A nightmare from my days in the army came back to life.
During Maritime Scout Team training, there was a situation where dozens of people had to take collective punishment because of my mistake.
I remember what an instructor famous as a lunatic said to me then.
'If you can chew this up and eat it, I'll call off the collective punishment.'
What that guy shoved in front of my eyes was a 'crab' he had caught on the coastal rocks near the barracks.
I shut my eyes tight and put it in my mouth.
Because my wish not to put my fellow soldiers through hardship was more fervent.
The bits of carapace crunching and crumbling, the salty, cold seawater, the fishy, revolting guts, and the feel of the pincers scraping the roof of my mouth and pinching my tongue with everything they had to the very end.
The memory of that day, swallowing the crushed crab while dry heaving again and again, is still vivid.
That lunatic grinned broadly as he watched me munching on the raw crab.
'Wow, you're tough, real tough. You actually eat this. You really are the ace. I'll put you through even more from now on, so look forward to it.'
What did he say after that?
I think he said something like this too.
'You'll have plenty of occasions to eat crab from now on, so it'd be good to learn about crabs while you're at it, right? I majored in biology, so I know a bit about crabs. Did you know the crab is the most perfect form of life? The arthropods on the seabed are all different species, but almost all of them evolve into the shape of a crab. In short, it's what they call 'convergent evolution.' They end up with a round, flat body centered on the thorax, a hard carapace and long legs. Why? Because when the head and tail get shorter, you're less noticeable to enemies, and even if you get caught, you can slip free easily. It's also handy for digging up the seafloor or wedging yourself into narrow cracks in the rock. That's why modern crabs have barely changed shape since they appeared on Earth in the Triassic. What's more, even other crustaceans that went extinct before modern crabs appeared took the same form as today's crabs. So the ultimate evolutionary form crustaceans chose to survive on the seabed is the crab, you see. A species' 'final evolutionary form,' so to speak. That's how great crabs are. For reference, other organisms of completely different species turning into crab-like forms is called 'carcinisation,' and the other species that take a crab-like form without being crabs are the king crab, the hermit crab, the coconut crab and so on......'
I want to forget the horrible things that lunatic did to me, but the words he said, at least, are worth recalling.
......To sum up, it means this.
'In the environment of the deep sea, the crab is one of the 'most perfect life-forms.''
I stopped reminiscing and looked at the reality before my eyes.
-<Worker Crant-Nauplius>
-Combat Power: 1,004
-<Worker Crant-Nauplius>
-Combat Power: 991
-<Worker Crant-Nauplius>
-Combat Power: 986
.
.
.
Worker Crants had my hideout surrounded.
I recalled their settings.
'One of the countless crab-shaped monsters that appear in <Raising a Hungry Kraken>. Unlike ordinary crab monsters that go around alone, these bastards show the odd behavior of forming colonies and building nests. That's why, even when I played the game, there were lots of times I met four or five of them at once.'
While other crabs went around alone like normal, these ones went around in packs.
With their looks and even their name seeming like a crab and an ant put together, it did somehow seem to make sense.
'Even so, this is the first time I've seen this many gathered.'
I swallowed dryly and looked around.
The number of Work-Crants surrounding me was dozens even at a glance, maybe even more than a hundred.
CLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACK— TINGTING!
They clashed the teeth that made up their mouths, making a bizarre metallic sound.
'Tch. These were low-level monsters I killed easily when I played the game, but with this many swarming in, they're terrifying.'
But I could not just sit there and take it.
I, too, had been completely transformed by the life-and-death struggle with the Blade Madam and the Ironclad Scale.
'Bring it on, you bastards! Bring it on!'
I beckoned at the Crant in front with the tip of my tentacle.
Before long, a few Work-Crants charged my way with their pincers leading.
At that very moment.
FLA-SH!
I fired Powerful Luminescence from the tip of my tentacle.
-<Trait: Powerful Luminescence>
-Shoots out blinding bright light from the tips of the tentacles.
The eyes of the crabs standing in the vanguard went white and blind.
They instinctively covered their eyes and curled up into balls.
Seizing the opening, I leapt over the heads of the crabs standing in the lead and attacked the crabs in the rear.
CRU-UNCH!
There are dozens of suckers on my tentacles.
Rough saw blades have sprouted along the rims of the suckers, and the sucking force of the suckers plus the force of the spines digging in creates a fearsome synergy.
That is exactly this skill.
-<Trait: Hell Bite>
-Wraps around the enemy and attacks with the sharp teeth on the suckers. Has a low chance of piercing the enemy's armor.
The attack technique I had stolen by eating my kin, the 'Blade Madam.'
'......It's a shame it's not 'High-Speed Grinding,' but this is good enough too.'
I swung my tentacles and smashed the crabs around me.
WHA-AM! BAM! SMACK!
The crabs rolled their bodies into balls and defended with their back shells.
But on rare occasions.
CRA-ACK!
There were times my tentacle pierced a crab shell and lodged inside.
The 'armor piercing' effect that goes off at a low chance.
When this effect triggers, my tentacle turns into something like a hard, pointed spear.
With it, I smash through the crab shell and tear the soft flesh inside to shreds.
BABABABABAM!
I pressed forward, thrashing the Crants wildly.
The Crants in the middle ranks pushed in, using their companions' bodies as shields.
Before long, a dozen-odd pincers seized my body, but.
-<Trait: Impregnable Fortress>
-Coats every corner of the body with scales as hard as iron armor. Defense rises greatly and movement speed drops greatly.
I blocked the pincer attacks with this trait, which I had taken by killing my kin, the 'Ironclad Scale.'
CRRRACK!
My hardened body was neither torn nor pierced by the Crants' pincers.
But the Crants kept pinching my body, as if they meant to push through with sheer numbers.
CLATTER— CLATTER— CLATTER— CLATTER—
New Crants kept piling their bodies on top of the Crants holding me.
'Aha, so you'll climb on top of me and crush me to death with your weight?'
A strategy of crushing me to death through the power of numbers.
It is the attack pattern that colony-forming monsters typically show.
'......It's definitely a thuggish strategy. In a situation like this, there's no way to survive.'
I stretched out one tentacle toward the Crants climbing on top of my body.
'If I didn't have 'this technique,' that is.'
Before long.
BLA-AM!
A high-pressure current shot out from the tip of my tentacle.
-<Trait: Scalding Blast>
-Raises body temperature to boil the water inside the body. Then shoots it out at very high speed.
An attack technique that burns the oil in the flesh to raise body temperature, then sprays out the water inside the body, boiled by that heat, together with compressed sulfur gas.
According to the in-game settings, the liquid bullet fired from the tip of my tentacle is made up of 99-degree water and oil and high-pressure sulfur gas, and its destructive power rivals a handgun's.
WHA-ACK!
The scalding-water bullet fired from the tip of my tentacle drove into the belly shell of the Crant right on top of me.
SHATTER!
The belly plate broke, laying bare the soft flesh and guts inside.
But the true worth of Scalding Blast does not lie in mere physical attack power.
SIZZLE, SIZZLE, SIZZLE, SIZZLE, SIZZLE......
The guts that had burst out through the broken belly plate began to cook white.
[Kikikik!?]
The Crant that had been pinning down my body was horrified and went berserk.
I fired Scalding Blast in a row at the other ants above it.
'Haha— Take a baptism of 99-degree boiling water!'
The back plates and belly plates of the crabs hit by the hot-water bullets broke one after another.
CRACK! POW! SPLINTER! THWA-ACK!
The moment the spots hit by the bullets cracked, the carapace around them turned bright red.
Just as a crab put in a steamer turns red, the Crants scrambled about in confusion with parts of their bodies turned red.
'Yeah, yeah. Whoever wants to become a steamed crab, step up first.'
Shaking off the bright red bits of carapace, I crooked the tip of my tentacle, beckoning.
The Crants hesitated before my overbearing momentum, not knowing what to do.
I counted the Crants' heads inwardly.
'Let's see. Not many confirmed dead yet.'
I could see five or six lying on the floor here and there, but they were trampled under the other Crants' feet, so I could not eat them.
The ones whose bodies had turned red in places, and the ones with broken carapaces or severed legs, numbered roughly twenty.
'I dealt fatal wounds but couldn't finish them off for sure. With them clustered that tight, there's nothing I can do yet.'
To feed, I needed time.
I would have to catch them all or drive them all off first before I could eat the remaining corpses.
'If I eat every one of these, my Combat Power will shoot way up too.'
A single Work-Crant's Combat Power was generally between 900 and 1,000.
There looked to be roughly a hundred of them here.
'In that case.......'
If I ate every one of these things, my Combat Power would leap from 20,000 to 120,000.
'All right. This is worth a shot!'
The Crants before my eyes were many in number, but in truth each one of them was weak.
Unlike the Blade Madam and Ironclad Scale brother and sister, none of these things could tank, and none had a powerful single blow.
'Plain weak bastards that just have numbers? That's the same as begging me to come eat them.'
In the end, it was only a matter of time.
Having eaten the Star Fragment of the Ancient God and thrown off the automatic Combat Power reduction penalty, I had nothing to fear right now.
'Even if it takes a long time, I just have to catch and kill them slowly, one by one.'
I raised my tentacles, meaning to eat every one of the hundred-odd Work-Crants gathered here.
......Just then.
THUD—
Far up ahead, I felt a great rumbling of the ground.
THUD— THUD—
It was growing louder and louder.
THUD— THUD— THUD—
The epicenter seemed to be coming closer and closer to where I was.
Before long, the Work-Crants up ahead began to draw back to the left and right.
And in the middle of the path opened down the center, a huge shadow fell.
'......Ah.'
I sighed.
'Right. I thought things were going a little too easily.'
A massive crab blocking the way before my eyes came into view.
-<Soldier Crant-Zoea>
-A bizarre creature with the appearance of a crab and the habits of an ant.
A warrior of offense and defense in one, with a hard carapace and sharp pincers; it is said that only a very few individuals that have won the harsh competition for survival on the seabed can reach this form.
-Combat Power: 30,219
-Traits: <Nest>, <Servant>, <Burrowing>, <Scissor Cut>, <Pincer Hammer>, <Crab-Foam Bullet>, <Ironclad Skin>, <Impregnable Fortress>, <Tremendous Stamina>, <Tenacious Life>, <Fight to the Finish>, <Persistent Pursuer>, <Night Vision>, <Intermediate Poison Resistance>, <Stratum Severing>
The Soldier Crant, the leader of the Work-Crants, had appeared.