Far within the deep, gloomy darkness of the deep sea lives one giant monster hermit crab.
[Wu-uuuuuuu......]
From beyond the suffocating abyss came a cry that seemed to crush the lungs.
'Yes!'
I cheered inwardly.
I had known from early on that beyond this wall lay the boss monster's space.
I had deliberately burrowed into a spot that sat just barely on the edge of the monster hermit crab's territory and given off light.
Light leaking out through the small hole bored in the wall.
To the monster hermit crab, which had been in a dark space, that light must have looked more dazzling than the sun.
'It took the bait, all right.'
With my back to the wall, I felt the vibrations of the monster hermit crab stomping closer, and at the right moment I ducked.
And the scissor claw the monster hermit crab swung broke through the wall and passed over my head.
WHA-AM! WHACK!
And it smashed straight into the Blade Madam and the Ironclad Scale.
'You can do it, Scissor-Claw King! Kill those bastards for me!'
I checked the boss hermit crab's status window.
-<Scissor-Claw King of the Sunken Pirate Ship>
-Combat Power: 1,003,021
Its Combat Power had risen even higher than when I had seen it before.
'......Back then it was definitely around 900,000, I think, but at some point it passed 1 million.'
Its appearance was as terrifying as ever.
The shell of its pincer, covered in barnacles and coral, glistened a blackish blue.
It was a hue as if it had soaked up the darkness of the deep sea.
Beyond the crack the pincer had smashed through, the hermit crab's eyeball gleamed.
It brought its grotesque mouth right up to the hole.
Every time the dozens of appendages on its lips twisted and bent this way and that, saw-toothed teeth showed.
Between those teeth, the abyss of an endlessly dark throat could be seen.
I pressed my body even lower against the floor.
'Whoa, its face has gotten a lot more vicious since I last saw it.'
Seeing that it had grown a little bigger too, I figured it must have been eating very well since I last saw it.
Meanwhile.
[Gaak!]
[Gurrrrk......]
The two kin, sent flying by the Scissor-Claw King hermit crab's pincer, were stuck in the wall and could not come to their senses.
It seemed the Blade Madam had escaped instant death because she had been hiding behind the Ironclad Scale.
But the Ironclad Scale, who had been in peak condition, had taken the pincer attack just now full on, so the shock looked considerable.
[Cough!]
The Ironclad Scale threw up a great deal of blood from his mouth.
For that hard one to end up like that from a single hit, I had to say that a strike from a 6-digit Combat Power is truly in a different league.
'True enough. The Blade Madam's Combat Power was 5,321 at peak condition and the Ironclad Scale's was 5,203, so the two of them combined barely pass 10,000.'
What's more, the Blade Madam's Combat Power had dropped a lot because of her fight with me.
So however much those two joined forces, they could only ever be a single snack for the monster hermit crab.
'First, let's put the complicated thoughts aside. Right now I should lie flat so my shrimp back doesn't get crushed.'
As they say, when whales fight, the shrimp's back gets crushed. No, the baby kraken's back.
As it happened, I had a skill that seemed to exist for times like this.
-<Trait: Burrowing>
-Digs a burrow and goes in.
The trait I had stolen from the Worker Crant.
Pressed tight into the corner between the wall and the floor, I burrowed down little by little.
The floor was hard, but the hermit crab's pincer had just left cracks here and there, so it was easy to dig into.
I dug out mud and sand with the tips of my ten tentacles and buried myself from the lower body up.
Then I piled the mud and sand higher and higher and covered my head.
Meanwhile, in the hollow of rock above my head, something terrifying was happening.
[Wu-oooooh!]
The monster hermit crab broke through the wall with its pincer and tried to grab anything at all, but the Blade Madam and the Ironclad Scale nimbly dodged.
The Blade Madam, relatively unhurt, swam while holding up the Ironclad Scale's body.
The Ironclad Scale staggered for a while, then soon came to his senses.
Then they exchanged looks and searched for an escape route.
Just then, the monster hermit crab, riled at having caught nothing, began to snip indiscriminately.
CLANG! SNIP! CLANG! SNIP! CLANG! SNIP! CLANG! SNIP! CLANG! SNIP!
A barrage of snipping aimed at empty space with nothing in it.
At that, wall, ceiling, floor, everything without exception was sliced away.
KA-KA-KA-KA-KA-BOOM!
A boulder the size of a house went SNIP— under the scissor blades and was cut away.
The stalactites that had hung from the ceiling like icicles were scattering like chunks of rotten radish.
KA-BOOM! BANG! CRASH! FSSSSS......
Everything in the cavern was cut and cut again, chopped up madly until it turned completely to powder and crumbled.
The Blade Madam and the Ironclad Scale fled, scared out of their wits.
As the Blade Madam fled from the falling rocks, the monster hermit crab's snipping followed close behind her.
KA-CHUNK— KA-CHUNK— KA-CHUNK—
Just as the hem of the Blade Madam's dress was about to be torn off by the scissors, the Ironclad Scale stepped forward.
KA-BOOM!
The Ironclad Scale gathered five shield tentacles on the left and five shield tentacles on the right and blocked the giant pincer.
SQUEE-EEEEEZE......
Cracks ran through the Ironclad Scale's shields, and soon they began to break one by one.
CRACK— SNAP! GRRRIND!
But the Ironclad Scale held off the pincer with every ounce of his strength.
Seizing the opening, the Blade Madam pulled all the way back.
After confirming that the Blade Madam had got clear to a safe spot, the Ironclad Scale pulled himself out too.
PA-KANG! CRRRRRUNCH!
But most of the ten shields had already been smashed and broken.
FSSSSSH......
The Ironclad Scale swam feebly, shedding fragments of carapace.
As the Ironclad Scale was about to fall to the floor of the undersea cave, the Blade Madam caught him.
The two of them left the cavern, holding each other up.
Even after the Blade Madam and the Ironclad Scale had left the cavern, the hermit crab went on snipping at empty space for a long while.
PAKANG! PAKANG! PAKANG! PAKANG! PAKANG! PAKANG! PAKANG!
And when nothing at all got caught in its pincer.
RU-UUUUMBLE...... THUD! THUD! THUD!
It slowly drew its pincer back and returned to the darkness it had come from.
***
'.......'
Hidden under the mud and sand and the pieces of rock, I had been watching all of it.
'Is everyone gone?'
When I raised my head slightly, there was no one. Naturally.
In this cold, dark space, only silence hung, as if there had never been any such rampage.
I moved my body 1mm an hour and crawled out of the pile of rubble.
Nothing absurd happened, like the giant hermit crab hiding behind the darkness and waiting, or the Blade Madam and the Ironclad Scale, whom I had thought fled, going mad and coming back.
'Phew.'
I let out a sigh of relief and swam.
But I was not simply happy just because I had survived.
'I've still got a long way to go.'
Even though this was the upper layer of the deep sea, there were quite a lot of strong ones like the monster hermit crab.
On top of that, kin of my own class who had hatched from the eggs together with me still swarmed this zone.
'Maybe not as far as the boss hermit crab, but I'd better raise my Combat Power enough to beat bastards like the Blade Madam and the Ironclad Scale with ease.'
I dragged my wound-covered body along and swam toward the hideout.
I hated my present situation, in which I had to fret over and over for fear of running into the Blade Madam or the Ironclad Scale on the way.
'But just you wait. I will get my revenge, without fail.'
By nature, I am the type who can't live with being pushed around.
Back when I was serving in the army, too, the one who fought to the very end because I was outraged at the shit-star generals trying to bury a soldier's death as if it were nothing was me.
'......I did get a dishonorable discharge because of it, though.'
Even so, I did not yield.
Even after I was thrown out of the army, I gathered the records from my days as an officer, told the reporters, and made it a public issue through internet broadcasts.
Did I get paid by the bereaved family of the dead soldier, you ask?
There was nothing like that at all.
It was simply my own paltry sense of justice and morals, and my will to resist the superiors who made a habit of unjust conduct.
Anyway, what I'm saying is, I have this fighting-cock streak in me.
'Just you wait. I'll never get beaten this helplessly again.'
Burning with the will for revenge, I headed for the hideout.
As it was, I already had a plan.
The strategy I had meant to use when I first ran into the Blade Madam.
The one I had not been able to use, only because the Ironclad Scale suddenly showed up.
'Good. If I use 'that strategy,' I can hunt both of those bastards.'
I smiled a sly smile.
The Blade Madam and the Ironclad Scale, those two, who would be weakened by now, would be my very next prey.
......The boss hermit crab is still scary, so I'll put it off a little longer.