Chapter 51
The sea is never a kind place for humans.
That held just as true for the handler who had tamed Tusoteuthis, a 200-meter-class sea monster.
Thus, as with wyverns, the era when monster knights rode sea monsters directly into battle ended a hundred years ago.
The method used now was mental resonance.
It was a way of linking the minds of the monster and the rider, then controlling it from afar.
It let them issue more intuitive, faster commands, but if the monster suffered heavy damage, the rider would also take a severe mental shock.
For that reason, one always had to be careful while using mental resonance...
"Now then, is there any tasty merchant ship wandering around out there?"
Berial, an eighth-rank mage and the rider of Tusoteuthis, one of the East's mere five giant undersea monsters, paid it no heed.
At 200 meters long and 40 meters thick at the head alone, the giant monster's bulk—practically a floating island—bred complacency.
"If possible, could it be something bigger?"
A giant passenger liner that had rammed and sunk a fourth-rate ship of the line? It wasn't particularly scary.
Because with his monster, even a passenger liner that large could be overturned.
Through mental resonance, becoming a giant beast and crushing tiny humans was one of the pastimes he had enjoyed after once straying onto the path of black magic.
"Anyway, that Lord Edward said to kill everything in sight..."
Swoosh-!
The giant body of Tusoteuthis shot up out of the water.
As it raised its upper body above the water, the giant squid's torso towered up like a lighthouse.
At the very top of the squid's body, above its distinctive triangular fin, a magic circle appeared.
Floating a full 60 meters above the surface, the magic circle could bring everything within a 27-kilometer radius into view.
And because it was observing through magic rather than human eyes, it had several additional functions.
For example,
"Bring up everything shaped like a ship."
In other words, it could locate ships on the surface that human eyes might miss.
Like that coal carrier sailing across the sunset-lit sea.
"Found it."
The corners of Berial's mouth curled up grotesquely.
The ship he had glimpsed didn't seem particularly large.
It was clearly much smaller than that giant passenger liner said to have rammed and sunk a fourth-rate ship of the line.
"What a windfall."
Even so, he was satisfied.
It had only been a few days since Edward declared a naval blockade, so he had worried everyone might be too cautious to show themselves.
To think there would be a fool bold enough to come out onto the sea on the very first day.
Splash-!
Tusoteuthis's enormous body plunged into the sea, sending up a huge spray.
There had been a tremendous sound in the process, but Berial didn't pay it much mind.
No creature foolish enough to attack Tusoteuthis, the deep sea's apex predator, would come after it.
"All right, let's go!"
Tusoteuthis's eight massive legs churned the water roughly, propelling its body forward.
And those big, brute-force movements made it an excellent target for the submarines operating their sonar.
"Open the torpedo tubes. Fire!"
Rrrrummm-
Two torpedoes, launched amid a spray of oxygen bubbles, tore through the deep navy-blue waters.
At the same time, the bridge fell into deep silence.
Once the torpedoes had left, there was nothing they could do.
Ethan's hands grew slick with sweat as he had to judge the situation by whether the first torpedo had hit.
It has to hit, no matter what.
In theory, the torpedo's accuracy was perfect.
Basically, if you launched the torpedo toward the enemy monster, once it entered a certain range it would detect the monster's mana and change course on its own.
There was no way the guidance system devised by the South's finest engineers could be wrong.
But there could still be variables.
If a variable comes up...
How should they respond then?
As if they had forgotten how to breathe, every crew member remained utterly silent. The echoes from the active sonar were the bridge's only sound.
In the thick, tense silence, the sonar operator was identifying the sounds with an amplification spell cast onto his headphones.
It was only after several suffocating minutes of silence that the sonar operator, eyes closed and focused on his headphones, finally spoke.
"Two powerful explosions detected! Direct hits!"
***
Thwack!
The first thing he felt was the impact of something slamming hard into Tusoteuthis's torso.
Berial's body jerked as if a solid iron hammer had struck its torso.
"What-"
However, there was no time to figure out what had happened.
Because the two torpedoes detonated immediately afterward.
"Ugh...!"
The staggering Berial's body twisted in pain.
Then the crimson, high-pressure gas bubble created by the explosives burst outward as if detonating.
"Aaaagh!!!"
The worst pain a human can feel: searing agony.
The pain, as if one arm were being seared with a branding iron, briefly disrupted the connection between Berial and Tusoteuthis.
-Grrrk, kwoom!
The high-pressure gas bubble couldn't withstand the water pressure and crumpled, leaving behind a bizarre crushing sound. The little fireball that had formed in the middle of Tusoteuthis's torso faded away.
And then—
Kugugugung!!!
Massive explosions shook the sea in succession. Great pillars of water shot up, and shockwaves that made the mind reel battered their bodies.
The only reason Berial could survive that shock was because Tusoteuthis was a 200-meter-class monster.
Thanks to its thick hide, Tusoteuthis managed to survive with one side of its torso shredded to pieces.
At that moment, the monster and the human thought the same thing.
We have to run.
We need to retreat and assess the situation.
Berial, barely regaining his senses, issued the retreat order.
At once, Tusoteuthis spewed a massive cloud of ink, completely blocking the view around it as it began to flee.
There were only two things Berial and Tusoteuthis did not know.
"Confirmed Tusoteuthis survival signal. It appears to be trying to escape."
One, that a submarine's eyes could not be fooled by mere ink, and
"From U-7 to U-1, U-2, U-3, U-4: the prey is currently heading on a 0-4-2 bearing from true north. Fire torpedoes as soon as you're ready."
Two, that submarines were already positioned along the route Tusoteuthis was fleeing.
That was how wolf packs hunted. A few would press the prey from the front, and when the prey could no longer endure and fled, the wolves lying in ambush would tear out its throat.
The submarines, under Ethan's orders, opened their torpedo tubes in unison.
Bubbles rose as ten pure white trails raced toward the pitch-black depths.
Of course, Tusoteuthis didn't notice.
In the dark waters of the southern sea, the maximum range allowed to living creatures was, at best, 1 km.
The torpedoes that suddenly shot out of the curtain of darkness slammed straight into Tusoteuthis's torso as it fled.
Kugugugung-!
The sea reeled as a huge spray shot upward.
This time, six torpedoes hit.
"...!!!!!"
Berial's body trembled violently under indescribable agony.
By his understanding, he couldn't make sense of what in the world was happening right now.
"Ghk, keuhk..."
As he barely came to his senses, Tusoteuthis's pitiful state flooded his mind.
The thick hide that even giant sea monsters couldn't pierce had been brutally torn apart.
The part struck dead on had been completely pierced through, laying bare the internal organs, and the hide crushed by the blast pressure was so mangled that even contact with seawater was painful.
"Ugh... where are you! Show yourself at once!"
He had already spent thirty years living as a rider of undersea monsters.
In Berial's common sense, underwater combat meant a proud battle in which giant beasts faced each other head-on.
But what on earth was this?
He couldn't even see the enemy's shape. The unknown foe hidden in the dark curtain of the seabed was launching attacks from afar in a cowardly fashion.
Berial, driven mad by rage and pain, drove the monster at top speed toward the direction from which the attack had come.
"I'll tear you to pieces and kill you!!!"
He swore that if they only came into view, he'd tear them apart right there.
And such violent movements were exactly the kind of target active sonar picked up all too well.
"The target is heading due north! U-5, U-6, U-8, U-9, U-10. Fire torpedoes when ready!"
Rrrrummm-
This time, the torpedoes appeared behind him. Berial, focused only on what was in front of him, couldn't evade the attack that came from an unexpected direction.
Five of the ten torpedoes hit.
Flashes resembling sunlight rose one after another from Tusoteuthis's legs.
And then there was a tremendous explosion.
The traces left behind by that shock were horrific.
One leg, struck directly by three torpedoes, was literally torn off. The two nearby legs were also each hit by a torpedo and briefly lost their function.
More importantly, Berial, who had to control the beast in that state, was in no condition to keep going.
The pain felt by a giant creature like Tusoteuthis was not something a human brain could endure.
With its mobility gone and the rider who should have judged the situation having briefly passed out, Tusoteuthis came to a dead stop right there.
"Explosion sounds observed, and the enemy Tusoteuthis has gone silent. It appears to have lost mobility and is drifting! Distance from our vessel is about 6 km!"
And the fate of prey that lost a leg in the middle of a wolf pack was already decided.
"Tell the entire fleet! Close in while firing torpedoes as soon as they're ready to ensure the kill!"
The fleet began to move in on the drifting monster.