Meanwhile, at the moment when Parang and Titan were engaged in a fierce duel for their souls.
“Alright! That wraps up today’s broadcast! Tomorrow is a break, and we’ll resume on the day after to finish up!”
S-rank Crafting Hunter, Shin Yuna.
She was wrapping up her stream.
– If today’s broadcast was good, give me a big thumbs up lol
– I’m Shin Yuna and I gave a thumbs up
– Don’t go don’t go don’t go don’t go
– Why is tomorrow a break???
“Why is tomorrow a break, you ask? Oh, right….”
– It’s starting again, Shin Yuna’s nonsense
– BIG!!! TIME?!!
“Alright! It was fun! See you next time!!!”
Clunk.
[ This broadcast has ended. ]
“Ugh… cha-cha-cha-cha….”
Shin Yuna stretched as she watched the end screen floating before her.
She did some stretching and even a little calisthenics.
Usually, after ending a stream, her routine involved checking the community, but recently, she had developed a new hobby.
‘Awesome!! It’s diving time!!’
That was right, diving.
She was now set to explore the monster fish layer with her very own unmanned submersible.
No risks of mental attacks, and she managed to get permission from the whiny out-of-water Hunter Parang.
“Don’t you dare approach here, here, or here. Anywhere else, well…”
With a promise to keep whatever she saw down there a secret and a vow never to approach the areas marked by Parang, the permission wasn’t easily earned.
More like a safety clearance than true permission… but still.
Now with a submersible and guidance from Parang, nothing was stopping Yuna from diving, and her desire to explore the depths was sky-high.
Yesterday she could only dive for 4 hours due to time constraints. Today, she ended her stream early on purpose, fully prepared and excited.
Not even casting a glance at the community, she rushed into the basement.
Riding the Victorian-style elevator down, she arrived at a brass door.
Pulling, turning, and adjusting the round valves and levers attached to it, a squeaky sound of steam escaping echoed as the door opened.
What lay behind was a massive tank.
Dressed in the full-body pressure-sensitive diving suit she hung beside the door, Yuna waddled into the tank.
Inside were a brass-made chair and a control panel designed like a desk for operation.
Next to it was her own unmanned submersible, resting carefully.
Plop.
Sitting down on the brass chair, Yuna started smashing the buttons. A massive monitor raised from the bottom and lit up.
The screen showed the view from the tank she was in.
It was the footage transmitted from the unmanned submersible she crafted.
Putting her hands back on the controller, she started pushing buttons and pulling levers with increasing vigor!
As she fiddled with the controls, one wall of the tank opened up, revealing a passage, and the submersible began to head that way.
A passage directly connected to the sea.
With an S-rank Hunter supported by a mega-corp, nothing was impossible.
Brrrrrrrrr—
And with the sound of the propellers spinning, the submersible set off!
Entering the East Sea through the passage, she dove deeper and deeper.
The surface was long gone from her mind. Only the monster fish layer was her focus.
Descending vertically, Yuna quickly reached 700m underwater, the monster fish layer, and finally encountered one.
Today’s first monster fish, to get technical, it wasn’t exactly.
She thought she saw something resembling a red handle in the middle but decided to skip it, wanting to ignore it.
In ‘practical terms,’ it was the first monster fish she met today.
And how lucky that was! Right before her was none other than Galecus.
The cheeky and detestable cutlass fish that almost led her to death.
Just thinking about nearly dying still sent shivers down her spine.
So, Yuna was carrying out her ruthless revenge.
She began to meticulously examine Galecus, inspecting every scale and fin.
She couldn’t hunt a monster fish with the weapons mounted on her unmanned submersible.
Although Yuna wished dearly to tear Galecus apart and strip the flesh from its bones, the situation wasn’t conducive to that.
Moreover, observing was more aligned with her preferences than hunting something.
Thus, the ruthless antics of Monster Fish Specialist Shin Yuna continued for a while longer.
How long had passed? Yuna’s unmanned submersible had plunged down to 1.2km undersea.
The maximum dive depth was 2km, but for various reasons, she never went below 1.5km.
This was partly for unexpected situations and also, well… other things.
And the deep sea Yuna wanted to explore was sufficiently experienced at just 1.5km deep.
[ Skill, ‘Waterproof Sanity’ is currently active. ]
‘Phew…’
Yuna hastily turned the submersible away from the monster’s gaping mouth and sighed.
Goosebumps all over, legs trembling.
As she approached a small, pretty, glowing fish, it suddenly vanished, revealing an enormous anglerfish instead.
A catastrophe was about to unfold where her meticulously crafted submersible could have ended up inside that anglerfish’s mouth.
Set aside the submersible problem, but the experience Yuna just had was decidedly chilling.
In the dark void, the only light vanished, and right before her, a massive mouth appeared.
From inside came the sounds of people, men, women, and children, seemingly screaming in agony, with eyes plastered across the roof of the mouth and tongue.
To make matters worse, a notification window popped up—what a delightful treat!
“Gah… gah… haah…”
Feels like a real addiction.
Once again, this girl is insane.
Anyway.
Yuna steadied her breath and was about to resume her exploration when… suddenly.
She discovered something incredibly out of place.
Neither a monster fish nor an object.
Floating in the water, spewing bubbles, she observed closely what that was.
‘A submersible…?’
It was an unmanned submersible.
Unlike the steampunk submersible Yuna crafted, this one had a cybernetic ambiance.
With a black body and red neon accents, it had a sleek, diamond-shaped design.
It resembled something akin to a villain’s spaceship from a sci-fi film.
Intrigued, Yuna started to inspect the submersible from various angles.
Seeing the camera follow her movements confirmed it was operational without a doubt.
‘Hmmm…’
#
Meanwhile.
“Uh… Sir Branch Head. You might want to take a look at this.”
“Huh? What is it?”
In the Hunter Association Fukuoka Branch’s underground secret room.
A young man in a suit peeked over the monitor to get his superior’s attention.
The screen he was viewing was filled with the sight of a brass steampunk submersible.
It belonged to Shin Yuna.
Unexpectedly encountered during her secret exploration of the monster fish layer in the East Sea.
At this point, it’s necessary to assess the fundamental reason this meeting occurred.
After Parang had shown up at the Hunter Association on August 4th.
“We missed her. She unexpectedly jumped into the Han River…”
Upon realizing they had lost track of Yu Parang, Natsuko immediately searched for information on her.
Shouldn’t Seo Sunwoo have at least shown some interest in the Hunter he called to his office?
And when Natsuko searched for information on Parang, the first thing that popped up was, naturally, her broadcast.
It wasn’t coincidental that Natsuko ended up watching her stream—
Moreover, she was soon exposed to information about monster fish like Galecus and Brachiium cohabiting the deep sea.
Thus, after learning about what exists in the deep sea, Natsuko’s eyes gleamed, and she started crafting plans to send people into the deep sea… or not.
The thing is, it was kind of, somewhere, vaguely ambiguous.
Sure, hunting a monster fish that had devoured numerous humans would be a massive gain.
But how on earth was she supposed to do that?
To accomplish this, Natsuko would need to identify the specific monster fish to hunt, send people to feed only ‘that fish,’ and track and hunt ‘that fish’ herself.
In this vast ocean, she would need to exclusively feed ‘just one fish’ to nurture it before finally devouring it.
How ridiculous is that without explanation?
Neither could monster fish be reared like sushi-grade fish.
And even if it were possible, how much effort would it take just to imagine capturing and consuming Galecus? Rassius? Brachiium??
Natsuko might be crazy, but she wasn’t foolish.
She was well aware of basic profit-and-loss calculations.
Unless a monster fish appeared that was exceptionally powerful and would be worth the sacrifice to absorb or unless there’s an environment set up for capturing and feeding monster fish ─ the deep sea would practically be a barren land for Natsuko.
This fact was already known by Silo and Parang as well. Hence the priority on preventing Natsuko from approaching whatever had taken down the Slayers.
Still, Natsuko couldn’t entirely disregard this enticing location, so she had merely begun to send a submersible down as a test.
Amid this, she encountered Yuna in the East Sea.
The response in the command room was understandably frantic.
It was like running into a tourist while on a secret mission in the middle of the Sahara Desert.
Though Yuna was apprehensively taken aback, the Hunter Association was genuinely in a panic.
They couldn’t escape as they kept getting followed nor stand at a standoff, making it an exasperating situation—no means to send threats or warnings, leaving them trapped!
Thus, the conclusion was reached: shoot at it.
From the design, it didn’t seem like a submersible from Silo or the World Government; it appeared to be individually made, so they decided to shoot it down and bury the incident!
Well, since it’s a world with hunters, this could be seen as fairly procedural.
Splash, splash, splash.
“Wait! Wait!!! Hey!!”
Panicking Yuna was hammering at the dashboard in the tank.
“No way!!! My submersible!!!!”
Her despair echoed within the confines of the pressure-sensitive diving suit.
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