Chapter 562: Chapter 552: The First Round
"We can head out!" Iron Jaw’s voice came from the deck.
Pa!
In the cabin, Jiro clapped his hands, those fox eyes that were always squinting opening a bit wider. "Then, let’s begin."
[Sloth of the Seven Sins]
Standing beside Jiro, Tanaka’s body suddenly swayed slightly as a layer of blurry shadow peeled away from him.
That shadow was at first transparent like a reflection in water, then rapidly filled with color and texture... in the span of a breath, another Tanaka had stepped out.
This clone not only perfectly copied Tanaka’s current body and appearance, even the Adventurer Leather Armor he wore, the tied trouser legs, and the scuff marks on his shoes were exactly the same.
Only, the underwater breathing amulet around Tanaka’s neck that faintly flowed with Magic light, the Magic Rings on his fingers, and the few potions infused with Magic Power at his waist did not appear on the clone.
No verbal communication was needed. The two Tanakas exchanged a look, and the original smoothly unfastened those items and handed them to the clone.
The whole process was as fluid as water, done with the ease of simply moving a tool from the left hand to the right.
Once preparations were complete, the clone pushed open the cabin door leading to the deck.
On the deck, Iron Jaw glanced at the emerging Tanaka and failed to notice anything amiss.
He simply nodded at this employer, arranged for two Snake-men subordinates to specially guard his safety, and then, with a smooth motion, dove into the still-murky waters below.
The moment they entered the water, they were attacked by monsters again.
They had just cleared this spot, but it was too close to the mist; in the short time since, new monsters had already wandered over.
However, this Mercenary Corps wasn’t some pushover. The Snake-man Mage beside Iron Jaw raised his hand, and the water turned into sharp swords, cutting down the two monsters before they could even get close.
In the dim seafloor, the entrance to the Tide Sanctuary was a massive gate embedded into the sidewall of a huge undersea ridge.
But the Underground City entrance looked a bit strange at the moment, with two streams of Magic Power of completely different nature colliding—one coming from inside the Underground City, the other from the direction of the mist.
The two currents of Magic Power were constantly pressing and crashing against each other at the Underground City entrance, and the Spellcasters could clearly feel that sense of oppression.
Every dozen seconds or a few minutes, some point near the entrance would erupt in a small Magic Burst as the local clash of Magic Power became too intense.
After each Magic Burst, a vacuum-like bubble would briefly appear in the seawater there, then the water would rush back in, forming chaotic vortices that kicked up silt and debris from the seabed.
This clearly only started happening after the mist arrived. For ordinary Adventurers, this was dangerous enough to be noteworthy; even a fair number of mist monsters had died here.
Iron Jaw raised his arm, signaling the whole team to halt in a relatively calm patch of water outside the entrance. "Mages."
Several Mages holding Magic Staffs stepped forward and began guiding the chaotic Magic Power in the area, at least ensuring that no Magic Burst would go off within the team for a while.
Taking advantage of this window, the group quickly swam through the massive gate.
As soon as they went in, they ran into more monsters. One type, whose forearm bones had mutated into two folding Bone Blades, managed to slice a careless Snake-man clean in half in the blink of an eye.
Although that savage monster was immediately focused down by the reacting Snake-men around it, dying under a barrage of water arrows and blades, Iron Jaw’s expression still turned ugly.
He knew this trip would be dangerous, but losing a skilled hand right at the door was a bad omen no matter how he looked at it.
"I’m in." On the ship, Tanaka reported his current position.
"Good. Stay with the group for now. When you pass the third room, move closer to the left wall and activate the ring I gave you."
Under Iron Jaw’s command, the Mercenary Corps cautiously cleared out the monsters along the way while advancing down the main passage.
When the team passed through the third spacious but half-collapsed stone chamber, Tanaka, mingling in the middle of the group, inconspicuously pressed closer to the left wall, which was covered in glowing moss and cracks, and injected a faint trickle of Magic Power into the brass ring named Na on his left hand.
Click.
The section of wall his clone was leaning against suddenly twisted, its inner and outer layers rotating like a nimble flip-panel, flipping him inside in an instant.
The whole process was astonishingly fast; the nearby Snake-men didn’t even have time to react before their employer’s figure vanished right before their eyes.
"Go forward, then turn left." The Foxman continued guiding Tanaka through the hidden passage.
Following Jiro’s directions, Tanaka continued along the narrow passageway.
The third corner was just ahead. As he cautiously leaned half his body out, a shadow, surging with violent water currents, lunged at him from the other side of the corner!
"Gulu!"
Fishman?!
The fish spear in the Fishman’s hands shot straight at Tanaka’s throat—fast and vicious!
Tanaka almost instinctively grabbed the spear with his bare hands, barely stopping the killing blow and keeping himself from being run through on the spot.
However, underwater, the Fishman’s Power held an overwhelming advantage. The tip of the fish spear inched closer and closer to his throat.
Tanaka struggled to raise an index finger.
A white light flashed on his fingertip and vanished.
[Memory Erasure]
The Fishman’s Frenzied roar cut off abruptly, its expression going completely blank.
The forward thrust halted, its whole body turning into a puppet with its strings cut, standing there in a daze.
Only then did Tanaka have a moment to draw his own weapon. Taking advantage of the Fishman not having snapped out of it yet, he pierced its skull.
The Fishman’s body twitched a few times, the emptiness in its eyes quickly replaced by the gray decay of death as it slowly sank to the bottom of the passage.
In the wound, besides the blood, some white filaments floated out.
Thinking back to the status panel he had glimpsed during their brief struggle—where he’d seen terms like "Parasite"—Tanaka backed away a few steps in disgust.
"You damn fox! There are Fishmen lying in ambush here! Why didn’t you say so earlier? I almost died!" Tanaka didn’t have the ability to truly multitask; only after the crisis on the clone’s side was resolved did his real body start complaining to Jiro beside him.
"The third corner, huh..." Jiro didn’t explain, just nodded thoughtfully before urging, "Keep going."
But it didn’t take long before he ran into another unexpected enemy.
A few Half-demons with a bunch of Puki?!
And these Puki looked all sorts of bizarre. Some were covered in Rock Armor with sharp cone-like spikes at the tips of their tentacles; others had fish tails, completely different from the Puki he had on his ship that were captured from the Empire’s forests.
Were these the rumored Puki that could actually be thrown into battle?
But... this was way too ridiculous!
He pulled up the status panel and, seeing entries like [Self-Destruction Level 10] and [Sharpness Level 10], Tanaka felt a chill shoot up the back of his neck, his scalp tingling.
No warning, no words.
The moment those Half-demon soldiers spotted him, they attacked without hesitation, clearly having already classified him as an enemy.
A white light swept across. The eyes of the five Half-demons who had locked onto him went vacant at the same time, their attacks freezing halfway as they fell into a brief stupor.
However, the Puki that had already received the attack order weren’t affected in the slightest.
"Shit!"
Tanaka tried to retreat, but he was far too slow in the water.
The tentacles shot out. The clone didn’t even have time to react further before being simultaneously Piercing in multiple spots.
When the Half-demons came back to themselves, the Puki were busy trying to yank their tentacles out of the wall, and in front of them, only a few Magic Items were slowly sinking to the bottom.
At the same time, Tanaka’s pained howls and complaints rang out in the cabin.
...
Pa!
Jiro clapped his hands, and a small tuft of white fur drifted to the floor.
Beside him, Tanaka was in the middle of swapping Magic Items with his clone.
Jiro took a deep breath.
Round two, start!
