The Special Cargo's Escort
— The soldiers take shifts guarding it around the clock. I kept wondering what kind of special cargo required that much security, and it turns out to be a person. A prisoner?
— Unbelievable. Now they’re telling us to prepare his meals, too? And halal, no less? What kind of lunatic demands halal on a cargo vessel in the middle of the sea? Just eat whatever you’re served, damn it!
— The soldiers finally gave me a name. They supposedly hauled him out of somewhere in the Middle East, and his name is... Ra'al? What kind of absurd name is that? Sounds like some brand of instant ramen. Ah, great. Now I’m craving ramen.
"Ra'al?"
The name slipped past Bennett's lips before he could catch himself. Standing nearby, the party members naturally caught the murmur; the foreign syllables of Earth sounded nearly identical to the pronunciation back home.
"Did you say Ra'al, Bennett-nim?" Kyle asked, his hand drifting toward the hilt of his sword.
Bennett reexamined the slip of paper. He squinted through the dim light of the wheelhouse, but his eyes had not deceived him. Written across the crumpled sheet was that exact name.
So that's what he meant.
The entity known only as 'That Person' had explicitly stated that their paths would cross. It seemed that prophecy had already come to pass.
Bennett looked up from the note. Every eye in the party was locked on him, waiting for an explanation.
"It seems Ra'al is somewhere on this ship."
"Wait, why would that bastard suddenly turn up here?" Edgar frowned, gripping his shield tighter.
"Could he have come here deliberately to target you, Bennett-nim...?" Erika asked, her brow furrowing with concern.
Bennett shook his head.
"No, I doubt it."
This vessel was an ordinary container transport belonging to the dungeon world of Earth. Ra'al was being covertly transferred from a nation called the United States to Korea when something had gone catastrophically wrong mid-voyage—even if the exact nature of the disaster remained unclear.
"Speaking of which, there's something I haven't told you—"
Bennett was about to explain the contract he had struck with That Person when his eyes suddenly dilated.
Outside the shattered glass of the wheelhouse window, a horribly familiar silhouette loomed against the pale sky.
"Get to the stairs!"
It was a sudden command, but none of them hesitated to question it. In unison, Kyle, Edgar, and Erika hurled themselves toward the stairwell landing.
CRUNCH!
Monstrous, jagged talons drove straight through the reinforced steel bulkhead of the wheelhouse.
With an ear-splitting screech of tearing metal, the talons wrenched the entire wall outward like wet parchment.
Freezing sea wind roared into the bridge, whipping loose papers and shattered glass into a tempest. Above the ruined opening, the crimson, multifaceted eyes of the monstrous bird glared into the cabin.
A claw flashed through the gloom, sweeping clean across the interior. Consoles, radar screens, and radio equipment were sheared off at their bases, sending sparks and severed wiring cascading over the floor.
Though the machinery was crushed into scrap, Bennett was already long gone, having thrown himself backward the moment the wall gave way.
The hideous, featherless face thrust deeper into the cabin. The beast plunged its massive leg further inside, sweeping its talons in wide, frantic arcs. Consoles that had miraculously survived the initial impact were pulverized into jagged shrapnel.
BOOM!
Fixtures bolted firmly into the steel deck were torn free and hurled out into the empty air above the container stacks. Yet Bennett remained just outside its reach, retreating by mere inches each time the talons whistled past his chest.
Infuriated by the near misses, the creature jammed not just its limbs but its entire upper torso through the torn bulkhead. Sensing the trap spring shut, Bennett stopped his measured retreat and leveled the Shooting Star.
The magazine had already been swapped. Nested inside were bolts tipped with enchanted payloads.
You won't catch me off guard twice.
Flames and concussive shockwaves enveloped the monster's front leg.
"Ugh!"
Huddled in the stairwell, Kyle and the others instinctively clapped their hands over their ears. This was no ordinary animal shriek; it was an intrusive psychic wave drenched in pure malice and bloodlust. Had their mental fortitude been any weaker, the sheer resonance would have rendered them unconscious on the spot.
Bennett merely furrowed his brow and pushed forward into the storm.
Driven mad by agony, the monstrosity thrashed violently, reducing what remained of the wheelhouse to scrap. Bennett, however, closed the distance with cold precision, chaining Flash Sprint and Staggering Step together in a fluid rhythm.
Though Staggering Step resembled nothing more than erratic, drunken swaying, it allowed him to alter his momentum at will within a tight perimeter. A subtle twist of his heel could throw him lunging forward or slipping backward faster than the eye could follow.
Reaching the gaping chasm where the exterior wall had once stood, Bennett raised his repeating crossbow.
Blinded by the continuous detonations peppering its flesh, the creature had failed to notice his advance.
Th-th-thump!
Ignorance carried a lethal price.
The bolts struck true, lodging deep into the creature's massive wing joint where bone met sinew. A blinding flash erupted, followed instantly by a thunderous boom.
The shriek of agony was deafening. Where the enchanted ice spear burst through the wing, broad holes perforated the leathery membrane, while the joint anchoring the limb to the shoulder was pulverized into ruin. Thrashing in blind panic, the creature made the fatal mistake of jerking violently to break free.
Rrrrriiiip!
The violent spasm severed what little flesh remained, tearing the entire wing completely away from its torso.
Bennett shifted his aim toward the supporting leg.
BANG! BANG!
Tough though its hide was, the concentrated magic payloads chewed through scales and muscle fibers alike. Robbed of both a wing and a leg, the creature lost all equilibrium and plummeted from the side of the bridge tower.
CRASH!
It crushed several shipping containers beneath its bulk before flopping helpless against the deck plating. The struggle was entirely futile. From the ragged stumps of its severed limbs, no crimson blood flowed; instead, a faint, shimmering vapor wafted into the air, evaporating into nothingness.
The eerie glow in its multifaceted red eyes dimmed to an ember.
Bennett stepped onto the edge of the shattered floor and aimed the Shooting Star straight down at its skull. In a final burst of defiance, the dying embers in the beast's eyes flared white-hot, hurling a desperate psychic pulse straight at his mind.
—You... cannot kill me...
"Watch me."
Perhaps it was because he had weathered this assault once before, or perhaps it was thanks to his drastically elevated Psionic Energy. Whatever the reason, the creature's mental onslaught failed to produce even a ripple in Bennett's consciousness.
Thump.
A bolt vanished down the monster's gaping beak.
A blinding glare spilled from between its jagged teeth. An instant later, a muffled explosion tore through the cranial cavity, violently jerking the creature's head. When the smoke cleared, the red light was entirely extinguished, and the skull collapsed lifelessly onto the dented steel.
Bennett didn't even have time to finish reading the notification.
A sudden, violent shudder rattled the deck underfoot.
Rumble!
The vibration lasted only a few seconds, but Bennett understood instinctively: Ra'al was enraged by the demise of his familiar.
Turning on his heel, Bennett let the hem of his long coat billow in the freezing draft. "Stay on guard. Ra'al is somewhere aboard this ship, and this beast's appearance confirms it. There's no telling what he'll try next."
"Understood!"
The party began their descent into the superstructure. Directly below the wheelhouse lay the crew quarters and shipboard amenities, a maze of cabins they would have to search one by one.
"Edgar."
Though Edgar typically relied on his tower shield and mace, he was forced to temporarily trade his primary weapon for a new tool today.
"Take this. I picked it up from Balduin just in case."
What Bennett handed him was a tactical Door Ram salvaged from the dungeon world's special operations forces, designed specifically for forceful breeches. Edgar inspected the heavy steel implement with obvious curiosity, quickly deciphering its mechanics before putting it straight to use.
Rather than gripping the bulky handles, he slipped his entire armored forearm directly through the retaining brace. Since Edgar wore thick plate armor, his arm was wedged in tightly, giving him immense mechanical leverage.
BANG!
Unlike the wooden doors back home, these were reinforced watertight steel hatches, yet Edgar blew them open in a single strike. As each barrier gave way, Kyle and Bennett swept inside in tandem to clear the rooms, their movements practiced and efficient thanks to the uniform layouts.
After testing the ram against several doors, Edgar looked down at his arm with an appreciative grin. "This thing is surprisingly satisfying. Think I could just carry this into battle?"
"Focus."
"Ah, right. Sorry."
Ahead in the dim corridor, several zombies stood swaying blankly—the first undead they had encountered since boarding the Drifting Transport Ship. Striding forward without hesitation, Edgar swung his reinforced arm like a battering ram.
THWACK! CRACK!
The zombies were obliterated on impact, their heads crushed into fine mist before their bodies even hit the linoleum. With the threat cleared, the rest of the party swept through the opened quarters to secure whatever salvage remained.
The most common finds were the electronic tablets they had seen before. Unlike the factory-sealed units recovered from the shipping containers, these bore heavy signs of personal use. Occasionally, they uncovered portable computers known as laptops; some were so battered it was doubtful they would ever boot up, while others looked expensive and practically brand new.
There was also packaged food from the dungeon world. Aluminum cans of carbonated soda and sealed boxes of Maxim instant coffee were set aside alongside snacks that had puffed up like balloons from internal gas over time. In one drawer, Bennett even turned up an unopened pack of the little paper cylinders Violet used to smoke.
"...Why would anyone willingly inhale something like this?" Bennett muttered, squinting at the warning label.
"Perhaps," Erika offered gently as she stepped past with an armful of supplies, "they simply needed something to lean on."
"Something to lean on, huh."
The sentiment didn't particularly resonate with Bennett, though he had no intention of judging those who indulged. If someone wished to ruin their lungs, that was their own business. More importantly, it represented an excellent haul.
Modern Earth cigarettes fetched an absurdly high price among collectors in Dungeon City. Lightweight, compact, and worth a fortune in gold—it was precisely the kind of loot a scavenger lived to find.
"Everything's cleared here," Kyle reported.
"Good. Moving down."
While the upper decks had sheltered a handful of wandering corpses, the lower tier was dead silent. Among the various doors lining the corridor, Bennett's attention locked onto a single plaque.
The Captain's Quarters.
The room was noticeably larger and more comfortable than the crew cabins, featuring a private office and a meeting table for guests. Bennett promptly stowed a sleek laptop resting on the desk into his pack before turning his full attention to the surrounding paperwork.
Under normal circumstances, the captain's personal documents held little practical value for an outsider like Bennett. While a vessel's logs might offer intriguing glimpses into Earth's maritime industry, they rarely provided any tangible benefit to a mercenary. But this voyage was far from typical.
The memo in the wheelhouse had confirmed Ra'al's presence on board, alongside an armed military escort. Bennett did not know how or why the cult leader had been captured, but he remembered Marco's lessons clearly: among the countless nations of Earth, the United States reigned supreme in military might.
If soldiers from that world's equivalent of an empire were aboard, their weapons and specialized gear had to be somewhere on this ship. And to house such a detachment, the captain must have been directly involved in their logistical arrangements.
It has to be here.
Bennett sifted methodically through the filing cabinets and desktop drawers until his fingers brushed against a formal transport requisition.
— Greetings, Captain. You have likely already received notification regarding the special cargo consignment, but I am reaching out once more to finalize details.
— This transport was formally requested by the governments of the Republic of Korea and the United States. An armed detachment will accompany the vessel to provide security and continuous surveillance over the asset. Consequently, priority quarters must be assigned to their personnel.
— According to our records, the Baram has ample vacant capacity. If this information is incorrect, please notify dispatch immediately.
— Please designate Cabins 301 through 310 as single-occupancy quarters for the escort unit, and prepare Cabin 311 as their shared duty lounge.
— If there are any spatial constraints or operational concerns, reach out without delay. Both governments have promised substantial regulatory concessions to our shipping line in exchange for this cooperation, so we appreciate your utmost discretion.
A thin, predatory smile tugged at the corner of Bennett's mouth.
"Found you."