There are two things I learned from working life.
-First. There is a jerk everywhere.
-Second. If there is no jerk around, I am the jerk.
I felt that keenly now that I was living a life of survival.
-First. There is prey everywhere.
-Second. If there is no prey around, I am the prey.
The huge sunken ship before my eyes rose up.
A hull riddled with holes, a broken stern, a mast covered in oysters, barnacles and coral.
And the thing that had been using it as a home was.......
[Wu-ooooooh!]
It was a hermit crab of a startlingly huge build.
-<Scissor-Claw King of the Sunken Pirate Ship>
-A hermit crab wandering the floor of the dark deep sea found a home exactly to its liking.
This great pirate ship, which once roamed the seas and made its name known, has now fallen to being a mere fiend's nest.
-Combat Power: 913,021
-Traits: <Scissor Cut>, <Pincer Hammer>, <Scissor Sickle>, <Corpse Scavenger>, <Moving House>, <New House Syndrome>, <High-Pressure Jet>, <Tenacious Life>, <All-or-Nothing Victory>, <Single Combat>, <Impregnable Fortress>, <Seashell Bullet>, <Rock Paper Scissors>, <Spiral>, <Lurk>, <Seizure>, <Strong-Acid Innards>, <Back from the Brink of Death>, <Chain Destruction>, <Demolition Crew>, <Gigantification>, <Hell Bite>, <Hell Vortex>, <Abyss Drop>, <Intermediate Ice Resistance>, <Intermediate Electric Current Resistance>, <Omnivore>, <Glutton>, <Long-Lived Species>, <Vigor in Old Age>, <Stratum Severing>, <Sea Cut>
'The boss monster of the Tutorial Zone. That's right, this guy lived here.'
It was a boss that appears at the very start of the game, so I had completely forgotten it.
Meanwhile.
GURGLE—
The hermit crab tilted its two bulging eyeballs and looked my way.
I recalled this monster's lore.
'A dumb bastard that crawled into the cave and got trapped because its body grew bigger than the entrance. But its strength, stamina and defense, at least, are definitely boss-grade.'
Its Combat Power was close to a whole 1 million.
And the Combat Power of the higher-species kin that had frightened me was a mere 5,000.
'On top of that, my Combat Power is 1,000. I'm no match at all.'
I quickly backed away.
But the hermit crab seemed to have no intention at all of letting me go.
KA-KA-BOOM!
A huge pincer came flying in.
Closed, its pincer was like a huge hammer; open, it was like two extremely sharp sickles.
The hermit crab made one pincer a hammer and the other a sickle and attacked me.
WHOOOOSH—
An unprecedented force that arose from the tip of its pincer came flying, splitting the empty space.
SNI-P!
One of my tentacles was severed by an invisible cutting force.
'No!'
I checked my status window.
-<Kraken 'Juvenile Form': Lantern Anglerfish Ghost Tentacle>
-The juvenile form of some cephalopod.
It has taken on a fair shape, but it is still weak and immature.
Trailing an eerie light from the tips of its tentacles, it swims the threshold of the abyss.
-Combat Power: 898 [-102]
-Traits: <Absorption>, <Basic Poison Resistance>, <Cannibalism>, <Powerful Luminescence>
With one of my ten tentacles severed, my Combat Power was slashed sharply.
'At least it's lucky my tentacles increased to 10 when I evolved.'
I fled, pushing the water away with nine tentacles.
But the hermit crab's movements were far faster.
Strictly speaking, its movement speed was on the very slow side, but its body was so big that its range of movement was large as well, so it could exert its influence over a greater range than I could.
...KA-KA-KA-BOOM!
Falling rocks came down from above.
The statue of an angel holding a great scythe broke at the waist and came down on me.
I twisted my body as far as I could to dodge, but.
SNI-P!
Hit by a fragment, I ended up losing one more tentacle.
-<Kraken 'Juvenile Form': Lantern Anglerfish Ghost Tentacle>
-Combat Power: 801 [-97]
-Traits: <Absorption>, <Basic Poison Resistance>, <Cannibalism>, <Powerful Luminescence>
Once again my Combat Power was hacked off in a chunk.
I fled, thrashing my 8 tentacles.
'If I keep running like this, I'll die before I even find a place to hide.'
I chose to gamble.
HALT—
When I stopped swimming, the hermit crab closed the distance in an instant.
It thrust both pincers forward.
The huge sickle and hammer came flying at me.
'What a very revolutionary attack.'
I stretched my eight tentacles straight out at attention.
'Rise, comrade!'
At that very moment.
POP— POP-POP-POP!
My tentacles broke off one after another.
Just as a lizard sheds its tail in order to flee, a kraken can shed its tentacles on purpose.
Only, my tentacles were still glowing brightly from the influence of when they had been attached to my body.
Like a fighter jet targeted by a guided missile setting off flares to throw off its pursuer's heat sensor, I fired the glowing tentacles downward in quick succession.
I put out the light of my main body, and the shed tentacles glowed brightly.
Sure enough.
[Wuoh!?]
The hermit crab corrected the path of its pincers toward my six tentacles shooting off in every direction.
Meanwhile, my main body was able to swim steadily toward the hermit crab's eyeballs.
The two eyeballs of the hermit crab, its body bent low, came toward me.
I raised the tentacles I had kept, exactly two of them.
And instead of dividing the luminous substances in my body among ten strands, I concentrated them in those two tentacles alone.
And.
'Solar Flare!'
One of my traits, 'Powerful Luminescence,' activated.
...FLASH!
The tentacles that had lost their light gave off, for an instant, a flash intense enough to blind.
[O-ooooooh!?]
The hermit crab was thrown into great confusion by my light bursting right before its eyes.
It began staggering and bumping into things here and there.
'Got it. It worked.'
In truth, this was partly why I had deliberately chosen the lantern anglerfish morph.
Monsters that live in the deep sea usually fall into two kinds.
1. Those whose eyes have completely degenerated because eyes are not needed in the dark.
2. Those whose night vision is extremely developed in order to catch the faint light that exists in the dark.
The hermit crab before my eyes belonged to the latter.
In other words, its night vision was so good that it could go completely blind if it took the intense light I gave off right before its eyes.
'Against monsters of the number 2 type, it's as good as an invincible survival skill.'
I hurriedly retrieved my tentacles.
And I got away from the hermit crab with all my strength.
No, I tried to get away.
'Hm? That's.......'
I would have done so, if only I had not spotted the treasure chest located beneath the hermit crab's abdomen.
'Right. I'm running away having lost as many as eight tentacles, so I have to at least pick up something like that for the numbers to add up!'
A boss monster is usually guarding a valuable item, more often than not.
Of course, the item that drops when you open a treasure chest is completely random, but even so, there was a high chance of something valuable coming out.
I bent my course with all my strength and snatched the treasure chest just like that.
SPURT— SPURT— SPURT— SPURT—
I fled, with one tentacle wound around the treasure chest and the other spouting water.
[Wu-ooooooh!]
From behind I heard the Scissor-Claw King roar.
'Damned bastard. Just you wait.'
Reciting the typical line of a third-rate villain, I swam for dear life.
***
There were many tunnels nearby too small and narrow for it to follow me into, so I barely managed to save my life.
'Pu-hah!'
I poked my head above the water's surface.
Burrowing through a small undersea cave, I had found a space with air trapped in it, at a spot where the cave bent and wound upward.
An air pocket.
The amount of air trapped inside the cave was fairly large, so this spot alone was like a small piece of land.
'Coming out onto land after being only in the water, I feel a bit more ali.......'
But that thought did not last long.
'Kugh!?'
I choked for breath.
My nose, which did not even exist, stung terribly.
As if I had tried to breathe underwater.
'Right. I'm a squid now.'
Having come up onto land, I found I could not breathe instead.
Now that I had become an aquatic creature, it was only natural that I could breathe only in water.
'If I want to go on land later, I'll have to pick my evolution tech path well.'
Holding my breath tight, I headed for the land.
If you control your breathing well, you can move about on land for some time.
About as long as an ordinary human can last holding their breath underwater, that is.
'It's cramped.'
The area of the land was small.
Further in, surprisingly, things like moss, mushrooms and creeping plants grew thick.
It seemed this was possible because the oxygen made by the seaweed in the cave was probably supplied here.
'If I stay here, the predators in the water won't be able to come.'
Holding my breath, I climbed up onto the land.
And I set down the treasure chest I had picked up earlier.
CLATTER— THUD!
It was lucky I had been able to bring at least this.
Having lost as many as eight tentacles and fled with barely my life, it would have been truly miserable had there been nothing to show for it.
I opened my status window.
-<Kraken 'Juvenile Form': Lantern Anglerfish Ghost Tentacle>
-Combat Power: 203
My Combat Power had been slashed sharply and was now 203.
-<Kraken 'Juvenile Form': Lantern Anglerfish Ghost Tentacle>
-Combat Power: 202 [-1]
No, even while I was saying this just now, my Combat Power dropped by 1.
A Combat Power of 202 meant I could stay alive for 202 more minutes.
In other words, my remaining lifespan was a little over 3 hours and 30 minutes.
'I'd better eat something quick.'
Only by eating prey would my lifespan grow and my tentacles be restored.
Before setting out to forage in earnest.
'Let me just crack open this treasure chest before I go.'
I stretched out two tentacles and opened the treasure chest.
...CLICK!
The very moment the chest opened.
CRU-NCH!
All of a sudden the chest's lid shut again and bit down hard on my tentacle.
'!?'
At the same moment that one tentacle was severed, I could see my Combat Power, sharply reduced yet again.
-Combat Power: 94 [-108]
'Ah, fXck.'
When I looked at the rim of the treasure chest's lid, it was full of teeth as sharp as blades.
It opened and shut its lid with a clacking sound.
The identity of this treasure chest, dining with relish on my tentacle as if it were internet-cafe squid-leg jerky, was all too clear.
'This bastard, it was a mimic.'
It seemed I had fallen into a truly shitty world.