Chương 318: (311) 5.7. Not A Hugger

Water enveloped Vin as he fell beneath the surface and tried to keep his bearings about him. The water was murky enough that while he could see a dozen or so feet in front of him, anything beyond that was too difficult to make out.

He knew from his swimming practice with Lumel that he was capable of holding his breath for far longer than a regular person could, but there was still a deep, almost unconscious reflex that screamed at him to get out of the water as fast as possible before the monster dragged him down into those dark depths. Because he could actually see the monster that had destroyed their ride now, and boy was it built for grabbing. New monster discovered! 200 exp gained.

It looked like a large shark with four tentacles reaching out of its sides, each one currently smashing the remains of their ship and reaching through the water for its prey. Vin watched Lumel dart around in the water in that strange, almost floating way her people swam, effortlessly dodging one of the tentacles with embarrassing ease. Catching his eye, she shouted as she dodged another attempted grab, her voice carrying easily through the water.

"Use Create Cloud to give everyone something to stand on! I'll distract the monster and warp away once you're ready!"

"Right!" he attempted to shout back, his voice not traveling through the water nearly so cleanly. Despite how confident Lumel was in her ability to keep the monster distracted, Vin couldn't help but hesitate for a moment, watching her to ensure she really had the situation under control. He'd never seen Lumel do anything but run when monsters were involved, and he wouldn't be able to live with himself if she got hurt when he might have been able to do something.

He quickly realized aquatic monsters were a whole different ballgame when it came to the pulmon's confidence. Lumel moved with a speed and grace he'd never seen before, darting around in the water like a fish as she nimbly evaded the many tentacles and sharp teeth of the monster time and time again. He'd never actually gotten the chance to see her swim outside of their Aqua Sphere sessions, but now that she was in open water, it was clear that she was far faster in water than she was up on dry land.

Almost as if she'd spent her entire life underwater up until a few months ago. While Lumel toyed with the monster, actually grinning as she practically made a game out of seeing just how close she could get to the monster before slipping away, Vin turned and kicked toward the surface. His waterlogged clothes and pack weighed him down a bit, but his strength was far greater than the average person.

Breaching the surface, he finally spotted Shia treading water, holding onto the floating mast with Scule and Reginald clambered up onto her head.

"About time!" Scule snapped, looking none-too-happy about their current predicament.

"Can you give us something to stand on before that thing gets bored of your girlfriend?!"" Create Cloud," Vin cast, summoning a cloud a few feet above the surface that was large enough for all of them to stand on. Once it finished forming, Shia grabbed Scule and Reginald and tossed them up, before turning to look at him.

"Where's Alka?"

"I thought she was with you!" Vin shouted, his heart sinking.

"Get onto the cloud, I'll see if I can find her!" Shia hesitated, before nodding, leaving the search in his capable hands. She didn't have the Swimming skill like he did, and he had a whole host of sensing spells at his disposal he could leverage in his search efforts. As she began growing branches out of her staff, reaching up toward the cloud, Vin took a deep breath and dove back under the water. Alka… Alka… He thought, turning and looking every which way for her.

Luckily, the monster that Lumel was distracting was as simple as they came, meaning it didn't have much more cognitive activity than 'attack nearest person.' It wouldn't grow bored or annoyed at its inability to actually hit her and would simply keep trying until the end of time. Vin searched through the water, looking for any sign of Alka's glowing green eyes.

Her darthsteel plating that almost seemed darker than should be possible was not exactly helping his efforts, as the light from the surface didn't reach too far down in the water. Rather than swim around blindly searching for her, Vin cast Sense Magic out in a large pulse, praying that there wasn't a sunken treasure ship of artifacts deep below them that would cause the feedback to kill him and trigger his boon. He received a few hits from his friends for their artifacts, but strangely, nothing from below.

That should have covered a few hundred feet… Where the hell did she go?

"Are we good?" Lumel called out, still smiling as she played with the monster, clearly enjoying getting the chance to fully stretch her swimming muscles for the first time since being banished from her fragment.

"Should I warp out?" Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"I can't find Alka!" Vin shouted back, his voice warbling through the water. Thankfully, it seemed Lumel had no issues understanding him, as her eyes widened. Only her expression had nothing to do with the news about Alka. Something smashed into him from the side, knocking the air out of his lungs as it wrapped around his chest and pinned his arms down by his sides. A second shark monster had appeared out of nowhere, getting the drop on them and latching onto Vin before he knew what was happening.

Though rather than try and bite his head off, the shark immediately turned and dove down, swimming away from Lumel and his friends. Crap, they're hidden monsters! Vin realized far too late. They weren't nearly as simple-minded as he first thought. They were ambush predators that relied on surprise attacks, and based on his current journey to the bottom of the sea, their instincts were to grab, run, and kill, in that order.

Vin's ears popped and the temperature plummeted as the monster dragged him down further and further, and a second tentacle wrapped itself around his legs, thoroughly pinning him as the monster continued swimming. Vin had no doubt that as soon as they got to the bottom it would attempt to devour him, which meant he really needed to get out of there before they reached their destination. The monster had his arms pinned by his sides, which meant he couldn't quite use his golem arm to get away.

For the first time since losing the limb, he found himself wishing it was his entire arm that had been cut off and replaced rather than just from his elbow down. His arms were pinned awkwardly enough that he couldn't reach his fire-knife either, though he wasn't even certain if the artifact would work underwater like this. If brute strength and cutting his way free were both out, then magic would have to suffice.

His first thought was to simply cast his hilarious new Self Destruct spell and blow the monster currently grappling him to bits. The only problem with that was that doing so would trigger his divine boon, and he was currently deep underwater with no way to tell what else might attack him on his way back up to the surface. He knew from experimenting that Stone Shot didn't work very well underwater, and Fireball didn't work at all, which meant none of his offensive spells would be of any help here.

He was going to have to get creative. A sudden idea struck him, and Vin grinned as he tried casting Redirect Gravity around the two of them. The world flipped around on its head, and the shark monster paused for a moment, before reversing direction, now swimming back up toward the surface of the water. Its instincts were to grab its prey and swim down, but Redirect Gravity didn't just make people float up into the sky. It flipped their orientation around as well, making whatever direction Vin chose the new ground.

Why try and escape from the monster when he could sit back and let it bring them both right back up to the surface? As the two of them shot back toward the surface, Vin blinked when a dark blur shot past them in the opposite direction, before it curved around and pulled up parallel to them with a flash of purple, revealing itself to be Lumel. Having witnessed him getting grabbed and dragged into the darkness below, she must have decided she'd played with her monster long enough and come after him.

While she was more agile in the water than the monsters were, she wasn't quite as fast as they were in a straight dive, and she began chaining casts of Dimensional Shift to keep pace with them.

"I'm fine!" Vin shouted, trying to wave her off without the use of his hands.

"Stay back!" Lumel seemed to understand, as she nodded, before finally vanishing entirely with one last flash of purple. He could only hope that she'd warped herself to safety upon the cloud, because he was pretty certain what he was about to do would send some nasty shockwaves through the water, and he didn't want to accidentally hurt or disorient her. The water grew lighter and the cold abated, and Vin realized they were just about back at the surface.

He didn't see any other monsters, which meant his escape plan was a go. Deciding it was now or never, he steeled himself and dropped Redirect Gravity. Immediately casting Self Destruct instead. The world detonated around him as boiling water and air blasted out in all directions, combined with a golden, glowing light of his divine boon keeping his body in one piece. The shark monster wasn't quite so lucky, however, as its tentacles wrapped around him were instantly torn to shreds, with its body not far behind.

The shockwave and boiling water slammed into the monster, dispatching it without much effort and letting Vin swim the last few feet to the surface. Breaching the water, he gasped, trying to find his friends. He hadn't forgotten about Lumel's monster that she'd clearly ditched to chase after him, and he really didn't want to have to try that plan again without his divine boon.

Before he could wipe the water out of his eyes and locate his friends, he felt something latch around his chest, and he nearly panicked before realizing it wasn't the fleshy tentacles of another shark monster. The hard, bendable texture could only be from one thing, and he let out a sight of relief as Shia pulled him up onto the cloud with branches she'd grown off of her staff.

"Glad to see you're still in one piece!" she laughed, dropping him in the center of the cloud and handing him a water-logged merider silk blanket to wipe his eyes with. It seemed she'd pulled up what was still left of the mast, and Vin couldn't help but chuckle as he realized a small part of the lily pad was still stuck to it, courtesy of his earlier Binding spell.

"How was the swim?"

"Cold and dark," he said, accepting the blanket and wringing it out before attempting to dry off. While his eyes were covered, he felt a familiar shape tackle him, and he laughed as Lumel squeezed him tight.

"Sorry I didn't warn you sooner… I got distracted playing with the monster, and the second one came out of nowhere, and then I lost it in the darkness-""You're fine, it all worked out," he said, smiling at her as she sniffled.

"I can only imagine how good it must have felt to actually get to stretch your legs again after being out of the open water all this time."

"Trust me when I say I'm as happy as you guys are that Vin didn't get eaten, but aren't you guys forgetting something?" Scule asked, with Reginald vigorously nodding beside him.

"... Where the hells is Alka?"