Deep Sea Fish Hunting Specialty Broadcast

Chapter 92: Life or Death, It Doesn’t Really Matter (3)

Deep Sea Fish Hunting Specialty Broadcast

EP.92 Life or Death, It Doesn’t Really Matter (3)

Rumble- Boom-

The two beings continue to face off, causing all of Atlantis to violently shake.

Parang couldn’t understand at all how the battle between those two was taking place.

From her perspective, the Kraken… or what was presumed to be the Kraken in text form, and the eyeball monster were just floating there, staring at each other.

But she could definitely feel that the two were in combat.

‘Hostility…’

This was because the immense hostility emanating from the Kraken overlaid with text in the distance was being fully transmitted to Parang.

It was surprising enough that it could possess hostility, but what was even more astonishing was that she wasn’t particularly shocked despite being engulfed by the hostility of such a formidable being.

‘Is it because I’m its daughter?’

Parang couldn’t help but chuckle at her own thought. Daughter, she says.

Wouldn’t that make her a being with an eldritch horror as a parent? If the parent is an eldritch horror, it’s only natural for the child to be one too, so Parang would be an eldritch horror by extension.

‘I’ll absolutely pass on that.’

After all, Parang is a pure human, 100% human no matter what anyone says.

The idea of being an eldritch horror is preposterous.

While Parang was lost in these thoughts, Alice was blankly watching the Kraken and the eye fight.

It’s understandable to be dazed after witnessing such beings in combat.

It’s strange. Parang aside, Alice seemed unfazed despite seeing the eye monster and the Kraken simultaneously with her own eyes.

She wasn’t clutching her head or showing any expressions or body movements typical of someone entranced.

It’s as if she was just watching the confrontation between those two without any mental processing.

If there’s one reason she could be acting like this, there’s only one possibility.

‘It must be the effect of that fusion or whatever it is.’

It would be reasonable to assume that’s why Alice is so calm.

‘Anyway, we can’t just stand here watching this.’

Alice’s situation is urgent, after all.

Her physical condition was visibly deteriorating rather than improving from earlier.

Her skin, now much paler than before, was clear evidence of this.

Even though Parang had already confirmed that Alice was alive, she couldn’t help but feel her heart trembling.

‘Come to think of it, how on earth did she survive?’

Parang had initially thought ‘somehow she managed to survive’ after confirming Alice was alive, but now that she thought about it, wasn’t this situation hopelessly desperate?

In the vast open sea, with an unstable status window making it impossible to know where they were, and even if they reached land, it was questionable whether Alice’s condition could be treated.

Moreover, Alice herself hadn’t predicted this situation. Judging by her eyes and actions, Alice had simply seized an opportunity to escape when she saw the sudden vibrations and changes in the situation.

Alice’s eyes were still full of the will to live, but Parang could also see that she was gradually losing hope.

Splash-

Nevertheless, Alice began to swim rapidly, kicking off from the ground.

As if asserting with her whole body that her story wasn’t over yet.

She was heading in the direction down along the rocky mountain. This could be considered a somewhat rational decision.

In a life-threatening situation, diving towards those transcendent beings would be nothing short of suicide, so she was going in the opposite direction.

And since the ‘fusion’ itself happened here in Atlantis, where Alice is currently located, the solution is far more likely to be found in Atlantis than anywhere else.

If one had to pick the most probable location, it would be the temple Alice escaped from, but unfortunately…

Rumble!!!

The temple, which had to withstand the strongest earthquake head-on, had already collapsed, with about half of it resembling ruins, making it impossible to enter or do anything else.

As they swam down along the rocky mountain, Parang could observe the scenery of Atlantis in more detail.

This was partly because Alice was swimming right above Atlantis, as she needed to find something – whatever it might be – in Atlantis, but also because the rumbling vibrations clearly diminished as they moved further away from the mountain peak, where those monsters were battling.

The scenery of Atlantis closely resembled the ancient cities Parang had seen in picture books as a child.

The kind of old Greek cities that any child raised in South Korea would know what they looked like, even if they had never visited them.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

On both sides of the winding alleyways stood beautiful and antique stone buildings, with busts and statues – that is, real stone statues – erected here and there along the streets.

For some reason, there were also structures that looked like fountains and wells.

And in between, large and small living statues could be seen walking around and doing things, which was a bit strange.

Their movements seemed like clumsy imitations of human actions.

They would stand still facing each other as if in conversation without even the slightest movement, or make drinking motions without holding anything in their hands, or pretend to draw water from wells.

While that alone was strange and eerie enough, what Parang found truly odd was something else.

‘Why is everyone so… uninterested?’

Despite the battle between those formidable beings taking place on the mountaintop not far away, the statue, the sculptures, showed no interest at all and simply continued doing their own tasks.

‘Response to stimuli’ is one of the most basic conscious reactions, isn’t it?

Even trees on land or seaweed and coral in the ocean react when given stimuli, but these statue showed no reaction whatsoever despite the incredible stimulus given to them.

Parang, who had fought countless battles with these sculptures, knew. That their cognitive abilities were certainly not lacking.

From not approaching Alice earlier in the temple to now, there were numerous strange points in their behavior.

It was as if they didn’t know how to do anything other than this.

Beings that only know how to perform given actions, repeating only one behavior if there’s no additional input.

Parang knew of similar beings.

‘Robots.’

Thinking about it carefully, there were quite a few similarities between statue and robots.

But if those were robots, who made them, how, and for what purpose?

Did they naturally emerge from beyond the gate? Or is there a factory that automatically produces these?

As they continued to advance, the scene unfolding before their eyes became increasingly bizarre.

No, to be precise, the scenery hadn’t changed. It was just that Parang, now aware of the sense of discomfort, started noticing more and more peculiar points.

There were sculptures lying on the ground, flailing their limbs pretending to walk, some standing motionless staring at blank walls, and others hoeing empty ground without a hoe.

‘This is just…’

As Parang observed these grotesque yet subtle scenes, just as thoughts were about to flood in,

Wooooood- Kwaaaang!!!

From behind, in the direction where the Kraken and the eye were facing off, an enormous boom of a completely different dimension from before was heard, and simultaneously,

“Kuheck…!!”

Alice suddenly coughed up blood while swimming and plummeted to the ground.

“A-Alice…!!”

Without even a moment to check the situation of the battle behind, Parang went down to check on Alice’s condition, and immediately began examining her body here and there.

‘…!’

And the condition of Alice’s body that Parang confirmed was far from anything that could be described as okay.

Her already weak body had been completely shattered by the impact.

The shock was so great that she could barely even crawl on the ground, just struggling.

She was truly on the verge of her last breath.

‘This, this is absolutely…’

Even Parang thought that in this situation, there was no way for Alice to survive.

But, the image of Alice conversing with Alexandra was clearly…

Parang was confused.

Could it be that Alice, who had been talking to her then, was already dead?

Had she already died, and only her soul was sent to speak to Parang?

Had she left just one last word and then ceased to exist in this world?

Parang’s thoughts kept drifting in an unpleasant direction.

Like that, the light in Alice’s eyes was fading, and even the movements of her struggling body were slowly coming to a stop.

Finally, as Alice’s eyelids were slowly closing, and Parang’s eyes were about to turn red,

Splash!

‘Splash…?’

Something soft yet sticky fell in front of Parang and Alice.

‘Wh-what?’

Both Parang and the dying Alice were startled and looked at whatever was in front of them, and soon they could easily realize what it was.

‘The Kraken’s…’

The Kraken’s tentacle that Parang had always seen.

It was the tip of the Kraken’s tentacle, cut off and still wriggling on the ground.

‘H-how on earth…?’

Parang hurriedly looked towards where the Kraken had been, but the Kraken was still just facing off with that eye, as before.

Perhaps one of the Kraken’s tentacles had exploded during the battle, and its debris was being scattered here and there?

‘…but there’s nothing like this anywhere else.’

If that were the case, there should be piles of Kraken tentacles scattered everywhere, but there was nothing of the sort.

In this vast Atlantis, only in one place, right in front of the fallen Alice, a piece of the Kraken’s tentacle had fallen.

Parang stared intently at that piece of tentacle.

‘It can’t be!!!! No way!! N-no, no, it can’t be!! Th-this world is surely!!!’

“Kughk…!!”

Then something vague, some… thing. A memory, or something unknown, flashed through her mind and disappeared in the blink of an eye.

‘Huh…? Just now… that was…’

Something nostalgic yet empty, regretful yet sad.

It felt as if countless emotions had swept over Parang.

But what really made Parang feel strange was something else.

‘That emotion was definitely…’

The emotion that felt the strongest among all those numerous emotions.

Among the countless indescribable emotions, the only one that could be clearly recognized.

It was neither fear, nor sadness, nor anger, nor joy.

‘Yes, it was definitely.’

A sense of betrayal.

It was a sense of betrayal.

Though it happened in just a fleeting moment, for some reason Parang felt that this couldn’t be overlooked.

So she tried to stare at the tentacle once more, but.

“Haap…!!”

“A-Alice?!”

It was impossible.

Alice had already grabbed the tentacle and was desperately eating it.

In her eyes, the light of the will to live that had been fading was now visibly reigniting.

From Alice’s perspective, it was as if she had desperately grasped the last lifeline thrown to her just before death.

Parang could only watch the scene in a daze.

Who could say anything to that sight of her, clutching with both hands and somehow managing to chew and swallow that writhing tentacle that teeth could barely penetrate, a sight that seemed enough to drive one mad just by looking at it?

And so, in silence, Alice devoured the entire tentacle.