Convoy

The East's greatest military asset. One of the five giant abyssal monsters was found horribly mutilated.

It was first discovered by Eastbourne, the East's third-rate battleship.

"We heard successive explosions in this sector!"

When the Eastbourne crew entered the waters where the hunt had taken place, they grimaced at the overpowering fishy stench.

The source of the stench that even sailors long used to the sea couldn't stand was the corpse of the giant monster Tusoteuthis.

"This is..."

Giant monsters rarely surface.

There's no food on the surface.

So... that could only mean it was an abyssal monster with a master, and there was only one place in these waters that could operate large abyssal monsters.

The Eastern Royal Navy.

As soon as they confirmed that fact, everyone's faces turned pale.

"What in the..."

There are no monsters on the sea surface capable of threatening Tusoteuthis. This could never happen naturally.

A giant squid faster than any other large monster, with ink-based smoke-screen abilities, and able to wrap its tentacles around just about any living thing and kill it? In these waters?

Impossible.

In other words, it was obvious that something unknown had ruthlessly killed Tusoteuthis.

And that unidentified something might still be targeting this ship right now.

The captain of the Eastbourne, a third-rate battleship, immediately ordered a retreat, trembling with fear that they might be attacked at any moment.

In fact, that wasn't such a bad call.

Because a periscope was jutting up from the sea surface three kilometers away from the scene.

"Torpedo tubes ready. Shall we sink them?"

"No."

The captain of U-13 rejected the first mate's suggestion and silently watched the enemy ship retreat.

Sinking them wasn't that difficult, actually.

A wooden ship like that could never withstand the blast force of a torpedo.

Even so, the reason he didn't move lay in the order he'd received.

"The Grand Duke said to leave behind at least one or two witnesses. The rumors about the unidentified sea monster are better the more they spread and get exaggerated."

Rumors are, by nature, the sort of thing that gets exaggerated from mouth to mouth.

Before a fleet including the East's official investigators came to inspect the scene and issue an official statement, it was better if exaggerated rumors spread as far as possible.

"Then how about just giving them a little scare..."

"Why bother?"

That, too, seemed unnecessary.

Before his eyes lay the pitiful corpse of the Tusoteuthis, once touted as the strongest monster in existence; was there any more effective threat than that?

The U-13 captain's judgment was correct.

"That monster could appear at any moment! Everyone, be on your guard!"

"On guard... but what's the point...?"

"We're all going to die! This sea is cursed!"

"Sea God, please let our ship return safely to harbor..."

The interior of the third-rate battleship Eastbourne was practically a complete mess.

Its 74-gun broadside battery couldn't reassure the crew. If cannon like that could work, Tusoteuthis wouldn't have ended up like that.

No one knew that better than the captain.

The captain, who was responsible for restoring order on the ship and correcting the false rumors, was half-panicking and pacing frantically.

"Faster, faster!"

The captain's behavior only served to further heighten the crew's anxiety.

Since even the captain was like that, the unease spread to the officers who had been calming the crew until then.

And so, during the day-long voyage back to the East's naval port, Eastbourne's deck was filled with wildly exaggerated tales about the monster that had hunted Tusoteuthis.

"It must be an unbelievably huge monster. Tusoteuthis was taken down without even being able to fight back."

"And it must be monstrously vicious, too. It was torn apart so horribly. You all saw the corpse, didn't you?"

"This... what if there really is something in the East's waters that shouldn't be there?"

The blue sea of the East was calm and still.

The sailors had to tremble with fear on the silent, boundless sea, dreading a terrifying presence that might appear at any moment.

And only after safely arriving inside the Eastern harbor could they finally be freed from that fear.

"We're alive!!!"

"Thank you, God!"

"Aah... I'm never getting on a ship again."

The sight of the sailors dropping to their knees and offering prayers the instant they poured into the harbor was enough to draw everyone's attention.

And once people saw the captain, who should have been restoring discipline, sprinting toward headquarters, they couldn't contain their curiosity and came closer.

And that's how the rumor began to spread.

"Well, it was Tusoteuthis, of all things..."

Fear spread like an uncontrollable contagion.

By the time the East Grand Duke's residence announced it would conduct an additional investigation, it was already far too late.

Within just a few days, rumors about an 'unidentified sea monster' had spread throughout the entire Eastern Navy.

That was when newspapers in the South all put photos of the Tusoteuthis corpse on their front pages.

[ The Moment the Ruler of the Sea Fell ]

[ A Southern New Weapon That Defeated Tusoteuthis? ]

[ Military Issues Official Statement on the Tusoteuthis Hunt ]

The first Easterners to see the Southern newspapers didn't believe the contents.

That was only natural.

After all, people whose lifestyle and way of thinking were closer to the Middle Ages than the modern era believed humans could never beat Tusoteuthis.

"The Southerners? They're just a bunch of pathetic losers who don't even have a single sea monster, aren't they?"

"Exactly. They probably just happened to pass by that spot ahead of us and took the picture."

"Did those idiot Southerners seriously think we'd buy this?"

They thought the South was simply using a corpse it had gotten lucky enough to find for propaganda and agitation.

"If the East doesn't lift its naval blockade of the South, we'll blockade the East's seas as well."

So they only laughed at the South's naval declaration.

"Ha, go ahead and blockade us if you can. If you can even get into our waters, that is."

At sea, humans are infinitely fragile.

The Easterners, who believed that without a shadow of a doubt, laughed off the South's blockade declaration.

Until the ships heading into the East started disappearing one by one.

"Huh? Something's a little off..."

After the Southern declaration, ships entering the Eastern harbor began sinking for unknown reasons in increasing numbers.

On June 1, three ships.

On June 3, ten ships.

On June 7-8, as many as twenty-six ships.

Only merchant ships belonging to the guilds and carrying goods into the East were being sunk.

The commercial guilds that held power in the East immediately gathered to discuss countermeasures.

"It seems related to the Tusoteuthis corpse discovered by the third-rate battleship not long ago."

"Then are you saying the navy was right, and some monster really lives beneath the sea?"

"For now, that's the only way to see it."

The first topic to come up was the navy's report about a 'sea monster' from not long ago.

But by this point, they couldn't help but start doubting it.

Nearly forty merchant ships had been sunk. Every one of them belonged to the Eastern commercial guilds.

Could a mindless monster distinguish between ships?

"There's something suspicious here. Maybe... maybe it really was the Southerners..."

"What?"

"Think about it. How could a wild monster specifically target only our commercial guild ships and destroy them?"

"Then you mean the Southerners tamed some monster we don't know about and are hunting our merchant ships with it?"

"That... seems a little more reasonable, doesn't it?"

Everyone in the conference room hardened their expressions.

That was truly the worst-case scenario.

Much of Eastern commerce had already been taken over by the South. Human strength couldn't compete with factories.

As for whether they could build factories themselves, the answer was no. Setting aside whether they even had the technology to build one, they didn't even have the money for it.

And now they were going to lose control of the sea lanes too?

Then what was left in the East now?

"...If that's the case, how are we supposed to respond? If we lift our naval blockade here, we'll only make ourselves a laughingstock."

"I agree. If we back down here, the Empire's seas may truly no longer be ours."

But the East couldn't retreat.

They were already cornered rats.

And a cornered mouse will always bite the cat.

"Maybe it's because the merchant ships were sailing out alone?"

"So until the situation settles down, how about gathering the merchant ships together and sending them out at once?"

One of the merchants proposed a large-scale convoy.

It sounded fairly plausible.

If the group made the enemy back off, that was fine, and even if only one ship survived, it could report what had happened.

"Sounds like a good idea. Our Eastern Royal Navy will join as well."

And so an agreement was reached between the navy and the commercial guilds.

A few days later, on June 16.

A convoy of forty merchant ships, two Tusoteuthis, and other abyssal monsters set out for the allied nation.