Ch. 6 - Madness

“There’s still something on the ship!” Although Yang Yi realised this, it was too late.A fishing rod stabbed his left shoulder, piercing deep into the flesh. He immediately started running forwards while glancing back, his right hand clutching the fresh wound.

In front of him was a skeleton with half of its skull missing, and within it burned a ghastly green soul fire.1 It was the captain’s skeleton. He was alive and was holding a fishing rod, its tip stained red with Yang Yi’s blood.

The skeleton looked at Yang Yi, its jaw moving up and down as if mocking him.

“You damned backstabber!” Yang Yi cursed, his eyes blazing with fury.

【Ambushed by the dead, your sanity decreases by 10.】

【With sanity below 50, you enter a madness state, becoming immune to most mental debuffs. Strength +2, Agility +1, Constitution +1, Spirit -2. You feel no pain, do not tire, and are fearless until your sanity recovers. Mental debuffs include charm, mind control, fear, despair, etc.】

【Note: When energy is depleted, vitality will be consumed instead. The maximum attributes in a berserk state are capped at 10, not exceeding the mortal limit.】

Yang Yi raised his gun and fired at the skeleton.

Click!

The gun misfired.

The skeleton, holding the fishing rod like a spear, charged forwards.

Even if Yang Yi felt no pain, his injured foot still affected his movement to some extent. Fighting the skeleton whilst hurt and circling around it was too risky. One careless move, and he could be impaled by the two-metre-long weapon!

After a brief consideration, Yang Yi changed his tactics. Instead of retreating, he advanced directly towards the skeleton. He threw the spear in his hand, and as it hit the skeleton squarely and lodged in its bones, it momentarily stiffened its movements.

Seizing the opportunity, he approached the skeleton and engaged in close combat. He still had a weapon in hand, a blunt one at that! As long as he gripped the flintlock’s barrel, the gun would turn into a short hammer. Exceptionally effective against skeletons.

He raised the flintlock high, aiming to smash the skeleton’s cracked skull, targeting its soul fire.

The skeleton reacted swiftly, immediately reaching out to block him.

It seemed to fear the gun, abandoning the fishing rod to try and grab it.

Naturally, Yang Yi wouldn’t let that happen.

The two began to grapple over the gun.

The skeleton’s strength was slightly lower than Yang Yi’s in his madness state, probably around 4. But amidst the struggle, Yang Yi couldn’t find the opportunity to launch an effective attack.

If the gun accidentally fired and hit himself, he’d die of shame instead!

He needed a plan.

Even in the current state, Yang Yi remained clear-headed and quickly came up with an idea.

The skeleton wanted the flintlock? Then let it have it!

After wrestling for a while longer, he suddenly pulled the trigger.

Click!

The gun misfired again.

He decisively abandoned it.

Sure enough, most of the skeleton’s attention was focused on the flintlock. Yang Yi successfully broke free from the struggle and ran towards the cabin.

By the time the skeleton caught up, it only saw a dim figure.

It was Yang Yi, in the darkness, holding an unidentified mass of flesh and frantically devouring it.

The skeleton pulled the trigger, but the gun didn’t react; from the bow to the stern, it was just over ten metres. Both had run there, so the flintlock was still cooling.

A gun that can’t fire is no different from a hammer!

Yang Yi charged forwards, his mouth covered in black, sticky liquid, his eyes bloodshot.

【You consumed a human-headed octopus. Strength +1, Constitution +1, Spirit -1, Sanity -20, lasting 1 minute.】

Thus, Yang Yi’s strength increased from three to six points, doubling entirely! (Madness +2)

He discovered that the strength in the stats wasn’t linear but exponential. This meant that being two points stronger allowed him to crush his opponent with ease.

Yang Yi closed in.

The skeleton hadn’t yet reacted, seemingly still puzzled as to why the gun wouldn’t fire.

In the next second, Yang Yi tackled the skeleton to the ground, violently ripping off two of its arm bones, flinging them aside.

Yang Yi didn’t relent, thrusting his right hand into the crack in the skeleton’s skull, reaching for the soul fire within.

At this point, the skeleton finally showed some fear, its jaw clattering as if begging for mercy.

It was too late; it had no means to resist.

Yang Yi grasped the soul fire. It wasn’t hot, but rather warm.

The skeleton’s reaction was intense. Its whole body trembled and scattered, becoming a pile of ordinary bones as the soul fire extinguished.

Was the skeleton dead for sure?

Not necessarily!

After being tricked by the Drowned Revenant, Yang Yi became much more cautious!

He grabbed the skeleton’s skull and placed it on the ship’s railing. He strongly suspected the skeleton wasn’t dead, even though he could now view its information.

【Name: The Captain’s Remains】

【Description: He was once a captain who loved fishing until he caught… Can be used in the Monster Vending Machine.】

Two minutes later, as expected, the eerie green light reappeared inside the skull. S~ᴇaʀᴄh the N0ᴠᴇFɪre.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of nøvels early and in the highest quality.

Without hesitation, Yang Yi fired the gun.

Bang!

Flames erupted, the gunshot shrill. The skull was blasted into fragments by the flintlock.

【The gunshot is strange, your sanity decreases by 1】

“Looks like subduing or killing monsters allows you to obtain their information.”

But what exactly was this Monster Vending Machine? Yang Yi had never seen it, and there wasn’t one on the ship! To be safe, it was best if he kept the monsters' corpses.

Yang Yi threw them into the cabin and took the skeleton’s arm and thigh bones. After all, there might still be headless skeleton soldiers! Yang Yi had seen them in games before.

It was better to separate some parts of the body! Having learnt his lesson, Yang Yi seemed to have grown a hundred times more vigilant.

After simply treating his wounds with some cloth, he returned to the captain’s cabin.

At the same time, he checked his own status:

Name: Yang Yi

Status: Injured. (On the humanoid diagram, both legs and the left shoulder are yellow.)

Sanity: 24/100

Energy: 21/100

Vitality: 82/100

No wonder he was exhausted; his energy was so low...

Yang Yi opened the world chat channel and typed a line casually.

“Remember to lock your doors when you sleep tonight!”

Someone quickly responded.

“Boss, what happened? Did you encounter a siren?”

“Whoa, did you kill it?”

“Is it hard to fight? Does it drop loot?”

Yang Yi replied in a bad mood.

“No, just pure torment!”

He ignored the rest of the replies, closed the world channel, lied down on the bed, and placed the skeleton’s thigh bone under the mattress as a pillow.

At the same time, he kept the gun within arm's reach. Last night was too dangerous! Any mistake could have led to his doom.

Tomorrow, he planned to set up some sound traps to serve as an early warning. If he could detect things beforehand, many dangers could be avoided.

As he pondered, he tried to fall asleep. But until dawn came, he didn’t manage to rest.

Notes

Brook?-Simply↩