Book 1: Chapter 79

Alan Pioneer News A few moments ago “So, Rodrick, have you heard of the Aqua Courage Challenge?” Alan asks while leaning over the counter in the studio. “It’s currently trending on the internet with quite a few people making videos taking on the challenge.” “You mean that challenge about watching Aqua’s hunting broadcasts without looking away?” Rodrick asks with a slight shiver, clearly showing his opinion on those. “I’m never doing one of those. Ever.” “Right, I forgot you’re not so great with horror and gore,” Alan says as he taps his chin. Only to make Aqua’s current broadcast appear on the screen. Where she can be seen crushing a bunch of seahorses while glancing at the kitchen. “Well, who cares. Let’s try it!” Rodrick’s eyes widen in obvious horror, but Alan ignores him to watch the screen with a smug smile. “I’m sure even someone living under a rock like you can watch this to the end, right?” Alan asks with more than a little smugness in his voice. A smugness that hasn’t left him since Rodrick ended up having to live under a rock again thanks to the bet. Meanwhile on the screen they both see Aqua looking at a bunch of two-and-a-half meter tall seahorses sucking corpses dry of blood and organs. Making for a perfect entry scene. And, of course, Rodrick immediately looks away. “I guess I was wrong,” Alan says, not even hiding his smirk. “And here I thought you were a courageous fellow.” Rodrick turns a narrowed-eye glare on Alan, but Alan’s smirk just grows even wider at his look. “But if we’re being serious, this courage challenge has become an enormous hit on the internet,” Alan continues while focusing on the screen as Aqua begins to fight against the seahorses one after another. “Since disgusting and horror-like scenes are common deep down in the depths of the ocean, Aqua often ends up finding scenes like these. Ones that might make someone eating lose their lunch. And when combined with her popularity, people began this challenge.” Rodrick finally turns his gaze away from Alan to face the camera, clearly purposefully avoiding the screen behind him as he says, “A lot of people are saying the contrary visuals of Aqua’s looks and lazy innocence underwater and the sight of the horror are strangely appealing. But I still don’t understand the desire to be grossed out and frightened. So you can enjoy it all you want as long as you leave me out of it.” Alan just chuckles at that. Then the screen changes to show a promotion image for the drama Aqua will be starring in. “Then how about we look at this promo instead?” Alan asks, finally having had his fill of messing with his co-host. “It’s promotion art for Aqua’s drama. The Aquamarine Soldier.” In the promo image on the screen, both hosts see Aqua as she glares straight at them while wearing a set of black tactical military armor. All while floating underwater with two glowing red eyes shown deep in the dark waters behind her. “Do you think the name was chosen to reflect the star actress?” Rodrick asks while tilting his head. “Absolutely,” Alan states without any hesitation. “The director and production company must know that if they chose a title like that with Aqua as the star, people would assume that’s why they chose the name. And the fact that they’re still using the title means it has to be true.” Rodrick purses his lips but nods his head in agreement. “I’m really curious to see her acting,” Alan says while leaning forwards a bit and looking at the image. “It’ll be a good change of pace.” This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Aqua It takes me a little bit longer to deal with the higher level seahorses in the kitchen. But I manage to deal with them without using too much mana. Leaving me with over three hundred fifty still remaining for the freezer room. Fortunately, as I found out a little late, these seahorses have powerful defenses against sharp stabbing attacks, but not much against blunt attacks. Leading to me literally cracking some seahorse skulls. Assuming they have skulls. Do seahorses have skulls? I’m not sure. Either way, the point remains. On another note, my thoughts turn to Pressure of the Abyss as I begin moving towards the freezer room at the back. Where I sense the mana coming from. As with my other magical related skills, as my stats rise, specifically the magical strength stat, so does the power of Pressure of the Abyss. Gradually increasing the strength of the skill. It honestly makes me wonder if I should put in more stat points into magical strength. But at the end of the day, I still prefer having physical strength. Especially since the strength and dexterity stats expound on each other. With more speed meaning more strength as you have more momentum in your movements and therefore more force. I just like having physical stats over magical stats. Although I’ll still put points into magical strength every now and then. I continue moving through the corpse-filled kitchen – which doesn’t make for a very sanitary kitchen – as I head to the freezer room. Which looks to be in a hallway connected to the kitchen. Probably in a room in said hallway. Just from the start of the hallway I can see a food storage at the end of the hall along with two more rooms on the sides of the hallway. And it’s obvious which room is the freezer room, considering that the water looks significantly paler coming from one of the rooms. Even without the mana I can clearly sense from it. So I slowly swim towards it as the chat is still freaking out about how dark it is in here. Which I keep forgetting about since I can see with ease down here. I enter and slowly pass through the hallway before finally making it in front of the freezer room. And what I see is pretty much... nothing like what I was expecting. Excuse me, what? [Uh...] [What’s that?] [That’s not what I was expecting...] I stare blankly at the sight of a massive seahorse-like creature that I’m not entirely sure is a seahorse that’s just floating in the freezer room with its little tail thing wrapped around a massive block of ice. But the reason I’m not sure if it’s a seahorse is because it has the head of an actual horse. Which is... beyond weird to look at. Way too weird. And if that weren’t weird enough, it also has tentacles. I identify the monster as it looks like it’s sleeping. [Deepsea Frost Hippocampus – Level 60] Okay then. I’m just going to pretend like this is normal. [There are some weird things in these waters...] [At least it’s not scary looking.] [Please don’t jinx us...] Huh. Now that they mention it, this thing isn’t actually very scary. Actually, other than the weirdness, it’s kind of cute how it’s hugging that block of ice while sleeping. I’m choosing not to question why there’s a three-meter-long block of ice in the freezer room though. In all honesty, I was expecting some sort of eldritch abomination of a seahorse meant to drive people crazy with how it looks alone. Albeit with that being a bit of an exaggeration. But instead there’s this... uh... not horror-like thing. Well, anyway, this cold actually feels very nice. Probably because orcas like the cold. I could get used to being in here. A relaxed smile spreads across my face as I enter the freezer room, just enjoying the cold and almost forgetting the massive level sixty monster in it. But after a few seconds, and some bizarre messages from the chat, I finally focus on the large monster again. It’s still asleep, so that’s interesting. I narrow my eyes at it before looking at the rest of the freezer room. Which I surprisingly find to be empty. Without a single seahorse inside of it. Strange. Why is this thing alone in here? It feels like there should be at least some other seahorses with it. But nope. It’s just this one monster and nothing else in here. And the monster is even asleep. Hmm... Well, might as well take advantage of its nap to attack it. So without a hint of hesitation, I look for its most vulnerable looking area – which seems to be the base of its tentacles where it doesn’t have those bone plates – before grabbing my trident and rushing straight at it. I would use maw, but I don’t want to waste all of that mana in case the thing gets away from it. The thing is unharmed right now after all. So it could break free. And the moment I get within five meters of the monster, its eyes flash open to stare at me. Making a splitting headache fill me with pain as the thing no doubt hits me with a mental attack. Damnit.