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Chapter 1
'I don't want to work...'
The B-Rank Hunter, Yoo Parang, lay in the water and thought.
Her deep blue hair, resembling the water itself, drifted freely.
Front, back, left, right, up, or down—wherever she looked, there was only water.
Rays of light descended from the surface, casting themselves like thick pillars around her.
In this endless expanse of blue void, she was the only one that existed.
Gurgle-
Only the air bubbles escaping her lips added sound to this desolate space.
And then, silence once more. A space devoid of sound and movement.
'I don't want to work...'
Parang lay there staring up at the surface without so much as a twitch.
Below her, the water grew darker as the light faded, shifting from deep blue to ultramarine, then indigo, and finally an abyss of black.
Now, she had to descend into that abyss.
'I don't want to work...'
After all, that was her job.
She could swim down and dive herself, but that was far too much of a hassle.
Closing her eyes, she lay perfectly still like a corpse, waiting for her body to sink on its own.
To be blunt, she was slacking off.
Given the nature of her work environment, no one was watching, and more importantly, she was a freelancer.
Since it wasn't a commissioned request but more of a side gig, it was only natural for Parang to drag her feet to the absolute limit.
Besides, Parang quite liked floating quietly in the cozy water. Lying here with her eyes closed in this form-fitting Diving Suit, the subtle ripples of the water wrapped around her entire body.
It was a custom-made Diving Suit, specially commissioned from Cylo Corporation.
Thanks to her physical traits, it felt more like a multi-functional Bodysuit than a Diving Suit, but hey, if she wore it to dive, it was a Diving Suit. Parang decided not to overthink it.
Anyway, drifting off into thought or falling asleep while diving like this was Parang's little hobby.
Gurgle-
How much time had passed? She felt a vibration from the dashboard on her left arm.
Whir-
When she opened her eyes and looked around, her surroundings were noticeably darker than before.
If earlier had felt like somewhere between sky blue and cobalt, now it was entirely ultramarine in every direction.
There was nothing to touch, nothing to see. No matter which way she turned her head, all she saw was the ultramarine void. The only way she could barely tell which way was up was by the air bubbles escaping her lips.
2024.6.11. 17:23
[Current Depth: 302m] 🔥
Next to the dashboard displaying the current depth and time, a flame-shaped icon glowed red, indicating that the heating function had been activated.
She had sunk a full 250m just by lying still. Since 300m meant she had descended 50m past the start of the thermocline, she had overslept.
She originally should have opened her eyes at the 250m mark.
Parang closed her eyes and opened her mouth wide as if to yawn, rubbing her eyes with her hand.
Thanks to the heating function, the area around her eyes where her hand touched felt warm.
Stretching leisurely as if she had made up her mind, Parang suddenly began swimming rapidly downward.
Having slacked off to the limit, she was starting to get bored and finally decided it was time to work.
Down she went, further and further down.
2024.6.11 17:24
[Current Depth: 701m]🔥
In less than a minute, Parang had dived a depth of 400m.
An ordinary person would have been instantly crushed to a gruesome death by the water pressure, but naturally, that didn't apply to her.
After all, she had just woken up refreshed after sleeping in the ocean for about four hours. It was pointless to expect common sense when it came to water pressure.
Anyway, a depth of 700m.
By the classification standards of the Hunter Society, this was the 'Monster Fish Zone', the area where so-called deep-sea monsters began to appear.
This was precisely Parang's workplace.
Click- Click-
When Parang pressed a few buttons on the Cartridge located on her right arm,
Clack-
a chip about the size of her palm popped out with a sound.
Crunch- Crunch-
As soon as it popped out, the red chip was mercilessly crushed by the water pressure.
When Parang grabbed it and completely crumpled it in her hand,
■■■■■■-!
A heavy, dull sound, much like a ship's horn, began to echo through the dark depths of the sea.
"..."
Listening to that sound, Parang scanned her surroundings with sharp eyes.
Her earlier lethargic expression was nowhere to be found; her chillingly cold face was undeniably that of a Hunter, a predator.
■■■■■■■-!
About five minutes later, something caught Parang's eye in the uniformly ultramarine void.
It was coming from below. A faint yet unmistakable bright blue light.
Flickering faintly, it was steadily growing larger.
Simply put, something emitting a blue glow was charging at Parang from the bottom of the sea at a terrifying speed.
Looking closely, Parang noticed two more small blue lights flanking the initial large one.
――――!
As it approached right beneath her, revealing that the large light was a mouth and the smaller ones were eyes, Parang swam to the side at twice the speed of her dive.
Her movements were so incredibly fast that it was hard to believe she was underwater, looking more like a Flight Type Hunter performing acrobatics in the sky.
And right after Parang swam out of the monster's trajectory.
――――!
Like a train passing right before her eyes, something swept through the spot where Parang had just been in a flash.
The scanner on her diving suit clocked it at 60 km/h. Since the top speed of Subway Line 1 is 110 km/h, it wasn't quite a train, though.
And 60 km/h was actually on the slower side, even by underwater standards.
And that underwater standard naturally included Parang.
Swoosh-
For a moment, Parang's blue eyes flashed, and then her figure vanished.
And not even ten seconds later.
Without changing her expression, Parang instantly caught up to it, soon swimming side-by-side at the exact same speed.
She had essentially caught up to a subway by swimming.
Then, like a beast sizing up its prey, she carefully inspected the monster from the tip of its tail to its jaws, speeding up and slowing down as she swam.
Its body was almost a perfect cylinder, with barely any change in thickness from its head to the tip of its tail.
A jawless, rigidly circular maw, haphazardly sprouting teeth inside, and a blue glow leaking from within.
One, two, three pairs of barbels hanging below it, and four eyes on each side of its head.
And most crucially, a speed reaching 60 km/h without any fins.
Having observed all of that, Parang beamed with a wide smile.
'A massive catch!!'
A Bellua Maria, 40 meters in length and 6 meters in diameter.
It wasn't just a massive catch, it was an absolute monster of a catch.
Parang had already hunted dozens of Belluas before.
And not just Belluas; the monsters she had hunted thus far were far worse than this, never any less.
As soon as she confirmed the monster before her was a Bellua, she immediately got to work.
First, planting the explosives.
The Bellua's body was formed by a long chain of O-shaped segments, where a semi-circular Carapace wrapped around its soft inner flesh.
Parang mounted the swimming Bellua's back, grabbing a protruding section to anchor herself.
Then, opening her hand, a watermelon-sized air bubble formed, filling rapidly with red gas.
Parang shoved it straight into the gap between the Carapace segments.
―――!!!!
Realizing something was wrong with its body, the Bellua thrashed wildly, violently changing directions up, down, left, and right to shake Parang off.
However, it didn't know that every Bellua Parang had ever faced did the exact same thing, and all had failed.
Shove, shove, shove, shove.
Parang darted around, instantly lodging air bubbles into every Carapace joint from its Head to the tip of its tail.
Next came the detonation. As she took a stance as if thrusting a Harpoon, the air coalesced into a long shape around her hand, materializing into an actual Harpoon.
Stab. She thrust it right into the same spot as before, and,
BOOM!! KABOOM!! BANG!! CRASH!!!
A spectacular chain of explosions erupted sequentially from its tail to its Head,
...Bang!!
Once the final bubble planted at the very front of its Head detonated,
―――!!!
The light leaking from its eyes and maw faded out, and the Bellua perished.
Swoosh-
As was typical for the unknown lifeforms emerging from the Gate, the Bellua turned into light and vanished, leaving behind only what it must.
She quickly pressed a button on her left calf. A net ballooned out from it like a deployed airbag.
Moving even faster than when she chased the Bellua, Parang zipped around, sweeping up the Magic Stones and Carapace pieces.
Having snagged a big catch for the first time in a while, a smile bloomed on her face like a flower.
It didn't even take her 30 seconds to reach the surface. It was her commute home, after all. The faster, the better.