"Found it!"
Looking at the massive, sunken pirate ship resting on the seabed like a sleeping leviathan, Hunter suppressed a surge of excitement.
He quickly swam back to the surface.
Using his compass and the yacht's instruments, he verified his coordinates and dropped a marker buoy. Then, he took a few minutes to swap out his oxygen tank for a fresh one from his [Inventory].
Fully resupplied, Hunter dove back down into the depths.
As he approached the Zephyr, he noted its size. The ship was massive for its era, likely a galleon displacing over a thousand tons. Obviously, his Inventory—despite its size—couldn't swallow a thousand-ton wooden ship whole without breaking it apart.
He would have to do this the old-fashioned way: extract the most valuable loot manually.
But that was fine. That was what the Inventory was built for.
Swimming closer, Hunter spotted a massive structural breach in the hull, likely caused by cannon fire or the reef that sank it. It was the perfect entrance.
He swam toward the dark gap.
Suddenly, his danger sense spiked.
Hunter instinctively raised his dive light, shining the beam directly into the breach.
A massive set of razor-sharp teeth materialized out of the gloom.
It was a fully grown tiger shark. Startled by the light, or perhaps just territorial, the apex predator surged out of the dark hold, its powerful tail propelling it straight toward Hunter.
"Well, well," Hunter murmured behind his regulator. "I thought I got lucky not running into you at the drug plane."
"I was going to let you live..."
"But since you came looking for me..."
Hunter didn't panic. He bent his knees slightly, stabilizing his posture in the water column.
With his free hand, he raised the custom-built speargun he had commissioned in Nassau. He aimed the heavy, reinforced alloy spear directly at the shark's eye and pulled the trigger.
Thwack!
The speargun bucked with tremendous force. The custom spear—twenty centimeters longer and significantly thicker than a standard shaft—sliced through the water.
Guided by his [Shooting: Level Max] passive, the spear's trajectory was absolute perfection.
It slammed directly into the shark's right eye, punched through the orbital socket, and buried itself deep into the creature's brain.
Instantly, the shark went berserk.
Blinded and dying, it thrashed violently, churning the water into a chaotic vortex of bubbles and sand. It snapped its jaws, blindly trying to bite the source of the light that had killed it.
But the brain damage was fatal.
Within seconds, the frenzied thrashing devolved into uncontrollable spasms. Then, it went still, drifting lifelessly in the current.
Hunter didn't swim closer to check on it.
He knew what came next.
Blood was already billowing from the shark's ruined eye, a dark, spreading cloud in the water.
Hunter backed away slowly, maintaining a safe distance. From his Inventory, he pulled out another custom alloy spear and loaded it into the speargun.
He had paid a premium for the Nassau gunsmith to rush-order this weapon and the specialized ammunition, anticipating this exact scenario.
His caution proved justified.
Within minutes, the heavy scent of blood drew company.
Several dark shapes materialized from the surrounding gloom—more sharks, drawn by the dinner bell.
However, they ignored Hunter. Their primitive brains were entirely focused on the massive, bleeding carcass of their fallen kin. They swarmed the dead tiger shark, tearing into the flesh with savage frenzy.
Hunter watched the feeding frenzy with cold calculation.
He raised the speargun.
Thwack!
Another spear shot out, impaling one of the feeding sharks through the gills.
The newly injured shark thrashed wildly, its blood adding to the chum line. The frenzy intensified, with the uninjured sharks turning on the wounded one in the chaotic bloodlust.
Hunter hovered calmly on the periphery, reloading.
Thwack.
Thwack.
He repeated the process methodically. Every time he loaded a spear, he eliminated another predator.
By the time he was done, the water was thick with blood, and six dead or dying sharks lay scattered across the seabed.
Hunter waited another ten minutes, holding his position. When no new fins appeared from the darkness, he finally swam toward the breach in the hull.
The Zephyr had been submerged for over a century. The seawater and wood-boring worms had severely degraded the timber.
As Hunter squeezed through the gap, he grabbed a piece of the frame for leverage. It snapped off in his hand like rotten cork.
"Have to be careful," he thought, adjusting his buoyancy.
He navigated deep into the ship's cargo hold.
His dive light swept over rows of stacked wooden barrels and heavy iron-bound chests.
Several of the barrels had decayed and burst open near the bottom.
Hunter swam closer and shone his light on the spillage.
A pile of heavy, glittering sand had spilled onto the floorboards.
Hunter scooped up a handful. The weight confirmed it instantly.
"Gold dust!"
Grinning, he opened his [Inventory] and swept the loose gold dust, along with the broken barrel, into the dimensional space.
He moved to the next barrel. It was intact, but when he tried to lift it, the sheer density told him it wasn't filled with rum or fresh water. It was incredibly heavy, even underwater.
He didn't bother opening it. He simply touched it and willed it into his Inventory.
He moved methodically through the hold, packing away dozens of heavy barrels until the space was clear.
Behind the barrels sat rows of wooden chests.
The wood was waterlogged, and the iron locks were rusted solid.
But rust was brittle.
Hunter pulled his trusty crowbar from his Inventory. Leveraging his superhuman strength—more than four times that of an average man—he jammed the iron bar under the hasp of the first chest and wrenched it upward.
Snap.
The lock broke. Hunter flipped the lid open.
The chest was packed to the brim with tarnished silver and gold coins.
Hunter picked one up and rubbed the oxidation off with his thumb.
He paused, a frown wrinkling his forehead beneath his mask.
"Wait... Double Eagle... 1865..."
He stared at the heavy gold coin.
"This is an American Double Eagle from the Civil War era."
Hunter blinked. "Hold on. I thought the Zephyr was a French pirate ship from the Golden Age of Piracy?"
During his previous raid on DEA agent Stansfield's vault, Hunter had looted millions in black money, which included rare coins. The process of evaluating that loot had actually triggered the [Antique Appraisal] and [Antique Restoration] skills within his system.
Because of those skills, he recognized the 1865 Double Eagle instantly.
Hunter floated there for a moment, piecing it together.
Ah.
The movie lore was slightly skewed. The Zephyr wasn't a 1700s pirate ship. It was a Civil War-era vessel, likely a blockade runner or a privateer, carrying a massive payload of minted gold and silver.
He shook off the confusion. The historical pedantry didn't matter. Gold was gold.
Hunter didn't waste time inspecting the rest. He touched chest after chest, sending them all into his Inventory.
Once the main cargo hold was stripped bare, he moved to the upper decks.
His systematic search yielded a massive haul.
He found over a hundred more small chests and lockboxes. He found racks of antique weaponry—flintlock pistols, muzzle-loading rifles, and heavy revolvers—which, while rusted, were valuable historical artifacts. He even stored a few of the smaller bronze cannons.
Finally, he reached the captain's quarters at the stern.
Lying side-by-side on the rotting remains of a bed were two skeletal figures.
Scattered around them, resting in the silt of their decayed clothing, were dozens of exquisitely crafted gold ornaments, jewel-encrusted rings, and heavy gold chains.
Hunter collected the jewelry with clinical efficiency.
After one final sweep to ensure he hadn't missed anything of value, Hunter checked his system.
His [Inventory]—which boasted over 200 cubic meters of space—was now over 90% full.
Aside from the skeletons and the rotting wood, the Zephyr was completely empty.
Satisfied, Hunter kicked his fins and began his ascent.
He breached the surface, swimming back to his yacht with a fortune worth hundreds of millions of dollars secured safely in his pocket dimension.
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