“Yo, Dad. And that kid who ran away earlier.” Artur Bacca stood in the center of a chamber, flanked by a number of white marble pillars. Now that we were face-to-face again, his presence was intimidating.
“Ga ha ha! Hey, Dad…you know how my powers work. It’s already after dark. When the dawn arrives, all the people under the effect of my Melting Wave are going to be dead. And you’re here to kill me, driven by that cheap sense of justice you call a conscience. Am I wrong?” he taunted.
But Wolf was not affected by Bacca’s mind games. “It’s nothing as grandiose as that. I just feel responsible for raising an idiot son, and now I’m here to punish him.”
“Gah! I don’t actually care about the reason. I just want to kill you now so I have all the time I need to search for the hidden treasure. It’s very simple!” Bacca said, his unpleasant laughter filling the temple.
“I’ll say it one more time. There’s no treasure on this island,” Wolf muttered.
“Oh yeah? Only because you don’t actually know about the treasure. Captain Ladoga’s letter was real! He was a pirate with a considerable bounty on his head. That letter was his will and testament. He wouldn’t put lies in it!”
“Let me restate it. The treasure is already gone.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Bacca said, no longer mirthful.
“Listen, Bacca. Do you understand how I got into this temple?”
“What? You charged up from underneath using that weird submarine. I heard the smashing. Obviously I had to go and take a peek.”
“At full momentum, that sub can break through solid earth. To build a craft that sturdy, you need a lot of unusually hard metal.”
“What’s your point?”
“It took an unbelievable amount of that metal to build a ship that big.”
“I said, get to the point!”
“So here’s my question,” Wolf continued. “Even you should be smart enough to realize that such a metal is not easily come by. And I am not nobility, nor am I a rich man. I didn’t have any savings. So how do you think I got so much of that metal?”
“No—are you saying…”
“I think you’re getting the picture now, Bacca. Captain Ladoga’s treasure did exist! But that was decades ago…before I found it!”
“You!”
“That’s right. It was worth good money. I used it to rebuild the town you destroyed and had enough left over to build an almighty submarine. It left me a poor man once again, but it’s a fun way to spend your money, don’t ya think? Ga ha ha!”
Fury crackled through the chamber. Bacca said nothing more. His body was rippling with pure hatred. A few seconds later, after a nasty glare, he looked down and exhaled.
“Whoa. I see, I see. Well, that makes sense. It is finders keepers with treasure, after all. Well, goodness me,” Bacca nattered on. “Never would have guessed my dear old Dad would beat me to the punch. I knew I should have killed you when you declared you were leaving the crew,” he lamented. Despite his casual tone, the furiously negative energy he was emitting hadn’t diminished in the least. “Still, at least this makes things easy now.”
His gaze rested on me next. “But there’s no need to lament. I just need to dismantle that submarine and sell off the metal to get that money. It’s just a slightly different set of steps. That’s right…and the first step toward that goal is killing all of you!”
He reached behind his back and pulled out his two enormous maces.
“Beg and plead for your lives all you want…I’m going to pound you, crush you, and turn you into mincemeat!” Bacca roared.
“Here he comes, Law!” warned Wolf.
“I’m ready!” I replied, taking a fighting stance. The real battle was about to begin.
“Once I’ve made you my puppets, it’s all over! Melting Wave!”
A bright light shot out of Bacca’s eyes. But we didn’t jump out of the way. The beam struck us directly, but he had no control over us.
“What…?” he muttered.
“Fool!” Wolf called out to his son. “I’ve been ready for your Melting Wave this whole time! That won’t hurt us.”
“Ahhh. I don’t see how you did it, but I guess that means you’ve actually planned for this. But even without the Melting Wave, you don’t stand a chance against me! My maces will crush every bone in your bodies!”
He swung his weapons around and around. Wolf and I leapt and dodged, somehow avoiding the cudgels. This wasn’t at all like when we fought him in town—a single hit would probably shatter my entire body.
“Gahaa!”
A mace smashed into the floor just next to me. I didn’t miss my chance, and countered him with a kick.
“Liquidate!”
Bacca’s body immediately turned liquid. My attack only splashed through him, doing absolutely no damage.
“Ga ha ha ha! You never learn, kid! Shouldn’t you have realized by now that attacking can’t hurt me? When you try, you fail—and I crush your skull!”
Dammit. I can’t fight him like this, I thought. When our stamina ran out and we were no longer able to dodge his attacks, we’d be ruined. It was a completely uneven situation.
“This way, Law!” said Wolf, grabbing my arm and pulling me aside.
“What’s the plan, Junker? The way things are going, we’re stuck.”
“Yes, I know. And I didn’t come to this fight without a plan for that.”
“Mind telling me what that is?”
“You need to distance yourself from Bacca,” Wolf said. “It’s simple—I’m going to stay on the move and make him vulnerable. When you get the chance, you cut him with that sword.”
“What’s the point if my attacks don’t affect him?”
“Trust in me, the genius inventor! It won’t be a problem. A swing from that sword will get to him. All right…good luck.”
“H-hey, wait!” I called after him. Before I could stop him, Wolf had charged off at Bacca.
I looked down at the sword in my hand. It looked like a typical sword with a normal hilt and blade. It was absolutely straight, with no distinctive curve or shape. The only defining feature was that strange switch on the handle.
Why would it matter if I hit Bacca with this? I didn’t get it, but I had to trust Wolf. He said he would give me an opening. He said that if I attacked at the right moment, it would hit Bacca. So it was up to me to wait for the opening and trust in my friend’s words.
“Take this!” Bacca screamed. He slammed Wolf in the stomach with a mace. But Wolf didn’t go down. He took the heavy shot to his gut and glanced at me.
It’s now or never. While Bacca’s attention was focused on Wolf, I swung the sword as fast as I could.
“Press the switch on the handle, Law!” the old man roared.
My body simply reacted. Pressing the switch with my thumb, I slashed downward toward Bacca in an enormous arc. I felt no feedback. It was as if I’d merely run the blade through water.
“Aaaaaaahhhh!” Bacca was screaming at the top of his lungs. There was no better proof that he’d taken a bad hit. But how? I glanced down at the sword in my hands. The blade was emitting a shining light—and a crackling noise.
“What…is that…?” gasped Bacca, in his liquid state. He was definitely hurt. He leapt backward with great caution, trying to put distance between the two of us.