I recalled the days before I was reincarnated, when I had served in the military.
The hellish Maritime Scout Team training.
Those who know will know.
Just how much this makes you grind your teeth.
Even after I had put in enough years of service for the dye of my black beret to fade until it took on a purple tinge, I always counted this Maritime Scout Team training as my worst experience.
Getting beaten up by a staff sergeant without so much as an epaulet on his shoulder, getting thrashed with a green-wood club, holding a handstand on top of barbed wire like pollock hung out to dry, enduring cold and hot water while holding my breath for minutes at a time, not being allowed out of the water except to sleep, running a dozen-odd kilometers every single day, swimming several kilometers every single day, fishing out a fellow soldier who had passed out from hypothermia and loading him onto the boat, rowing, running with the boat carried on my head, eating rice set on top of an oar because there were not even meal trays.......
'Even when eating, I could hardly use my teeth.'
Rice and side dishes were things you had to gulp down within a few seconds, and teeth were used only for clenching hard while being beaten.
And my class had, of all things, as rotten luck would have it, an especially large number of genuine lunatics.
Those bastards lived with abuses such as verbal violence, cursing and beatings as a constant habit, and I too suffered a great deal of harm from them.
The one I was put through most often was the abuse of chewing and eating a live, flopping crab alive.
'That's why I didn't eat seafood even after I was discharged.'
Eat seafood and the fishy smell of the sea inevitably spreads through your mouth, and smell the fishy smell of the sea and the nightmare of those days naturally comes back.
......Even so, the grit and the strong stomach of mine that had never once missed 1st place in Maritime Scout Team training had not disappeared.
I bravely picked up the crab's carcass.
'Make the impossible possible~ warriors of the Special Forces unit~'
Drawing on my experience of doing head carries with a rubber boat of over 100 kilograms on my head, I set the big crab shell on top of my head and went back to the hideout.
......Busy with that, I failed to see it.
BUBBLE, BUBBLE, BUBBLE, BUBBLE......
The blue blood flowing out of the dead crab's mouth and spreading along the current.
The stream of that blue blood running on past the rock, all the way into the darkness far beyond.
***
...THUD!
I dragged the crab's carcass over and set it down in front of the hideout.
'I hate seafood, but...... there's nothing here but seafood, so it can't be helped.'
When I twisted hard, the crab legs came apart.
The translucent flesh stretched out long.
It might be a bit better cooked, or made into soy-marinated crab, but there is nothing like that here.
RRRIP!
When I tore the crab shell off upward, the crab's lungs and other innards showed inside.
Perhaps as an aftereffect of being stabbed by the deadly poison stinger, the innards in the part connected to the right pincer were stained purple.
'Anyway. Thank you for the meal.'
I began digging out and eating the innards in the crab shell and the meat in the legs.
The taste was, surprisingly, an ordinary crab taste.
Blended with the saltiness of the seawater, it felt ever so slightly like eating soy-marinated crab, but with no sweetness and no savoriness, the illusion soon broke.
MUNCH— MUNCH— MUNCH— MUNCH—
I held it down and ate the crab.
The crab's body, seen as I ate, had a truly vicious appearance.
The carapace of its back shell was a full 5 centimeters thick, and inside it teemed with parasites of unknown kinds.
As for internal organs, testes, gills, gonads, stomach, heart....... There were no eggs.
Picking out the shell fragments and parasites one by one, I went on with my meal.
MUNCH— MUNCH— MUNCH— MUNCH—
Before I knew it, the inside of the crab shell was empty.
With that, the status window changed.
-<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.
-Grade: ★ (1-Star)
-Combat Power: 4054 [+1034]
-Traits: <Absorption>, <Basic Poison Resistance>, <Cannibalism>, <Powerful Luminescence>, <Ironclad Skin>, <Sticky Ink>, <Deadly Poison Stinger>, <Faint Flame Resistance>, [+]<Burrowing>, [+]<Parasite>
My Combat Power had increased greatly.
That my body had grown and my tentacles had thickened was plain even to the eye.
'I was hoping I'd get a trait related to attack, but...... no such luck.'
I let out a sigh.
The trait I had newly gained from taking down the crab was 'Burrowing'
-<Trait: Burrowing>
-Digs a burrow and goes in.
It was a simple technique that lets you dig into the ground.
If I had to classify it, this too could be seen as a defensive technique for survival.
'You can take only one trait from one monster species, and it gets fixed at the first trait you take, so...... from now on, even if I take down the same monster, I won't be able to take any trait other than Burrowing.'
In other words, no matter how many worker crabs I took down, I could not gain any further trait besides Burrowing.
'But it doesn't matter. There are many kinds of crab. I just have to take down a different crab and take its trait.'
Subspecies of crab are scattered all over this vast deep sea.
If I wanted to take traits, it was entirely possible.
'That aside.......'
I turned my attention to the second trait I had newly gained.
The 'Parasite' trait.
This was not a trait the crab had had.
It was a trait that had come from eating the parasites burrowed into the crab's innards.
-<Trait: Parasite>
-Holds all kinds of parasites inside the body. They may be harmful or beneficial.
※Parasites currently held: 1 kind
↳Lung fluke: Puts the host into a state of respiratory distress. Reduces Combat Power by 1 per second and makes the host short of breath, slowing its movement speed.
Quite a creepy trait had appeared.
Without realizing it, I felt over my body with my tentacles.
'Ugh, I really hate this.'
The thought of gross-looking parasites roaming around inside my body made me feel awful.
As a test, I tried calling out one parasite.
'Come out, come out, come out, come on out.'
When I muttered toward the inside of my body with my eyes closed.
Before long, a black sphere came scurrying out to the tip of a tentacle.
'Hi. Are you my parasite? You're cuter than I expected.'
To think the day would come in my lifetime when I'd hold a conversation with a parasite.
However.
'Hm. But my Combat Power isn't really dropping or anything?'
I turned my attention to the status window.
'Ah, is it because of this?'
I had found the reason my Combat Power was not dropping despite my being infected with parasites.
-<Star Fragment of the Ancient God>
-While you hold this, you are not subject to the effect of the 'Automatic Combat Power Reduction Debuff.'
The treasure gained from taking down the mimic, the 'Star Fragment of the Ancient God.'
Its effect is 'Prevention of Automatic Combat Power Reduction.'
This cheat-grade paid perk was protecting my body from the parasites.
'Good grief, I can use the Parasite trait without any penalty at all? That's straight-up thuggery.'
Because of the Ancient God's star shining inside my body, the parasites could not penetrate deep into my body and were crowded around the tips of my tentacles.
'Now that the debuff from the parasites is nullified, I'll be able to use them like deadly poison.'
I compared the Parasite trait with the deadly poison trait.
-<Trait: Deadly Poison Stinger>
-Injects a powerful poison into the enemy's body. Reduces the opponent's Combat Power by 1 per second.
Deadly poison and parasites.
Both are contact techniques, and in that they can deal damage over time to an opponent, they were traits with an excellent early pick rate among veterans.
It was also a technique combination I myself had once enjoyed using.
'Still, it was a trait that was hard to use in the early game when Combat Power is low, and now a trait worth adopting only from the mid-to-late game at the earliest is one I can spam from the early game at no cost at all.'
The Parasite trait is by nature a double-edged sword.
But thanks to the star of chaos I held, I could now take just one edge of that double-edged sword and use it.
I examined the status window once more.
-<Trait: Parasite>
-Holds all kinds of parasites inside the body. They may be harmful or beneficial.
※Parasites currently held: 1 kind
↳Lung fluke: Puts the host into a state of respiratory distress. Reduces Combat Power by 1 per second and slows its movement speed.
The parasite I hold is the 'lung fluke.'
Besides reducing Combat Power, it can additionally apply a debuff that slows the opponent's movement speed.
'This is pretty useful early on too. A good pickup.'
I stress it once more: this is a trait I would normally never have acquired.
A trait that, even if I did acquire it, I would only have considered once I got to the late story, when Combat Power is plentiful.
But thanks to the star fragment of chaos I had gained without meaning to, this trait had transformed into one that was extremely useful in the early game.
'I was disappointed not to get an attack technique, but this is some consolation at least.'
I nodded, watching the black dots scurrying about on the tips of my tentacles.
Just then.
FLA-SH!
The Star Fragment of the Ancient God inside my body gave off a dark red light.
Before long, a voice came from around my heart.
[My...... vassal......]
I heard a voice that kept breaking off.
I knew whose voice this was.
'Ah. It's the off-the-scale boss that shows up in the mid-game.'
The carving engraved in the submerged ruins came to mind.
The Ancient God of the deep sea, with the mug of a cephalopod and the body of a giant.
To compare it to a run-of-the-mill fantasy narrative...... the owner of this voice speaking to me now was a being no different from a 'Demon King.'
[Survive...... Survive and grow strong...... And so break my seal...... go up to the surface...... and exterminate the hu......]
Isn't there a button or something to turn this voice off?
I cleanly ignored what the Ancient God was saying.
'What do you mean, go up to the surface? I never even wanted to be dragged into this world in the first place.'
I will survive.
But that is not because I want to be caught up in the mayhem that higher beings stir up.
I want to live.
I just want to live in comfort, that's all.
Therefore I will never take part in the great war waged by the main-tier powerhouses of this world.
Rather, I mean to settle on the floor of the deep sea, farthest from the fight they wage, and just lap up the honey.
'So I should go down, not up.'
I will go down to the middle layer of the deep sea even a day sooner.
'I'll lap up a bit more honey in this safe hideout, build up my Combat Power, and then go down.'
With the mimic's shells and the deadly poison sea urchins, and now a crab-shell shield and a pincer blade on top, the hideout's security had become all the more solid.
Now I just had to stay here and keep hunting clownfish, whiting and Skull-Head Octopuses over and over.
'Maybe there's a hot spring underground, because even the floor is nice and hot. Very nice.'
For the first time in my reincarnated life, I felt happiness.
......However.
That happiness did not last so long.
CLATTER— CRRRACK!
A sea urchin up ahead split in half.
'Huh?'
I poked my head out of the hideout.
An intruder had come.
And this intruder's presence was something quite out of the ordinary.
RU-UUUUUMBLE......
A killing intent powerful enough to make my skin tingle even from far away.
-<Kraken 'Juvenile Form': Blade-Tooth Madam>
-The juvenile form of some cephalopod.
It has taken on a fair shape, but it is still weak and immature.
Along the rims of its tentacle suckers are attached many fearsome saw blades that spin at high speed.
-Combat Power: 5,321
-Traits: <Absorption>, <Cannibalism>, <Basic Poison Resistance>, <High-Speed Grinding>, <Hell Bite>, <Double Yolk>
It was one of my kin, the same as me, and a higher species that had evolved along a far more powerful route at that.