Chapter 60
Chapter 60
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Translator: True Detective
Chapter: 1
Chapter Title: There's Something Below Us
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There's something below us.
Already two days had passed.
In the mornings, I spent the pirate ship's daily routine alongside Captain Jolly Roger, and in the afternoons, jerking off while using Levi as jerk-off material had somehow become part of my everyday life.
Humans are creatures of adaptation, or so they say.
Sure enough, after a mere 48 hours or so, I'd adapted to this kind of life without even realizing it.
The pirate ship's bathroom, which had felt nothing but uncomfortable at first, was now a cozy jerk-off spot as comfortable as my master bedroom back home.
But more than anything, we were sharing ship life with comrades who—despite me being a male hunter—not only refrained from jumping my bones but even cheered me on and pushed forward together.
"I'm the man who's gonna become the Pirate King!!"
And so, on the morning of the third day.
For some reason, I found myself wanting to don a straw hat as I stood before the helmsman, steeling my resolve(?) and charging toward the Grand Line...
"!!"
Right then.
Levi snapped me out of my momentary daze.
The news that we could escape the deep layer let me switch back from pirate to my usual hunter self.
"I think... I had some weird dream."
"Yeah. Thanks, Levi. If you'd figured out the clear method just a little later, I might've really grown a white beard right up to my chin."
Phew, came this close to seeing those flaming nipples too.
Still, figuring out the deep layer's clear method in just three days.
Ridiculously fast.
The shortest recorded escape from the deep layer was still supposed to take several decades at minimum.
'I owe Levi my life.'
Just look at Captain Jolly Roger right beside me.
She got trapped here around the late 18th century and had been stuck ever since, all the way to the 21st century.
She's still kicking only because she's on the level of an S-rank hunter, by hunter standards.
Any regular hunter would've long since keeled over from old age.
"Subjugating a monster?"
So the 'monster subjugation' was the 'deep layer clear method'.
For the moment, I let out a sigh of relief.
One of the scant few recorded deep layer clear methods remaining in history.
Gulliver's Travels.
The deep layer where Hunter Gulliver got trapped was a place where both tiny folk and giants existed, and its clear method was none other than the total annihilation of both their nations.
Lilliput and Brobdingnag.
Exterminate every last living being from those two nations in the layer.
Once he grasped that clear method, Gulliver spent nearly a century wiping out both countries using every filthy trick in the book.
By the time he finally made it home—to a future where his fiancée and all his friends had gone to the great beyond—he penned his exploits as a book. But it was dismissed as lies, and he got executed. A grim fairy tale if there ever was one.
'Compared to that Gulliver's Travels bullshit, this oughta be easy as pie.'
Gulliver alone had taken at least a decade just to figure out the clear method, or so the book claimed.
And compared to genociding two entire nations, taking down a single monster had to be way simpler.
Which is why.
"Captain Roger."
"Ooh! Our rookie comrade calling me 'Captain' straight up. Could this be that legendary 'booty call' I've heard tell of?"
"No, that's not it..."
Captain Roger was human too—she couldn't possibly want to stay cooped up in this place forever.
God knows what she was picturing as she turned to me, thrusting her hips back and forth with gusto—a true daughter of the sea... or rather, an undead pirate. Watching her, I made her an offer better than sex.
"Want me to get you out of this deep layer?"
"...What?"
"Just help me out in return."
I pitched a deal to my helper that'd satisfy her more than any orgy.
According to the info from Levi, the 'layer lord' of this deep layer lurked beneath the sea we were floating on.
Layer lord.
Or, in other words, the boss monster.
Unlike the regular monsters that spawned naturally in dungeons, these were monster-of-monsters that popped up periodically—one per layer.
They were dubbed layer lords because they embodied the essence of their respective layers.
Their combat prowess went without saying, but it was on another dimension entirely from your average monsters.
The fact that a lower layer's layer lord posed more danger than mid-layer grunts said it all.
'A deep layer layer lord, though...'
Deep layer difficulty was at least upper-layer tier, if not higher.
Plus, Levi had pegged this place as equivalent to at least layer 35.
A layer lord from a deep layer like that?
No way in hell I could solo this.
On top of that, this wasn't solid ground—it was the open ocean. Which was why I desperately needed the help of an elite pirate once dubbed the outlaw of the seas.
Jolly Roger was essential here.
Teaming up was a total win-win.
Of course...
"I refuse."
"?!"
I figured we'd be in the same boat—literally.
"R-refusal?!"
"Yeah."
"Why the hell not?! Don't you wanna go back to the original world, Captain?!"
Captain Jolly Roger boomed with laughter as she shot down my proposal.
When I asked in utter confusion, she adjusted her sunglasses, flashed a toothy grin, and patted my head apologetically from above.
"No clue how you sussed out this layer's clear method so quick... but I can't go along with it."
"The layer's clear method...? No way—you already knew how to escape this deep layer?!"
"Obviously! I'm a seafaring legend etched in the history books. You think I'm some fool who learned jack shit after all this time?"
You mean you did know?
Wait, more importantly—the captain wasn't an idiot after all.
I never imagined she was this sharp, what with the nonstop cycle of drink, sleep, puke, repeat.
But if she knew the clear method and still hadn't acted on it...
"Why not?"
"......"
"Why... do you keep hanging around in this deep layer?"
Surely Captain Jolly Roger wanted out as much as the next person.
She just let out a deep sigh in response to my question.
"Sigh... Look, there is a clear method for this deep layer. Problem is, it's one you'd be better off not knowing."
"Huh?"
"That monster we gotta take down."
Captain Jolly Roger shrugged and gazed out at the sea behind us, clicking her tongue in annoyance for the first time in front of me.
"That thing wasn't made to be hunted."
"Wasn't made to be hunted...?"
"Right. You haven't seen it yet, kid. That bastard's... insanely huge."
"...?"
What, like a kraken or some other sea beast?
Yeah, monsters like that were natural predators for us humans stuck fighting from aboard ships.
'This is bad. Without the captain's help, we're screwed...'
The captain already looked like her resolve had crumbled.
I stepped up beside her wistful smile and leaned my arms on the railing too.
"Sorry for being such a weak captain..."
"Nah. If you're saying it, there must be a good reason."
But I had zero intention of giving up.
If the captain's spirits were broken, all I had to do was rebuild them, one brick at a time.
That's where my deep layer clear method truly begins.
For now, though, the timing wasn't right. I decided to pull back a step here and gradually build more trust with the pirate crew.
Faith in others always pays off in the end.
The layer lord lurking beneath this sea.
Whatever it was, I'd subjugate the damn thing no matter what!
...or so I thought as I stared down at the surface of the water.
Srrrrk.
"......Huh?"
Must've been seeing things.
Yeah, had to be.
It had to be a mistake.
"......? Kid?"
I'd only glanced down at the sea beneath the pirate ship.
But in that split second, it felt like... something met my eyes. Ever so briefly.
"......"
Something from the ocean depths that could fit...
No, that could fit our entire pirate ship inside its pupil?
No friggin' way.
This ship was huge—modern warship class.
Yet a monster that didn't grab it with tentacles like some legendary kraken, but could actually fit it in its eye?
If something like that existed, we'd be ants to it.
Ant-sized, a little smaller than a human eyeball.
I peered back down at the water, imagining that absurd nightmare scenario.
Swish.
"......"
I'd thought it was the blue sea at first.
Turns out, it was just some unidentified thing with blue skin blinking shut for a moment.
When it opened its eyes, our ship suddenly found itself perched atop a pitch-black pupil.
And that was still just horror-movie-level scream-your-lungs-out territory.
Squelch.
The sound effect you get used to after being reborn a man in the Reverse World.
The throb of the womb.
Normally it'd be a faint squelch-squelch, but right now it boomed like a collaboration track with some synthesizer, pounding in my skull.
"Wh-what the hell is that sound?!"
Captain Jolly Roger panicked.
I looked back down under the ship too, face dripping cold sweat just in case.
"...Fuck."
The layer lord, with our pirate ship parked on top of its eye.
This deep layer's clear target was staring right at me— sporting the heart-shaped pupils unique to females.