Chapter 62: Interlude

Chapter 62: InterludeDeep Sea Fish Hunting Specialty Broadcast – 62



Meanwhile, at the time when Parang and the Titan were engaged in a soul-baring duel.

“Alright~! That’s it for today’s broadcast! Tomorrow is a day off, and the day after tomorrow, we’ll continue making it on stream.”

S-Class crafting hunter, Shin Yuna.

She was wrapping up her broadcast.

─If today’s broadcast was fulfilling, hit like, lol

─I’m Shin Yuna, and I hit like

─Don’t go, don’t go, don’t go, don’t go

─Why is there no broadcast tomorrow???

“Why is there no broadcast tomorrow? Ah, well…”

─Here she goes again, Shin Yuna’s nonsense

─HEAD!!! BANGING!!

“Alright~! It was fun! See you next time!!!”

Click.

[ This broadcast has ended. ]

“Ugh… stretch, stretch, stretch…”

Shin Yuna stretched vigorously as she looked at the end-of-broadcast screen in front of her.

She did some stretching and even some light exercises.

Normally, her routine would be to open the community after ending the broadcast, but recently, she had developed a new hobby.

‘Yes!! Time for a dive!!’

It was diving.

She explored the monster layer with an unmanned submarine she had built herself.

Now that there was no risk of mental attacks, she had persistently obtained permission from Hunter Yu Parang, who was in a sulky mode outside the water.

“Here and here, and here, absolutely do not approach. Other than that, well…”

However, the permission she obtained was not easily granted. She had sworn never to approach the areas marked by Parang, under the promise to keep everything she saw below a secret.

It was more of a safety approval than permission, but anyway.

With a submarine at her disposal and guidelines from Parang,

there was nothing left to stop Yuna’s desire to dive, which could even penetrate the oceanic crust.

Yesterday, it got too late, and she could only dive for four hours. Today, she ended the broadcast early, fully prepared and bursting with anticipation.

Without even glancing at the community, she quickly headed to the basement.

Riding down in a Victorian-style elevator, she saw a door made of brass.

Manipulating various round valves and levers on it—turning, pulling, and pushing—made a clanking, rattling noise, and with a hiss of steam, the door opened.

What appeared was a gigantic aquarium.

Yuna, wearing a full-body decompression diving suit hung next to the door, waddled into the tank.

Below was a brass chair and a desk-shaped controller for seated operation.

Next to it, the unmanned submarine she had built herself was carefully placed.

Thump.

Yuna sat on the brass chair and pounded on fist-sized buttons, causing a giant monitor to rise from the floor and turn on.

The screen displayed the inside of the aquarium she had just entered.

It was a video transmitted from the unmanned submarine she had built.

She placed her hands back on the controller, pressing, pulling, and turning various controls—clank, click, rattle!

As she manipulated the controls, one wall of the aquarium opened, revealing a passage, and the submarine began to move towards it.

It was a passage directly connected to the sea.

With a giant corporation backing an S-Class hunter, there was nothing she couldn’t build.

Vrrrrrrrrr-

With the sound of the propeller turning, the submarine started its journey!

Exiting the passage, it entered the East Sea and descended deeper and deeper.

The surface layer had long been dismissed from her interest. Only, and solely, the monster layer captured Yuna’s attention.

Descending vertically, Yuna quickly reached a depth of 700 meters, the monster layer,

■■■■■■■ㅡㅡ

and finally encountered a monster fish.

It was the first monster fish she met today.

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t entirely true.

She thought she saw something resembling a red handle along the way but decided to ignore it and move on.

So, ‘practically,’ this was the first monster fish she encountered today.

Coincidentally, the creature in front of her was none other than a Galecus.

The detestable, ominous fish that had once driven her to the brink of death.

Thinking about how close she came to dying still sent chills down her spine.

So, Yuna embarked on a ruthless act of revenge.

She meticulously examined the Galecus, from its scales to its fins.

The weapons mounted on an unmanned submarine couldn’t hunt monster fishs.

Yuna desperately wanted to tear apart the Galecus, to strip its flesh from its bones, but the circumstances didn’t allow it.

Besides, observing rather than hunting suited her preferences.

Thus, the relentless examination by the merciless monster fish magnifier, Shin Yuna, continued for a while.

How much time had passed? Yuna’s unmanned submarine had already descended to a depth of 1.2 kilometers. seaʀᴄh thё Nôvel(F)ire.ηet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

The maximum depth it could reach was 2 kilometers, but for various reasons, Yuna never went below 1.5 kilometers.

Partly to prepare for unforeseen circumstances, and for other reasons as well.

Moreover, the deep sea she wanted to explore could be sufficiently experienced at around 1.5 kilometers.

[ Skill, ‘Waterproof Sanity’ is activated. ]

‘Phew…’

Yuna sighed as she hurriedly steered the submarine away from the monster fish’s maw.

Goosebumps covered her entire body, and her legs trembled.

Seeing a small, beautiful, glowing fish, she approached it, only to find that the fish had vanished, leaving behind a massive anglerfish.

The submarine she painstakingly built, staying up all night, almost ended up inside the anglerfish’s mouth.

Even putting aside the submarine issue, the experience Yuna just had was enough to send chills down her spine.

In the deep, dark void, the only visible light disappeared, and suddenly a gigantic maw appeared before her.

Inside the maw, it sounded as if people of all ages were screaming in agony, and eyes were densely packed on the roof of the mouth and the tongue.

Adding to the horror, an alert window popped up, making the situation even more perfect in its terror.

“Gasp… gasp… haaa…”

She felt like she could get addicted to this.

Indeed, this woman was crazy.

Anyway.

Yuna steadied her breathing and was about to resume her exploration when she suddenly stopped.

She had discovered something extremely unusual.

It wasn’t a monster fish, nor an object.

Floating in the water, bubbling away—what was that?

Looking closely, she realized.

‘A submarine…?’

It was an unmanned submarine.

Unlike the steampunk-style submarine Yuna had built, this one had a cybernetic vibe.

A black body with red neon lights, a sleek diamond shape.

It looked like a villain’s ship from a sci-fi movie.

Curious, Yuna examined the submarine from various angles.

Seeing the camera follow her movements, it was clear that it was operational.

‘Hmmm…’

#

Meanwhile.

“Uh… Sir, you might want to take a look at this.”

“Hmm? What is it?”

Hunter Association Fukuoka Branch, underground secret room.

A young man in a suit poked his head out from behind a monitor and called his superior.

What filled the screen he was looking at was a brass, steampunk-style submarine.

It was Shin Yuna’s.

An unexpected encounter while secretly exploring the monster layer of the East Sea.

At this point, it’s necessary to trace back the fundamental reason for this meeting.

After Parang appeared at the Hunter Association on August 4th.

“Well, we lost her. She suddenly jumped into the Han River…”

Realizing that they had lost track of Yu Parang, Natsuko immediately searched for information about her.

After all, a hunter summoned to the branch manager’s office by Seo Sunwoo deserved that much attention.

And the first thing Natsuko found when searching for Parang was, naturally, her broadcast.

It was no coincidence that Natsuko ended up watching her broadcast clips—

And, of course, she came across information about monster fishs like Galecus and Brachium.

Learning about what was in the deep sea, Natsuko’s eyes lit up with the idea of sending someone into the depths… but she didn’t.

For one thing, it was somewhat ambiguous.

Sure, if she could hunt and absorb the monster fishs that had eaten many people, it would be a great benefit.

But how could she do that?

To achieve this, Natsuko would have to identify the specific monster fish to hunt, feed it people, and then track and hunt ‘that exact creature.’

In the vast ocean, it meant feeding and raising ‘one specific fish’ before catching and eating it.

The absurdity of this plan doesn’t need further explanation.

Monster fishs aren’t like fish that can be caught and raised for sashimi.

Even if it were possible, would the effort to catch something like Galecus, Rassius, or Brachium be worth it?

Natsuko was crazy, but not stupid.

She could calculate the cost-benefit ratio to that extent.

Unless there was a monster fish so immensely powerful that it was worth absorbing no matter the sacrifice, or an environment where she could confine the creature and ‘farm’ it by feeding it people, the deep sea was practically a wasteland for Natsuko.

This was something that both Silo and Parang already knew. That’s why they prioritized preventing Natsuko from approaching whatever had killed the Slayers.

Still, Natsuko couldn’t completely ignore this honey pot of a space, so she started by sending a submarine down to the monster layer bit by bit.

And in the midst of this, she encountered Yuna in the East Sea.

The reaction in the control room was naturally one of panic.

It was like running into a tourist while on a secret mission in the middle of the Sahara Desert.

Yuna was flustered, but for the Hunter Association, it was a situation that could make them faint.

They couldn’t just run away as Yuna kept following, and they couldn’t just stand there in a standoff either.

This situation was completely unanticipated, so they had no means to send a threat or warning message—truly a dilemma!

Thus, the conclusion they reached was to shoot.

Judging by the design, it didn’t seem to be a submarine from Silo or the World Government; it looked like a privately made one, so they decided to just shoot it and cover up the incident.

In the world of hunters, this was a reasonably accurate course of action.

And so, bang, bang, bang.

“What? What?!! Hey!! Hey! Wait!!”

In the aquarium, a flustered Yuna pounded on the dashboard.

“No, damn it!!! My submarine!!!!”

Her scream echoed inside her full-body decompression diving suit.