Chapter 100
Chapter 100. The Moonless Sea (2)
Lucian turned his head.
“Brodin, are you alright?”
“Yeruld is staying close behind the ship. He’s tense because of the ominous magic rising from the sea.”
Yeruld, the sperm whale, was moving tightly along the stern of the Bloody Siren.
Clearly on edge, Brodin rested his hand on the sword at his waist.
Yul walked to the very front of the deck, propped a foot up, and looked down below.
-The surface should be fine, probably.
-If you know the location of the Mother Nest, wouldn’t the Mother Nest know your location as well?
-That’s a fair thought. But even if it does, it likely won’t care much. A parasite like me is no more than vermin among the Sea Horrors.
-So we’re safe for now.
-But if we linger too long, they’ll start watching from their side.
Yul returned and spoke to Carmen.
“I think we should stop around here and have everyone make preparations.”
The moment she heard that, Carmen turned the helm sideways and brought the ship to a complete stop.
Frenda had already begun preparing. She took out her equipment and lowered it over the bow.
It was a device that hung a weight from a long chain, sending sound waves downward and outputting the returning echoes.
Meanwhile, Lucian assembled the upper half of his runeframe in his cabin and came out wearing it.
Carmen leaned against the helm, swaying lazily, and asked Yul,
“Wow. What’s with that armor on your friend? Looks cool. Not just ordinary armor, right, Yul?”
“Magic armor… well, you can think of it that way.”
Once ready, Frenda reached out and pressed a button to activate the acoustic device.
The elongated ultrasonic waves struck something deep within and returned.
“I’ll check.”
Countless streams of numerical data appeared on the output device. Since it was a personal creation and not standardized, even Yul couldn’t interpret it at a glance.
After a brief period of analysis, Frenda manifested the location using illusion magic.
With a blank expression, she spoke. The illusion she produced was pitch black.
“It’s too deep. I can’t see anything.”
“How deep can it theoretically reach?”
“I thought it could manage one thousand meters in theory… I’ll try generating sound waves in a different frequency band.”
She pulled out a new magic stone and began modifying the rune formula on the spot. It didn’t look like something that would be finished quickly.
“Yeruld will scout below. My Communion level increased, so I can now share part of my senses with Yeruld.”
When Brodin stepped forward confidently, Lucian responded,
“Alright. Don’t overdo it. Yul, what about us?”
“We’ll wait around the ship for now. Once Yeruld finishes scouting, we’ll move.”
Yeruld began swimming down into the depths. Brodin closed his eyes, synchronizing his senses with Yeruld.
Yul confirmed that the darkened region of this sea was quite vast.
And he felt as though even the ‘sea’ within it had slipped beyond his dominion.
‘There’s a high chance it won’t respond to the Sea-Sync Demon Eye.’
The magic contained in the seawater was alien. It was something Yul had never encountered before. It was not the magic of the Great Azure Ocean, nor the Archipelago Ocean, nor even the Outer Ocean.
It felt as if the environment itself were an enemy. As if it were not the sea at all.
Carmen shuddered.
“This is the first time I’ve felt such an ominous sea. It gives me goosebumps.”
“Does it feel that bad?”
“Of course. The wind is blowing, yet you can’t see a thing beneath the sea. If I’d known I was coming somewhere like this, I wouldn’t have taken the advance payment. I’m telling you now, if there’s any risk of the ship capsizing, I’m running. I won’t care what happens to you all.”
“Do that.”
“Really?”
“Your life is what's important, not someone else's, right?”
At Yul’s words, Carmen’s eyes widened slightly.
“By any chance, do you have no interest in being with a human woman?”
“What? Enough chatter. Yeruld is coming up.”
And there were one or two other magical presences trailing beneath him.
“Something is pursuing him from below.”
The sperm whale released a long cry as it ascended rapidly. Brodin, who had been synchronizing senses, opened his eyes.
“A Sea Horror is following from below! I can’t shake it off!”
“Lead it toward the ship.”
“Prepare for combat!”
At the words that something was rising from beneath the sea, everyone raised their guns.
Lucian lifted his runeframe gauntlet. He opened the magic circuit within, ready to fire a ‘round’ at any moment.
Yul confirmed the creature pursuing Yeruld.
On both shoulders were massive scythe-like organs. In front of its large, round head was a transparent eyeball, and its body undulated as it swam, tracking Yeruld.
-What is that?
-Ah, that’s an ‘Executor.’ A medium-sized Sea Horror that roams nearby. It seems to have been observing this ship for a while.
-How much deeper from here is the Mother Nest?
-It should be in the Deep Sea. Shall I guide you there?
-Wait.
Yeruld shot up high near the ship. One of the monsters tailing him raised its scythe to strike.
“Fire!!”
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
The sailors’ pistols roared.
The Executor, shredded by gunfire, fell back into the sea.
Then, from the opposite direction, another Executor suddenly surged upward, hooking its scythe onto the ship’s railing as it climbed aboard.
At the grotesque sight, one of the sailors screamed.
“Aaagh?! It came from behind!”
Carmen raised her pistol.
“Make it regret boarding the Bloody Siren for close combat!”
The moment the Executor hauled its body onto the deck, it was met with a second volley of gunfire.
“Blow it away.”
One of the sailors holding a blunderbuss fired straight into the Executor’s torso.
With a thunderous boom, a spray of shot tore through its body. The Executor staggered briefly, then collapsed.
“Did we get it?”
But the Executor, which had seemed motionless, sprang back up at tremendous speed, like the erratic twitching of small animals.
As it raised its massive body, they saw it stood nearly four meters tall. On both sides of its back were scythe-like organs mounted forward, and from its squid-like, slack skin flowed blue blood.
“It’s still moving after that?”
In an instant, it twisted its body and charged. It began tracing a zigzag path, evading their lines of fire.
A nearby sailor fell backward in shock. Another barely managed to block the sweeping scythe with his cutlass.
The sailors beside him slashed and stabbed at the Executor, but it endured with brutal toughness before shoving them aside with sheer force.
“Multiple rapid fire.”
Before it could launch its next attack, magic bullets shot from Lucian’s outstretched arm and pierced the Executor.
Drrrrrrrrrrr.
They fired so quickly that the sounds overlapped. The moment magic rounds formed along the surface of the gauntlet, they were discharged, and in an instant, dozens of shots embedded themselves into the Executor’s massive eyeball.
It was the basic offensive function of the runeframe-multi-shot magic rounds.
The Executor’s body was reduced to shreds, blue blood erupting from every part of it.
Carmen clicked her tongue as she looked at the fallen creature.
“Even while its entire body is being crushed by the Bloody Siren’s Blood Domain, it can still move like that?”
The Bloody Siren possessed an ability that exerted intense pressure upon intruders who stepped aboard, restraining their bodies.
Even so, the Executor had moved like a massive beast.
Yul thought differently as he looked at Carmen.
‘No. Rather, it’s thanks to the Blood Domain that we blocked it without casualties.’
The difference in physical ability was so vast that the crew could have been slaughtered the moment it boarded. Yet they had held off its attacks. Though some had suffered bruises, no one had died.
“It looks like the second Executor is retreating.”
The one that had first taken the barrage while pursuing Yeruld, upon seeing its companion instantly killed on deck, was already diving back beneath the surface.
“I’ll pursue it. Lucian, prepare some clothes for me later.”
“Got it!”
After confirming the ship’s ability could provide a certain degree of defense, Yul decided not to remain guarding it and instead descended.
He entrusted his body to the black sea and reverted to his original form with Polymorph.
If even a single Seaborn had been scouted and immediately pursued, then there was certainly something more below.
Returning to his true body as one of the Deep King Tribe, Yul emitted ultrasonic waves to survey the surroundings.
‘It’s true. Nothing’s being detected.’
The ultrasonic waves spread outward and then simply faded away. The absence of echo-location meant it was extraordinarily vast and deep.
He descended into the profound darkness.
A human would feel primal fear upon facing such darkness, as they are creatures that depend on light.
But for sea creatures, it was different. They relied more on hearing than sight, and did not fear the dark.
Yul’s current body belonged to the Deep King Tribe. The very mechanism by which he experienced fear differed greatly from that of a human.
‘When using Polymorph, I could clearly feel this difference.’
When he had leapt into the sea in human form, he had felt a faint fear. Now, it was the complete opposite, an enveloping sense of comfort.
-Um, Lord Yul.
-What?
-May I ask for permission to inquire whether it would be possible for you to consider allowing me to be taken out of the glass bottle?
-……What? Fine, I’ll let you out.
You startled me with that layered question.
Released outside, Puyo flapped about and began swimming.
-F-finally, into the world outside…!
-Guide me. Let’s go.
-Understood.
For now, Puyo was cooperating smoothly. But it was certain that the moment Yul diverted his attention, it would attempt to flee.
So Yul kept a close watch on Puyo as he moved.
The deeper they went, the better Yul’s condition became.
-Sea Horrors aren’t affected by water pressure? We’ve come down quite far.
-They differ from ordinary sea creatures. Ah! Over there. Do you see that enormous Lupinus Coral? If you follow that down, you’ll reach it.
At a depth exceeding 1,200 meters, they found their clue.
It was a vast colony of deep-sea coral emitting a faint violet glow, shaped like blossoming peaks rising upward.
Yul had learned various pieces of information from Puyo.
The Mother Nest was a being that had risen from the Deep Sea, and a single Mother Nest formed a massive Sea Horror colony.
Somewhere within it, it created a hidden refuge, based upon a naturally formed gigantic organism.
The moment he began descending along the Lupinus Coral, Yul distinctly sensed a presence.
Below this point, there was some lifeform with an overwhelming presence.
-M-might I be permitted to leave here? It seems I’ve guided you as requested.
He still hadn’t resolved his suspicions. He couldn’t simply let it go. The moment Yul’s gaze sharpened, Puyo shrank back.
-Th-then I’ll remain pressed against the coral up above.
Yul continued downward alone. Since evolving into one of the Deep King Tribe, this was his first descent into the Deep Sea.