Chapter 879: I Want to Play a Game with You

The moment the first gunshot rang out, the captain realized he had underestimated the situation.

The people the female telegraph operator exposed, along with the fire, were all on this side of the ship. The cruise liner was still moving at high speed—he hadn’t thought the warlord-backed pirates could possibly board at that moment.

And yet, they had. The gunshots said it all.

Surprisingly, aside from a few gasps, there was no immediate panic onboard.

Though the faces of the wealthy federal elites turned grim, they didn’t appear hopeless.

Pirates hijacking a cruise ship—wasn’t it always for money?

Frankly, every person present was worth billions. If each gave up just a fraction of their wealth, the pirates would be set for life.

Besides, the rich weren’t too worried about getting hurt. No pirate would dare provoke this many tycoons unless they planned to kill every last witness.

And if even one escaped, the rest of the pirates’ lives would be spent running in despair.

More importantly, if the hostages were dead, there’d be no one to pay the ransom.

Going outside right now would be stupid. The pirates might mistake them for crew and shoot on sight.

It was smarter to stay put, wait for the conflict outside to resolve, and come out later—it was safer that way.

Gunfire. Screams. Shouts. Weeping. Curses. The crashing of bodies and furniture.

The stench of gunpowder and blood overwhelmed everyone’s senses. Many were drenched in sweat, unable to concentrate.

They chain-smoked, or took slow hits of purisol, hoping nicotine could calm their nerves.

Lynch sat quietly on the sofa, swirling a wine glass in his hand. He admired the moon and the blood outside while sipping his drink.

He wasn’t nervous at all—in fact, he felt like laughing.

Just moments ago, he’d felt a sudden jolt—the cruise ship had slowed down abruptly.

A fast-moving vessel was hard to track on the ocean, but a slow one was an easy target.

The chance of being spotted by aircraft had just increased.

The firefight and resistance lasted until after nine. By ten, it had ended completely.

Apart from occasional gunshots from the lower decks, the fighting had stopped.

At 10:30, the ship’s lights came on, but it felt nothing like any other night.

Soon after, someone knocked on Lynch’s door.

The female manager stood outside, pale and trembling.

“Mr. Lynch… they asked me to bring you to the deck…”

Lynch rose from the sofa and buttoned his shirt. “Lead the way.”

Perhaps his calm demeanor reassured her—she seemed to stop shaking as much.

As Lynch stepped out, he saw others emerging from their rooms as well. No one spoke, but their eyes occasionally met with shared understanding.

Everyone headed in the same direction—the main deck where events were usually held.

Blood was everywhere. Streaks lined staircases, and where the sea breeze had dried it, it had grown thick and sticky.

It dripped in strands from the railings and walls. So many had died.

Lynch saw unfamiliar men—clearly not crew—tossing bodies overboard. The rhythmic splashes sounded like a death march.

On the main deck, a crowd had already gathered. The first mate—who’d made quite an impression just days earlier—now hung from a lamppost.

An electric cable was wrapped around his neck. His head was swollen and purple, tongue half out. He was dead—completely.

To Lynch’s surprise, the captain was still alive, though wounded. He stood before the crowd, clearly in pain but barely holding himself upright.

A man stood with his back to the crowd—beret on his head, a scar across his face. His right foot tapped the bloody deck in rhythm.

Each clack of his military boot echoed like a drumbeat against everyone’s chest. The soldiers around them, rifles in hand and cruelty in their eyes, made the wealthy feel suddenly fragile.

At that moment, money didn’t seem so powerful anymore. And that was a bad sign.

Once everyone had gathered, someone whispered into the beret man’s ear. Another handed him a microphone.

He spun around quickly, flashing a wide smile to the crowd as he tapped the mic.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen!”

His accent was distinctly Mariloan—shorter breath on certain syllables, extra nasal tones—easy to recognize.

“I’ve wanted to meet you all for a very long time. Although someone tried to delay that meeting… here we are.”

He suddenly kicked the back of the captain’s knees.

The man’s legs buckled and he collapsed, knees slamming into the deck with a sickening thud. Lynch could practically hear his bones cracking.

He must’ve been in agony—but his face stayed cold and indifferent.

“This man here… he kept trying to stop me from meeting you.”

“So to apologize…”

A soldier behind him pulled out a pistol and placed it gently in his open palm.

He aimed at the captain’s head and fired. The bullet pierced through the back of the skull, blasting off part of the forehead. Blood and brain matter splattered across the floor.

There were only a few screams, which made the man in the beret frown.

He had expected these wealthy people to be easier to control, but it seemed his little plan wasn’t working.

He had kept the captain alive until now specifically to instill fear—but the result was underwhelming.

He couldn’t help but recall the things he’d heard about the Federation while in Marilo. According to the rumors, the capitalists there were monsters who devoured people.

Workers were said to be chained together, collapsing from exhaustion in the factories, their meals worse than what a capitalist’s dog ate, yet they worked far more.

Capitalists supposedly cheated them out of their wages every month—sometimes even making them owe money instead.

Even devils would ascend to heaven after meeting a Federation capitalist. That was the Mariloan prejudice.

But now, he wasn’t sure it was just prejudice.

He kicked the captain’s body off the small stage. It landed with a thud.

“Well then, let’s skip past these unpleasant matters. The reason I was so eager to meet you all… is because I heard you have a tradition of giving.”

“At one of those charity auctions hosted by your president’s wife, a single lighter sold for a million. Clearly, you’re generous people who love charity.”

“And I, conveniently, am poor—and in need of help. I hope you’ll be just as enthusiastic about donating to me.”

He didn’t bother to introduce himself. Understandable—when you’re a bandit, why waste time with pleasantries?

He looked at a man standing near the stage and pointed to him and the woman beside him. “Bring them up.”

A man in his fifties and a woman who looked around thirty stepped onto the stage. Their expressions were calm and composed.

This annoyed the man in the beret. How could they not be afraid of him? Was there any worse failure for a hijacker?

He shot a sideways glare at the couple, face darkening. “At your charity events, you donate things. Today, you don’t need to donate—I will.”

He gestured, and one of his men brought over a box. He reached in and grabbed a handful, then held it up for all to see.

Bullets—smooth and gleaming.

“This is what I’m donating. You get to place a bid for it.”

As soon as he said this, everyone understood what he meant.

The man on stage looked at the bullets in his palm. He couldn’t tell exactly how many there were.

Maybe twenty?

He hesitated for a moment, thoughts racing, and then gave what he believed was a fair price. “Two million.”

The man in the beret whistled. “Two million—quite generous.”

He clenched his hand, then slowly let a bullet drop from his palm.

“One,” he counted.

“Two.”

“Three…”

“You’re probably good at math,” he joked with a smile.

He kept counting and cracking jokes until the end.

“Twenty.”

The last bullet dropped from between his fingers. Everyone exhaled in relief. His smile seemed warmer now.

The man and his companion both relaxed. The man even asked, “Can we leave now?”

The beret-wearing man’s smile vanished. He turned his hand over—there was still one bullet left in his palm.

The sudden shift caught everyone off guard. They’d clearly seen him count out the twentieth bullet with his thumb, index, and middle fingers.

He had hidden one.

Without hesitation, he raised his gun and fired.

The bullet tore through the woman’s head. Her body collapsed instantly.

She had been holding onto the man tightly—so tightly that he fell to the ground with her.

The man in the beret stepped forward. The expression on the rich man’s face finally changed—contorted in fear. That gave the hijacker real satisfaction.

He reached out. “Don’t worry. That extra bullet’s already been used—you’re not paying for it.”

He pulled the man to his feet, subtly fiddling with something in his hand. “Take him below and get him cleaned up—he smells.”

Then he turned, flashing a bright smile and white teeth at the rest of the crowd.

“Now… who’s next?”