Chapter 139
It was unreal.
A whale that had swallowed a ship, caught in one hand like a fish.
Kuooooo—!
The whale let out a scream filled with pain and confusion.
The thrashing of a body weighing hundreds of thousands of tons.
“Ugh!”
“Damn it!”
The shock alone kicked up a massive wave that washed over the ghost ship.
I could see a few sailors desperately grabbing the railing or ropes to steady themselves just before they went overboard.
But I didn't have time to worry about that.
Right now, all my attention was focused entirely on my grip.
If I let go, it was over.
A body artificially juiced with mana stones worth billions.
Even now, my mana was leaking away and my body was shrinking in real time.
I couldn't use an attack like that again. I only had one chance.
I had to finish it here.
The creature was trying to wriggle free with its slick skin and monstrous strength.
Power born from sheer mass.
But this time, I wasn't the one being pushed back.
“Ughhh...!”
I clenched my jaw and poured out every last drop of my mana.
My heart pounded as if it were about to burst.
I could feel the mana flowing through my veins, thread by thread.
My body crumbled away in an instant, shrinking back to its original size.
“Break!”
I put strength into each and every finger.
Kwoooosh!
Giant sand fingers that had risen over the sea dug into the whale's torso.
Bwooooo!
The white whale screamed in pain.
It sounded like a drum being torn apart. The sailors clutched their ears and rolled on the deck.
Not yet...!
Merely holding it wasn't enough to kill it.
I had to break its spine here and now.
Krrk, krrk!
An unpleasant sound came from the whale's body.
Its torso twisted under the immense pressure.
“Burst!”
Crack—!
It happened as I wrung out the last drop of my mana.
A dull rupture sounded over the sea.
Red blood shot up like a fountain.
It rained down on the ship.
The creature's white body was dyed red in an instant.
The huge tail, which had struggled to the very end, fell limply into the sea.
Splash-!
The blue sea quickly began to turn red with blood.
The massive body slowly sank beneath the waves.
The impact shook the ship hard, but thankfully it didn't capsize.
Haa, haa...
I collapsed where I stood and gasped for air.
At the same time, the giant sand hand floating over the sea could no longer hold its shape and collapsed.
The sand that had risen like an island returned to the sea, churning up muddy water.
The sea had become a murky mud pit, with blood, dirt, and water all mixed together.
A gust of sand blew over it.
It was my lost arm.
The sand wind gathered at the severed edge and began to clump together.
Seeing my arm slowly recover, I felt like it was really all over.
Ugh...
The price of overdoping.
It was the rebound from the mana that had swollen violently and then shrunk back down.
I had no strength left in my body, and my head was spinning.
“C-Captain!”
Teach rushed over in a panic.
He looked utterly unable to believe it.
A face like he'd seen a miracle from God.
Well, even I was amazed at what I'd done, so that reaction was only natural.
“Are you all right?”
“No... I thought I was going to die.”
I crawled weakly over to one sailor.
He was the sailor I'd entrusted my phone to before the battle.
Teach had to steer the ship, and I had to fight.
So someone else had to handle the filming.
“Give it here...”
“Y-Yes, sir...!”
I took the phone and checked whether the mythic battle from just now had been recorded properly.
Only after replaying it several times did I finally nod.
“This is enough. Good.”
Only then did it finally feel like I'd won.
To think I'd brought down that overwhelming monster with my own strength.
The dazed sailors finally erupted into cheers.
“Woooo! We lived!”
“This is a hundred years' worth of drinking snacks! To think I caught a monster like that....”
“Party time! Bring out the booze and the women!”
“Hmm. We've got plenty of booze, but only one woman...”
“?”
“Are you crazy?”
It sounded like scuffling and splashing among the sailors.
“What are you doing? Captain! Let's dismantle that thing right now!”
“Dismantle it?”
I looked out at the sea upon hearing that.
As he said, if we dismantled that whale, it looked like all sorts of things would come out of it.
The problem was that it had already sunk deep because of its weight.
“What a shame...”
[What a shame! What a shame!]
Teach's parrot also clicked its beak as it circled the bloodstained water over and over.
Why was that bird so disappointed?
Do parrots even eat meat?
Even if we dove down, it would be hard...
There was no way we could haul a torso weighing dozens of tons up from the bottom.
No, even if we did haul it up, that would still be a problem.
Where on earth would we even put it to dismantle it? It was bigger than our ship.
It was a shame, but it couldn't be helped.
“Good work, Teach.”
“Yes, you too, Captain. Get some good rest!”
As he said, I really should rest properly this time.
I didn't even have the strength to twitch a finger.
As if it had read my mind, a system window appeared.
[Congratulations on clearing Floor 45 on EXTREME difficulty.]
[Warning! Cleared via abnormal route!]
[Recalculating rewards....]
“An abnormal route?”
I tilted my head.
A message I'd never seen before.
The status window paused for a moment, then began spitting out text in a torrent.
[You have achieved an impossible feat!]
[Achievement reward: Mana +1000]
[Recalculating rewards....]
[First-clear bonus applied!]
[Rank 1 bonus applied!]
[Achievement calculation complete.]
[Reward calculation complete.]
[A very special reward has been granted!]
[Whale Hunting Package (Special Grade)]
“Huh?”
It wasn't the usual three-line message.
The reward had also been merged into a single one, unlike usual.
Unlike the usual all-stat boosts or double mana stones they hand out for first clear and rank 1.
Before I could even check it properly, my body turned to light and was flung out of the tower.
***
After coming outside the tower, I read the status window again.
Abnormal route. Impossible feat.
What that meant was too obvious.
“Don't tell me this wasn't the way to catch it?”
Then what the hell was the normal route?
No way, was I really supposed to go inside the whale and hunt it there?
Was the final stage to blow up its heart or something?
There was no way to know anymore.
“What the hell was I busting my ass for...”
A sudden sense of emptiness washed over me.
I burned through billions just to take down a mid-boss, and I even trained all day long.
I did all sorts of things.
So it turned out I'd been running my own super-extreme hard mode.
“Let's think positive, think positive.”
Thanks to that, the rewards had been upgraded several times over, and I even learned a new skill.
I just had to make up for all the losses with this reward.
“But when does this thing come out?”
I tapped the text reading ‘Whale Hunting Package (Special Grade)’ on the status window.
I was outside the tower, but the reward still showed no sign of appearing.
That was when it happened.
The sky suddenly darkened.
I looked up.
“Uh... uh...”
Shuuuuung!
Massive objects were falling from the sky.
“Magic... ah, I'm out of mana.”
At this rate, I'd get crushed to death.
Crushed to death by tower rewards?
I'd be too embarrassed to even hold a funeral.
If a funeral were held, nobody would probably come, but if one were, please play the highlight reel I just filmed...
[The Sand Worm sighs, telling you to stop spouting nonsense.]
KWAANG! Thudududuk!
A shock like an earthquake rang out across the vacant lot around the tower.
But even amid all that, I was fine.
Because the Sand Worm had instantly coiled over me and formed a sturdy dome.
The heavy impact sounds of objects falling onto it kept coming.
“Doesn't it hurt?”
[The Sand Worm asks that you make sure to reward it properly later.]
“Yeah, yeah. Thanks.”
I stroked its wall with my hand.
Once the vibrations stopped, the Sand Worm loosened up and returned to my finger again.
I carefully looked around.
…….
I was speechless.
The area around the tower had been devastated.
“What is all this?”
I walked around and checked each of the things that had just fallen one by one.
“This is bone, and that one looks like hide...”
The special reward for Floor 45, the Whale Hunting Package.
It seemed to refer to the items that came from dismantling the whale boss.
Bones, oil, and hide were neatly packaged.
The problem was their size and quantity.
There was so much of it that it would be hard to even fit it all at home.
And that wasn't the end of the problem.
“What is that smell...?”
A stench so strong it numbed the nose.
The stench of fish and rot mixed together was enough to make my head spin.
A horrific smell like fish innards left in a sewer all summer long.
Stale oil, blood, fish stench, and rot too.
What a perfect quartet.
“Ugh, damn...”
Leaving everything else aside, where the hell was this rotten smell coming from?
I found the source of the stench in no time.
Two stones exuding a special aura, unlike the other byproducts.
One was a white stone as big as my torso.
“No matter how I look at it, this is a heart.”
It looked exactly like a heart.
When I touched it, it felt firm and springy.
Instead of the smell of blood, the heart gave off a pleasant fragrance.
The problem was the black stone beside it.
It was also about the same size as the whale heart.
The only difference was the smell.
An indescribable rotten stench slammed into my head.
“Ugh! Gag!”
I staggered back and pinched my nose shut, but it was useless.
A stench that punched right through a blocked nose.
What's more, that smell was spreading to the surrounding area.
This was bad.
At this rate, the whole of Daejeon would be in an uproar.
With trembling hands, I took out my phone and made a call.
There was only one person who could solve this.
“Mister? I'm going to need a lot of trucks... yes, about a hundred? I'm not kidding... Ah, and the smell is terrible too, so you'll need to take that into account. Yes, hurry. We have to handle this before people start gathering.”
After hanging up, I let out a string of heavy sighs.
What an inflexible system.
If you're going to throw items like this at me, shouldn't you at least give me an inventory system?
Or at least a subspace pouch or something.
You're just going to dump this on the ground like some brute?
There's no way this won't get noticed.
What do I do? Should I just hide at home until things die down?
That was when it happened.
“Cough, cough. Good grief, what is this smell... huh?”
A familiar black sedan came to a stop.
And the man who got out of it was also a familiar face.
It was Jung Manho.
“Huh? Why are you here...?”
Jung Manho looked back and forth between me and the whale byproducts beside me, then soon wore an expression of realization.