Desharow MermanChapter 34

Translator: Cheonsa

Editor: Evan JvNHGl

　Chapter 34

　　Was Agares intending to go out to sea to fight with such a big monster alone? 

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　　”Hey, wait a minute!” When I finally reacted, I rushed over in big strides, but Agares had already thrown himself overboard, and his entire upper body created a loud splash in the cold water. Agares’s tail at the same time, swept across the cabin’s door, slamming it shut, blocking my way of exiting.

But my moving feet didn’t stop in time, and I ended up slamming my forehead against the solid metal door with a bang. My head instantly exploded in pain, and I fell onto the floor. 2sjGmW

    Damn you, Agares…

　　I fiercely cursed him in my heart as I was barely able to support myself to sit up. I shook the heavy feeling in my head away, and only after a while did the dizziness began to ease. My drifting eyes flit across a wall that had several long, black objects hanging from it. My mind began to rouse in vigor once again. Those were AK47s! I stumbled to stand up quickly and took one off the wall to hold in my hand. The cold feeling of the rifle seeped into my palm, which greatly reduced my panic. 

　　Although I had experience using an anesthesia gun before, I didn’t plan on rushing out with the rifle to fight those big, terrifying tentacles. Questionably, I didn’t even know why I had this urge to hold the rifle, but it magically helped me calm down. This might be due to the blood flowing in my body. Russian men were born to hunt and shoot.

　　However, just as I was checking if this rifle was loaded, I unexpectedly saw small letters engraved clearly on the metal body—U.S. Army Springfield Armory.

　It could be transliterated as “Springfield”. 

　　My heart trembled all of a sudden, and my entire body was frozen in place. I had once seen these words before, more specifically in a military theory course I had taken back at the university. Luckily, with my superb memory, I remembered every detail of the course and also wrote circumstantial notes during each lesson. This strand of words was the name of a famous military firearm manufacturing factory in the United States that operated during World War II.

　God! Who can tell me why this pirate ship has ammunition that is produced in a U.S. military arsenal?! Could it be that they looted a U.S. military warship? Or… 

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

　    I couldn’t help but think back towards the Cold War between the U.S and the Soviet Union,and a speculation flashed through my mind like lightning, scaring me. Z4Fwnq

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　I frowned. My head was in a mess as I tightly clutched onto the rifle. Right at this moment, the side of my eyes caught a glimpse of a shadow from outside the door’s glass window. I looked over and saw Rhine covered in wounds, climbing up through the hatch door from the bottom cabin I had just been in. He quickly avoided the pirates who were fighting with the eel monster and dashed up the stairs which were leading to the second floor compartment. He must have taken the opportunity to rescue the other trapped people.

　　Only god knows how he climbed himself up! KuapxV

　　I subconsciously held the rifle closer, wanting to follow up to help, but when I came to the door, I couldn’t help but stop. My marksmanship was not considered any good nor accurate, so there was nothing profound I could do right now. Additionally, instead of helping Rhine out, I might even accidentally lose my own life—regarding what happened with Henry, it would represent a valuable lesson made by blood. I did not want to end up with two bullet holes in my head or be dragged into sea by those tentacles.

　　This won’t do. It’s better to observe before making any moves.

　　I firmly advised myself and took a deep breath to restrain the impulsiveness in my body. Davis once joked that I was a person with conflicting views. I usually looked like a bookworm who concentrated on research, but I was a full-fledged Russian warrior. I fought harder than anyone when I wanted to fight. Despite often overestimating my competence, what Davis said was correct. 

　　Calm down, Desharow. qOTGFt

   　“Boom!” 

　　All of a sudden, a loud and deafening crash was heard from the ship. It then swayed violently, causing me to stumble back a couple times where my back ended up hitting the wall behind me. Damn it! I supported myself against the wall and looked out the cabin window near my side. I saw a shadow scraping against the water beneath the boat. It created a large, rising green wave like a curtain, and then the large mouth filled with jagged bloody teeth opened widely beneath the water, sucking in a mouthful of seawater. This action created a hell hole on the surface of the sea that led to a deep, bloody abyss! 

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　      Where’s Agares?!

　　My chest felt unexpectedly tight and stuffy as my eyes worriedly searched for his silhouette in the violent, perilous waves. Right at this moment, a long, black, and slender figure leapt out of the water. Its fishtail, filled with brilliant shining scales, was like a keen, sharp blade, splitting open the waves and creating a magnificent arclight as it swept past the top half of the pelican eel-like monster. The tail’s end resembled a sickle and cut cleanly into the shining, lantern-like eyes as it bypassed. Immediately, those eyes popped open like a water balloon, and a fluorescent liquid flooded out from the transparent crystal in the monster’s eyes.   7EW2Jg

　　　In a split second, the pelican eel monster billowed out of the water in great pain, and its body went beyond the height of the ship. In the middle of the air, it swung its tail around, opened its mouth and madly went for Agares who was in the water. There were huge waves, and water mist splashed around for some time. The glass in front of me was covered with big water droplets. I only vaguely saw both large and small frightening whirlpools in the sea. The head of the eel monster with only one eye rose from the sea from time to time, but I still couldn’t see the situation Agares was entangled with. But just thinking about it did not mean I understood the abnormal and dangerous situation he was in.

This wasn’t like a tiger shark like before！The body size of this pelican eel was more than ten times larger than Agares, it was not even enough to leave any teeth mark!

　　I gritted my teeth. I swung the rifle three times until the glass window of the cabin was smashed to pieces, before holding the rifle in an improper position to follow after the giant pelican eel’s other eyes. 

　　I hoped I was blessed enough that my rotten marksmanship from using an anesthesia gun could do some good in using this rifle! dgVUqh

　　I squinted my eyes, aimed the telescopic scope at the lightbulb-like eyes in the water, and pulled back the safety bolt. The moment the pelican eel’s head emerged out from the water, I fired several shots. The firepower of an AK47 was worthy of its name, as all the bullets from those shots exploded as soon as they hit the huge black head, making loud splashes. Despite not knowing whether the eye was shot or not, I knew it must have caused some sort of damage when I saw how much the large shadow was writhing around. At this time, I discovered Agares floating upward, appearing to take the opportunity to cooperate with my shooting. He nimbly leapt across the rear side of the monster and came straight back down, cutting the surface of the water like an arrow. Using his strong, sharp claws, he grabbed the tentacle that was coiled around his tail, and like a fierce war horse, he piloted himself towards the back of the pelican eel. His powerful arm then penetrated deeply into the last remaining eye and harshly dugged out the glass-like, transparent crystal!

　　The intense pain caused the pelican eel monster to struggle severely, in which half of its body ended up rising halfway out of the water, exposing its fragile abdomen.

　　Taking advantage of this rare opportunity, I immediately lowered my aim to target its vulnerability. This thrilling, yet dangerous situation was making my arm shake, but it did not stop my fingers from squeezing the trigger to shoot. The monster dived back into the water just as quickly as it came up, and the large waves carried turbid waters of blood that splattered across a large area of the sea. The situation below the water seemed to be stirred by a tornado, full of chaos. 

　　I couldn’t tell where Agares was. I didn’t know if my terrible aiming method had ended up harming him as well, so I stopped firing in the meantime, and I leaned toward the window while holding my breath to see the condition of the sea.  E8THkz

　　When I looked down toward the water, I saw a black shadow suddenly charging over from the lateral side of the window, scaring me. I subconsciously raised my rifle to block it. The three-layered lamprey-like mouth pounced directly through the window and grabbed ahold of my rifle in just one bite. The sudden attack made me forget to release the rifle in my hand, and my body was dragged out of the window by a strange force. Before I could scream, I fell headfirst into the sea with it!

　　Instantly, the cold water engulfed my body. I choked down a couple mouthfuls of salt water before I managed to use my arms to help raise my head to the surface. 　

　　The chaotic waves abruptly swept me into the air, then threw me back down into the water, and in an instant, I landed 10 meters away from the ship. In the stormy sea, I completely lost my sense of direction. And to make matters worse, the waves had disrupted my vision, not allowing me to see where the deep-sea monster and Agares were.  

　　Damn it! This is bad… RAe Lh

　　I shook away the water droplets from my face. The moment I caught sight of the ship in the midst of the barrier created by the waves, I abruptly felt the movement of a large current coming straight behind me—I didn’t even need to look back to guess that it was the tentacle that had just dragged me into the sea!

　　“S-shit!”

　　I cried out due to the stimulating fear and began to paddle using both arms and feet, as the rising waves immediately propelled my body forward for a short distance. I, who always had terrible swimming skills, was surprised to find myself swimming adeptly and flexibly like a pro swimmer. My legs were closely stitched together like a fishtail, and I was able to maneuver up and down against the waves with great control. I was quite sure I could swim faster than the olympic-winning swimmer of freestyle! 

　　Oh my god… how did this happen?! I was deeply shocked, but there was no time for me to contemplate for a reason. At this moment, my desire to live had occupied my brain and nerves. I just moved by instinct, and the moment I was near the ship’s hull, I imitated Agares’s effortless jump from the water and stretched out my hand to grab the closest mast.  kjRFir

　　However, just when my finger touched the boat, my back was suddenly tightened by something, and an indescribable sharp pain infiltrated deeply in my bone marrows, stabbing my entire nervous system. I screamed out in anguish as my finger slipped, and my entire body was forcefully dragged down by an unknown force on my back!

　　The icy water suddenly drowned my body from every side, and just as my head was about to fully submerged, the oppression of death made me cry out, “Agares… Agares!” 

Chrysanthemum Garden.

　　Before I could speak any further, my voice was cut short by the influxing seawater engulfing my mouth and nose, as my body was being dragged deeper and deeper into the water by a strange force. The suffocating feeling from drowning made me desperately shake my head, and the water pressure on my eyes made things worse. At this time, a long and black shadow charged from my right side out of nowhere, and the very long tail swung out a curve. Like a deep-water torpedo, it approached me quickly. I could only see a pair of bright, narrow pupils in the turbid sea. In nearly a blink of an eye, the familiar figure came closer to me, and the webbed claws tore through the darkness-like lightning and attacked the ghostly object on my back.

　　Agares’s attack was so quick and fluent that I wasn’t able to see what he did to get rid of the terrible thing that had bitten me. All I felt was my back being loosened, and my body was caught between his long tail and was brought back up to the surface.  6verkA

　　Inhaling back the deprived oxygen made my mind blank for a couple minutes, while my eyes darkened as if I was still under the sea. My ears were also loudly buzzing. I knew that I was suffering from the stress of being under the deeper part of the water for so long. At this time, if I hungrily gasped for breath, it would easily lead to sudden death, so I had to desperately control my breathing frequency and dared not move around. Like driftwood, I allowed myself to silently float along with the waves. I looked at the dark blue night sky with my eyes, trying to calm myself.

　　I didn’t know how much time had passed, but I gradually managed to stabilize myself. Through my still blurry vision, I saw that the pirate ship had already sailed far away from me. The figures of Agares and the eel monster battling had disappeared from the surface of the water. There was a huge whirlpool not far away that was gradually sinking into the depths of the sea, and a dark shadow could be seen vaguely churning in the whirlpool’s center.

　　I didn’t know whether Agares had taken the victory in this sea battle. Although I hated and feared this beast, I still didn’t want him to end up in the monster’s belly at all. This strange concern even exceeded my fear right now. Even though I knew that I should swim back to the ship to be far away from the whirlpool, my eyes were unable to move from it, as if they were caught in the whirlpool.

　　But my back was stinging in pain, and the more intense it got, the more I forced myself to move toward the direction of the ship. Yet the moment my eyes swept ahead of the sea’s surface, my entire body became frozen. 3dQKjH

　　—In the gradually calming dark sea, in the boundless water, a number of dotted lights emerged, and then several human-like outlines peeled away from the darkness of the water, slowly surrounding me.

　　There were countless numbers of… merfolk.

　　TBC

One of many covers of the book: Xcbm70