Book 1: Chapter 83

Aqua I swim over to the ring while allocating my stat points before grabbing the ring and pulling out my scanner. Then a very faint smile spreads across my face at the sight of the result the scanner tells me. A ring that increases the wearer’s dexterity by ten. It’s useful for low levels but pretty much useless for high level beings. I’m still considered low in level though, so it’ll be useful for me for a while. With that thought in mind, I go ahead and take the armored gauntlet off my forearm and hand before putting on the ring and reequipping the piece of armor. Then I begin slowly heading back to the city with a grimace on my face. I got a little too overconfident after all the drowned sailors went down so easily despite being at and even above my level. Which led to a close call. And on top of that, this is the first monster Abyssal Reversal didn’t do much against. The sunken captain recovered from it almost immediately. To the point that he adjusted within a few seconds, with the entire effect wearing off a few seconds after that. Out of all the surprises during that battle, it was the biggest one. Other than the sunken captain’s speed, that is. Which this ring actually explains some of. I let out a sigh as I swim towards the city. Then I head to the guild before turning in the monster corpses to the harvesters there who are openly dreading the mere sight of me. Unfortunately though, they don’t actually give me much in return for the monster corpses. Which makes some sense now that I think about it. Seeing as they’re undead. And there aren’t many underwater undead that naturally occur outside of dungeons. The only reason people care about getting undead parts are to make anti-undead gear after all. And no undead means not much use for anti-undead stuff. Especially since the anti-undead stuff is mostly for miasma. Miasma that doesn’t really leak from undead underwater. On top of that, the undead were all wearing torn clothes. Which aren’t worth a thing. In fact, the only thing worth much from them are their weapons. Anyway, I leave the guild and head to the inn before going through my routine and heading to bed a little early tonight. Waking up earlier than normal the next morning thanks to that. And with all my wounds over halfway healed at this point for the collarbone. Enough that there’s no longer a large dent crushed into my collarbone. With the broken arm almost entirely healed. I go ahead and run through my morning routine before going to my jobs for the morning. Which consist of two filming sessions for the drama and some promotion for the music video prior to its release. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. So nothing too difficult. Even with my injuries. Especially since the injuries are pretty much around seventy to eighty percent healed by the time I finish today’s jobs. With the broken arm being completely healed. And by the time I reach my destination for today’s hunt? The wounds are completely healed. After arriving, I take a moment to look around the area. At the massive cavern. This is the first place I’ve gone hunting in a while that isn’t a broken dungeon. And the entire reason I’m here is actually because of a request from the guild. The cavern in question is just one massive and very dark cavern without any connected tunnels. Making for a common nesting location for different deep sea monsters. As for the cavern’s depth? It’s actually a bit deeper than I normally go. At the six thousand eight hundred meter mark underwater. The monsters at this depth are generally between level 70 to level 80. With the ones that make nests in these giant caverns being massive monsters. As for why it should be safe for me to hunt whatever monster is in here? It’s because the massive monsters are slower, this one will be stuck inside a cavern when I plan to attack it, and the deeper monsters of this northern ocean are different from the ones from the other ocean. And that is obvious just from looking at the cavern from the outside. A cavern that is in the side of a decline going down deeper. But with the decline being made of a darker and slightly dirty ice instead of stone. With the water itself being paler even if the water inside of the cavern quickly gets darker. There’s just something about the mana inside the cavern that makes it darker and harder to see. Which isn’t a problem for me as I shapeshift my eyes to look clearly through the water. Revealing a large monster to me while it slowly swims through the cavern’s interior. The monster itself spans at least two hundred meters in length, with the cavern being over a kilometer in length. And the monster itself is like a mixture of a massive seal and a large whale. All with hints of some sort of bug mixed into its head. It has four really large flippers that look balanced with the massive creature’s body, a body a bit more similar to that of a whale, and the head of some sort of bug mixed with a seal. The head has four different pincers in front of a mouth full of sharp teeth, but with the head shape of a seal and dull blue eyes that look lacking in intelligence. I narrow my eyes a little when I see the monster’s identify result. [Deepsea Zeal Glerg – Level 76] That’s about the level they suspected the monster would be from past monsters who have taken home here. Normally they just avoid the cavern like the plague when a monster is sighted taking this place as its home since no one can kill them, but not this time. Not with me here. At this point I’ve long since eclipsed all the other hunters on this planet in level by at least two dozen levels. And they’re offering me quite a few crowns as a reward. But more importantly, fighting a monster at this level on its own in a good place to fight is the reason I decided to take the job. And this monster should be easier to defeat than the sunken captain. Since it won’t have an item, and the level gap is smaller. On top of that, I was given some information about several of the large monsters at this layer of the Cryaxis ocean. And this one is included in that list. The monster is known to throw its large bodyweight around to attack. It also has several other types of peculiarities to it that I’m sure are just traits or System skills. Like how it can make the water around it far colder just from its mere presence. And it can shoot out beams from its mouth that freeze anything they touch. They can also tear through adamantium with their pincers, just like those bugs a while back, create and throw arcs of ice by flapping their tail, and digest pretty much anything they eat. Overall, they’re powerful, but not a very good match against me. Which make for good prey for me even at higher levels. As for the natives of the world? They avoid the zeal glergs like the Abyss. Since there’s nothing they can do against them. The only reason they aren’t enormous threats out in the deep is that they’re slower and tend to live in large caverns like this down in the ice. So they don’t often actually attack. That said, the few times they did attack Deep Cities, they devastated the cities with ease. Shattering the barrier with a single blast before freezing everything and everyone inside with their beams of ice. So the cities often have caution notices, with some even evacuating at any sightings of one living nearby. I narrow my eyes at the monster before taking a deep breath, pulling out my trident, and beginning to move towards it. Time to go... seal hunting? Whale hunting? Seal whale? Time to go hunting.