same apple was depicted on the black sails, but instead of the traditional pirate symbol of a skull and bones, there was an image of an apple with a red skull inside, the top of its head looking like the top of an apple.

He walked quickly, with confidence, up the narrow wooden plank on the deck and down into the hold. Walking slowly in the semi-darkness, he reached the lower floor, where more than ten meters of dark corridor led him to the iron grate behind which they were holding the hostages. Taking in his hand the cold keys he had brought with him in advance, he opened the door and stepped inside. In the semi-darkness he found heavy handcuffs, made of strong steel, and handcuffed Allen into them.

Satisfied with his work, he left the hold with quick steps, remembering to close the bars behind him. His impatience to return to the robbery again clouded his mind.