Chapter 59: Momentary Thoughts Part 7 Part 1

Apparently the hole bent at some point and from a falling motion we shifted into a sliding motion about halfway through it, only to emerge from it at the very end at a moderately high speed. But other than that,

「Die, you asshole!」

「Augh, that’s right! What was that you were saying out there!?」

Since I didn’t want to taint my name in red I limited myself to some verbal abuse and scolding, but apparently Katsu, like the pro-gamer he is, did not bother with that in the slightest.

「Honestly…… If this wasn’t ShanFro, you’d be so dead by now……」

「If this wasn’t ShanFro, I do believe I would be handing you your own ass on a silver platter.」

「Right, please stop it, you two! Let’s try to get along!」

Hahaha, that’s what I would like to say. Don’t worry Emul, if we were really hostile towards one another, we would have already killed each other a bunch of times over.

「So this is the hidden area that Pencilgton was talking about, right? The “Underground Lake of Tears”?」

Ahead of us we could see a huge underground lake that was emitting a slight bluish glow. It was a pretty sight and we could feel some real fantasy vibes coming off of it. This was the hidden area that Pencilgton directed us towards, one that we could apparently do some serious power leveling: “Underground Lake of Tears” inside the Ancient Ruins.

「Apparently we can do some power leveling here simply by fishing, but…… I have my doubts about that……」

「Oh well, let’s try to catch some fish for now and see if it’s really going to net us something nice.」

Personally, I’m not all that good at fishing games…… No, it’s because fishing was almost always a mandatory side quest in various sh*tty games and more often than not it was so realistic that it was just too tedious to keep me motivated.

But there were also some exceptions to the rule. Like, one time I even managed to catch a blue whale on a fishing rod without breaking as much of a sweat. How was that possible? Don’t ask me. The only thing I can say is that: that’s sh*tty games for you.

「Hey, it seems like I managed to catch something!」

「The disparity between our luck is too big, I tell you!」

「No, seriously, I caught something just now!」

Fuhaha, it seems that the Gods of Luck are on my side yet again! While I managed to catch a sixth fish at this point, Katsu was still left with none. Fishing…… it might actually be quite enjoyable when you get down to it.

· Sweet Water Salmon

A salmon that lives in sweet waters. Its meat restores physical strength of the eater and its eggs can become an excellent magic catalyst.

A mandatory element of a healthy diet.

Even though the fish itself looked like a light-emitting cocoon, the flavor text provided a more than sufficient explanation. And since at our home we ate salmon pretty frequently because of my father’s hobby, I really enjoyed its taste.

「Isn’t that high Luck of yours letting you catch way too many fish?」

「It’s not Luck only. I had someone who taught me a lot about fishing as well.」

My Father was almost like an oracle when it comes to fishing, being able to catch anything from a simple smelt all the way up to a swordfish. Before I got hooked on video games I really enjoyed going on fishing trips with him, but now that I really think about it, it must have been a part of his plan to pull me into the fishing world for real……

「Right, I think I’ve had enough fishing for now……」

「Sanraku-san, what’s that thing over there?」

「What thing? W, whoa, it can float on the water’s surface?」

It appears that a monster of some sort has come out to play. Seeing that, both Katsu and I put our fishing rods into our inventories and switched into combat mode. In the next moment something came out from beneath the water’s surface, causing a huge pillar of water to erupt.

「Is, is that a huge water serpent!?」

「It’s here! It’s the Sweet Water Serpent!」

So this is what Pencilgton meant when he called this thing an “EXP Tank”…… But in that case, the word tank does not refer to the armored vehicle but rather to that huge container!

「It’s so long! This feels somewhat unreal, don’t you think!」

「So maybe it’s an eel rather than serpent?」

「Is that what you’re concerned about right now!?」

No, it was definitely a sea serpent, but it also had horns, long fangs and hard scales. So it was something even nastier than a sea serpent, in all honesty. However, I had a feeling that it was more of a dragon than anything else.

The first attack that comes into mind when it comes to serpents is that it would try to thrust its long body at us and try to bite us. However, we can easily avoid such an attack if we step to the side so there is no problem there.

「Right, let’s check its attack patterns a little bit before we move in for the kill…… “Black”!」

「Don’t try to hog it all to yourself, Katsu! I want to try some new weapons while we’re at it!」

Since my Vorpal Knives were remodeled, I couldn’t use them for now due to both level and stat restrictions. This meant that I was stuck with the weapons that I had order made all the way back at Sekandil, a pair of Swamp Daggers that I haven’t really touched ever since then. However, Break offered that she could strengthen some of my stuff for me if I really wanted to, so that problem sorted itself out.

I even went as far as breaking down a few materials at Rabbitz and used their components to strengthen the Swamp Daggers even further, so they should be able to deal a reasonable amount of damage as they are now.

「Behold! My newest weapons! Twin Swords of the Empire Bee!」

「Hyah!! Such a cool name!」

Those blades were really slender overall…… The right sword was made out of the components extracted from Empire Queen Bee, and looked like an estoc that could break at any moment if you were to swing it with all of your might. But because of that its visuals were also on a higher end of the spectrum.

In contrast to that, the left one was short and resembled a dagger in a lot of ways, but instead of attacking it was used mostly for parrying. Even though the same materials from the Empire Queen Bee were used in its creation, its attack stats and purpose were fundamentally different from its counterpart.

Personally, those weapons right now are my personal favorites.

「So I see that you’re going to contribute to the fight as well, huh?」

Since there was some kind of disparity in our levels, the situation turned out as follows: Katsu ended up focusing the enemy’s aggro on himself and began to flee, while I was going to use every single opportunity that I was going to have to land some damage onto the sea serpent.

「Now, let me show you the unlimited power of my critical hits!」

I plunge my right-handed weapon into the serpent’s side with the effect of the Spiral Edge skill.

But that’s not all. Both weapons have different effects on them, and it so happens that the right one has another trick up its sleeve aside from high critical chance and piercing attacks.

「GYAAAH!?」

「I see, so Luukan…… Who would have thought that you possess such a strong ability by default?」