The Birth of the Pirate King!

Three hundred years had passed since the execution of the last Pirate King.

Now, one had finally appeared to inherit that title.

The moment she emerged with towering waves at her back, the battle was already over.

Only a single bullet rested inside her revolver.

That lone shot split the sea itself as it flew forward, bringing down hundreds of enemies in an instant.

⋮

Her name was Tatiana.

Captain of the Jellyfish Pirates.

The future ruler of the seas.

Rustle.

A newspaper page was turned.

Five sheets had been tucked inside the paper.

The one on top was a wanted poster with the word WANTED printed boldly across it.

On the first page was a portrait of the article's subject—Tatiana—along with the bounty on her head.

With her radiant golden hair and brilliant smile, she looked less like the Pirate King and more like a noblewoman raised in luxury.

"Ten thousand gold coins?!"

Someone cried out.

The woman seated at the café terrace flinched.

She quickly raised the newspaper over her face, hiding behind it.

"For a first bounty, that's unbelievable."

"The Pirate King, they call her. Honestly, it wouldn't be strange if there were another zero on that amount."

"But she doesn't look like a pirate at all. She's far too pretty."

"Listen to yourself. Since when does a face matter? That monster wiped out an entire pirate crew with a single revolver shot."

While the people continued chatting, the woman quietly rose from her seat without lowering the newspaper.

A translucent sky-blue jellyfish floated gently from the table onto her shoulder.

Its long tentacles gathered her golden hair together, hiding itself beneath it.

Then—

"Tatiana!"

Someone shouted the Pirate King's name.

At the same moment, the thunderous sound of military boots shook the ground.

It was like the advance of an entire cavalry regiment.

Please... just keep walking.

The woman pressed the newspaper even closer to her face.

"Tatiana! Over here!"

Unfortunately, one of the four men currently being chased by the navy waved enthusiastically at her.

"That lunatic! I'm seriously going to kill him."

Cursing under her breath, the woman hurled the newspaper away and bolted.

Beneath the bright, cloudless sky, the chase between the Pirate King and the navy began.

* * *

The rocking of the waves churned my stomach.

"Ugh..."

Groaning, I snapped my eyes open with a terrible feeling in my gut.

Rows of thick iron bars filled my vision.

Heavy shackles weighed down my wrists.

Finding myself inside a prison cell wasn't surprising.

I'd expected this.

<Starlight Voyage>.

It was the novel I'd been reading in Korea before I died young.

After my death, a fallen angel stole my soul, and I ended up transmigrating into this story.

Today was the day after the Empress had abandoned her stepson—the Crown Prince—and all the nobles who supported him in the Black Sea, where no living creature was supposed to survive.

But we had survived.

While unconscious, we'd been captured by pirates and thrown into the brig aboard a pirate ship.

Crash!

A loud commotion echoed from the wooden deck above.

"Damn it!"

Without hesitating, I jumped to my feet and sprinted out of the cell.

The iron door stood wide open.

The Crown Prince was nowhere to be seen.

Just like in the original novel.

Which meant...

He'd already caused a disaster upstairs.

Panting, I raced up the stairs.

The dazzling sunlight struck my face head-on.

"Ngh."

Through my tightly squinted eyes, I saw a silver-haired man trying to throw a pirate overboard.

"No!"

That man was incredibly important.

He was the sailor who would keep a bunch of landlubbers like us from starving to death while drifting across the endless ocean.

Splash!

Ignoring my desperate cry, the Crown Prince threw the pirate into the sea without a moment's hesitation.

But I couldn't give up.

I hurried to the railing and looked down.

The only trace left behind was the widening ripple on the ocean's surface.

"Hey, pirate! I'll lower a ladder for you—Aaah!"

I leaned far over the railing and shouted toward the pirate who had just fallen overboard.

Suddenly, a rough hand grabbed my arm and yanked me back.

"Have you finally lost your mind?"

Now that my eyes had adjusted to the sunlight, I could clearly see the man's face.

Keith Elianus.

In the original reverse-harem novel, he was the trashy male lead who never realized his own feelings and only ended up hurting the heroine.

He was also the man who had broken off his engagement to me.

"If you don't actually want to drown, I'd advise stopping there, Princess."

"I have no intention of saving you."

Keith frowned deeply as he spoke before letting go of my arm as though he had touched something filthy.

His wrists were shackled as well, but the chain connecting them had already been snapped apart.

He had probably only pulled me back out of the bare minimum sense of decency.

The contempt in his crimson eyes made that perfectly clear.

"So you think starving to death is better than drowning?"

I fired back without thinking.

"...What?"

His eyebrow twitched at my mocking tone.

"What possessed you to slaughter every pirate in the middle of the ocean without any sort of plan? Ah—I knew you were good with a sword on land, but I didn't realize you'd learned how to navigate a ship too."

Only then did Keith hurriedly look around.

As expected, all that surrounded us was the endless blue sea and the clear sky.

Well...

There were a few seagulls crying overhead, probably hoping someone would toss them shrimp crackers.

"...I'll admit it was a mistake."

"But I had no choice."

"What kind of situation left you with no choice?"

"Does that matter now? Finding a way to survive comes first."

You're the one who started making excuses.

I wasn't happy with his answer, but I didn't bother pressing him further.

After all, I already had a backup plan.

"First, we need to get these off."

I raised my shackled hands.

Unlike Keith, who had broken his chains, I was still completely restrained.

"The key is probably in the captain's cabin or the navigation room. I'll check the second deck, so could you search the first?"

Keith stared at me strangely as I immediately took action.

Pretending not to notice, I climbed the stairs toward the stern on the second deck.

I headed straight into the navigation room and opened the cabinet tucked away in the left corner.

"It's really here."

I inserted the black key into the lock.

It turned effortlessly.

With a heavy clank, the shackles fell from my wrists.

Finally free, I walked over to the table in the center of the room.

Picking up the compass, I unfolded the old sea chart.

"It was supposed to be north..."

The other male leads besides Keith were somewhere out there.

I had transmigrated into this world six months ago.

Back then, the fallen angel had asked me for one favor.

In the original story, it took the protagonists two years to return to the Empire.

<Starlight Voyage> ended triumphantly with their glorious homecoming.

But reality after that ending held only the apocalypse.

The demons who killed us after we reached the Empire eventually betrayed the Empress, steadily expanded their power, and became the world's ultimate predators.

So the fallen angel asked me to shorten our voyage from two years to one.

Of course, I refused at first.

But that shameless bastard admitted he'd exhausted all his power and couldn't send me back to my original world.

"If the world ends, you'll die too, so help out a little."

That was his excuse.

The nerve of that guy.

In the end, I had no choice but to prepare for the most efficient voyage possible.

One part of that plan was today.

Instead of drifting aimlessly at sea, I would make sure Keith and the other protagonists reunited as quickly as possible.

"Found it."

The moment I finally located our destination on the chart—

"Princess!"

Keith burst into the navigation room.

He seized my arm, snatched the compass from my hand, and shoved me away from the chart.

"Ugh!"

My frail body slammed hard into the cabinet.

"What was that for?"

Perhaps he hadn't expected to push me so forcefully.

Keith hesitated for a brief moment.

Then, without even offering an apology, he glared at me.

"I should be asking you that."

"Have the Empress's orders reached you too?"

"Where exactly are you trying to take me? Start talking."

So he thought I'd been secretly plotting something with the map.

"Orders? Please."

The moment I scoffed, Keith stared at me as though he'd just witnessed an impossible act of insubordination.

"What...?"

"We have to reach land somehow, don't we?"

"I was just checking the sea chart."

"Hah. The Princess of House Frye? Looking at a map?"

He let out a disbelieving laugh.

Honestly, I understood his reaction.

The original Princess Frye was a spoiled tyrant who never lifted a finger unless it was to strike her maids.

The demon who had impersonated me during the eight years my father locked me away underground for supporting this very man had acted exactly like that.

"Then why don't you choose the destination yourself?"

Keith cautiously examined both the map and the compass without lowering his guard.

Not that he actually knew how to sail a ship.

If he's already acting like this, how am I supposed to deal with him from now on?

In the original novel, I'd spent years imprisoned until my mind completely broke.

I'd been incapable of doing anything.

Because of that, no one had ever suspected me the way Keith did now.

I expected him to notice that my personality had changed...

But not to this extent.

"...There's something wrong with this map."