Surviving in a World Teeming with Monsters with the Useless Skill 【Everyday Items Master】! I Was Just Hunting Wild Animals with a Crowbar, So Why Is Everyone Screaming It's an S-Rank Monster? - 91

Chapter 91: Instant Freezing to Ensure Top Freshness!

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The boss of Kraken Gang, Shokkai, burst out toward the beach at full speed.

“Kraken! Show yourself, Kraken! Why won’t you obey my orders?!”

He shouted at the top of his lungs. But there was no response. Shokkai ran alone, aiming for the seawall. The rain had already stopped, and there was no need to summon his tentacles to protect himself.

But to Shokkai, such things no longer mattered. After all, something unthinkable was happening to him right now. That was the Kraken’s silence. It shouldn’t have been possible. The Kraken was supposed to be stationed along this coastline.

If so, then the Kraken should have responded. Shokkai’s taming of the Kraken had been flawless. Disobedience was simply out of the question.

“Damn it! Damn it! Kraken! Show yourself! We tamed you with a hundred men, damn it! Some of them got eaten and couldn’t even be revived! Why won’t you listen to me?!”

Shokkai finally reached the seawall. Still yelling, he climbed down to the seawall and began scanning the sea, but there was no sign of the massive shadow that would indicate the Kraken.

Why? 

Shokkai stared into the sea and then he frowned.

“…What is this? This scrap…”

He reached out from the seawall and picked it up to examine it. It looked like a piece of squid. Staring blankly at the sea, Shokkai saw countless pieces of squid just like the one he held floating on the surface. Tens of tons of squid fragments—floating across a wide area of the sea.

“Wh-what is this…”

Faced with this scene, Shokkai imagined the worst and his face turned pale.

“The Kraken’s gone, and instead there are all these squid fragments… H-hehe… No way… T-this makes it look like the Kraken was blown to pieces, hah, hahahaha, hahahahahaha—!”

At that moment, a voice rang out from behind him.

“Yup. I ran it through a blender.”

“Wha—”

Shokkai spun around. Standing there was a young man with slicked-back hair and narrow eyes hidden behind glasses.

“Y-you bastard! You’re the one who brought that Everyday Items Master, aren’t you?!”

“Uheheh. Now, now, don’t be so hasty. Let’s have a calm talk, shall we? Here, have a drink and relax.”

Casually, the narrow-eyed man tossed a plastic bottle to Shokkai. The apparent lack of hostility in the gesture made Shokkai instinctively reach for it—but—

The bottle exploded, and Shokkai’s automatic defense—a massive tentacle—intercepted it just in time, snapping him back into a state of alert.

“Y-you son of a—!”

“Huh? What’s with that tentacle? Reacting automatically like that is kinda cheating, don’t you think? So unfair.”

Shokkai’s eyes widened in shock. There hadn’t been anything unusual about the bottle. Yet it had suddenly exploded. As if the water inside had spontaneously burst.

“…I see. You’re a water mage, aren’t you? And a high-level one at that. Which means… you must be Shachimaru of the Ferocious Shark Gang.”

At that guess, the narrow-eyed man—Shachimaru—replied.

“Oh? You know me, Shokkai?”

“Of course I do. The Ferocious Shark Gang—one of the great raider factions battling for control of the Old Mountain King District and you’re their young leader.”

Shokkai clenched his teeth.

“I heard you were hunting the Grasshoppers on a large scale just yesterday, and now you’re coming after us? You bloodthirsty gang scum…!”

“Uheheh. If you’ve got that intel down, then that means Kraken Gang was planning to strike the exhausted Ferocious Shark Gang, huh? This little raid of ours was just a preemptive move for that, wasn’t it?”

Shokkai flinched, hit dead-on.

“Stings, huh?” 

Shachimaru goaded with a sneer.

“You were sitting pretty, preparing to attack, when we showed up outta nowhere, right? Got complacent, didn’t you, dumbass? Scum like you are perfect for chopping up into fish food.”

“Don’t screw with me!”

Shokkai swung his arm. A massive tentacle suddenly erupted from the pier and lunged at Shachimaru. But Shachimaru smiled fearlessly and waved his finger in return.

A huge mass of seawater surged up. It clashed with the tentacle, locked in a fierce tug-of-war.

“Ggh! Y-you bastard, this power…!”

“It looks like you’re summoning parts of an S-rank monster’s body. And you’re sharing its senses instead of controlling it directly, huh?”

Shachimaru spoke as he strolled forward leisurely.

“W-why can you still move?! Don’t you need to concentrate to control that water?!”

“Don’t be stupid. The amount of power I’m using for this water? It’s about the same as moving a single finger. Have you ever seen someone freeze up just from flexing a finger?”

Shachimaru stepped up right beside Shokkai. The moment Shokkai realized it, Shachimaru’s front kick sent him flying into the sea.

“Gah! gurgle What—gurgle what the hell—gurgle”

Shokkai was flailing in the water, drowning. His tentacles vanished. Shachimaru rolled his neck, watching from above.

“That’s it for you. Man, I’m beat. Seriously, you’re way too fast at running. I’m totally wiped. Still, I’m glad you came to check on the Kraken. Thanks to you, I managed to catch up.”

Shokkai tried to climb out of the sea, but oddly enough, the waves kept getting in his way. Even just staying afloat was hard—he was being dragged by the current, struggling.

“Hm? What’s wrong? Aren’t you gonna summon your precious giant tentacles and crawl outta there? I was lookin’ forward to smashing them.”

“Gurgle gurgle!!”

“Oh, don’t tell me… You summon them from wherever you’re standing, huh? So now that you’re underwater, you can’t call them?”

Shokkai froze. Nailed it. He thrashed around even harder, but the seawall kept getting farther away, and he began to panic.

“If that’s true, then you’re a colossal idiot. You operate near water, but if you fall in, it’s over for you? That’s beyond lame. What the hell were you thinking?”

“gurgle gurgle glubglubblub!”

Finally, Shokkai realized he was being pulled into a vortex. A huge whirlpool extended from where he was to the ocean floor just a few meters away.

“Oh, you noticed, huh, Shokkai-kun? That’s the same whirlpool that tore your Kraken to shreds.”

Shokkai’s eyes went wide.

“My whirlpools, see, I mix in high-pressure blades of water. They slice real nice. Even some piece-of-crap sadist who enjoys gang beatings can get minced up real good.”

“gurgle wh-what gurgle why gurgle why go this far gurgle”

Shokkai’s voice trembled in fear at the cruelty of it all. This wasn’t a normal way to kill an enemy. There had to be some deep grudge—or the guy was a true sadist who enjoyed watching others suffer.

At the very least, the Ferocious Shark Gang was known for hunting other raiders. They weren’t the type to indulge in pointless cruelty. So it had to be a grudge—but Shokkai couldn’t think of anything.

To that unspoken question, Shachimaru replied:

“Huh? Ain’t it obvious? Didn’t your mom ever teach you? When someone lynches, you grind ‘em into mincemeat in return.”

Lynch. The word called to mind what Shokkai had done just earlier—letting his subordinates gang up and beat that so-called Everyday Items Master. And with that, Shokkai understood. Shachimaru was furious. Furious about the beating of the Everyday Items Master. He was about to let that rage drive him to grind Shokkai into minced meat.

“I-I didn’t knogaboh, abou—gahboh—the master, gaboh—I didn’t know, gaboboh!”

Struggling to stay afloat, Shokkai desperately pleaded. He hadn’t known that the person they lynched was the Everyday Items Master. If he had known, he never would have done it. To that, Shachimaru responded with a smile.

“Well, I’m the one who asked him to keep it secret, so of course you didn’t know. What are you even saying now?”

“Hah—gaboh—gaboboboh!”

“Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, scum like you who laugh while tormenting the weak deserve to die in hell. You wouldn’t have done it if you’d known he was powerful? Yeah, I bet, you dumbass.”

The pull of the whirlpool grew stronger. Shokkai struggled with all his might, but couldn’t break free.

“Well, if you’ve got no way to fight back, then this is the end. Let the whirlpool tear you to pieces, and die regretting everything you’ve done.”

Shachimaru said with cold, unflinching eyes. Shokkai realized—there was no point in begging this guy for mercy. At this rate, he would be torn apart and die.

In that case… He had no choice but to use his trump card early.

“Gabobogabogagaboga!”

Shokkai quickly initiated a non-verbal communication using an advanced application of his Tame Skill. Shokkai’s skill was Monster Taming. In other words, the ability to communicate with monsters. And Shokkai was a very high-level tamer. If he had a contract, he could even communicate with higher species that weren’t present.

Like the monster he spoke to when taming the Kraken, a monster of an even higher rank than Kraken.  A super-high-tier being that communicated not with words, but through thought. Shokkai could communicate with SSS-class monsters, even before that monster manifested.

“…Hm? That last flail felt kinda off.”

Shachimaru noticed something, but it was too late. Shokkai had already finished what needed to be done.

“Hah? What the hell’s going on—huh?”

Shokkai’s body began to transform from the tip—into a squid. A massive squid. One the size of a Kraken. And Shokkai continued to morph, his entire body changing.

“What the hell!? A human turning into a monster!? What the hell did you do!?”

Shokkai went wild, destroying the massive whirlpool. Some tentacles were damaged, but now that his two hands had become ten, he hardly noticed the damage. 

“■■■■■■■■■ (If the Kraken’s dead, I’ll just cause a tsunami myself!)”

He stirred the water. His massive movements created waves. He could tell Shachimaru was resisting with skills, but unlike a passive, mindless Kraken, Shokkai had his own will.

“■■■■■■ (You’re first! Get swallowed up!)”

He raised a massive wave, merged his body into it, and lunged at Shachimaru.

“Damn it, you—!”

“■■■■■■■■■■■ (Of course anyone can abuse the weak all they want! The weak can’t even retaliate, because they’re weak, after all!)”

Mixed into the tsunami, Shokkai relentlessly went to kill Shachimaru. At that moment, something was thrown into the wave from the side.

“■■■■ (Hm? What’s this? A spray can… With a knife stuck in it?)”

Before Shokkai could make sense of what it was— An intense chill froze him and the entire wave solid.

【Ice Mist Explosion】

The wave froze at the exact moment it was about to crash. The seawater beneath turned into a massive chunk of ice. Naturally, Shokkai was frozen within it.

What…? 

He thought. As the thought formed, his vision began to dim, overtaken by the cold.

Then, a man appeared.

“Yo, Shachimaru. Don’t leave me behind. I woke up after a split-second blackout and freaked out—ended up under some stranger’s eaves.”

“Uwooooh! Aniki!! What kind of timing is that!? You’re like some kind of hero!”

“You’ve got a weird way of complimenting people.”

The man said, and the slit-eyed guy let out a sigh and smiled at him.

“No, seriously—thank you. That was a perfect rescue. You really saved us, Aniki.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

The two high-fived. At that moment, Shokkai realized the man who had appeared was the Everyday Items Master.

“So, what’s this? Looks like we’ve got a giant squid here.”

“Oh, that’s Shokkai. In the middle of the fight, he transformed into a Kraken.”

“Huh? Humans can turn into animals?”

“Ani—uh, I mean, I’ve never seen it before either, but I guess weird stuff happens sometimes…”

Listening to the casual exchange between the Everyday Items Master and Shachimaru, Shokkai felt a rebellious spark inside. But even so, encased in several meters of thick ice, there was nothing Shokkai could do now.

In the midst of his fading consciousness, Shokkai quietly met his end.

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