Chapter 147
“Phew. You’ve been through a lot for ten years.”
Yu-hyun sighed as he watched the two captains of the Nautilus and the Pequod glare at each other.
“It’s a relief that they didn’t fight and joined hands.”
[…From what I see, those two are still on the verge of fighting right now?]
Baekryeon muttered nervously as he sensed the tension between Nautilus and Pequod.
The atmosphere of the two men was still not good, despite Yu-hyun’s relief.
“No. They won’t fight.”
[Why are you so sure?]
“They both realize how much they need each other.”
Pequod fights for revenge.
His goal was Moby Dick, the white whale that tore off his leg.
His arrogant personality had hindered him, but thanks to Yu-hyun’s courage to speak up, Pequod was able to remember his purpose.
However, what was unexpected was that Nautilus’s captain was also after Moby Dick.
‘Nautilus’s captain had nothing to do with that thing in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.’
Nautilus’s captain was an unidentified man.
His name, Nemo, also meant ‘nothing’ in Latin.
A free man of the sea who hid his identity and wandered endlessly.
That was Nautilus’s captain.
‘Nautilus’s captain said he was chasing Moby Dick. I guess he has the same goal as us, whatever happened.’
That’s why Nautilus’s captain and Pequod’s captain joined hands.
They were both uncomfortable and annoyed by each other, as if they were enemies from a previous life. But more than that, their desire for revenge to bring down Moby Dick was strong.
So, until they bring down Moby Dick, they will work together.
‘The first and second expedition teams probably couldn’t do this.’
Yu-hyun considered the failure of the previous expedition teams to be due to their inability to recruit Nautilus.
Now that they had added a submarine that could move freely inside the sea, it was more than a blessing.
“Everyone gather around!”
Pequod’s captain called his crew together.
“And guests. You guys too.”
“Us?”
“Yes.”
Pequod pointed his finger precisely at Yu-hyun among the collectors.
“It’s a strategy meeting.”
***
The strategy meeting was held in Pequod’s bridge.
Nautilus’s captain brought five of his sturdy crew members with him.
They seemed indifferent, as if they had no intention of getting involved any further after making their agreement.
Pequod frowned at Nautilus’s coldness.
“Your ship looks pretty nice, why don’t we plan our strategy there?”
“I can’t let an unpredictable beast into my home.”
Zap!
The two were already in a fight.
The only fortunate thing was that their crews seemed rather reluctant to get involved in the fight.
It was not good that the two leaders were bickering, but it was a great relief that the fight did not spread to their subordinates.
“So, Nemo, why are you chasing that damned whale?”
“It’s personal. And you…”
Nautilus’s captain looked at Pequod’s one leg and stopped talking.
Yu-hyun stroked his chin as he looked at Nautilus’s captain.
‘He’s cold and observant. And very rational.’
Even though Pequod had attacked him with a harpoon first, he did not retaliate and tried to resolve the conversation. On the other hand, Pequod was very impulsive and violent.
In a way, Nautilus’s captain and Pequod’s captain were perfectly symmetrical characters.
‘So I have to coordinate those guys and bring down Moby Dick. Is that it?’
Yu-hyun had obtained new information, so he activated [Laplace’s Demon Fragment].
[Activating Laplace’s power.]
[Failure!]
[What?]
Yu-hyun widened his eyes slightly.
He couldn’t believe it.
He hadn’t expected that he still hadn’t satisfied the basic information.
[You still lack information? Didn’t you already find out that this place is a fusion world of Moby-Dick and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea?]
The current information acquisition rate was 60%. T
hat meant he had collected roughly two-thirds of the information.
[What’s the remaining one-third?]
The first thing that came to his mind was that this place was not simply a world where two stories were merged.
Considering the information he had obtained and the parts that were still unknown, he guessed that this world was created by three stories coming together.
[It depends on what the other story is.]
Yu-hyun tried to focus on the meeting after roughly grasping the situation.
He suddenly felt that there were quite a lot of eyes on him.
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“Hmm?”
“Hey, is the guest’s representative just going to sit there and listen?”
Ahab said that while looking at Yu-hyun.
Yu-hyun, who had become the representative of the collectors by chance, was quite embarrassed.
He didn’t really want to become the representative.
It could damage the discipline of the existing collectors.
Yu-hyun looked at Park Cheol-oh.
“No, I think you should go instead.”
Park Cheol-oh had the same idea as Ahab.
He was the team leader who led the collectors, but the only one who had Ahab’s recognition among the collectors was Yu-hyun.
In fact, Ahab acknowledged the guest, but he mostly talked to or looked at Yu-hyun. Ahab had allowed the guest on the surface, but he still didn’t like the other collectors very much.
“…I guess I have no choice.”
Yu-hyun, who had become the representative of the collectors by chance, stood in the center of the meeting as the third party after Pequod and Nautilus.
Ishmael, who recognized Yu-hyun from a corner, waved his hand as if he was glad. Yu-hyun smiled awkwardly and nodded at Ishmael.
The square captain scrutinized Yu-hyun.
His cold eyes were analyzing what kind of person Yu-hyun was.
Yu-hyun smiled and reached out his hand to the square captain.
“My name is Kang Yu-hyun. I’m a guest who boarded this ship to catch Moby-Dick.”
“…I’m called Square Captain.”
The square captain shook Yu-hyun’s hand.
This action alone told him that he didn’t dislike Yu-hyun.
“So, what are you going to do? Do you know where that damned monster is?”
“Then I’d like to ask you if you know.”
“Me? I just roughly guess by intuition.”
The square captain frowned at Ahab’s words.
He thought it was a joke in this situation, but Ahab was serious.
“I can feel it. When that bastard is close, I mean. It smells, you see. That rotten fishy smell of its vomit.”
“How can you smell that in a place where only saltiness is present? And besides, it’s under water, it can’t smell anything.”
“Listen here, old man. I know how unbelievable this sounds from your perspective. But just know this one thing. I can definitely tell when it comes.”
“Is that why you shot a harpoon at my ship?”
“Hahaha! That was unfortunate! I wasn’t sure until I threw it! But I definitely smelled it then. So I threw it with a feeling of hit or miss.”
“Wait a minute.”
Yu-hyun interrupted their conversation.
“Then, you felt it there?”
“Yeah, I did.”
Ahab’s reaction didn’t seem like a lie.
Yu-hyun felt a sense of uneasiness.
“You said for sure that your intuition wasn’t wrong, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Then captain. You came out because you felt its smell for sure.”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“Do you still feel its smell now?”
“Now? No. The smell disappeared after this old man showed up. But why do you ask?”
“That’s because…”
Yu-hyun recalled what he had been thinking to himself and spoke cautiously.
“Let’s suppose that Captain Ahab has an intuitive sense that the creature is nearby.”
“No, he knows it for sure.”
“The creature disappeared as soon as Captain Nemo revealed himself. But before that, when we were chasing the Nautilus, thinking it was Moby Dick, Captain Ahab smelled it. That means the creature was close to us all along.”
“So, what does that mean…?”
Ahab closed his mouth before he could ask ‘what does that mean’.
It was the same for Captain Nemo.
Only some of the crew members who still didn’t understand tilted their heads and looked puzzled.
“Could it be…?”
“Is that it?”
The expressions of Captain Ahab, Captain Nemo, and the collectors hardened.
Yu-hyun nodded his head and drove a nail of certainty into his uneasy guess.
“It was watching us from the beginning.”
The crew members shuddered in fear at his words.
“How could that be?”
“It’s just a whale. How can a whale…”
“Fools! It’s not just a whale!”
Captain Ahab shouted with a vein popping in his neck.
The crew members all shut their mouths, and Ahab scratched his head roughly and said in an annoyed voice.
“Damn. So, that’s how it was. We weren’t hunting it. It was hunting us.”
“That’s assuming that Captain Ahab’s intuition is correct.”
“No. He’s not lying.”
Captain Nemo stepped forward as if to defend Ahab.
Everyone was surprised by his words from an unexpected person. Ahab was no exception.
“What, old man? You finally decided to serve me?”
“Idiot. Don’t talk nonsense. I just said that you weren’t lying.”
“How can you be sure?”
“His eyes. His breathing. And his actions. They’re not the reactions of a liar. Just that.”
“Just that?”
Yu-hyun chuckled softly.
Captain Nemo said it as if it was nothing, but Yu-hyun knew how amazing it was.
It was impossible to catch those subtle signals of lying naturally with ordinary abilities.
Talent and experience.
It was possible because those two things were combined.
“If that’s true… then it’s bad news. It means that our prey is more cunning than we thought, which makes it harder to catch.”
“Heh. I’m rather glad. Yeah, that’s how it should be. That’s what makes my revenge taste better. What fun would it be if it was easy?”
“This is not a matter to judge by fun. We have to be more careful and cautious in our approach.”
“Listen, old man. There’s no point in racking your brains over this. It’s obvious that it knows our location. We’re not looking for it. All we have to do is wait for it to come to us.”
The crew members’ faces darkened at his despairing words.
That was when it happened.
Woo-woo-woong!
A low and heavy vibration shook the entire Pequod ship.
It was a very small tremor.
Everyone could have passed it off as the wind blowing, but Captain Nemo and Captain Ahab didn’t.
“What’s that? Is it the wind?”
“It seems to be blowing pretty hard then.”
“No. It’s not the wind.”
Ahab put his hand on the wall and felt the slight tremor.
“This vibration is coming from the sea.”
“From the sea? Did a school of fish pass by or something?”
“No. I wish it was that. This is the sound of one creature.”
Only because it was so huge that it affected even the ship far away.
Some of the quick-witted crew members’ expressions turned pale.
Aihub closed his eyes and took a deep breath through his nose.
Hiss!
A flame of madness that he had never shown before flickered in his widened eyes as he exhaled.
“It’s him.”
“Get ready!”
“Yes, sir!”
The sailors jumped up from their seats and moved hastily.
Park Cheol-oh also ordered the collectors to return to their ships.
Everyone was in a hurry, except for the square captain who glanced at Aihub for a moment before returning to the Nautilus.
Ding ding ding ding!
“Everyone, get ready! This time it’s real!”
“Mast! Do you see anything up there?!”
“Nothing, sir!”
The sailors were tense.
The vibration that shook the sea a while ago.
Judging by its size, it was definitely not an ordinary whale.
The sun that had risen in the mid-sky was now setting beyond the distant horizon.
The blue sky turned red in an instant, and the sea shone like it was on fire.
The shadows of the ships stretched long over the water.
The sailors all shut their mouths.
Only the sound of the waves hitting the ship echoed in the vast sea.
‘Baekhyo.’
Hoot!
Yu-hyun lifted Baekhyo high to look for Moby Dick.
His vision expanded in an instant, and he could see within a radius of 500m from the Nautilus and five whaling ships.
But he couldn’t see any giant shadow that could be Moby Dick.
‘Is he far away? How far is he?’
Captain Aihub said he smelled him.
And they actually heard Moby Dick’s roar.
No matter how far away he was, he should have been caught in Baekhyo’s excellent sight.
The collectors who came out on deck held their weapons nervously.
Team leader Park Cheol-oh picked up a special radio.
“Any sightings?”
-Nothing, sir.
-Same here.
-We don’t see anything either.
“Alright. Don’t let your guard down. And some of you haven’t forgotten what I told you before, right?”
-Yes. Of course, sir.
“That’s good.”
As soon as Park Cheol-oh finished the radio, something happened.
The sailor who was on the mast saw something.
And so did Yu-hyun, who shared his sight with Baekhyo.
“Left 9 o’clock! Distance 800! Something is coming! It’s fast!”
“Is it him?”
“I don’t know! It’s too far away…!”
The sailor couldn’t tell what it was because it was too far away, but Yu-hyun was different.
“What is that? A school of fish?”
“A school of fish?”
Aihub was about to ask what he meant by that when it became true.
Splash!
What came like a wave from afar was a school of flying fish that numbered over tens of thousands.
Thud thud thud!
The flying fish approached them and either hit the side of the ship or passed by it.
Some of them couldn’t make it over the ship and fell on the deck, flapping their bodies violently.
The sailors were bewildered.
Yu-hyun, Kang Hyerim, and Kwon Jia didn’t look good either at the strange behavior of the flying fish.
‘Something is wrong. If the flying fish are attacking the ship like this, there’s only one reason I know of: they’re running away from their predators.’
Predators.
As that word flashed through my mind, I noticed another strange phenomenon in Yu-hyun’s eyes.
It was happening on the ship that was floating on the far left side of the five gunboats.
‘The shadow is…’
Compared to the other ships, the shadow of the fifth ship was large.
And it was getting darker.
“No, no way.”
That’s not the shadow of the ship…
“Ship number five! Evade now!”𝒏օν𝖊ɭ𝘣𝔦𝚗.𝚗𝖊𝘵
“Huh?”
“What’s going on all of a sudden?”
Yu-hyun shouted urgently, and everyone turned to look at him.
Kwaaaaang───!!
The fifth ship exploded with a huge blast. For a moment, silence fell around them as a column of water rose more than 200m high.
The sailors’ stunned eyes lingered on the spot where the fifth ship had been just moments ago.
In the slowly flowing time, a huge shadow was glimpsed inside the rising column of water.
The shadow tilted sideways and disappeared.
Its size was, even at a glance, over 100m long.
“Mo, mo-mo-mo.”
One sailor said, trembling his lips.
“It’s Moby Dick!!”
