Kabe answered without words. He simply drove his foot down and kicked Bart straight into dreamland.
Beside him, Aquarius did not even lift an eyelid at the sight. She only frowned in irritation, vexed that the enemy had actually come targeting her.
Just then, there was movement on the distant merchant ship. A small lifeboat was lowered into the water.
Mira, together with Karen and Leo, escorted a deathly pale Babitt toward the shore.
Once the boat scraped up against the sand, Babitt was dragged stumbling onto the beach, his legs barely holding him up.
Leo followed a step behind, supporting the completely drenched and bedraggled Karen, who looked like a soaked chick.
He cast a complicated glance at Aquarius, then gave a brief nod in greeting.
"Aquarius."
"Leo."
Two Celestial Spirits of the Zodiac, meeting like this, had no inclination for small talk.
After exchanging that simple greeting, both of them promptly shifted their gazes away.
...
At that moment, with no warning at all, Babitt suddenly lunged forward. He took two quick steps, then dropped to his knees in front of Aquarius with a loud thud, bursting into tears.
"Miss Aquarius, please believe me, I truly, truly love you! Everything I have done was for the sake of winning you. Can you understand my feelings?!"
"Tch, those two idiots did it for profit, and you are the one doing it purely for lust!"
Pure-love warrior Kabe could not stop himself from shouting the correction.
Aquarius's expression darkened until it was almost as black as the bottom of a pot. She summoned a long whip formed from flowing water and lashed it down on Babitt without hesitation.
Everyone silently turned their heads away, collectively ignoring the agonized screams ringing right beside them.
Mira sneaked over and poked Kabe hard in the waist, asking in a low, curious voice,
"Hey, is there really such a thing as love between humans and Celestial Spirits?"
"This..." Kabe honestly had no idea how to answer that.
So, in perfect unspoken agreement, the two of them turned to look at the only other Celestial Spirit present, Leo.
Leo: "...As far as I know, there has not yet been a single case of a human and a Celestial Spirit getting together."
"Oh, that actually sounds pretty interesting. I wonder if I will have the honor of becoming the first Celestial Spirit Knight."
Kabe stroked his chin and let out a shameless little chuckle.
Mira's cheeks puffed up in anger. She elbowed him fiercely in the stomach and warned through gritted teeth,
"I still haven't forgotten that stunt where you tossed me down from the sky before. If you dare keep thinking about that kind of nonsense, I will kill you first."
...
Rubbing his abdomen, Kabe wisely shut his mouth, not wanting to provoke Mira's temper any further at a time like this.
Leo, seeing that the situation on the beach was now completely under control, turned and said his farewells to Karen.
"Since there are no enemies left, I will be heading back now."
"W–wait, wait a minute."
Karen opened her mouth to try to stop him, but Leo had already finished speaking. His body dissolved into countless points of starlight and vanished.
Seeing this, she could not help cursing aloud.
"You bastard, at least dry my clothes with your Light Magic before you go!
Achoo, achoo!"
Watching Karen, who had only been in the water for a short while and was already shivering and sneezing, Kabe and Mira looked at her with identical expressions of disdain.
"I mean, you do have some brains, but not much. Your strength is strictly average and relies entirely on your Celestial Spirits, your endurance is laughably weak, and your physical fitness is so bad it is a miracle you are still alive.
The only thing barely acceptable about you is that, when it really matters, you at least know where to stand on the big issues. That makes you just about passable."
After being roasted by Kabe from head to toe, Karen was so furious her chest heaved violently.
But no matter what, Kabe was still her savior.
So she could only grit her teeth and swallow her anger, bowing her head and enduring the evaluation in silence.
...
At that moment, the sound of hurried footsteps suddenly echoed from the distance.
Accompanying them was a young girl's anxious shout.
"Aquarius! I brought people to save you, are you alright?!"
"Lucy?!"
Aquarius's movements froze. She raised her head in astonishment and stopped what she was doing.
She saw Lucy, eyes red and swollen, running toward her while a group of bodyguards and security men in suits struggled to keep up behind her.
Aquarius's heart first warmed at the sight, then immediately hardened into exasperated frustration.
When she opened her mouth, what came out was a sharp scolding.
"You stupid girl, is your brain broken? If you ran away, that would mean I ran away too! Why would you come back here just to throw your life away?!"
Before she could even finish yelling, Lucy's small body crashed into her like a fledgling bird returning to the nest, throwing herself into Aquarius's arms.
All the words Aquarius had not yet said were instantly blocked in her throat.
"Uu, uu... Aquarius, I am so glad you are alright..."
"You...!" Aquarius was furious, but looking at Lucy's little face flushed bright red with anxiety and streaked with tears, she simply could not bring herself to say anything harsher.
Her hand somewhat awkwardly began to pat Lucy's head, while her tone remained as impatient as ever.
"Alright, alright, if you keep crying I am going to hit you."
As she spoke, she lifted her head and yelled at the bodyguards who had half formed a circle around Kabe and the others.
"And you lot are idiots as well. Lucy told you to bring her here, so you really brought her? What exactly do you plan to do to the benefactors who saved your young lady's life?
Hurry up and get out of the way!"
Because Aquarius held a somewhat special status in the Heartfilia household, her scolding carried considerable weight.
The bodyguards all looked at each other, then bowed deeply toward Kabe and the others with apologetic faces. After that, they stepped forward, intending to drag away the unconscious Babitt and his two accomplices.
Seeing this, Kabe hurriedly spoke up.
"Hey, hey, you can take that perverted noble if you want, but those two brothers are my spoils of war. The Magic Council will pay a bounty of two hundred thousand J for them."
The bodyguards all froze mid-motion.
Unsure of what to do, they reflexively turned their gazes toward Aquarius and the Lucy in her arms.
Under Aquarius's "comfort," Lucy had already stopped sobbing.
When she learned that the boy in front of her, who looked about her own age, was the benefactor who had defeated those villains, she quickly wiped her tears dry and bowed deeply to them in gratitude.
"Thank you for saving me and Aquarius.
Please, dear benefactors, leave your names and addresses. Once I return home, I will ask my father to give you five times the original reward as thanks."
"Fi-five times?!" echoed twice
Mira and Karen shrieked in unison. Five times one million was a fivemillion.
That was more than most S-class jobs paid. For Mira, who was this young and on her very first mission, it was a staggering number.
Even Karen, who had been working for years, had never once received such a huge sum.
Kabe was just as stunned by Lucy's generosity.
He suddenly realized that the girl in front of him was exactly the kind of ultra-rich lady a Saiyan would dream about.
Just imagining that he might one day live a life where he did not have to work yet still had more than enough money, made his tail, wrapped around his waist, unconsciously loosen and start happily swaying from side to side behind him.