Alex’s sword, wreathed in blue divine power, plunged into the Kraken’s already half-ruptured tentacle.
With even its nerves severed, the Kraken’s tentacle could no longer move properly and merely trembled violently.
A horrible stench like rotting fish filled the air, but Alex could not relax his grip.
Blood gushed out as only the divine power surrounding Alex’s sword shone blue, driving the blade even deeper.
“Ugh….”
Alex’s sword finally severed the Kraken’s tentacle and buried itself in the sand.
Compared to its enormous body, it might have been no more significant than losing a single pinky.
But even at the very end of a limb, could the pain of having part of one’s body severed truly be minor?
—!
The gigantic Kraken began roaring with an indescribable sound, and the ground shook as though an earthquake had struck.
The Kraken thrashed wildly, pounding the beach and sea at random.
Fishmen were crushed all around amid the revolting fishy stench.
Exhaustion washed over Alex, making him want to collapse on the spot, but he hurriedly retreated.
‘Is it… over…?’
If things followed the strategy Alex knew, then although they had not defeated it, they should at least have escaped the immediate threat.
The Kraken was not an enemy meant to be defeated in a single encounter.
It was a Boss that had to be neutralized by cutting off its tentacles one by one like this over several encounters before it could finally be killed.
At the very least, it should have gone through a week-long cooldown before extending those enormous tentacles again.
The sea gradually grew calm, yet Alex’s unease only worsened.
The Kraken’s movements during the battle had been far too unnatural, and the thought would not leave him alone.
“Something… is wrong.”
Makui looked at him after hearing Alex mutter.
Alex had expected a fierce glare, but he was taken aback by the hint of agreement in Makui’s brief gaze.
Makui thinks something is wrong too?
‘There’s no way he knows the strategy… So what exactly does he find strange…?’
Alex followed Makui’s gaze.
The Dark Elf warriors on the beach were all cheering in celebration.
They had stopped both of the Kraken’s attacks and, for the first time in their history, had even managed to injure its body.
Aroha, who could barely walk without limping, and the warriors who had tirelessly chipped away at the Kraken’s tentacle.
Every one of them wore an expression filled with relief and joy at having escaped danger.
But the elders gathered off to one side looked uneasy.
“…Everyone, fall back!”
Makui suddenly shouted in a thunderous voice.
Alex agreed with his judgment, so rather than shouting along with him, he sharply scanned their surroundings.
There had to be a reason for the elders’ unease.
If he assumed the worst possible reason for it, then perhaps the Kraken was going to attack again immediately without going through its cooldown?
“…Looks like that’s the answer.”
Alex spoke coldly as he watched the sea begin churning violently once more.
The waves that had grown calm turned rough again, and the pitch-black tentacle that had vanished into the deep surged above the surface once more.
The Kraken had broken even the most basic rule and immediately begun rampaging again.
After thinking again and again about how “unnatural” everything was, Alex finally became certain.
‘Someone must have designated a sacrifice.’
Who did it?
And who did they mark?
At the moment, the most likely target was actually Alex himself.
Apart from him, everyone on this sandy island had spent their entire lives together.
They were members of the same people, friends, and family.
‘Which means I’m the only person they’d use as a living sacrifice.’
But there had been no opportunity to place such a mark on him since he arrived.
In the first place, it would have been impossible to secretly carve a cursed mark onto someone whose body contained divine power.
And even if they had somehow done so, it made no sense to imprison him in the deepest part of the village among ordinary, unarmed tribespeople.
The more he thought about it, the more inconsistencies appeared.
“It’s coming again!”
“Everyone, get out of the way!”
Shouts mixed with screams and cries erupted from every direction.
Damn octopuses had eight arms.
If someone had been designated as the sacrifice, the Kraken would continue extending its tentacles until it got what it wanted.
Ignoring its own freshly severed tentacle as it writhed vividly on the sand, the Kraken sent another tentacle charging violently toward the beach.
“Everyone, be careful!”
Unlike before, when it had swept wildly across the beach, the end of the enormous tentacle now stabbed repeatedly into the sand like a spear, gradually converging on one location.
Toward Aroha, who had evacuated much farther inland than Alex.
“…Aroha…?”
Come to think of it, Aroha had been wherever the Kraken attacked from the very beginning until now.
‘It’s targeting Aroha.’
As realization struck him, Alex turned his gaze toward the elders, who were floundering like a disorganized rabble.
When Alex had escaped the prison and run toward the beach.
From Alex’s perspective, Makui’s anger had been extremely irritating.
But if he looked at it calmly and rationally, Makui’s reaction had actually been normal.
A Magical Beast attack was already driving everyone insane, and then an outsider they had imprisoned started wandering around as he pleased.
Of course Makui had found it absurd.
‘But the elders reacted differently from Makui.’
Strangely enough, they had shown no doubt when Alex said the Kraken would return.
Instead, they had quietly cooperated, to the point that they barely seemed present despite their positions and magical abilities.
Alex’s expression hardened as he recognized how suspicious they were, but he waved a hand through the air.
There was no time to determine right and wrong at the moment.
“What are you doing? Hurry up and help those two!”
At the very least, the elders could not have done this because they wanted to destroy their own tribe.
If that had been their goal, their magical abilities alone would have been enough to bring down this sandy island.
And even in the game, the elders had fought to the very end to defend their tribe.
Yet even after Alex spoke, the elders remained completely wary.
“Why should we obey you?”
These damned old men still had not come to their senses.
Even during that brief exchange, the situation continued to deteriorate.
Makui and Aroha were fleeing from the Kraken’s tentacle as though their lives depended on it, and it was obvious they could not keep it up for much longer.
With her injured leg, Aroha could not even run properly.
“Because I know how to deal with this!”
After checking on the two of them, Alex immediately began moving as soon as the words left his mouth.
It was not as though he had absolutely no idea what the elders had been thinking when they did something like this.
When sacrificing one person could save everyone else, choosing the sacrifice of the few for the sake of the many was an extremely common approach.
When Alex had only experienced this world as a game, he had made that same choice countless times.
‘Not that I plan on using that method now.’
Because he had done it himself before, Alex knew the Sacrificial Mark used to offer a living sacrifice to the Kraken extremely well.
Alex sprinted onto the beach and began carving a Sacrificial Mark.
Onto the Kraken’s severed tentacle.
‘To hell with being a Paladin. Now I’m stuck chopping up an octopus….’
The Kraken had already been drawn in by the sacrifice.
Unless it was killed, it would never retreat empty-handed.
In that case, all Alex had to do was throw it bait with more magical power than Aroha—something capable of satisfying the Kraken.
Fortunately, the perfect material was lying right there.
The vitality characteristic of cephalopods remained so strong that even the severed tentacle was still actively writhing.
The magical power remaining within it was likewise tremendous enough to befit a Magical Beast, even if that power was cursed and filthy.
‘At least it’s a good thing I still remember this….’
Even in the game, turning one of his companions into a living sacrifice had required painstakingly moving the gamepad to draw the pattern piece by piece.
Back then, Alex had wondered why they had made the process so damn tedious.
Now, it was proving extremely useful.
Divine power gathered at the tip of Alex’s sword as he began leaving a distinct mark across the Kraken’s tentacle.
It amounted to little more than scratching its outer hide, but that was enough for carving a pattern into it.
“Why the hell is it doing this?!”
“Aagh…! Damn it… I don’t know either!”
Meanwhile, Aroha and Makui were practically fighting for their lives.
There was a limit to how long they could keep dodging the Kraken’s tentacle as it slammed down with enough force to crush them both.
With Aroha already injured and limping, Makui had practically been carrying her on his back before finally setting her down in a hurry, almost throwing her aside.
‘I can’t dodge this.’
The moment that thought occurred to him.
Makui poured mana into the tip of his spear, created a massive current of force, and confronted the Kraken’s tentacle head-on.
The enormous limb that seemed ready to crush everything beneath it was deflected to the side, but Makui could not withstand the impact either and went tumbling backward.
“Brother!”
Aroha hurriedly deployed a magical shield, but it was not enough either.
The barrier shattered even more helplessly than Alex’s Sanctuary had and failed to stop the Kraken in the slightest.
This is the end.
Just as everyone watching thought the same thing.
“….”
The Kraken’s tentacle, which had been relentlessly pursuing Aroha, stopped dead.
“…?”
Aroha had instinctively squeezed her eyes shut before the overwhelming attack.
When the silence dragged on, she could no longer bear the tension and cautiously cracked her eyes open.
The Kraken’s tentacle, which had been attacking without regard for anything else, was swaying in the air as though looking around.
Then, after a moment, the Kraken seemed to reach a decision, and its tentacle rapidly swept across the sandy beach.
“Damn…!”
Having completed the Sacrificial Mark, Alex hurriedly retreated.
The severed Kraken tentacle possessed enough movement and magical power to attract the gigantic Magical Beast.
Whether the Kraken failed to realize that the sacrifice was part of its own severed body, or simply did not care, Alex could not fully understand how its mind worked.
What mattered was that he had successfully caught its interest.
Everyone held their breath and watched tensely as the Kraken finally wrapped its tentacle around its own severed limb lying on the sand.
Watching it drag the severed tentacle into the sea sent a chill down their spines as they imagined what it would have looked like if the thing being dragged away had been someone else….
“…Is it really… over…?”
After the Kraken’s repeated attacks, the Dark Elf warriors wore confused expressions.
Was it truly over now?
Or would it come back yet again?
All the Dark Elves looked toward Makui, seemingly hoping he would give them some kind of answer.
Having exhausted all his mana by creating the enormous spear twice, Makui stood silently with his spear planted like a walking stick.
“….”
Makui could not answer easily.
The one who had predicted all of this and even told them how to resolve it had been Alex.
An inlander.
An outsider.
Knowing that, Makui remained silent for a moment before eventually turning his gaze toward Alex.
There was a subtle trust in his eyes, as though he believed Alex could answer what would happen next.
Alex, who had likewise finally sat down to rest, gave a hollow laugh when he noticed everyone looking at him.
‘Looks like my attempt to earn their trust worked, at least….’
If they were only talking about the Kraken’s attack, the situation was over.
The Dark Elves had once again repelled an attack by the Magical Beasts.
The Kraken had taken its sacrifice and had also been injured.
Perhaps it would remain dormant for quite some time.
But finding out exactly why the situation had become this twisted was only beginning.
“It’s not over yet.”
Alex smiled bitterly when despair flashed across the Dark Elves’ faces.
They probably thought he meant the Kraken’s attack was not over.
But that was not the biggest problem.
“Cursed land and Magical Beast attacks are serious problems… but do you know what’s actually the scariest thing?”
Alex continued while staring at Makui.
“Lack of information.”
Aside from knowing how to fight them, Alex knew almost nothing about this tribe either.
But now that he had seen them up close, the imbalance of information within the tribe itself seemed severe.
The elders had deliberately hidden information about the sacrifices while directing all hostility toward the inlanders of Carcosa.
That was also the root cause behind the subtle atmosphere Alex had initially mistaken for ordinary generational conflict.
The elders kept closing themselves off because they were trying to hide something, while the younger generation did not want to remain imprisoned in the name of protection.
What they needed was truth and freedom.
‘I think I finally understand what’s going on.’
Why the Dark Elves had eventually invaded Carcosa again in the game.
Why the rational and composed Makui before him had transformed into such a deranged murderer.
“Isn’t it about time you told them what you’ve been hiding?”
They were the ones who had instilled a vague fear of inlanders into the younger generation to make them avoid the mainland.
And yet they themselves had carved Sacrificial Marks into the bodies of their own people.
“Elders.”
Whatever they had been thinking when they did all this, it was time for them to explain themselves and deal with it.
At Alex’s accusation, the elders lowered their heads.