The Great Lake has no waves. That is a basic fact.
Not the waves tied to the Great Lake's various peculiar rules, but waves in the ordinary sense.
That's only natural, since there's no wind. In other words, ships on the Great Lake usually don't sway much; their movement is more static. ...Then why does Yi Sang get seasick?
Anyway! Things were different now. The ship was rocking irregularly, to the point that an ordinary person would have trouble even keeping their balance.
Which meant that, except for a few of the prisoners, fighting had become extremely difficult.
The few exceptions were Ishmael, who was simply used to ships, Otis, and Ryoshu, who seemed to have a purely innate sense for combat. At the very least, I didn't qualify.
Rather, I could say I'd been handed a very difficult task. These wavering lines in my field of vision, and the fragmented scenes leaking out from them, already made everything dizzying enough. Add my body swaying on top of that and... huh. Shouldn't I be the one worrying about seasickness?
...You're asking why I'm spacing out like this when I should be in the middle of a fight? Uh, well... because I'm not doing anything right now?
Yes, the rambling above is my excuse for doing nothing in this battle. Even without me, the first wave of those grotesque creatures that emerged from that bizarre palm was already on the verge of being wiped out by the people mentioned earlier.
In short, I'd like you to consider this an adjustment period. Yeah.
"I have no idea what to even call that..."
"The unknown things that live beneath the lake are called 'whales.' The things that come out of them belong to the category of 'mermaids.'"
In response to Yi Sang's question, Ishmael answered.
Common knowledge on the Great Lake. Yi Sang probably wouldn't know, since he'd never had reason to deal with U Corp.
"A 'hole-palm whale'... truly... a whale I never wanted to encounter..."
"So this is the whale U Corp was talking about...?"
"Do mermaids really... attack ships like this? And they look so different from what I read in books when I was little..."
Our innocent Sinclair had a rather cute reaction. Well, there have always been plenty of distorted stories about mermaids in the past. Seeing something like this would be shocking enough. Dante just seemed to have no idea.
"Mermaids... When I was little, my brother used to scare me before bed by saying mermaids were terrifying..."
Hong Lu seemed to have slipped into a sudden reminiscence. Surprisingly, he'd learned about them in a fairly normal way. I'd thought it would be enough if he didn't know nothing at all.
Gregor, the bus's resident common-sense expert, frowned as he looked at one of the mermaid corpses sprawled on the floor.
"So... you're saying they catch these things and make perfume or something out of them...?"
"Berg... this time, could you help us a little?"
"Forgot already? That guy was watching us get beaten to a pulp at K Corp without even flinching."
"Ah, he even waved from far away every now and then. I probably couldn't wave back when my wrist was being broken, though."
Was that really something to say while laughing? What kind of thought process does Hong Lu even have? Mm... I feel like understanding it would be dangerous. Forget it.
"Of course, I'm not going to stand by and do nothing until Mephistopheles sinks. But... the moment I step in is only once. After all of you are completely annihilated, and before the enemies smash the Manager's head and take off that hour hand and minute hand."
"You call that... a thing to say...?"
"I can't just let the company's precious asset be taken right in front of me, Dante. So unfortunately, you'll only get to see me move after you've all died."
Vergilius issued his threat.
"Guide... maybe his skill was exaggerated a bit..."
"That is... not so."
"Uh, no... it isn't..."
At Rodion's words, the regulars of the interview room denied it with complicated expressions.
"Still, Vergilius's personality may be a bit petty, but his skill is the real deal. It's not like the position of a Color Fixer can be handed out for free."
Not that he's someone in my database.
"...So do whatever you want—finish those things off, or bring them along as companions for the journey."
Ah, so now it's the second wave. Annoying... no, exhausting. Well, it's not like this is an environment where I can just opt out.
It may be sudden to say, but I don't really have a fixed role in the prisoners' battles. I'm not like Otis, who handles detailed command, or Heathcliff, who charges the front lines. I'm a genuine free role.
That was something Dante told me after thinking it over during a recent interview. ...Given that more than half of what I do is forcibly creating variables and tearing into them to make openings, it made sense, I suppose.
So, I decided to carry that out properly in this battle too.
My chance of success this time is about twenty percent... maybe? The environment is too hostile to the concept for me to do anything properly.
I'll cut in from the side and get behind them. If it comes down to a war of attrition between evenly matched forces, the side with Dante will always win.
So my chance of holding the enemy's rear alone is about twenty percent. If the ship weren't rocking and the space were a little wider, I'd definitely succeed. Of course, that's impossible now, so it's a pipe dream.
"Huuuu..."
Tension... it's been a while since I felt that. How long had I spent becoming numb to most things?
Since joining the company, I can feel myself becoming more human little by little.
Then let's do this.
- Tap, tap.
I lightly stamp my foot. My direction is the side where the hole-palm whale has its grip on the ship. I'll move that way and run a light test.
- Thunk.
My body, launched in step with the ship's sway, moves slightly faster than I expected.
This is bad. It's getting harder to keep my balance.
...No, I can use this force too. This isn't the time to be picky!
I rolled once as I moved, slashing the strange line connecting the whale and the mermaids with my blade.
"───!!!"
"Damn..."
It's tougher than I expected? Fine, I'm giving up on that angle. The hole-palm whale's hand... looks disgustingly sturdy too. Let's stop doing pointless crap. Just getting behind them is hard enough to kill me!
Unfortunately, the end of my roll landed me right in the middle of the mermaids. Immediately afterward, the surrounding mermaids charged at me at high speed.
In moments like this, you just break through head-on. Go forward and evade...!
"────!!!!"
"You won't catch me...!"
Tch. The first plan isn't going to work. I'm just a little short on distance. I'm not in the exact center of all of them, but around the middle of the mermaids in the rear. If this keeps up, I'll die.
I improvise a new plan. Liu... DH... Dongrang... all kinds of possibilities fill my head. In the blink of an eye, dozens of options and plans rise up and are discarded.
And then, at the right moment, the quick-witted Dante overlays an identity. DH? Liu? I can't tell which one he used, but it doesn't matter. At this point, the operation is all improvisation anyway.
I hear the sound of glass breaking. It's hot. I can feel my emotions heightened more than usual. Liu, then. The Liu Association does plenty of one-against-many fights, so it's definitely a good choice.
"Huu..."
I exhale. I'm planning to throw pacing out the window anyway. This is just the process of steadying my breath in advance.
Keep my head cold. Wait for the optimal moment. Around me, I can feel the mermaids rushing toward me.
"───!!!"
A little more...
"──. ────!!!"
A little more...
"─────!!!"
Exactly when the enemy attacks cross paths. Now.
I spew out every flame I had been sharpening and compressing.
- Thoooom, KWAAAANG──!!
"Hah, hahahahaha—!"
Flames surge upward. The emotions I'd been holding back for a single strike explode, and the euphoria wrapping around my body makes laughter burst out naturally.
It was a deranged attack bordering on self-destruction, but what of it? I'd just roasted more than five mermaids surrounding me into a crisp!
"Form a perimeter!!"
From far away, I could hear Otis's voice brushing my ears. Well, I'm busy blasting out fire, so I can't hear her properly anyway.
Ah, I'm done for. It's not my mind that's the problem anymore—it's my body. At this rate, my firepower's a little lacking and I'm the only one who'll die... Ah! I just thought of a good method.
"Hup...!"
Dante side!
In an instant, I draw the fire back in. No, I compress it into myself. The half-burned mermaids, with their vision suddenly cleared by the vanished flames, instinctively rush in to take my life.
What now? I'm a human bomb.
"Everybody, duck!!"
Hah, and he read my insane move? That's the kind of thing a Manager should be able to do...
- KWAANG────!!!!!
Before I can even finish the thought, the gathered flames explode through my body as a medium.
Six mermaids are reduced to ash on the spot.
"Hahahahahahaha!!"
And then I burst out from the flames behind the mermaids.
Adrenaline surges to its limit. My body is covered in burns, but that's probably why it doesn't hurt much.
Truthfully, I'm laughing like a lunatic, but my body is a walking corpse. No matter how excellent the Liu Association's clothes are at resisting fire, they can't withstand a full-force self-detonation.
But that doesn't mean I have any reason to stop killing mermaids before I die.
I turn the emotions amplified by euphoria back into flames.
At the very least, in this battle, the burning won't stop until the moment before I die.
"───!!"
Come on, let's burn until we die.
Of course, I'll die first.