44. Parrrley (2)
44. Parrrley (2)
The moment I first spotted the word "monster" in the journal, one particular creature came to mind.
The word "sea" brought one quintessential monster to mind.
A monster that symbolizes the fear of mollusks ingrained in the West.
The Kraken.
A grotesquely enormous octopus was probably the most powerful monster in any fantasy ocean. It made sense that the captain had panicked so badly. The biggest problem was that the damn octopus bastard was now charging straight at our ship.
I'd only just gotten this ship, and now you showed up?
Was this your living room?
...Oh. Right. It was.
This entire foggy sea seemed to be the Kraken's hunting ground.
Forced to acknowledge that sad fact again, I wiped my shovel blade on my clothes and sank into thought.
Could we take it down without taking damage?
That thing could take a beating, cry 'ow,' and simply dive underwater to call it quits, but one hole in our hull and we'd be welcomed aboard the Xlying Dutchman. Well, Millia was the exception. She'd float anyway...
"Captain! Captain! Snap out of it!"
"Don't yell in my ear. I was just sizing it up."
"While you're sizing it up, that monster's about to size us up first and eat us! At this rate, we'll end up as octopus food!"
"Shut up."
It was no more troublesome than the Hydra bastard... Actually, it was. As the Kraken's shape came into clearer view, I gauged its size and thought of the wreckage from Wilson 6 stored aboard. If we wanted to take it down with minimal damage, we'd need to make a serious investment of our own.
"Millia. Go tell Reni to get ready to cut off octopus legs."
"Legs? Why?"
"Emergency rations."
What did she mean, why? And why had she suddenly gone pale? Were they turning their noses up at octopus because they were Westerners?
These tasteless fools.
They'd just never been to a place that cooked it properly... though Kraken might have been a little much.
I shut my mouth as I stared at the Kraken's massive tentacles, a single one of which looked like it could grab a cruise ship and hurl it. Yeah, at that size it was a bit much. Bluntly speaking, the thing had probably grown that big by eating people. Still, those chunky tentacles—slice 'em up, grill 'em, and they'd make perfect drinking snacks.
All right. Today was grilled Kraken day.
Assuming we survived, anyway.
With Millia beside me, I called out to Reni, who was standing on the deck watching the Kraken swim toward us.
"Reni! Slice the tentacles!"
"Tentacles?"
"Tonight's dinner is grilled octopus."
Reni had been swinging around a greatsword the size of her body, something we'd found aboard Wilson 3 or 4. She stared at me with a look that plainly asked what kind of bullshit I was talking about. It was a little irritating, but they were all pitiful fools with no taste. Being the magnanimous man I was, I'd have to understand.
"No—how do you even eat something like that?!"
"Nothing goes better with booze than grilled octopus."
"...You're serious, right? I'll cut some off right now, so wait! It's been a while since I had a proper drink!"
Morale boost complete. Maybe I really was cut out to be a pirate captain. After I saw the True Ending, if I had nothing else to do, perhaps I could take Wilson 7 and become a sailor. Oh, that reminded me—Karina... Ah, there she was.
"Karina! Put a protective spell on the ship!"
"Okay!"
That settled the basic setup. Now to modify the ship. I headed straight inside and entered the storage hold where we'd gathered the materials. The hold was filled with Wilson 6's wreckage, which Reni had worked up a sweat stacking.
How was I going to mount it?
I mulled it over for a bit and reached a conclusion.
Fine, I'd just turn it into a ram ship.
"Dismantle. Craft. Repair."
I activated the three Skills in succession. I dismantled the figurehead on the bow, then made armor plates and a massive horn to mount in its place. It was fortunate that I'd spent a month using a third of the island's trees to build every ridiculous thing I could think of. I'd actually planned to put one on Wilson 1 until someone pointed out that it'd destroy the ship's center of gravity.
Wasn't a huge, magnificent horn on the bow what sailing-ship romance was all about?!
...Phew, done. I needed to get back up and lend a hand. As soon as I confirmed that the materials had disappeared, I sprinted onto the deck. The Kraken was noticeably closer. I ran straight to the sails, unfurled them, and shouted at Millia.
"Millia! Hold your head on tight! We're about to ram it!"
"What?"
"Huh?"
I had no time to answer. I grabbed the wheel as the Kraken rapidly drew closer. True to its octopus nature, the soft-brained Kraken came straight at us without fear, unaware that a sharp spike was about to be driven into its eye.
Three.
Two.
One!
I wrapped my arms around the mast and endured the impact. A shriek fit to rupture my eardrums rattled my entire body. Fitting for something larger than a blue whale, its cry alone was enough to make me dizzy. Then came a bursting sound, and the shriek grew even louder.
A hit?
A sticky liquid poured over my body.
Ugh. Sticky. It smelled weird, too.
Was it ink? Or blood? It was probably blood, right?
I opened my eyes and looked over the deck, now a mess of Kraken blood. Fortunately, no one seemed seriously hurt—everyone was staggering to their feet. The protective spell must have worked properly, since nothing looked broken.
I immediately searched for the Kraken's next movement. One hit wasn't going to subdue it.
As expected, something tore through the air.
Right side.
The enraged thing seemed to be trying to slam the ship with a tentacle. Even with a protective spell wrapped around it, the ship couldn't just ignore the laws of physics. Before we could capsize, I snapped an order at Reni.
"Reni! Right side!"
"Right? Got it!"
Reni swept her greatsword in a powerful arc.
Reni swung the greatsword as lightly as a toy, slicing halfway through the tentacle aimed at the deck. Another shriek rang out. She swung again. Blood sprayed from the half-severed tentacle, but Reni ignored it and hacked relentlessly at the cut as if splitting firewood.
Eventually, unable to withstand Reni's relentless assault, the tentacle writhed and crashed onto the deck. It was roughly the size of an orca.
"That'll feed us for a few days..."
Freshness was an issue, but we'd manage that somehow.
I was satisfied with how well the negotiation had gone. This was how negotiations should work: claim one of its eyes and secure several days' food. Wasn't that a perfect example?
"Huh? It's running away?"
At Reni's voice, I looked at the Kraken and saw it sinking into the water, shrieking in agony. No matter how massive a monster it was, apparently having its eyeball burst still hurt like hell. And so the Kraken made a pathetic exit, the exact opposite of the overwhelming menace it had radiated when it first appeared.
"Pity it didn't die."
Would've been nice and clean if we'd managed to kill it right then. Still, it wouldn't be attacking us again for a while, so once we got out of here we'd have nothing more to do with it.
I grabbed the helm again.
Maybe it was my imagination, or maybe, like the island's dungeon, the fog thinned when the Kraken fled.
Was it venting fog from its body like an otaku cloud or something...? Whatever. This was the perfect time to escape the misty sea.
I ran to the helm, grabbed the wheel with both hands, and started steering the ship. At first I couldn't even change direction properly and kept slamming into reefs, but now I could handle the ship pretty skillfully.
People really did improve fastest when they were thrown into the fire.
Even though I had to wreck three ships to get the hang of it.
"Everyone hold on tight! We're breaking out of this misty sea right now!"
"Right now?!"
"We're not gonna try to get out like last time and end up smashed, right?!"
"Let's gooo!"
The wind whipped past, lashing my hair.
The farther we crossed the sea, where the mist was thinner than ever, the more sunlight spread across the deck. The light that the fog had kept out grew brighter as we neared the edge of the misty waters. Then a roar sounded behind us. The Kraken, perhaps.
I looked back to see the Kraken glaring at me, weeping purple tears of blood. But the distance between us had already grown considerable. No matter how fast it swam, we would escape the misty sea before it caught us.
"Eat shit."
I raised my middle finger at the Kraken as it stared right at us.
"Eat it!"
Wait, when had she gotten here?
That wasn't something she should copy. When I gently folded her finger back down, Millia looked up at me as if asking why.
"Don't copy that."
"What is that?"
"It's a bad thing, so don't do it."
"But why'd you do it?"
"When you run into a bad guy, sometimes you just gotta."
"Then I wanna do it too!"
Ah, my head was spinning.
So this was why people said you shouldn't do weird stuff in front of kids. Why did I, a single guy, have to feel like a parent whose kid had picked up something weird? She was hundreds of years older than me, for crying out loud.
"...Ah, screw it."
Whatever happened would happen. I quietly opened my Status Window, checked the remaining distance, and resumed steering the ship.
800 kilometers to go.
Estimated travel time, roughly a month and a half.
I really wanted to set foot on land soon.
True Ending aside, I wanted to see the world of Survival Academy clearly with my own eyes.