“Uuuuaaaaah!!!!”
Parang shrieked as she charged at the Titan.
Against a foe towering 1 kilometer, Parang was nothing more than a speck of dust, but strangely, the Titan snapped its head around during its rolling on the ground and fixed its gaze on Parang.
It had recognized her as a ‘danger element.’
The Titan’s eyes, adorned with blue jewels, glared fiercely at Parang, emitting a blinding light.
Parang knew what would happen to someone unresistant under that light.
They’d immediately freeze up and commit sudoku.
[Skill, ‘Waterproof Sanity’ is active.]
[Skill, ‘Unsinkable’ is active.]
But Parang did not stop, nor did she take the easy way out.
She just kept her eyes on the Titan and rushed forward.
And from her pupils, a blue light flickered more fiercely than ever before.
The Titan unleashed all sorts of moves to try to block her.
It opened its mouth and spewed an enormous amount of water, released a tremendous heat from its body, and slammed the ground to raise the earth.
But Parang paid no mind and pierced through all those attacks head-on.
The raging torrents, the boiling heat, the upturned ground.
She just broke through.
[You gain an overwhelming advantage over all creatures in the sea.]
This was the explanation for Parang’s personal skill, ‘Daughter of the Kraken.’
And in this world, the absolute rule that held true even if the sky collapsed was [Status screens do not lie].
Not a metaphorical expression, but actually true.
In the original story’s final chapter, even when the sky fell, and angels and demons descended, the status screen remained intact.
Not even the final boss, the deity, dared to touch the status screen.
Even if the explanations were vague and hard to grasp, the contents written there could not be denied as the truth.
In reality, Parang did hold an overwhelming advantage over all creatures in the sea, didn’t she?
That fact wouldn’t change eternally.
Parang didn’t doubt that reality for a moment.
It was a kind of ‘truth.’
In a life where life-and-death battles were the norm, having an unchanging truth by her side meant something unimaginable.
Thus, some hunters even worship the status screen.
Already, ‘Status Screen Dependency Disorder’ is being researched deeply by scholars.
And Parang thought the only truth of the ‘status screen’ would never betray her.
Even if the world ended, Parang could maintain an overwhelming advantage over every creature in the sea.
But damn it, this world dealt a heavy blow to her expectations.
By bringing forth a monster that wasn’t even a living being before her.
The Kraken didn’t help Parang against the Titan at all.
Rather than devour the Titan, it couldn’t even entangle it to lock its movements.
Whether it couldn’t or simply didn’t is unclear.
But it probably didn’t.
The Kraken likely could have stopped the Titan, which is why Parang doesn’t over-rely on it.
The shock Parang felt when she faced the Titan for the first time and lost Alice was beyond imagination.
Had she been a typical person, she would have fallen into despair and become a husk of herself, or that experience would have left her with serious trauma.
But she stood up and started fighting again.
Even after a long time, fear still lingered.
Sometimes, she’d tremble in fear while holding her breath.
But she never stopped moving forward.
She swung her fist at boulders.
She threw a harpoon at rocks.
She crashed into mountains.
With each action, her body endured more wounds, bruises, and blood loss.
But she didn’t stop.
Since that incident, she no longer blindlessly believed in this world or the Kraken.
Instead, she decided to find something else to trust.
Herself.
The status screen labeled Parang as a ‘strong hunter against living creatures.’
Parang decided to reject that.
She would crush anything that dared obstruct her, be it living beings or even non-living entities like the Titan.
When or if that would be possible, she did not know.
It was clear the road would be long and treacherous. She still couldn’t take down the Titan alone.
But no matter how long and rough the path was, she could still walk it.
[Skill ‘Jet Stream’ acquired.]
[Skill ‘Unsinkable’ acquired.]
[Skill ‘Blue Bomb’ acquired.]
……
……
Parang slowly defined herself.
Not as ‘Daughter of the Kraken’, but as ‘Yu Parang.’
Blue water currents wrapped around her outstretched fist.
What she was about to create and burst would be [Blue Bomb], her beloved water bomb skill.
But instead of collecting water, she spun it around her arm.
More and more water, faster and faster.
Eventually, a massive vortex formed around her arm.
Parang stretched her arm forward.
Like a hero flying towards evil.
[Swoosh!]
The vortex showed no signs of shrinking and kept growing larger.
What was once only around her arm now spread across her whole body, transforming Parang into a colossal drill.
The speed was incredibly fast, to say the least.
[Swoosh!!]
She pierced through the Titan’s forehead.
Like a bullet shooting through.
It went straight through from her forehead to the back of its head.
Parang didn’t stop there; she pierced the Titan’s head nearly twenty more times, shattering eight cores in the process.
And then, she collapsed.
As Parang sank into the water, exhausted, Russell helped her withdraw from the battle.
About 30 minutes later, Parang opened her eyes and witnessed the Titan exploding into light after all its cores had been shattered.
What remained was a colossal yellow gemstone that once served as its eye and a magic stone with a diameter of about 50 meters.
Of course, there was no sign of Alice.
Titan, hunt complete.
Countless bone puppets emerged and began collecting the magic stone.
They would embed it deep in the ocean.
Bringing it to the surface would only create chaos.
Money? When did she start caring about that?
The gemstone… it had a special place.
“Diego, I’m counting on you.”
The giant Diego took the gemstone into one hand and walked toward the special place.
The remaining Oceanos followed suit.
They returned home.
#
Parang’s house, bedroom, tank.
Parang lay there, wide-eyed.
There was no chance she’d get any sleep tonight.
It was the usual wrestling with thoughts that surfaced whenever she caught a Titan.
The Kraken and her skill as ‘Daughter of the Kraken.’
At first, she thought ‘daughter of the Kraken’ was merely a metaphor.
That the Kraken itself was just an abstract figure.
In the original novel, personal skills related to nonexistent figures, like ‘Daughter of Hades’ or ‘Disciple of Hyunmu,’ appeared everywhere.
But now, she had a faint sense.
The Kraken truly existed, and in some way, she was “really” connected to it.
She had no evidence. It was merely an unconscious feeling of “it seems likely.”
But paradoxically, the lack of evidence itself was the strongest basis for her hypothesis.
It meant it originated from deep within Parang, a kind of instinct.
Could it be that she’d seen some external reference on the internet about Cthulhu in a past life?
Countless thoughts floated up in Parang’s mind only to sink back down again.
This way, she spent the night wide awake.
#
Four days after defeating the statue, in the South Pacific.
Latitude 48°S, Longitude 123°W.
In technical terms, it’s called the oceanic dead zone, commonly referred to as ‘Point Nemo.’
The loneliest sea, the most isolated sea, the quietest sea.
The farthest ocean from any land on Earth.
Diego appeared there, holding the gemstone.
Before him stood a peculiar structure, with giant blue gemstones arranged in a circle on the ground like Stonehenge.
There were eight of them.
Diego drove the gemstone he brought down, making it the ninth, adjusting the positions slightly.
And then he shrank.
Stepping towards the gems embedded in the ground.
The floor was covered in self-luminous corals, casting beautiful refracted light in all directions.
Rustle, rustle, thump.
He stopped at the center of the ring and knelt before the stone tablet there.
The area was neat, as if others, including Parang, had already visited.
Beside the tablet was a brand-new glass bead.
A weapon used by Alice.
The last person to visit was Parang, who had carefully cleaned it.
[Alice Melville, 1999. 3. 5. - ]
A gravestone with no date of death inscribed.
Below, instead of an epitaph, four Chinese characters were written.
落月屋梁
Falling moonlight under the eaves.
A phrase expressing the longing for a precious friend.
Diego sprinkled the shining corals around the gravestone.
In the deep sea, where not even sunlight penetrates, moonlight quietly fell.
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