Castaway: Baek Jaeseong-4

I froze a dozen Arrow Sharks solid. Any that tried to blindside me, I blasted away with Jet Stream.

Underwater I was surrounded on every side, but Water Control let me shut the Arrow ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Sharks down before they could even close in. The real problem was something else. I couldn't breathe. Not that I didn't have a fix for that, too.

Air Pocket.

Air Pocket was a Wind Control technique that formed a bubble of air around the face or body. I wrapped a small one over my face and breathed as easily as if I were still on the surface.

Hold on. Just because I'm underwater doesn't mean I have to stick to Water Control.

Nobody was watching. There was no reason to lock myself into a single ability. I had a whole arsenal of skills, and chaining them together opened up all kinds of attacks.

A hiss of displaced water. Ten Arrow Sharks came in from the left, ten from the right. Their movements were as fast and sharp as arrows, and every last one of them was locked on me.

Water Wall!

A simultaneous rush from both sides. Underwater, dodging was nearly impossible, and a counter even harder. That left the textbook option: defense.

A spherical barrier formed around me — a membrane of crushing hydrostatic pressure. Being submerged made Water Wall almost cheap to cast; the mana cost was a fraction of what it would have been on land. Even so, it wasn't enough to stop twenty Arrow Sharks at once.

Then… Air Pocket!

I inflated an enormous air bubble around my entire body.

Fire Wall!

Lighting a fire underwater was absurdly difficult, but inside the giant bubble I'd made, a small wall of flame sprang into existence. I dumped mana into it by sheer force of will, twisting a natural law until it snapped.

The moment the Arrow Sharks felt that heat, they veered off on instinct. How often did a marine monster ever see fire? People and monsters alike, it seemed, feared what they didn't understand.

A pop. The firepower was too much — the Air Pocket burst, and the Fire Wall snuffed out almost immediately. But the seconds I'd bought were all I needed.

Jet Stream.

I fired Jet Stream from both arms. Using the powerful jets of water blasting behind me as thrust, I swam through the sea like a fish. Dial the intensity up or down, and I could move at whatever speed I wanted.

The Arrow Shark pack scrambled after me. I dove, cutting straight down.

At about thirty meters, the seafloor came into view. The average depth of the South Sea was only around forty meters, apparently.

I landed on the bottom and pressed a hand to the ground. Arrow Sharks swarmed in around me. I felt like Nemo getting jumped by a gang of delinquent fish.

Earthquake.

A deep, rolling boom. I unleashed Earthquake, an Earth Control technique.

A staggering amount of mana drained through my palm — enough, for a split second, to make me black out. I clutched my head, pulled a Date Palm Fruit from my inventory, and ate it. The item I'd brought back from the Solari World restored stamina and mana almost on contact.

The massive shockwave ripping through the seafloor was more than enough to throw the Arrow Sharks back. The ones that had been chasing me so ferociously realized something had gone very wrong and tried to turn. I didn't let them. A fleeting reversal like this — the instant offense and defense swapped places — was the perfect window to unload a one-sided massacre.

Time Acceleration.

I pushed the acceleration ability to its limit, wringing every drop of agility I had. My Agility of 286 roughly doubled in an instant. A mere twenty seconds of acceleration wasn't much, but it was more than enough time to finish the job with room to spare.

The ground roared and heaved, vomiting out a violent ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠pulse. A little more power and I could have kicked up a localized tsunami. With my current strength, that was out of the question.

I rode the shockwave and fired Jet Stream. The pulse of earth from Earthquake, the thrust of Jet Stream, and the agility amplified by Time Acceleration — together, they turned me into a missile.

Darkness Arrow.

I punched through the Arrow Shark pack at missile speed, raining Darkness Arrow down on them like a storm. Of all my arrow skills, Darkness Arrow packed the heaviest punch.

In the dim water, where light was scarce, it hit even harder. Dozens of Arrow Sharks were butchered on the spot. Before Time Acceleration even wore off, I had killed every last shark in my field of view.

Hah. Burned through a lot of mana.

I chewed another Date Palm Fruit and started stuffing the Arrow Shark corpses into my inventory. Unpaid labor wasn't in my dictionary. I collected every last one, down to the final carcass.

Time to head back.

Loot secured, I made for the boat. With Jet Stream, I covered the distance as fast as an Arrow Shark.

Finding it was easy. The dark blood of the sharks I'd killed along the way had spread through the water like spilled ink, guiding me back the way Gretel's breadcrumbs once had. When I reached my destination, what I found was a boat that was all but wrecked.

A splash. I broke the surface.

The boat's flank was caved in as if it had been in a car wreck. Up on deck, Jisu stood gripping my Light Saber, and beside her the hunter brat had gone full wolf, silver fur bristling. The purple beach chick still had her head buried, trembling like a leaf. As for the owner, he was nowhere in sight.

I climbed back onto the boat.

"Jisu! You okay!?"

"Yes! More importantly — the owner fell off the boat!"

"I'll go look for him!"

I dove back in. Fishing some guy out of the water was the last thing I wanted to do, but we needed someone to drive the boat. No choice.

The Arrow Sharks' bright-red blood made searching the area a genuine ordeal. I blasted the gore aside with Jet Stream and tried again. Fortunately, I spotted the owner bastard thrashing in the distance and cut toward him fast.

"Ghhk! Ghhk! Ghhk!"

He flailed toward me, one hand stretched out. Something about it was off. He didn't look like a beer bottle that had simply fallen overboard. He looked like something was dragging him.

Light Control.

I formed a sphere of light. The moment the water around us brightened, I saw what I hadn't been able to see before. The owner was being pulled — by a tentacle, thick as a giant squid's arm.

That thing…? Don't tell me that's a Kraken?

A massive tentacle cracked toward me like a whip. It was moving so fast I could hardly believe we were underwater.

I barely slipped it with Jet Stream. If that thing had connected, every one of my ribs would have been pulverized.

The Kraken was a famously lethal marine monster. To subjugate one, you needed a five-man party of Rank 5 or higher Hunters with specialized training in marine monster hunting. Even I couldn't take this thing on. It was a monster far beyond me.

I left the owner bastard reaching for me in desperation and climbed back onto the boat. Jisu caught the look on my face and spoke, worried.

"What about the owner?"

"It's too late. The Kraken got him. We need to run too—"

A heavy, wet boom. In that instant, a Kraken tentacle rose above the water. It stretched straight up, easily over five meters. Jisu's face went white. Mine was probably the same.

"Shit! Move!"

I grabbed Jisu and dove. A heartbeat later, the tentacle came down on the boat.

A crushing detonation. The Kraken smashed the boat in half in an instant. The hunter and the purple beach girl who'd been on board were launched into the air, then hit the water the same as we had.

"Urgh! Urgh! I can't swim! Urgh! Uuurgh!"

The werewolf brat thrashed wildly. The beach chick sank outright.

"We have to save them!"

Jisu's voice was urgent. I cut toward the sinking girl with Jet Stream, scooped her up, and raced in the opposite direction of the Kraken. My left hand locked around Jisu's waist; my right locked around the beach chick's.

"W-Wooseok can't swim!"

The beach chick blurted it in a panic. So the hunter brat's name was Wooseok, apparently.

I ignored her. Risk my neck to save some guy with a dick? Not a chance in hell. The Kraken's tentacle swept toward us again.

A thunderous slam.

"Gyaaaaah!"

The tentacle hammered the surface — and the hunter brat was right in its path. He went flying like a golf ball off one of Tiger Woods' drives. I could hear his bones ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠twisting from here. Jisu watched it happen and murmured, almost to herself.

"I-is he dead!?"

"Who knows? He's a werewolf, so maybe not."

Whether that bastard lived or died was none of my business. I put as much distance between us and the Kraken as I could. The one silver lining was that the Kraken wasn't a fast monster. Its attacks were plenty agile, but that massive body didn't move quickly. And from what I'd heard, a Kraken wouldn't pursue a target beyond its own territory.

I swam blindly in the opposite direction. With Jet Stream, I was faster than the boat had ever been.

I thrashed both arms, putting on a show of swimming hard. The situation was so desperate the beach chick never noticed I was a multi-ability user.

"Oppa! There's an island over there!"

Jisu pointed to the right. I saw it too — a small island. We headed for it.

"Ah! That's Wooseok! He's over there!"

On the way, the beach chick pounded on my chest and pointed off to the right. Where she was pointing, a trail of red blood leaked steadily into the water. A man was floating face-down, his transformation undone. I ignored him.

"The island's the other way. I'm at my limit. No time to save a guy like that."

Truth was, I had plenty of stamina. I'd eaten a Date Palm Fruit earlier. I just didn't have any to spare on some guy.

"P-please! Save Wooseok! He's going to die like that!"

She wasn't wrong. Leave him like that and he'd bleed out or drown, one or the other. Not my problem.

"If we try to save him, we'll all die. Give it up."

"Hic! I'm begging you! I'm begging you like this!"

From what I could tell, that man didn't particularly like this beach chick. He just saw her as a toy to mess around with when it suited him.

Truth be told, I was the same. The only reason I was saving her was so I could fuck her a few times. Jisu asking me to didn't hurt, of course.

Jisu knew I didn't care much for other men, so she didn't say a word. After the Ecster Clan incident, she hadn't shown any particular fondness or interest in anyone besides me. That was why she stayed quiet.

As I saw it, this beach chick's desperation to save the hunter brat was a kind of dependency. She clearly thought she needed at least one person on her side. Then again, drop a woman into an environment this alien, and that was a natural reaction.

"Please! I'm begging you!"

She said it squeezing out a filthy trail of snot.

"Anything I want?"

"Y-yes! I'll do anything! So please, save Wooseok! He's really going to die!"

"Heh. Fine. Since you put it that way, I'll save him."

I headed for the hunter brat. He was genuinely on the verge of death.

I grabbed him by the ankle and started towing. The island dead ahead was the destination.