The merchant vessel of Garnet, Spirit named after Garnet favorite alcoholic drink, swayed to the left before tilting right allowing the cannoneers to fire with better accuracy.
Of the ten shots they fired before the Pirates got closer they only hit three, though it didn't seem the Pirate ship suffered any major damage.
Once the Pirate was close ready for boarding, Garnet had his men line up ten men holding flintlocks as they held aim waiting for the pirates to board.
The pirates ram their ship as the pirate waiting leapt, swung, onto the spirit but first few quickly went down as the flintlock went off.
The pirates seeing their crew mates didn't stop their charge, going out into the sea everyone is prepared for their death.
After all, the sea is unpredictable at times.
The sailors on the spirit who fired their flintlocks drew their sabers or cutlasses as they could engage the pirates in melee.
The pirate Captain quickly locked onto Garnet and made his way over.
His smile exposed the rotten teeth inside.
Carnes was engaged with a grunt, though he was fighting with a stone sword that he craft the first day.
Unfortunately every clash with the pirates' iron weapon visibly caused his stone sword to chip.
The pirate seeing Carnes sword being chipped and close to breaking swung relentlessly.
"Boy you shouldn't have gone out to sea. Now Die!!"
Through their weapon clashes although he knew he could turn intangible he still hasn't had much practice or confidence in letting an enemy swing into him after all he needs to be tangible to attack.
Clink
Clank
Clink
Pirate with an underhand swing broke Carnes' stone sword and switched his grip to deliver the final blow, an overhead swing.
But Carnes anticipated this as his left hand was in motion for an under hand swing as a stone pickaxe appeared swung straight into the pirate's jaw causing him to flinch and drop his sword.
The Pirate was wide-eyed as his screams muffled by a pickaxe point in his jaw and blood dripped down.
Carnes now with the pirate's sword, a cutlass, he quickly chopped the pirate's head off as he turned to stab another pirate engaged with a sailor in the back.
He then quickly materialized a stone axe and threw it at an approaching pirate who quickly deflected, and with no time had overhead swing by Carnes.
Though unfortunately a shovel materialized in Carnes left hand as it was swung down below causing the pirate to wince, "Bastard that's foul."
Carnes quickly cut him down, but was then pushed down by a pirate losing his sword in the process.
They grappled as he tried to push the pirate away from him, only managing to disarm the pirate from his sword.
But the pirate pulled a knife that Carnes couldn't stop.
Carnes felt his blood run cold as his hands gripping the pirate phased through and eventually his entire body passed through the pirate's body.
'Shit I did that on instinct.' Carnes kicked the pirate from the back.
Carnes gathering his bearings saw a sword, and quickly grabbed the sword, and got ready to engage again.
"Bastard, what the hell was that?"
Carnes sparing no words to the pirate swung the sword, the pirate knowing he couldn't stab Carnes quickly despaired.
The pirate was fierce, but the fear of the unknown caused him to slip as was cut down.
Carnes paused to catch his breath examining the battlefield.
The Sailors were winning, in fact just as he turned, at the flying bridge at the helms, Garnet emerged displaying the pirates captain head,
"Your captain is dead, lay down your swords or prepare to meet Davy Jones."
The majority of the fighting stopped as the pirates laid down their swords when they saw their Captain defeated.
While the few that resisted were quickly cut down by the remaining sailors.
Although the majority of the sailors were bruised, bleeding, wounded they continued what needed to be done, tying up the pirates, checking for hidden weapons and stuffing them into a room in the quarters.
Carnes recovered his stone pickaxe and his stone axe before helping to throw the dead pirates overboard and into the sea.
The dead sailors were gathered along the side of the deck.
The abled sailors quickly pilfered through the pirate's ship whatever was found by the sailor was kept by them.
While those wounded tended to their wounds before making their way over.
All the food and booze was transferred over allowing the sailors a brief respite from the never ending gruel they had to eat.
Materials were transferred over particularly cloth used to patch sails, wood, and nails.
Carnes in particular headed into the captain quarter along with other sailors who hoped to find the captain stash.
Carnes pretended to search with them until he was the last one in the Captain's quarters.
Once he was alone Carnes pulled out his glasses and hid wood, as he quickly looked around, finding a stash under a plank right behind the Captain drawer in the back.
Carnes quickly broke it with an axe, and grabbed the bags of jewelry and berries and quickly stuffed it into his inventory.
At the bottom of the stash was a map.
'Oh shit a treasure map.' Carnes was excited as he stuffed it into his inventory before cleaning up.
Taking a quick glance at the rest of the ship he didn't see anything in particular so he quickly took off his glasses and put them away before heading out.
Once out he gathered with the rest of the crew as they paid solemn respects to the fallen sailors.
The dead sailors were thrown off the ship as they didn't have the capacity to carry the dead though a bottle of wine was also thrown overboard.
'One last drink,' they told him.
Though the sailors were wrapped in their hammock before being thrown overboard, when asking John who was tending to a cut across his forearm, why? He replied, "It's a custom no one knows why we do it or who started."
"Though if I had to say it's a way to honor the dead."
Carnes was solemn as he stared off in the horizon where a flaming ship was burning as it quietly sank to the bottom of the sea.
"Say Carnes, I think you're handling this pretty well," replied Captain Garnet.
Carnes was solemn, 'well I did just kill someone but it was pirate kill or be killed.'
"I'm fine." replied Carnes
Garnet laughed, "You're taking it better than I did, the first guy I killed I was throwing up and bawling my eyes out."
"But I'm just here to make sure you're fine."
"Aye."
"Alright then I'll leave you for now."
Time passed as the crew in the kitchen made a feast with the pirates' food.
Carnes in particular was still solemnly staring out in the distance, when a whiff of fragrance passed his nose, making his stomach grumble.
"Hungry aren't you?"
Carnes turned to the voice, "John what are you doing here?"
"Come on, I simply brought a plate to the youngest of the crew, nothing wrong with that."
Carnes grabbed the plate handed to him, it had dried that was boiled in some sauce that was probably taken from the pirates, a variety of vegetables, and sausages.
Taking a bite, an exploding sensation happened in his mouth, "Damn this is the best food I've had since…."
"Since what?" question John as he stuffed his mouth with food.
"Nothing?" replied Carnes
"Say that reminds me of earlier when I was with guys they said they saw passed through a guy as if you were a ghost."
"You believe them?"
"Carnes you don't have an injury, aside from the Captain everyone else is injured,"
"I trained." Carnes muttered.
John pressured, "You don't expect me to believe that do you?"
Carnes went silent thinking how much to explain or what to say, he was silent long enough to make John feel awkward.
"Remember I asked about the grandline?"
"Yeah I remember I don't know much about it though."
"I'm from there. I passed through the calm belt escaping someone."
"You passed through the sea with no wind? I heard it like that due to the sea kings that lived there."
"I was lucky no sea king chased me."
"But that doesn't explain anything though."
"In the Grandline there exists this fruit called a devil fruit, it grants power that you could never imagine, but in exchange you can never swim."
"Ah the special fruit?"
Carnes sighed, "Yes the special fruit."
"So it granted you the power of ghosts?"
"Not really I can phase through walls and such, but that's about it." 'He doesn't need to know the full details.
Seeing Carnes refusing to say much more John started to tell Carnes about his first kill, about his adventures in the sea, how the captain had picked him up from a village.
--------------------------
At midnight amidst the passed out sailors on the deck, Carnes was learning against the rail along the forecastle.
He was staring at the treasure map he found and he couldn't make sense of it.
"Now how am I supposed to find this treasure?"
But in a flash of inspiration Carnes looked back to the main deck, seeing the captain passed out alongside the crew.
He quickly distorted himself to the front of the Captains before carefully phasing himself through the door.
One inside he grabbed a couple of blank papers from the Captain's desk.
He then pulled out the crafting table and crafted a cartography block and placed it down.
He placed his cheat map and once he placed the treasure map besides the cheat map, they merged.
Taking hold of the cheat map he zoomed out.
There a partial bit of land was shown off the course of the path they took. Possibly North West, though if the long treks of water counted for anything the island was a week's journey away.
But it didn't matter not when a hit of the finger and waypoint could be placed.
Though zooming into the island, the place wasn't very detailed, there wasn't even an X marks the spot the original treasure map had.
Though it didn't matter, just follow what was already discovered while wearing the X-ray glasses and he would eventually find the treasure.
Carnes grinned as another thought flooded his mind,
'Adventure?'
'Traveling?'
'What does that matter when I can just speed run mapping the entire world?'
Though Carnes knew he would have to wait for the next Island before he could randomly disappear to find this treasure.
At least to prevent anyone from being suspicious about it.