-Aurora: Deep-Sea Escape Log, Day 10—Raiding the Food Factory (Stream)
Six days had passed since I decided on the route I would take.
For six days, I had kept training and grown stronger, and yet I still hadn’t even made it into my first destination, the food warehouse.
It wasn’t because I loved jerky and Cyclops ham that much.
There was a bit of a problem.
What kind of problem, you ask….
-Aurora: Why It’s So Hard to Get into the Food Factory
It’s not that I don’t want to go in;;
(A photo of a Cyclops loitering near the food factory)
Even if I try to go in where there are the fewest of them, I run into at least three at once.
And they’re damn good at coordinated attacks, so they’re way too hard for me to deal with.
ㄴTruth Scholar: Couldn’t you attack with light? If you use magic, it should hurt less too.
ㄴAurora: I tried that too, but even more of them came swarming in.
ㄴCyclopes are kind of easy to beat, though. Just because they cooperate, it becomes impossible?
ㄴHealingIsViolence: Coordinated attacks are on a whole different level. How big do you think the difficulty gap is between fighting one person and getting ganged up on by two or more?
That was right.
I was alone, but those bastards formed teams and beat me down.
Well, there was that reason.
And another reason was that I couldn’t go outside.
To be a little more precise.
“If I go out, I can’t come back.”
About a week after entering the deep sea, I had tried going beyond the force field.
The jellyfish had gone out naturally, hadn’t they?
Naturally, I thought I would be able to as well.
Even if I couldn’t go out and move around, I wanted to leave open the possibility, so I did it.
Since I couldn’t shove my own body out there, I followed the Truth Scholar’s advice.
ㄴTruth Scholar: Could you tie a magic stone to something like a thread and throw it outside once?
I just picked up a magic stone from nearby and used it, and for the thread….
Mm, I used a Cyclops’s blood vessel.
…That mushy, unpleasant texture was not the kind of thing I ever wanted to feel again.
In any case, I made something similar to a sling stone and threw it beyond the force field.
Plop!
As I expected, the magic stone went outside the green force field.
It lost its light in the dark deep sea, but the magic stone still existed.
After confirming that it was possible to go out, I tried to pull the magic stone back in.
“…Huh?”
For a moment, I thought I was trying to pull on a massive wall.
The magic stone didn’t budge. At all.
I tried pulling it even while drawing up mana, but.
Snap!
“Aaagh!!”
The blood vessel broke first.
Cyclops blood vessels were tough enough to pull a titanium boulder, so it made even less sense.
The comment the Truth Scholar posted at that moment.
That comment shattered my world.
ㄴTruth Scholar: That force field is probably… structured like a one-way passage. If you go out, you’ll never be able to come back in.
The sheer absurdity of the deep sea nearly made me cry.
But… what could I do?
Before the vast nature called the deep sea, I was nothing more than a weak creature.
And so, today as well, I continued training in order to defy my fate.
Whoosh!
The black blade cut fiercely through the air.
Since I was swinging it without a shred of mana, its destructive power wasn’t that great.
But my swordsmanship was certainly growing.
Before, the blade had gone forward without strength, but now I could put a certain amount of power behind it.
Following the sword’s intent, draw.
Swish!
Then sheathe in one fluid motion.
“Phew…”
At first, this training drained all my strength, but now I could handle several hours with ease.
The reason I had grown this much in just a few days was probably thanks to my lean, efficient constitution.
A constitution that absorbed several times more mana than others.
Mana could be called the foundation of power, so simply possessing it increased my stamina and strength.
“The downside is that if I can’t control it, I die….”
Thinking that, I swung my sword once more.
Change stance, draw, sheathe. Then repeat again.
Maybe because it was such a boring stream, the number of viewers was lower than usual….
“Phew… no. Why are so many people watching?”
ㄴTruth Scholar: W-we…ll? I d-don’t really know.
ㄴEducationMaster: Ugh, I watched for too long. I still have a lot to do….
ㄴHealingIsViolence: Just keep training.
Something about their strange behavior bothered me a little, but I decided to let it pass for now.
I was planning to end my training here anyway.
“Now, I’m going to the food factory.”
ㄴIaido Sword Saint: It would be nice if you could at least reach the door today.
ㄴTruth Scholar: Good luck! I calculated it, and in about ten years, you should be able to escape!
The Truth Scholar’s comment about ten years almost made me go limp….
“No, no! My goal right now is survival. Focus on the goal.”
I pulled myself together again.
Then I moved my feet.
Toward the first area, the food warehouse.
Scrape. Scrape.
The sound of stepping on sand echoed in my ears.
And that sound soon.
Thud. Thud.
Changed into the sound of walking on a road that, though old, still showed off its grandeur.
It was roughly five minutes to the food warehouse.
And five minutes in this city was.
Chrrk.
More than enough time to encounter a Cyclops.
The Cyclops’s single eye glared at me.
Even in this situation, my body did not tremble.
Gripping the handle even more tightly, I aimed for the optimal moment.
When the Cyclops’s hand, its claws, moved.
Shrrrack!!
Tap-tap!
The Cyclops’s slash came flying horizontally in an instant.
Without even having time to feel fear at the sight, I charged forward.
The opening that appeared after it unleashed its slash.
However, that opening was too narrow to use a drawing technique.
And so.
I would widen the opening.
“Flame, Radiance!”
Fwoosh!!
Green flames rose in response to my words.
Those flames were not some gently burning candlelight.
Sizzle!!
I heard the sound of flesh burning.
Blood flowed from the Cyclops’s eye as it looked upon the sun-like flames.
Now, all the conditions had been met.
The path forward, the mana to achieve it, and the target.
The sword moved.
Heizen Style, First Form.
Flash Severance閃光兩斷.
Thud.
The Cyclops stood silently.
But when my sword, having shaken off the blood, returned once more to its scabbard.
Thud-thud-thud.
The Cyclops split in two and collapsed.
ㄴTruth Scholar: You really do take them down easily now!
ㄴIaido Sword Saint: Cyclops subjugation seems too easy a task for you now. What about that blue jellyfish?
ㄴHealingIsViolence: I don’t know about the small jellyfish, but that huge jellyfish is absolutely impossible.
Certainly, I was no longer at the very bottom of the deep-sea food chain.
Even so, there were still many things I lacked. For one, it was hard to deal with Cyclopes when they gathered together.
“We’ll be at the food warehouse soon.”
With those words, I slipped into a nearby alley.
I carefully poked my head out and took in the sight of the place.
The food factory looked similar to a warehouse on Earth.
A square building. The difference was that it rose high like a high-rise.
Chrrk. Chrrk.
Several Cyclopes were in front of the gray sliding door.
Just counting the Cyclopes I could see right now, there were four.
“Haa… am I not getting in today either?”
No matter how strong I had become, no one was invincible against getting ganged up on….
I turned my steps away.
…No, I tried to.
(Whisper) Truth Scholar: Take my gift, and don’t let it show. It’s expensive, so you can’t get caught….
Before I could even wonder what that meant.
A gift request came in.
I had no clear reason to refuse, and right now, I wanted very badly to get into the food factory.
Cyclops ham had cut my quality of life in half.
Without hesitation, I pressed receive gift.
I fixed the camera on the food factory for a moment.
A black box with no patterns at all.
When I opened it and checked the identity of the object inside.
“This is….”
It was a jewel like transparent glass.
The jewel, about the size of a handspan, looked as though it held a rainbow within it.
“It doesn’t seem like an ancient object… can it be scanned?”
Just by looking, I couldn’t guess what it was used for, so I tried using the scanner once.
I pulled the scanner from my waist and began the scan.
-Mana refraction detected during scanning process.
-Searching…
-Search results indicate the following possibilities.
The scanner showed me three pieces of information.
I clicked the jewel whose name looked the most similar to this.
-Distortion Prism
-When mana is infused, it is possible to distort the light around the target, making it appear as though it is not there. It can be scanned with Jin███ technology.
“A Distortion Prism? No way….”
Even after seeing the scanner’s information, I was still half in doubt.
If a Cyclops’s eye was watching, it could easily notice even tiny changes.
Moreover, the Cyclopes were currently maintaining their focus on the door of the food warehouse.
Even if it distorted light, I had my doubts as to whether it would really work.
“Um, I’ll turn off the stream for a bit. If I try it and fail, I’ll turn it back on.”
First, I turned off the stream.
The Truth Scholar wanted to remain hidden, so it was only right to go along with that.
Now all that remained was verifying its performance….
“Ah, damn it. If it doesn’t work, I’ll just use magic and run.”
Even if I failed, the current me was fully capable of escaping.
I would be shouldering a bit of risk, but it was worth trying.
Following the scanner’s information, I held the prism and poured mana into it.
The prism’s flow met my own, and my surroundings changed.
“Whoa….”
This was… like being inside a soap bubble.
The sparkling rainbow light around me was truly a dreamlike sight.
I only admired that scenery for a moment before coming to my senses and walking toward the food factory.
One step, then another. Slowly, I stepped forward.
And like that, I….
Clunk.
Was able to grab the handle of the food factory.
Even when I looked around at the Cyclopes, they seemed to detect nothing strange.
And so.
Creeeak.
I entered the food factory.
And exactly six minutes after entering, I regretted it.
-!#!$%!@!#%$^%@#%
A machine lit up red as it looked at me.
I didn’t know exactly what those words meant, but one thing was certain.
It intended to eliminate me.
Whirrrr!!!
The machine’s electric saw and powerful pincer hand moved.