✠
I couldn’t leave Thesilid and Ash dripping with sea water unattended.
I handed them a towel and a change of clothes.
<Ellet, let’s turn around and not peek. Be a lady.>
Agnes solemnly nagged about something she didn’t have to.
After some time had passed, two people who had compromised with half-dry hair, came to my side wearing raincoats.
Ash asked first.
“What do we do now, sister?”
“What do you think we should do?”
I asked back because the kind of person our knights look for is someone who can make their own decisions.
“Well, since it’s the sea, fishing?”
Although Ash seemed to be joking.
“Yes, correct answer.”
I took three bamboo fishing rods out of my inventory and spun them one by one.
“Let’s go fishing.”
“Really? Shouldn’t we go catch the Boss?”
“We can’t catch the boss until he shows up anyway. Let’s fish while we wait.”
“Oh, I’ve never fished before.”
“You can try it today.”
Unlike Ash, who was reluctant, Thesilid silently hung the bait on the hook.
As if he had learned well from Hias in the Dungeon Farm, the way he cast his fishing rod far away was quite good.
Ash and I also settled down and each threw bait in different directions.
“Can we catch fish when it’s raining and thundering?”
“The fish here are used to this kind of weather and won’t mind.”
The time to quietly wait for the fish continued. The atmosphere was calm as all three did not suffer from seasickness.
After quite a while, a bite finally came.
It was Ash’s fishing rod.
“Oh!”
Ash looked curiously at the tightly stretched fishing line.
Soon, a ruddy red snapper, which he reeled in with ease, appeared.
I clapped.
“That’s great!”
“Sister, this is quite fun, right?”
The feeling of success was a good motivator to keep going.
From then on, Ash fell in love with fishing and began to focus on it.
While doing this, I really felt like I was here for recreational fishing.
Agnes’ grumbling was heard.
<I want to ask you about the dungeon, but I can’t talk to you because of that assassin.>
At that time, Thesilid, who had been quiet until now, turned to me and opened his mouth.
“Eli.”
“Yes, Terry.”
“Can you explain the dungeon?”
<Oh, Thesilid! Pass!>
……Don’t do it, Agnes. It’s painful.
“Ah, come to think of it, this was a dungeon.”
Ash also showed his willingness to listen as if he was curious.
Since I decided to take him with us, it was necessary to explain to him about this dungeon, the ‘Sea of Great Flood’.
“This place was not originally a sea. Originally, it was just plain old land, but the great flood happened and the water swelled up like this.”
The Great Flood is a famous plague in the Bible. Of course, it seemed that this newly enlisted chick-believer needed more explanation.
“Flood? Isn’t that just a natural disaster?”
“The scale is bigger than that. Because of the rain that poured down for 40 days and 40 nights, the world became a sea of water, and all living things on the ground were exterminated. Originally, it was supposed to rain here for 40 days and then stop, and if we waited another year or so, the water would recede and the land would be exposed. But……”
“But……?”
“That natural order was distorted when this place was occupied by a high-ranking Demon and the area was turned into a piece of the Demon World. So, no matter how long you waited, dry land would not appear.”
This is an area where the water remains stagnant and the disaster continues forever.
“The bottom line is, if you catch the boss, the disaster will end, right?”
“Yes.”
“Looks like the boss is a monster that lives deep in the sea.”
“That’s right. It’s the Kraken.”
Kraken, a sea monster often described as a giant octopus or squid. That guy is the boss of this dungeon.
“Then the reason we are fishing now is to catch the Kraken?”
“Yes.”
At the same time as I answered, something bit the bait of my fishing rod.
I snatched it up and found it was a chubby mackerel.
“Sister, congratulations.”
“Thank you.”
I suddenly realized that Thesilid was quiet and glanced over at him.
He was staring at Ash’s red snapper and my mackerel with an envious gaze.
It was quite a while later that Thesilid’s rod had a bite.
“Oh, Terry at last!”
“I wish you all the best, brother.”
Amidst mine and Ash’s attention, Thesilid swung the fishing pole with a look full of anticipation and quickly caught the fish with his bare hands.
“……”
After examining his catch, he was speechless.
Ash and I, poking our heads in from the left and right, spoke up.
“Is it anchovy?”
“……It’s sardines.”
I corrected it with my Food Appraisal skill. In other words, that was an anchovy-grade sardine.
Thesilid averted his gaze and changed the bait and for some time since then, the sea fish have teased him by only taking the bait and running away.
Is it possible to be hated by the worldview in this way?
It was to the point where I seriously considered that thought after watching until here.
Ash reeled in another fresh catch and spoke to Thesilid in a friendly tone.
“Brother, you don’t seem to have much luck with fishing.”
“……I guess so, sir.”
“Feel free to drop formalities. You are older than me.”
“I’m comfortable with honorifics.”
“It doesn’t look comfortable at all.”
“It’s more uncomfortable than silence.”
“……”
Agnes admired.
<He has a classy way of telling people to shut up.>
Ash, unable to break through Thesilid’s iron wall, approached me like a defeated soldier and complained in a small voice.
“It seems that Brother Thesilid has no intention of getting along with me. Are knights originally this reticent? It reminds me of Brother Ray.”
“I wonder if you are too sociable. Well, apart from that, Terry and Cadet Ray are in the same class.”
They were about as similar as twin sweet potatoes. Both had good character, upstanding knightly beliefs, and even naive straightforwardness.
However, it seems that my interpretation of their character was quite different from Ash’s.
“Same class?”
The fact that his comment came with a snort had a strong meaning of ‘There’s no way that’s the case’.
“Well? On the contrary, I thought that Brother Thesilid was in the same class as me.”
Thesilid showed interest in Ash’s words for the first time as his sea-blue eyes turned to the assassin.
Then, as if he had waited, Ash met his gaze and opened his mouth.
“Your eyes are just like the ones people in my field have, you see.”
“……”
“How many people have you killed?”
“……”
The mood became strange.
“Ash.”
At the moment when I called out to Ash, hoping to restrain him from saying anything that crossed the line.
“I don’t know.”
Thesilid said softly.
“At some point, it became hard to count.”
A voice without a pitch, a face without expression.
Thesilid turned his head as if interest had died. Fleeting empty eyes turned to the dark horizon.
Is it a lie to avoid an answer?
Listening to the sound of rain filling the silence, I was lost in thought for a while.
Thesilid had blood on his hands even before he returned. A typical example was the people who had to be killed in ‘The Valley of the Heretics’ because of Carpeus.
One by one, he counted their bodies as he closed their eyes and buried the corpses on the ground.
He knew that if he did so, he would remember the number of people he had killed, not for the conquest, but for the guilt. By the time he reached the 17th round, he didn’t get blood on his Holy Sword unless it was absolutely unavoidable.
Therefore, the reason “because it became difficult to count” was somewhat uncharacteristic of him.
Parrr……
Something happened to clear the awkward air. Thesilid’s fishing line was vibrating terribly.
Ash blurted out.
“Sardine?”
“……This looks like a big one.”
Thesilid replied while forgetting about using honorifics.
Apparently, it wasn’t a bluff of pride, because Thesilid’s fishing rod bent almost to the point of breaking.
From then on, a tug-of-war between him and an unidentified fish began.
The fish was so strong that the gondola began to be quickly pulled.
Ash and I watched in fascination.
“What kind of fish is this?”
“I’m also curious.”
I stared intently at the place where the float was cast.
After a while, in the water that I thought was just dark, the silhouette of something began to appear separated from the background color.
The moment when Thesilid’s prey finally jumped up above the surface of the water and revealed itself.
“What is that? Is it a shark?”
A massive body that must have been three meters long, sharp shark-like fins, and a long beak-like mouth.
The name of that blue fish was.
“A Blue Marlin!”
At the moment I called the name of the fish, the ungrateful fellow flew at us with his beak-like snout.
Sharp as the tip of a sword, the snout narrowly missed Thesilid’s cheek.
Befitting a well-trained assassin, Ash picked up a number of small hidden weapons right away.
“As expected, a demonic fish. He is a dangerous fellow.”
[‘The Troubled Architect of the Tower of Trials’ says that Blue Marlins are originally called the Sword Masters of the Sea.]
It is said that a Blue Marlin in its natural state is like that regardless of being in the demon world.
Ash put an aura on the thin daggers he held between his fingers, but before he could throw them at the giant Marlin.
“Wait a minute.”
Thesilid declared in a resolute yet commanding voice.
“This is my prey.”
He seemed to be trying to make up for his sluggish performance, of catching only sardines, with the Marlin.
I raised a hand to restrain Ash, then put another one of Thesilid’s shoulders.
“At this rate, Hias, who taught you how to fish, has no face. As the leader, I will allow you.”
“Thank you.”
Thesilid began to fight with the Marlin, reeling the fishing line in and out.
The appearance of confronting nature with only a human’s natural ability without the help of the three major powers was touching, but at the same time, I felt a strange sense of deja vu. I think I’ve seen it before…….
“Ah!”
Having found the correct answer, I clapped my hands.
“The Old Man and the Sea!”
“……”
Thesilid’s hand slipped while reeling in the fishing line.
✠
Note 1: Blue Marlin is the Sword Fish guys
Note 2: From Wikipedia
The Old Man and the Sea is a novella written by the American author Ernest Hemingway in 1951 in Cayo Blanco (Cuba), and published in 1952.[1] It was the last major work of fiction written by Hemingway that was published during his lifetime. One of his most famous works, it tells the story of Santiago, an aging Cuban fisherman who struggles with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream off the coast of Cuba.[2]
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