Retreat

Teach spun the wheel like a madman.

But it was already too late.

The whale opened its gigantic mouth.

“We’re getting sucked in!”

“Aaaagh!”

It was an incredible suction force.

The seawater swirled like a sink drain as it was sucked in.

The ship was being dragged away helplessly.

“Damn it...!”

At this rate, we’d be whale chow.

I gathered up every grain of sand on the ship.

And on top of that, I turned every scrap and odds and ends around us into sand and glued them together.

The so-called Staff of God, which still handled my strongest attack spell.

An enormous amount of sand gathered around one arm.

A high-density sand spear, compressed and compressed again.

With the added attribute granted by Mineral Devouring, its destructive power was beyond imagination.

“Eat this!”

I fired the spear toward the whale’s open mouth.

Pashwoooosh!

The sound of air being torn apart.

The giant sand spear slammed into the whale’s palate.

KWAANG-!

The shockwave, similar to when the whale first rose up, shook the ship.

It was enough to make even the seawater that had been sucked in briefly surge backward.

Buuuuuu—!

The whale let out a pained scream.

Did it work?

I looked ahead with anticipation.

“That monster bastard....”

It was still alive.

Its palate had been torn apart, and blood was streaming down, but no matter how you looked at it, the wound wasn’t fatal.

If anything, the pain only made it more ferocious, and when it twisted its body, a massive tidal wave rose up.

“What do I do...?”

For the first time, I was in a situation where I couldn’t see a way out.

“... At this rate, even running away will be hard.”

Should I get out on my own? Use the flag?

Should I retreat for now and prepare for the next attempt?

But how? This wasn’t the kind of force I could escape with just a bit of rowing.

Then the parrot circled above our heads and shouted.

[Burn it! Burn it!]

“What?”

[Soul! Burn it!]

I snapped my eyes open.

The lantern I got from capturing the harpy. It was full of the souls I had captured on the previous floor.

The black mage had definitely said that lantern could be used as fuel for the ghost ship.

“Teach! Can you do it?”

“I’ll try!”

I had no choice.

Teach took out the lantern and opened it with his staff.

The trapped souls burst out like a flood and headed for the wheel under the wand’s guidance.

The wheel began to glow pale white.

“Hold on tight!”

KWAAAAANG!

The ship shot forward like a rocket.

The ship kicked off the water and leaped into the air.

We were out of the beast’s reach in an instant.

“W-we’re alive...”

Splash!

The ship landed with a violent spray of water.

But I felt more empty than relieved that we’d survived.

The first wall I’d ever felt.

And there was something else I’d lost, too.

“C-Captain! Your arm!”

“In this new era... Haa, I don’t even have the energy to joke.”

The arm I’d just used up in that attack.

Far away, I could faintly sense a connection to the whale’s belly.

If I found it, I could reattach it...

But only if I caught that thing.

“......”

Without saying a word, I glared again at the white whale, now just a dot in the distance.

The creature was spitting out water, as if frustrated.

We had only just barely escaped; we hadn’t won.

If I couldn’t bring it down, I couldn’t move on to the next floor.

And I couldn’t get my arm back either.

“Damn it.”

Until now, a little thinking or a little effort had been enough to win.

This was different.

A pure and simple difference in size.

The same principle as an ant not being able to beat an elephant.

“Are you frustrated?”

“... Yeah.”

“What can you do? That’s a calamity. It’s not something a person can beat.”

“...”

I had to admit it. I couldn’t beat that thing as I was now.

“Teach.”

“Yes.”

“Let’s retreat for now. We need to regroup.”

Going at it like this would only make me whale chow.

I needed to find a way.

“I’ll come back with a plan. Wait here.”

“Yep!”

Normally, escaping during a clear was impossible, but I had a flag that could teleport me anywhere, anytime.

A cheat item that could ignore the floor’s restrictions and send me back home.

“See you next time.”

I gritted my teeth and poured my faith power into the flag.

Light enveloped me.

[You have left the tower via a bypass route during the first clear!]

[Time inside the tower is frozen.]

[When you reenter, the clear will continue.]

“So that’s what happens if you leave in the middle of a clear...”

If anything, that was a relief.

Because that meant the ship wouldn’t be gone when I got back.

“Haaah...”

The moment I got home, I threw myself onto the bed.

The Hunter Gallery, and the music I’d uploaded to YouTube.

I didn’t feel like checking either of them.

The first helplessness I’d felt since getting this body.

“What do I do?”

My magic ultimately relied mostly on physical impact.

But as I’d just seen, physical attacks were almost useless because of the difference in size.

Mind control using a siren’s vocal cords?

To make that work, I’d have to carry a speaker as big as I was.

“So annoying...”

I thought about it for several minutes, but there was still no answer.

I lay on the bed and twisted my body left and right.

The emptiness left by my missing arm.

“.....”

Then Chohogi came over.

In its two hands was a mug steaming with warmth.

“What is this... cocoa?”

Warm cocoa with white marshmallows floating on top.

I weakly took the mug.

“Trying to cheer me up? Thanks. Thanks a lot.”

A guy who sometimes seemed even more mature than I was.

I took a sip of the cocoa.

The sweet drink went down my throat, but my mood didn’t improve that easily.

The Sandworm, having grown bigger too, coiled around my arm.

[The Sandworm wraps around your shoulders.]

[The Sandworm comforts you, saying that thing is a creature on the verge of becoming a divine beast, so it’s only natural that it’s difficult.]

“Yeah, thanks to you too.”

I got out of bed.

I couldn’t just lie there doing nothing when these guys were comforting me like this.

If I gave up, that would be the end.

“First, let’s gather information again.”

I turned on the computer and typed in a search term.

I was trying to find any cases of people having cleared a similar monster.

“Hmm... no whale-like cases.”

There was plenty of information, but none of it was similar to my case.

“Let’s ask the Hunter Gallery, too.”

I went onto the Hunter Gallery, grasping at straws.

[Need a way to kill a whale monster]

[Author: ㅇㅇ(44U.4U4)]

[Not just any whale, but a gigantic whale with serious boss aura]

[So huge it could swallow a ship??]

ㄴ If you say you’ll buy me pork cutlet, I’ll just kill it.

ㄴ Don’t try whaling-style surgery.

ㄴ They say if you go inside its belly and light a fire, it’ll die.

ㄴ Shoot a nuke and everything dies~.

Useless nonsense, as usual.

ㄴ Say something that makes sense. Where would a whale like that even be?

ㄴ There are plenty of sea monsters in the Pacific. That’s why ships can’t sail around freely, isn’t it?

ㄴ But were there whales there too?

ㄴ There could be, I guess.

There were even people who didn’t take my post seriously.

“I was the one who’d been wrong to expect anything.”

I immediately headed to the A-rank-only gallery.

If anywhere had quality information, surely someone there would have had a similar experience.

ㄴ Never heard of a sea-creature raid.

ㄴ We tried it a little after the Tower first appeared. All of them failed.

ㄴ Big monster raids do happen sometimes???

ㄴ I think they even killed one during the Mexico operation.

ㄴ But wasn’t that one only barely killed because the world rankers all banded together?

Unlike the Hunter Gallery, proper discussion started to happen.

ㄴ Usually the strategy is to blow up one part at a time.... But does a whale even have parts?

ㄴ Fins?

ㄴ How about blowing out its eyes?

ㄴ Going inside it seems like a possible method, too.

ㄴ Too dangerous. Who knows what’s inside?

ㄴ There have even been cases where another monster came out of a giant monster lol.

ㄴㄴ Shit, just imagining that makes me want to puke.

“Hmm...”

Information that was almost identical to what I’d found on my own.

But realistically, they were all impossible methods.

I had to go solo.

I then went to the mage gallery.

It wasn’t to find a method. I just wanted to talk about how suffocated I felt.

[Guys, I hit a wall on Floor 45.]

[Author: ㅇㅇ(33K.3K3)]

[A whale the size of a building showed up, and there’s no answer.]

[My attacks just don’t work at all....]

[I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.]

ㄴBeetle: You hit a wall??? Does that even make sense?

ㄴMagic Is Firepower: But you’re already on Floor 45?

ㄴㅇㅇ(33K.3K3): Not clickbait this time. I’m really at a loss.

ㄴPkkatju: Did you get away okay? I’m worried.

ㄴBeetle: Yeah, right....

ㄴㅇㅇ(33K.3K3): I can teleport out from inside the tower, so I escaped. But the next part is the problem.

ㄴFridge: Give us the detailed specs.

ㄴFridge: If we all put our heads together, maybe a solution will come up.

I laid out the full story.

Just how huge and overwhelming the whale I saw on Floor 45 was.

The other mages who heard the story turned serious.

ㄴBeetle: That’s insane. I’ve never seen a monster like that.

ㄴMagic Is Firepower: What if you wielded five staffs...?

ㄴFridge: You think that would work?

ㄴFridge: I’ll look for a way as much as I can. Don’t expect too much.

ㄴPkkatju: Don’t overdo it.

ㄴBeetle: Yeah. It’s okay if you climb a little more slowly. You’ve already risen several times faster than everyone else.

ㄴFridge: I think you could even stop entirely. Though one person would probably object.

ㄴMagic Is Firepower: Hey, do you think I’m a psychopath???

ㄴMagic Is Firepower: It’s not like I don’t want to level up if I can, you know?

ㄴMagic Is Firepower: Charging in headfirst is suicide. What good would dying do??

ㄴMagic Is Firepower: Of course I want to help, so tell me if you need anything. Items, money, whatever—I can support you with all of it.

“I hadn’t expected even this guy to say that...”

I got a little choked up.

The gallery members always bickered with me, but when they saw I was genuinely struggling, they all sprang into action.

ㄴㅇㅇ(33K.3K3): Thanks, everyone. I’ll rest a bit and think it over.

There was still no solution.

Still, the burden on my heart had lightened.

“Yeah, there has to be some way.”

I had no intention of stopping here.

I turned off the monitor and sat lost in thought for a while.

Should I really get another staff?

Or should I stock up on items and try to power up?

Maybe there was something useful among the dwarf’s items.

Various methods and strategies kept circling through my head.

Then it happened. I heard bubbling sounds from the fish tank.

[You seem to have a lot on your mind.]

It was the black mage.

The bastard stared straight at me with his eye pressed up against the aquarium glass.

[A whale like that is nothing to this body. I even hunted a dragon and made it my subordinate.]

“Oh, really.”

I snorted at the black mage’s usual boasting.

But I couldn’t ignore the next line.

[Do you desire power?]

Those were the words most fitting for the black mage.