A certain philosopher said.
'I think. Therefore I am.'
I will put it this way.
'I am. Therefore I think.'
And it isn't just thinking, either. I think I'm utterly fucked.
Why, of all things, was I born as a being called a kraken?
Looking at the kin before my eyes, I sank into thought for a moment.
......What is the Kraken?
To describe this colossal, mysterious, eerie monster, there are no lines of verse more fitting than these.
-Below the thunders of the upper deep,
-Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
-His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep,
-The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee.
-The far-off deep sea where thunder resounds.
-On the bottom that even the faintest sunlight has never reached.
-The Kraken sleeps.
-An ancient sleep with no dreams and no one to disturb it.
The Kraken in the game I used to play is not much different.
A colossal fiend that rules the fathomless deep sea.
The apex of monsters, ruling the whole ocean with all manner of mysterious abilities, mighty strength and high intelligence.
As such, a kraken is a being with infinite potential.
It is born weak at the start, but as it eats other monsters, absorbs their genetic information and evolves into higher species, it comes to choose from countless morphs.
'......At a glance it looks like a really good race, but.'
That is the story once it has evolved at least to the near-adult form.
Before that, it is an ocean-sunfish-grade life form that dies at the slightest thing.
There is no ceiling to how strong it gets, but there is no floor to how weak it is either.
The survival difficulty of the early game cannot help but be extremely high.
'A cannibalism carnival right from the start. This is seriously brutal as hell.'
I looked at the kin before my eyes.
GURRRGLE—
The kin that had eaten its kin came toward me.
It looked truly grotesque.
A long, blood-colored body, tentacles that swung and dangled like the pendulum of a wall clock, two large eyeballs glowing yellow.
It was a ghastly sight that lacked nothing to be called a ghost of the deep sea.
'Still, it's a relief that I'm cute.'
Just as in my days as a human, I looked rather cute.
If I had to put it in a word, 'chubby,' perhaps.
This seemed to be a main-character bonus.
[Kieeeeeek!]
The kin lunged at me.
Its Combat Power was 4.
A kraken fresh out of the egg has a Combat Power of 2, but this one, having just eaten one of its kin and absorbed its strength, held a Combat Power of no less than 4.
My Combat Power, on the other hand, was 3.
It goes without saying, but 3 cannot beat 4.
I fled with every ounce of strength I had.
When I moved with the feeling of stamping the ground hard with my feet, my tentacles pushed the water away and my body shot forward like an arrow.
But the kin was a little faster.
It caught up with me in an instant and began coiling its tentacles around my back.
'Don't you try to get a look at my back!'
I coiled my tentacles around it too.
In that narrow, dark place, its tentacles and mine tangled stickily together.
'Ah, no! I'm being overpowered!'
The kin's face suddenly closed in right before my eyes.
It seemed to be saying this.
'I'm going to eat you.'
Fucking insane. Is this kin female? Please, this is an important issue.
I struggled desperately with all my strength.
But with a Combat Power of 3, no matter what I did, I could not beat a Combat Power of 4.
What can't be done can't be done.
'Is it over already?'
I felt the futility of it.
That is simply how the food chain and the struggle for survival are.
For nearly all, victory or defeat is decided from birth.
An extra for the tiny handful of winners, no, their meal.
Was I nothing more than that kind of being?
At that very moment.
...STING!
Ow, that stings, dage.
I wasn't looking for a Chinese big brother; I felt a faint pain in my back.
From the look of it, I had been pushed back and touched an anemone.
I was about to be chewed up and eaten alive anyway, so what did a honeybee's sting matter?
Half giving up, I just lay down flat on the carpet of anemones.
......But then?
[Kiiik!?]
Something was off about the kin that had been pinning me down from above.
It was twisting its body wildly, bewildered.
Only then did I understand why.
'Ah, right. Poison resistance.'
I had just eaten a clownfish and gained 'Faint Poison Resistance.'
<Kraken 'Infant Form'>
-The larva of some cephalopod.
Having just hatched from the egg, it has almost no combat ability.
Combat Power: 3
Traits: <Absorption>, <Faint Poison Resistance>
Because of this, the pain I took from an anemone's sting had been reduced from about a 'hornet's' sting to about a 'honeybee's' sting.
But this kin of mine that was set on eating me had no poison resistance.
'You North Korean puppet soldier of a bastard! Have a taste of hornet!'
I pulled tight the tentacles wound around the body of my compatriot above me.
The kin, too, sank snugly into the anemones.
Like Jeomsun sunk snugly into a field of yellow ginger blossoms, the kin sank snugly into the forest of yellow anemone tentacles.
...STING! ...STING! ...STING! ...STING! ...STING! ...STING! ...STING!
For me it was a pain like being stung by a swarm of honeybees, but for the kin it would be a pain like being stung by a swarm of hornets.
'You damned kin! Die, die!'
Like Jeomsun, I pinned the kin down.
'You won't do it again from now on, will you?'
[.......]
But the kin gave no answer.
At a glance, its eyes were already totally gone.
Holding on to the kin, I came out of the anemones.
My whole body throbbed, but the joy of having survived was greater than the pain.
'Hm. But.......'
I looked down at the corpse of the kin hanging limp, wound in my tentacles.
'Do I have to eat this?'
In truth, the very fact of agonizing over this made no sense.
A kraken is a being that grows stronger by eating other creatures, and its kin are included among those other creatures.
'I've got no other choice.'
I shut my eyes tight and brought the kin to my mouth.
CHOMP— CHOMP—
The taste was...... surprisingly not bad.
It felt like eating squid-leg jerky bought at an internet cafe after soaking it in cold water, you might say.
The moment I devoured my kin.
-DING-DONG!
A notification sound rang by my ear, and.
-<Kraken 'Infant Form'>
-Combat Power: 7 [+4]
-Traits: <Absorption>, <Faint Poison Resistance>, [+]<Cannibalism>
The status window changed.
My Combat Power was a whole 7, and on top of that I had gained a trait called Cannibalism.
-<Trait: Cannibalism>
-When you have eaten one of your kin, the effect increases 2-fold.
I pressed a tentacle to my forehead.
'This is blatantly encouraging kin slaying kin.'
On top of that, as time passed, my Combat Power dropped automatically.
-<Kraken 'Infant Form'>
-The larva of some cephalopod.
Having just hatched from the egg, it has almost no combat ability.
-Combat Power: 6
-Traits: <Absorption>, <Faint Poison Resistance>, <Cannibalism>
My Combat Power, which had been 7 until a moment ago, had fallen to 6.
It seemed to be because I had been stung by anemone tentacles and because I had grown hungry as time passed.
'It drops by 1 a minute even if I just stay still. This is totally Unlucky Vicky!'
At this rate, I would have to roam endlessly in search of prey.
I had a whole bundle of possibility and potential and nothing more; I was a frail life form that would end up dead if I didn't eat something within 6 minutes.
So I had to keep moving diligently before my remaining Combat Power ran out.
'This lore is way too brutal.'
In this kind of survival game, you have to stack up the resources given in the early game efficiently and get the snowball rolling.
......Only, unbefitting the theme of 'Raising a Kraken,' the kraken was a truly difficult and irritating thing to raise.
'How should I put it? Should I say its fuel efficiency is bad?'
A kraken's body endlessly craves calories.
To use a comparison, it is like a supercar that goes around leaking fuel in streams even when it is just standing still.
A person who drives a car like that wouldn't worry about fuel efficiency in the first place, but...... in my case, it is as though I had been saddled with such a car as a business vehicle and made to pay the fuel and insurance out of my own pocket, you might say.
Just then.
SLITHER—
Tentacles like the hem of a ghost's robe swayed limply before my eyes.
Yet another kin was spreading its tentacles wide above my head.
CRU-NCH!
Before I even had time to react, it plunged down from above.
CRACK— CRACK— CRACK—
And without hesitation it seized the kin that had been approaching my side and ate it.
-<Kraken 'Infant Form'>
-Combat Power: 98
-Traits: <Absorption>, <Cannibalism>
This punk is huge.
'Its Combat Power is nearly three digits? How many of its kin has it eaten in that short time?'
At that size, it really did feel like a kraken.
The big kin swung its tentacles yet again and ate the kin around it.
It was even breaking eggs that had not hatched yet and gulping them down.
However.
'Seeing that it has only two traits, it's bloodshot-eyed over nothing but eating its kin.'
My kin hunted only their kin, in order to eat whatever had the highest Combat Power possible.
But I was different.
'To survive in this world, making good use of the terrain is what matters.'
If you make good use of the terrain's advantages, you can hunt even things with far higher Combat Power than your own.
These anemones, for example.
'......Early on, traits matter more than raw Combat Power.'
The kin in this place could not run off anywhere anyway.
Not until they broke through the fence of poisonous anemones, that is.
I searched through the anemone forest.
The kinds of anemone were more varied than I had thought, and the poisons they carried differed subtly as well.
Some had a paralytic poison, some a nerve poison, so the degree of pain differed with each sting.
Before long, I saw small clownfish busily coming and going between the anemone tentacles.
I caught those Nemos and swallowed every one I caught.
When I had eaten about ten of them.
-DING-DONG!
-<Kraken 'Infant Form'>
-Combat Power: 17 [+10]
-Traits: <Absorption>, <Weak Poison Resistance>, <Cannibalism>
'Faint Poison Resistance' had been upgraded to 'Weak Poison Resistance.'
-<Trait: Weak Poison Resistance>
-Grants resistance to weak poisons.
I felt it at once.
The anemones around me no longer felt all that threatening.
When I lightly touched an arm to one, just in case.
...STING!
I felt about the pain of having a single hair pulled out.
'Good. At this level, I can more or less bear it.'
Having a single hair pulled out is only a wound to the heart; counted as a wound to the body, it is not much.
But having hair torn out by the clump is painful, so I needed to raise my poison resistance a little more.
I kept on eating clownfish.
............. .......
How much time had passed?
When the number of clownfish I had eaten reached about thirty.
-<Kraken 'Infant Form'>
-Combat Power: 48 [+31]
-Traits: <Absorption>, [UP]<Basic Poison Resistance>, <Cannibalism>
-<Trait: Basic Poison Resistance>
-Grants resistance to weak poisons in general.
Weak Poison Resistance had evolved into Basic Poison Resistance.
I was now immune to the poisons of the various anemones.
When I casually brought an arm up against an anemone.
.......
I felt nothing.
If I had to be exact, there was some pain, but about as much as being pinched by a three-year-old child, maybe?
'At this level I can bear it as long as I like.'
Firmly armed with poison resistance, I stood with my back to the anemones.
Then I drew the aggro of my kin, who were in the thick of their slaughter over there.
'Hey, all of you, look over here!'
Several of my kin looked at me, eyes gleaming.
Their Combat Power had already entered three digits long ago.
I shook my body at those kin.
'Come on over and eat me! Eat me please!'
It was extreme flirting of a kind hard to find even in the West.