Chapter 0
I've loved the sea ever since I was a child.
Of all of it, I loved the deep sea most.
Especially deep-sea creatures with appearances most ordinary people would find repulsive: giant squid, horseshoe crabs, deep-sea jellyfish, and the like.
Perhaps that was what led to it.
Now, as an adult, I've become a deep-sea researcher, and...
Right now, I was descending to the ocean floor in a specially designed mini-submarine.
The deep sea is still an unknown world.
What dangers might lurk there? What life might exist? It was a world of mysteries, with almost nothing properly understood.
That was why I risked descending into the deep sea.
To uncover the secrets of the deep sea.
To study the lifeforms that lived there.
Everyone warned me it was dangerous and tried to stop me, but I wouldn't listen to them.
I loved the deep sea.
Because researching deep-sea creatures was the joy of my life and my reason for living.
And then.
“Ha-. Haha-. Ahahaha-!”
On the floor of the deep sea, where not a single ray of light existed.
I laughed as I gazed at the rift, whose presence was impossible to ignore even without the searchlight attached to my specially designed submersible illuminating it.
I'd descended into the deep sea dozens of times by now, but this was the first time I'd ever seen a rift like that.
It might well have been a major discovery worthy of being recorded in human history.
If I investigated that unidentified rift and uncovered what it was, I might accomplish something so great I could be hailed as a great historical figure.
Yet I was more certain than anyone that I wouldn't be able to reveal this great discovery to the world.
The reason was simple.
On the floor of the deep sea, where not a single ray of light existed.
The rift, clearly visible despite not being illuminated by a searchlight, as if flaunting its presence, was looking at me.
No, to be precise, the enormous ‘eye’ situated beyond the rift was looking at me.
I gazed at the enormous eye staring at me, its pupil neither dilating nor contracting, and thought. Then I murmured to myself.
What in the world...
“What is that?”
At the same time, curiosity stirred within me.
Even in this perilous situation, where one wrong move could cost me my life, I couldn't seem to suppress my curiosity about the deep sea. My curiosity about deep-sea creatures.
So, gazing at the eye looking at me, I thought to myself.
I want to know. I'm desperately curious about what that thing is.
I'd studied countless deep-sea creatures, but even so, I'd never encountered one with an eye as enormous as that thing before me.
No, to begin with, I hadn't even thought there could be a creature with an eye that large.
And so, I piloted the submersible.
A little closer. Driven by the desire to see that enormous eye up close, I moved the submersible.
At the same time, consumed by curiosity and the desire to study that creature with the enormous eye, I operated the mechanical arm attached to the submersible and touched the eye.
Though I knew that if I touched it the wrong way and it went on a rampage, I was as good as dead, I couldn't hold back my curiosity.
And so, the moment I operated the mechanical arm attached to the submersible and touched the enormous eye to collect a sample.
■■■■■-!
With a roar that shook the deep sea, I lost consciousness.