A black magic power began to rise from the Dead Man’s Ship. It was a show of anger. A being with weaker mental power would have been driven mad by the collection of evil that emanated from the ship. Even users, who were largely protected by DIO’s systems, would have felt extreme hatred and anger in the presence of such black magic.

“Foolish human.”

Though Merlin was a kilometer away, he could still hear the raspy voice clearly, like screeching metal. It wasn’t a spoken voice, but a voice conveyed through magic.

“Lich… right, the boss of Dead Man’s Land.”

For a moment, the overwhelmingly powerful voice, filled with murderous intent, threw Merlin off his guard. But, he soon snapped out of it and regained his confidence. Mages were known for their long-ranged attacks, but even they were restricted in how far their attacks could travel. Though one kilometer wasn’t a distance that would keep him absolutely safe, Merlin was confident that his water-attribute affinity and unencumbered movement in the medium of water would allow him to avoid any attacks that the Lich may launch.

However, at that moment, Merlin saw something strange unfold. When the Lich lifted its arm, one of the short spears on the ground rose up in the air. It was one of the short spears that Merlin had applied an explosion spell on.

“Huh? What’s that guy trying to…”

Ba-dump.

At that moment, Merlin felt his heart stop.

Ki…!

Suddenly, Merlin found himself surrounded by a mist of dark magic. The speed at which the curse spell was applied was unbelievable.

“W-what? W-wait… he followed the line of magic all the way to my location…”

Before he could finish his thought, Merlin lost consciousness. He quickly began to sink further into the water, like an anvil dropped into the sea.

Blurp…

As he sank defenseless and further into the water, fish the size of his arm began to gather around him. Of course, these were not normal fish. They were aggressive, carnivorous monster fish. Since they lived relatively close to the surface, they were only level 2, but they were not to be underestimated. Moreover, there were so many of them!

Sss!

Dozens of the monster fish bared their teeth as they converged upon Merlin. Though Merlin was strong and possessed many abilities, he would surely die if he were attacked by this group of fish while unconscious and unable to defend himself. However, at that moment, Merlin’s right hand moved over to his heart, and soon the spinel on his right hand began to glow with a burst of blue electricity.

Crackle!

The approaching monster fish stopped as soon as they saw the sudden burst of light. Frightened, they immediately turned around and scattered. Merlin’s body stopped sinking as he pulled himself together.

‘Ugh, I could have died.’

More than half his internal energy was gone. Though it was magic power that restarted his heart, his internal force had expelled the dark magic that had infiltrated and wreaked havoc within his body. If Merlin wasn’t a mage, he wouldn’t have been able to instinctively understand the root cause of how he was cursed, and would have died.

Kyak!

Ki!

A black-colored ghost glided near Merlin, just above the sea’s surface. It was a level 8 undead, a top-level monster in the undead monster class—a Specter. The Specter possessed a higher level than Merlin and could fly, moving freely in the skies. This made the monster difficult for Merlin to go up against.

‘I should hide for now.’

Thinking that no good could come from confronting such a monster, Merlin decided instead to sink deeper into the sea. He hid his aura as much as he could, utilizing his water-attribute affinity to mask his aura with the water that immediately surrounded him. This maneuver seemed to work, as the Specters appeared to lose their lock on Merlin. They began to fly around wildly, without any clear idea where Merlin had gone off to.

‘Wow, they’re very difficult opponents. I thought, at most, I’d face a magic-based attack… I underestimated them.’

Merlin kept himself deep underwater as he sorted out his thoughts. The ship had a magic barrier that extended outwards for 100 meters, preventing Merlin from sinking the ship by damaging the hull.

He considered his next course of action. With Merlin’s advanced reasoning and critical thinking ability, he would likely be able to discover a way to bypass or destroy the magic barrier. But this would take time, and he would be susceptible to other deadly attacks until he figured it out. He had already almost lost his life while staying a kilometer away from the ship, so he would likely be killed if he approached the ship any closer to try to destroy it. Moreover, countless Specters were flying around in the sky above him, and there was no telling how many Specters or other undead were there that he didn’t know of.

‘Do I need to… use this?’

Merlin took out a blue gem from his inventory. It was a high purity sapphire about the size and shape of his thumb. The sapphire would be priceless if it existed in reality, but in-game and for Merlin’s purposes as a mage, the sapphire was a single-use item.

Whoosh.

The sapphire emanated a chilly aura. It was densely packed with a concentrated amount of magic power. Merlin had spent nearly two weeks in the Training Room crafting it. Though it broke Merlin’s heart that the item would be gone after using it only once, especially one that he’d invested two weeks on making, he also felt proud that he had created such a powerful item.

‘… Wait. Even if I use this, I won’t be able to really hurt them. I can only use it after I make them defenseless. I shouldn’t be frivolous with something that I’ve spent the better part of a month making.’

Merlin struggled over what to do. However, he couldn’t come to an answer. The undead monster corps’ defenses were much stronger than he could have ever expected. He had only been able to launch a few arrows before he ended up in his current predicament, so how was he supposed to go about making the ship defenseless? There didn’t seem to be a way.

‘Should I just wait until they clash with the users? No. It’s obvious that those other two will come and take care of that Lich.’

Merlin was referring to the other two Irregulars. Their combat power, especially Arthur’s combat power, was beyond anyone’s imagination. The Lich wouldn’t stand a chance against them.

‘Ah, I can’t decide. How am I going to shake up their defenses… huh?’

A thought suddenly popped into Merlin’s mind. Instead of just shaking them, or rendering the Dead Man’s Ship defenseless, there was a being that could completely capsize the ship.

‘Oho…’

Deep beneath the sea’s surface, Merlin grinned mischievously.

***

“We’ve lost him. He must have some ability to cloak and hide himself. He seemed like a mage, so that’s not too surprising…”

The top-level undead, the widely known Lich, and Heinkel, the leader of the Dead Man’s monster corps, directed the Specters as they searched for Merlin’s whereabouts, while also guiding the ship to its destination. There were only four hours left before the start of the Siege Quest. The monster corps would have to move on land once they docked, so Heinkel had decided that they must continue on their voyage.

Whoosh…

“Huh?”

Heinkel noticed a large wave forming on the horizon. It was not dangerously large, but the ripples from the wave caused the ship to stir and shake. Considering the size of Dead Man’s Ship, this was quite a feat. Moreover, the wave seemed to have occurred far away, but was swiftly approaching the ship.

“L-leader! A large creature is approaching the ship!”

“A large creature? That’s weird. Why would such a large creature approach our…”

Boom!

The ship shook violently. The unexpected, rough movement sent several undead atop the deck flying overboard.

Kyak!

Kyak!

The less intelligent Ghouls began screaming aloud. Their abnormally large bodies wriggled around comically as they attempted to right themselves. They were dangerous monsters that any normal person would fear, but on the lurching ship, they were tossed around helplessly like ragdolls.

Koh!

“A Kraken? Why?”

Heinkel was taken aback by the sudden appearance of a monster, but he wasn’t planning on doing nothing for long. The Dead Man’s Ship could sustain a tremendous amount of force, and was built to last. It was so large that it would be difficult even to traverse the entire length of it, let alone destroy it. However, the monster that appeared was even larger than the ship.

Crackle!

The magic barrier protecting the ship activated. Ten million volts of electricity instantly passed through the Kraken’s skin, causing it to burn.

Woo-oh!

As the Kraken cried out in pain, it began thrashing its large body wildly, causing large waves and tsunamis to form around it. The magic barrier and its electricity spell wasn’t able to deal much damage to the Kraken. The spell could cause pain, but was not powerful enough to do more.

Whoosh!

“Damn it!”

It was a surreal scene. Each of the Kraken’s ten tentacles wrapped around the 400-meter-long and 30-meter-wide ship. The Kraken looked more like a moving natural disaster than a living organism. At its size, the Kraken would have probably caused a tsunami just by moving around.

Kyak!

Kyak!!

Hundreds of Specters shrieked out, which would have caused confusion and disorientation for any other opponent. They dove towards the Kraken, ready to attack. The Kraken swung one of its tentacles to swat them out of the way. This was probably a useless move. Specters were immaterial spirits that didn’t possess a physical body, as they existed on a different, non-material channel. Thus, the Specters were immune to physical effects; they were entities that possessed physical immunity. However, what followed differed greatly from that description.

Translator Note: The author had labeled Heinkel as the commander of the second monster corps, as there were supposed to be four monster corps that descended on Starting. I decided to omit this labeling/title and use ‘leader’ instead because the storyline already alluded to the fact that Heinkel was leading his specific monster corps to a respective Starting gate.