Hmm, this is difficult.

Seriously, they make it seem so easy when you watch it on tv or when you read it in a story, but doing this is really damn hard. Well, probably not harder than killing that damned spider for sure. That was just downright a nightmare.

Or was it… I mean, this kind of go against my very nature, but the spider was just plain hard. It had magma claws and explosive threads for Cygnas’ sake! It was almost as bad as fighting brachydios back in monster hunter!

Almost. After all, Brachydios is a lean mean exploding machine, and as hard as the spider was, I was kind of seriously undergeared to fight it. I wonder how it’d have gone now that I had actual good gear to fight her. Guess I will never know.

“…oi…”

Still, I wonder if it’s somehow a given that monsters that deal with explosions are difficult by nature. I mean, there’s brachydios, the spider, Teostra, Crimson fatalis… Ugh. I get shivers just recalling the first time I got supernovaed into the face by teostra. Geez, that thing isn’t holy under any standards.

Okay, it’s definitive. Explosive monsters can all go to hell. If they aren’t there already. Those guys are like the devil in person, mixed with nitroglycerin on steroids.

…Oh crap. That wouldn’t work. I mean, just think about it, most explosive monsters are fire resistant! So if I just send them all to hell, they’ll just end up feeling right at home. Yeah, that’s no good, they need to suffer, otherwise it’s just not vengeance.

Ooh! Oooh! Nordic hell! Where it’s all icy and cold! That’s perfect! Most of them have some weakness to ice, so they’d be in a very bad spot in there! Hahahahah! Take that you damned mons…

“…Oi, boy…”

Damn it. That won’t work on brachy. I mean, he already roams the tundra just because! And in pairs to boot! Ughh. No, no no no no. Repress bad memories. Repress bad memories. You did not have to solo two G-rank brachys with a shitty gunlance.

Still, that is pretty damn badass. I mean, he just goes: ‘Screw this, I don’t care about your element advantage!’ and start to wander about in the worst possible place for him. It’s like, I don’t know, a paper man walking into a volcano. Or a gingerbread man walking in the middle of a buffet…

Makes you wonder if he does it for training or something. I mean, he does gives me the feeling of a boxer, since he punches and all. God, a brachydios training montage. That would be so damn awesome. Could even work as, I don’t know, an anime opening where the MC is a brachy.

“Is he ignoring me? He’s ignoring me isn’t he?”

“No, Shishou’s just thinking about something.”

Hmm, speaking of opening, I wonder if about now we’d get an opening change. I mean, we just left the continent where Eldor is, and are now sailing on a ship. The next town we land will no longer be under the influence of the dwarves, so it’ll be about as much of a change of pace as we’ll ever get, and if that isn’t opening change material, I seriously don’t know what is.

Hmm, we’d need a new music to go with the theme of this new arc slash season slash whatever. I wonder what kind of soundtrack would go well with it. Maybe some sort of adventurous music, some light rock. Yeah, heavy rock is more action type seasons, so I guess light rock, maybe some pop might go well.

“…Should I give him a smack or something?”

“I would rather that you did not, but… I do not believe that words will reach Shishou at the moment.”

Hmm, now I wonder what sort of animation would be good. Maybe some snippets of my epic adventure, as in cut scenes from future hunts? Or maybe something more abstract? That would also work, I guess. Oh! I know! It sho-

Sadly I never had the chance to finish my thoughts, as pain stopped me from thinking.

“OUCH!” I shouted in pain while grabbing onto my head as it throbbed in pain. “What the hell old man?” I shouted angrily.

“I told you to clear your mind.” Ronin said angrily while pulling back the handle of the spear he had.

“But I did have my mind clear!” I complained.

“Did you?”

“Yeah, it was clearly distracted!” I replied proudly.

“That’s not what I meant!” He said while slamming the handle on my head again.

“Cygnasdamit old man!” I complained while holding my head once again. “I told you I had a hard time focusing!”

“And I told you that it wasn’t a matter of focusing, but clearing your mind!” He complained back. “Geez, I could even sworn this time you got more side-tracked than the previous seven times.”

“I… Wait, this was the eight attempt already?” I said surprised.

“If you count the one where you tried to escape, this is the ninth.” Yuu corrected us.

“Wow. I’m lasting longer than I expected.” I said impressed.

“Sadly, I can say the same.” Ronin agreed with a sigh. “I guess I should have expected you to be one of those kinds.”

“Should I feel offended?” I asked confused.

“Not really.” The samurai shrugged. “Each person is different. You aren’t the first of my students who have difficulty with this.”

“So, this is a difficult lesson after all.” I said with a sagely nod.

“No. This isn’t the lesson. This is the opening of the notebook before the lesson.” He said coldly while slamming the lance on my head once again.

Ouch. This is mistreatment of disciples! What are you going to do if all those hits end up fixing the screws in my head? Do you have any idea how bad that would be?

“These were the best coins I’ve ever spent in my entire life.” I couldn’t help but stare angrily at rival, who was casually sitting on the railing of the ship’s topside while eating a fruit and watching me amused.

“Aaah, thanks for that again, boy.” Ronin told her while giving a nod. “This little bastard didn’t even pay my fare of this ship.” He eyed me annoyed for a moment.

“Well, I wasn’t exact expecting you to catch up to us so fast.” I mulled under my breaths annoyed. Seriously, how the hell did he get from Eldor to here in so little time?

“Anyway, back to the lesson. One more time. Deep breaths, clear your mind.” He said while hitting the floor besides me.

I groaned in agreement before taking a deep breath, closing my mind and trying to focus on clearing my mind.

Think nothing. Feel nothing. Be nothing. Keeping a clear mind. Keeping a clear mind. Keeping a clear mind…

Ugh, my legs hurt from sitting on top of them for so long. I wonder when this will end. Don’t think I can stay in place without doing nothing in a place that isn’t my bed for this long. It’s bad for my mental health. Or whatever’s left of it.

Speaking of stuff being left, I wonder what we’ll have for breakfast tomorrow. Should we go with the Japanese breakfast? Or the simpler Brazilian breakfast? Hmm, questions and questions…

Due to spending a long time proving your inability to stay still for too long, you have earned the skill: Hyperactivity

(PS: Yes, this is a suggestion to give up)

Skill: Hyperactivity [lvl1]

[2%]

Some people were born to know how to stay calm, how to clear their minds and meditate for hours at a time. Others just can’t seem to stand still for more than a few seconds. You can think of this as a balancing consolation prize of sorts.

While not impossible, acquiring this skill is a good proof that acquiring meditation will be a lot harder than you might expect.

(Activating this skill shuts down the effects of meditation for the rest of the battle.)

Reduce Critical chance by 100%.

Increases max energy pool by 14 (Effect increased by agility.)

Reduce energy regeneration cooldown by 50%

Toggle.

…Well, that’s encouraging.

“What happened?” Ronin asked me curious, probably noticing that I was distracted by something. “Got a skill?

”Ah, yeah.” I nodded.

“Hmm… I guess this should be enough…” He started, not sounding very convinced about it.

“Got the hyperactivity skill.” I corrected whatever misgivings he had about which skill I got while showing him the skill window. “…So, does this means I’m excused from meditating?”

“...I guess we can take a break.” He said while rubbing his eyes tiredly. “Still, why does it feel like your skill description is not as impartial as it should be?” He asked confused.

“Well, it kind of happens when you make the goddess tired of dealing with you, I guess.” I said while looking away and towards the floating crystal maid who was casually fishing on the side of the boat.

“…I see…” He said a bit hesitant before sighing and shaking his head. “Well, no use forcing you, might as well take a break for now.”

…

Huuh…

Wait, what?

Did…

Did I miss something?

“Did you just say you’d give me a break?” I asked confused, before noticing the absurdity of my own words and laughing it off. “Hahaha. Looks like I went mad(der) and I am now hearing things.”

“Why are you assuming that ?” Ronin asked me confused. “I did say that we were taking a break. No use trying to force something you have a hard time doing after all.”

“Eermm… no. Wrong character.” I shook my head. “Aren’t you supposed to be the ‘Let’s train till we die of excessive training!’ type of guy?” I said.

“You’ve been watching too much anime, boy.” He said with an amused laugh. “Contrary to what they show you, doing something like that very rarely works. Patience is a lot more important.”

“…What do you…” I said before stopping to process his words. “Oh… Oh… So you mean that we are doing this the normal way?” I asked confused, to which he nodded. “…By Cygnas… That’s so weird.”

“Why the hell are you surprised by something being norm…” He started to ask, but his eyes quickly landed on his granddaughter and then Crys and Lieutenant. “You know what. Forget I asked. Anyway, go ahead and take a break for a few hours.”

“…Well, I won’t complain.” I said relieved while falling back and stretching my hand towards a blue bundle of fur nearby and refilling my fluffy-meter. “Look on the bright side, I might have failed miserably, but at least Aura here is a good student, right?” I said while diving my head into Aura’s fluffy neck fur.

I’m a really proud of her! When I was still on my second attempt, Aura managed to get the skill on her first try! Even though she wasn’t even trying for real! I’m so proud of my little blue fluff!

Though it does make me wonder why it just so happened to be the case that the two people whom I know that got the meditate skill also happens to be foxes.

Better not think too much about it and focus more on refilling my fluffy meter.

“…heh.” Kotetsu suddenly laughed. Wondering what was happening, I looked at him and noticed him looking at Yuu, who was looking away for some reason.

She’s jealous, isn’t she? Aww, that’s adorable!

As I indulged myself in fluffiness, Rival seemingly got disappointed before standing up and walking away.

“You chosen really are an amusing bunch.” We heard a voice from up ahead.

“Hope we haven’t been bothering you.” Ronin said with an apologetic tone towards Cherrygrove, who had an amused expression.

“Don’t worry. I enjoy watching you younglings. A change of pace compared to the usual sailors that go around here.”

“Haha… I guess so…” Ronin commented awkwardly. “…Youngling?” He whispered conflicted.

“Hmm, okay! Fluffyness was refilled!” I said satisfied while standing up “And now that I am free from the tor*cough*” Ugh, something got stuck in my throat. “From the training, I shall… Huhh…” What should I do now…

“Shishou?” Yuu called me curious when I started trailing off.

“…I actually have no idea what to do now.” I said while tilting my head in thought. “I mean… We are in a boat, so what I can do is kind of limited. No hunting, no much crafting… And I think that it’s still a bit too soon to go annoy Rival since she might seriously kill me… So I’m kind out of ideas on what to do now.” I admitted.

Ugh… No good. Can feel boredom settling in.

“Did you say you have nothing to do?” Crys suddenly said while appearing besides me, her eyes shining with a strange excitement.

“…Weren’t you fishing?” I asked confused.

“No fishes were biting.” She shrugged. “Which is weird, I could have sworn my mainframe said that this is still fishable area.”

“Okay… So, what exactly is your plan?” I asked a bit suspicious, since it was kind of out of character for Crys to be this excited.

“Didn’t you say you would fix Aura’s old outfit to fit me?”

“Hmmm… Good call. I could do that.” I said after some time thinking. “And I guess I wouldn’t need anything too special since it’d be only fixing a thing or two.”

“And making my ninja maid outfit.”

“And making your ninja maid outfit.” I agreed with Yami. “Though I’m not sure how far I could take it without proper equipment to be honest. And I’m almost sure I’m about to run out of treated leather, so I’d say to not expect much.” I said after some thought. “Also, when did you arrive here again?” I asked her confused.

“I am disappointed at your lack of surprise.” She told me with a blank stare.

“Yeah, you get used to this kind of thing after some time.” I shrugged.

“Hahh.” She sighed disappointed. “While your cheap excuse is still very cheap, I can’t say anything against it.”

“Yeah. Not much I can do about that. Also, How the hell do you still remember about that? It’s been like, a year or two since I promised that?”

“…I thought the game came out a bit more than a week ago?” Kotetsu commented confused. “Even in-game time it’d be around a month.”

“It’s better if you don’t think too much about it, teacher.” Hanbei commented with a sigh.

“Hey, Captain. Is there some place I could put some leather to be cured?” I asked Cherrygrove who was still watching us from his position at the main mast.

“Hmm… Not on the top deck at least.” He said after some time thinking. “Things can get a bit… hectic around here if things go bad. And having leather laying around might cause accidents to my sailors.” He stopped to think for a moment. “And the hull should be full with the cargo, so…”

“Captain.” He was suddenly interrupted by a sailor who was on the basket at the front mast. “I’m seeing a fairly large iceberg riding our current further ahead.” Said the sailor.

“Is that so…” Cherrygrove said in deep thought for a moment.

“…Iceberg?” I asked Crys confused.

“The current we are taking makes it so that’s it’s faster come closer to the poles before making a beeline towards the town we are arriving on.” She explained to us. “While it’s not close enough for the water itself to freeze over, some stray icebergs do still wander over around this area.”

“Oooh. I see.” I nodded in understanding. “…Oh god. Are we getting a Titanic? We are totally getting a Titanic, aren’t we?” I said worried.

“Master. It’s still day. And the captain was notified. The sailors are also taking action to avoid the iceberg.” Crys quickly shot down my worries.

“Well, you did just raise some dangerous flags right there.” Yami commented.

“Yeah. That never ends well in this kind of setting.” Ronin agreed.

“Bad Crys. Now we are going to crash.” I scolded her.

“Nya-na-nyaa!” Lieutenant joined in tiredly.

“You guys…” Crys shook her head.

“I’m not going to do something silly like hitting against an iceberg.” Cherrygrove said amused. “Lorry! Get on deck.” He called out to one of the sailors.

“Here captain.” A sharkman, Sahuagin or something if my memory doesn’t fail me, appeared on deck while wearing an apron.

“Good. Guy found an iceberg up ahead. Go check if we don’t have any bad surprise underwater. I plan on moving south of it to avoid collision. See if we need to leave the current for that or not.”

“Will do.” The sharkman said while taking off his apron and walking past us and leaping into the water

“…Using a natural-born water breather to do underwater scouting…” I commented amused. “That’s so damn obvious, yet I had never ever thought of that.” I said impressed.

“Really? This is pretty common amongst sailors though.” Cherrygrove said confused.

“Chosen. Common sense doesn’t apply.” I said while pointing at myself.

“Ah, true.” Cherrygrove made a complex expression. “Anyway, if you excuse me, I have to order around my men.”

“I think that even if you take away you being a chosen, common sense still doesn’t apply to you, master.” Crys commented in a small voice.

“Shut it.” I replied annoyed. “I don’t like when people point out my weaknesses. Only I can point out my weaknesses.” Even I have some standards!

What? Other people already pointed out my weaknesses before and I didn’t react like this? My standards change, okay?

“Anyway, should we go to our rooms?” Hanbei asked, both our group and the captain. “I mean…”

“I kind of want to see an iceberg though.” I said disappointed. “Oh well…”

“This is just some small route change.” Cherrygrove commented “If I think things will get dangerous, I’ll tell you myself.”

“Well, if he says so.” Ronin shrugged. “And to be honest, I’m curious about an iceberg myself.”

“We should be able to see it soon then.” Crys said as the ship made a slight turn to the south. “Taking in account the sailors standing, and the speed we are going… Yeah, there it is.” She said while pointing out to a far away point.

Curious, I moved towards the boat’s front, forgot what’s it called, and tried to squint my eyes. And sure enough, there it was. It was very a bit far away, so I couldn’t be entirely sure about its size just yet. However, if I had to guess, it looked fairly big. Maybe half the size of the ship?

And if my net-brought knowledge is worth anything, that’s just the floaty bit of the iceberg. Underwater the thing must be ginormous.

Hmm… I wonder if I can grab a piece of that and store away in my inventory as a reminder of my first time seeing an iceberg. Well, I couldn’t ask for the captain to just stop the ship so I could hop out, since that’d be dangerous even to me.

Maybe I could throw an explosive arrow and hope a piece of the iceberg comes flying my way.

What could possibly go wrong? The iceberg splitting apart into various pieces, some of which would float on the way towards the ship and have us sink to the bottom of the sea? As if. Hahahaha.

“Master, while highly unlikely, there’s still the possibility of an explosion shattering, or at the very least, destabilizing the iceberg and making it drift towards our ship.”

“Cygnas dammit!”

Okay… let’s see… Plan B, plan B… Oh! What if…

“No. Same thing as before.” Crys cut me off before I could say it.

“Damn… Then…”

“That… No. Still wouldn’t work.”

“Ugh… Then, what if I…”

“Nope. You’d just stay behind that way.”

…Ughh… Damn, running out of ideas.

“I did see this before, but is it this common?” I heard Ronin asked.

“Pretty sure this is a brand new record.” Yuu commented. Huuh… Why did she sound jealous? “Only Crys can do it that easily…”

“…NOT AGAIN!” Crys suddenly shouted in despair while grabbing her head into her hands and shaking. “Why do I keep guessing master! Why?”

“That joke is getting a bit old.” I complained to Crys while feeling hurt. It’s not like it’s that bad to be able to guess what I’m thinking. I think… “Oh! I know! What if…”

“Still wouldn’t work.” Godddamit! “AH! AGAIN!”

I have this feeling we’d keep repeating the exchange a few more times until way past the iceberg had gone by, however, by the time we were close enough to the iceberg for me to finally get a good grasp of its massive size, we heard the sound of something leaping out of the water and onto the deck.

“So, Lorry, what did…” Cherrygrove started asking, but suddenly stopped as the sound of creaking wood echoed and his shadow grew closer to us. “Lorry?”

Curious by the sudden change, we turned back towards the captain and the sharkmen who had jumped back on board. I couldn’t help but feel confused and worried by his expression as he sat down on the ship shivering.

…That was cold, wasn’t it? Yeah, totally is cold from swimming in the winter water…

“Sir…” Lorry said while looking up to Cherrygrove.

“What happened, man?” Cherrygrove asked as he crouched down, the ship momentarily shaking at the shift in weight. “Speak up.”

“Sir… We shouldn’t have set sail.” He said with dry laughter. I couldn’t help but exchange some worried glances with the others.

“What did you see, Lorry?” Cherrygrove asked confused.

“Just pray it doesn’t care about us, sir.” The sharkman said in worry.

And just as we were about to ask what exactly he was afraid of, a loud sound echoed. The sound of something cracking and shattering, something big and unmovable being forced to move by something even more powerful.

As the ship violently shook, we all turned back towards the source of the sound while trying to hold on to something. Towards the iceberg whose tip was about as big as the ship we were on. An iceberg that was shaking as if something incredibly massive had hit it.

If I had to guess, it was the shadow under the water. The shadow that easily overshadowed our ship and the iceberg together. The shadow that had a very simple and terrifying window floating right above it.

Baltamur, the Tide Bringer [lvl ???] [??? ???]

Equivalent level : ???

HP: ????

-????

(Your level is too low to see it’s status)

The legend come alive, the unmatched tyrant of the seas. He who can change the tides and break the currents. He who brings disasters with his very presence.

He, whose very existence is enough to bring forth the end of nations.

He, who rules the waters as one of the four gods of disaster.

Run.

“…Hey, guys… I think I just found out why the undines were so uneasy.” I commented amidst dry laughter.