“I don’t want to work…”
B-rank Hunter, Yu Parang, lay submerged in thought.
Her hair, a deep shade of blue resembling the water, swayed freely around her.
No matter where she looked—up, down, left, right—all she saw was water.
Light beams, cascading from the surface, surrounded her like thin pillars.
In the endless expanse of blue emptiness, only she existed.
Brrrr—
Only the tiny bubbles from her mouth broke the silence of the void.
And then, stillness again. A space void of sound or movement.
“I don’t want to work…”
Parang continued to lie motionless, staring at the surface.
Below her, the light gradually faded, shifting from deep blue, through violet, to black.
Now, she had to dive into that abyss.
“I don’t want to work…”
Well, that’s her job.
She could swim down directly, but that sounded too bothersome.
With her eyes closed, she awaited the weight of her body to pull her down like she was dead.
To put it simply, she was slacking off.
Given the nature of her job, there was no one watching her, and most importantly, she was self-employed.
She wasn’t on a specific commission; this was more of a side gig, so it made sense for Parang to drag her feet to the limit.
Besides, she enjoyed floating peacefully in the warm water. When she wore this snug wetsuit and closed her eyes, the slightest ripple of water embraced her entire body.
This was a custom wetsuit made by Silo Sa.
Thanks to her physical traits, it felt less like a wetsuit and more like a multifunctional bodysuit, but hey, when you wear it to dive, it’s a wetsuit. Parang had decided not to dive deep.
Anyway, during such dives, immersing herself in thought or napping was one of Parang’s little hobbies.
Brrrr—
How long had it been? She felt a vibration on the gauge attached to her left arm.
Brrrr—
Opening her eyes to look around, she noticed that everything seemed noticeably darker than before.
Earlier, it had a color somewhere between sky blue and deep blue, but now it was all a murky indigo.
There was nothing to touch or see. No matter how she turned her head, all she saw was the void of indigo. The only way she could barely tell where up was was from the bubbles she released.
2024.6.11. 17:23
[Current Depth: 302m] 🔥
Next to the gauge displaying the current depth and time, an icon indicating the heating function glowed red.
She had been lying still, sinking 250m down. At 300m, the temperature stratification starts, meaning she had overslept.
Normally, she should’ve opened her eyes at the 250m mark.
Parang yawned widely as if to stretch, rubbing her eyes with her hands.
Thanks to the heating function, her eyelids felt warm where her hands had touched.
Fully committed, Parang stretched out, then suddenly began to swim rapidly downward.
After slacking off to her limit, she finally felt a tad bored and decided it was time to work.
So down she went, deeper and deeper.
2024.6.11 17:24
[Current Depth: 701m]🔥
In less than a minute, Parang dived an incredible 400m.
Anyone else would have been crushed by the pressure in no time, but that was obviously not a concern for her.
After all, she had just woken up from a refreshing four-hour nap in the ocean. Don’t demand basic knowledge about water pressure from her!
Regardless, at 700m depth.
According to the Hunter Association’s classification, this was the “Monster Zone,” the region where deep-sea monsters begin to appear.
This was Parang’s workplace.
Tick-tock— tick-tock—
When Parang pressed a couple of buttons on the cartridge on her right arm,
Ding—
A chip the size of her palm popped out with a distinctive sound.
Crumble— crumble—
As soon as it appeared, the red chip was mercilessly squished by the pressure.
When Parang grabbed it and crushed it in her hand,
■■■■■■■-!
A heavy sound reminiscent of a ship’s horn resonated through the dark depths.
“…”
Listening to the sound, Parang scanned her surroundings with sharp eyes.
The lazy face she wore earlier was nowhere to be found; her expression was now ice-cold, unmistakably the look of a Hunter.
■■■■■■■■-!
About five minutes later, something finally caught her eye amidst the all-encompassing indigo.
It was somewhere down below, faint but distinctly bright blue light.
Something emitting blue light was rushing toward her from the bottom of the sea at a frightening speed.
As Parang observed intently, she noticed two smaller blue lights flanking the large one.
――――!
As they rushed up to her, she could see that the large light was a mouth, and the smaller ones were eyes, prompting Parang to swim sideways at a speed much faster than when she was diving.
The motion was so fast it was hard to believe it was underwater, almost like an aerial hunter performing acrobatics in the sky.
Just after she swam out of the monster’s path,
――――!
Something swooshed by where she had just been, like a train passing right in front of her.
A scan with her wetsuit’s scanner revealed a speed of 60 km/h. Though not exactly train-worthy since the maximum speed of Subway Line 1 is 110 km/h,
still, 60 km/h is relatively slow for underwater standards.
And as for that ‘underwater,’ she was included too.
Swoosh—
In an instant, Parang’s blue eyes gleamed, and her prototype vanished.
And not even ten seconds later,
without a change in her expression, she quickly caught up with it and swam alongside at the same speed.
She had essentially caught up with a subway!
Then, as if she were a predator sizing up her prey, she adjusted her speed while swimming to closely inspect the creature from its tail to its mouth.
The creature had an almost cylindrical shape, maintaining a perfect thickness from head to tail.
It had a round head with no jaws, a haphazard array of teeth inside, emitting blue light from within.
There were three pairs of tentacles below it, four eyes on each side of its head,
and crucially, it was swimming at 60 km/h without any fins.
After scrutinizing all that, Parang beamed with a smile.
‘This is a big catch!!’
A 40-meter-long, 6-meter-wide Bellua Maria.
This was one stellar catch indeed.
Parang had caught dozens of Bellua before.
Not to mention the other monsters she had hunted were often bigger or just as daunting.
As soon as she confirmed that the creature before her was a Bellua, she got straight to work.
First, she needed to set up explosives.
The Bellua’s body was surrounded by a dome-like soft shell, with long, thin tissues hanging off it.
Parang climbed atop the Bellua’s back, gripping a protrusion to stabilize herself.
As she opened her hands, a bubble the size of a watermelon formed, filling with red gas.
Parang swiftly inserted it into the gaps between the shell segments.
―――!!!!
Realizing something was off, the Bellua thrashed wildly, flashing its lights in all directions, trying to shake Parang off.
But it didn’t know that every other Bellua in Parang’s sight did exactly the same thing, and they all failed.
In and out, in and out, in and out.
While moving gracefully, Parang quickly inserted bubbles into every joint of the creature from head to tail.
Then she triggered the explosions. Assuming a posture as if she were about to spear it, elongated bubbles formed around her hand, and a harpoon materialized.
That bubble was thrust into the same spot as before,
and with a mighty explosion—Boom!! Boom!! Boom!! Boom!!
A grand explosion erupted from the Bellua’s tail to its head, and,
…bang!
When the final bubble placed at the very front of its head burst,
――――!!!
The light escaping from its eyes and mouth vanished, and the Bellua perished.
Swoosh—
Like any unknown creature emerging from a gate, the Bellua dissolved into light, leaving only remnants behind.
Quickly pressing a button on her left calf, a net sprung from it like an airbag deploying.
Parang darted around, collecting mana stones and shells faster than when she chased the Bellua.
A smile bloomed on her face as she snagged a big catch after a long time.
It took her less than 30 seconds to rise to the surface. After all, it was her way home. The faster, the better.
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