“I don’t have even a single coin to spare on those guys.”

“…”

Was he mad because of the money, rather than faith? Eugene ignored the confused expressions of the nobles and asked Essandra’s messenger, “Who are the pirates keeping the high priest captive?”

“They are known as Dragonborn,” the messenger answered.

“Dragonborn?” Eugene asked.

“Yes. They are pirates mainly operating around the Cape of Pilo, but the currents on their home island are very fast and complicated, so it hasn’t been easy to track and wipe them out,” the messenger answered.

“How many of them are there?” Eugene asked.

“We don’t know for sure, but we know they usually use five or six medium-sized galley ships in their pirating activities. There has to be more than a hundred of them,” the messenger replied. Since the members of the pirates would take turns pirating, their actual number would be about two times greater—it was a considerable group of pirates. However, it seemed to Eugene that the southern lords of the peninsula could have eradicated them if they so desired.

As such, he asked, “Why did Lord Achivold leave them alone? And there are other cities and territories in the south as well, right?”

The messenger was also a noble, so he stuttered in...