The sun's afterglow gradually faded from the sea surface, setting it rippling like a field of golden fish scales.
By the time the sun was sinking toward the horizon, the fighting around the port was all but over.
In truth, calling it "fighting" was a stretch — the cream of the entire Merfolk Pirate crew, every adult fishman capable of taking up arms, had essentially all perished in the earlier naval battle. All that remained was a heap of the old, the weak, women, and children.
Even though Lei Lin's pirate force was small in number, the assault had gone exceedingly smoothly.
When the sun had fully set, he was already standing on the second-story balcony of the original pirate captain's villa, gazing down at the scattered fires dotting the port below.
Large-scale arson had been strictly forbidden by Lei Lin — until every last piece of loot had been moved out, setting fire to everything would ruin it all.
Robin's face was lit up with excitement as he stood inside the room alongside Isabel, who hadn't gone out to join the raid, and reported their haul to Lei Lin.
Just by looking at how flushed with excitement Robin's face was, Lei Lin knew the take would be substantial — but when he actually heard the details, he couldn't help but smile.
"Chief! We hit the jackpot this time!"
Robin was looking more and more like a proper pirate these days. Perhaps this was his true nature all along, merely suppressed before.
"Just from the warehouse alone, we found huge quantities of refined sugar, silk, elfin ceramics, and wooden crafts… enough to fill half a cargo hold!"
"And in this villa, we found this—"
Isabel added, kicking a black wooden chest right up to Lei Lin's feet and flipping it open.
When the lid, covered in archaic patterns, was lifted, a burst of golden light spilled out, bringing a flash of greed into Robin's eyes — though he quickly suppressed it.
"This fellow had his treasure hidden awfully well. It took quite a bit of effort to track it down…"
Isabel's eyes had gone a little starry too, as if she had completely fallen in love with the pirate profession.
Just as an ancient text Lei Lin had once read about the World of the Gods put it: Gold! What a beautiful, lovely little thing! It can turn a coward into a hero in an instant! Transform the bad into the good! Make rivers flow backward — and with just a tiny pinch of it, the soul can ascend straight from hell to heaven!
Even the churches of the gods needed wealth — vast amounts of it — to influence the faithful and expand their spheres of influence.
The Church of Lady Tymora, in particular, was even greedier than dragons. There was no channel for earning wealth that they didn't have their fingers in.
Inside the wooden chest lay rows of archaic gold coins along with a scattering of gemstones, enough to make Robin's eyes spin.
Isabel, being the stronger one of the two thanks to her noble upbringing, still retained a measure of rationality in the face of such riches.
"I've counted them. There are 782 Coronae gold coins in here, each weighing eighteen grams. Converted to our Danbress gold coins, that's worth at least fifteen hundred! And if you add the gems, this single chest alone has netted us over two thousand gold coins…"
"Mm. No need to exchange these Coronae — they'll still be useful on the mainland…"
Lei Lin picked up one of the Coronae. Compared to the gold coins he'd used before, this one was noticeably heavier, and the patterns and portrait stamped on it were completely different from those of the Danbress Kingdom's coinage.
In the world of the gods, every power at the level of a duchy or above held the right to mint coinage, which had resulted in a dizzying array of metal currencies of every shape and design.
Although the Church of the Goddess of Wealth had always labored to replace all other gold coins with its own — the gold Corona — and establish it as the unified standard, the covert resistance of numerous deities meant it had yet to succeed. It wasn't hard to imagine how much faith such a victory would grant Ojin, and the other gods were hardly going to allow that.
Even so, the gold Corona, issued by the Goddess of Wealth herself and backed by her entire Church, enjoyed the widest circulation of any currency in the entire world of the gods, and was one of the most widely accepted gold coins in existence.
"It seems most of these pirates' wealth is still sitting in their hideout…"
Lei Lin recalled his captive from last time — Steve. If he had stormed the man's base back then, even dug out every treasure vault Steve had confessed to one by one, the haul would likely have been no less than this raid. What a shame there hadn't been time.
"Let's set the question of treasure aside for now. What about the other people and slaves?"
With this influx of capital, Lei Lin already had the confidence to establish the businesses on Fairlan Island and even begin turning a profit.
What he valued most now had become the manpower he could acquire.
"Because our crew was small and we couldn't seal off the port in time, quite a few of the residents managed to escape…"
As he said this, Robin Han's expression darkened.
"So far, we've captured a total of eighty-nine prisoners — mostly the elderly, women, and children, along with a few washed-up retired pirate scum…"
Robin Han spat on the ground, clearly having had his fill of trouble from those hardened old pirates.
Even if their bodies were riddled with disabilities or past their prime enough to force retirement, that viciousness and killer's instinct hadn't diminished one bit.
"Still, I had those few scum strung up and hanged alive…"