The three idiots who couldn't become heroes are preparing a man's meal today as well. - Chapter 116

Episode 116. Devourer

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“Captain! Multiple ‘Devourers’ sighted!!”

“This job’s about reducing their numbers! Circle around the swarm and take them down one by one! You bastards, it’s paydayyy!!”

“Devourers” also known as “Grim Reapers of the Sea,” are magical beasts.

Big-ass sharks.

According to Daryl and the others, these things also leap at you.

Worse yet, if you’re in a small boat, they might just chomp it down whole or something.

It’s totally Jaws. Like, straight-up Jaws.

From the sound of it, I was imagining something like a great white shark, but seeing them in person, they’ve got a much sleeker, sharper look.

I wish I could tell you exactly what species they were, but I’m not exactly a shark expert.

Anyway, another one of the sharks lunged at the deck.

“Incoming, Azuma!”

“Rogeerrr!”

Azuma lowered his stance and raised the weapon on his shoulder—something like a thick pickaxe or a massive sickle.

He swung it down hard, and with a loud THUD, the shark was slammed against the deck.

An incredibly useful weapon that can one-shot anything leaping at you.

However…

“Oi! Hearty Eater! Quit punching holes in my deck!!”

“…My bad.”

“I’m sorry… I’ll swing sideways next time.”

Azuma’s brute strength was just too much.

The weapon went right through the shark—and straight through the floor.

The poor shark was crumpled awkwardly, stuck in a dented mess on the deck.

“Minami-chan! We’re building a ‘floor’ on the sea!”

“Understood, Nishida-sama!”

Before I knew it, Minami and Nishida leapt off the ship. But just before hitting the water, they tossed out wooden pallets from their magic bags—like the kind you’d see at a market.

We don’t exactly have a forklift, so they looked a little different, but close enough.

They dropped them flat into the sea—and of course, they floated.

Using those as platforms, Nishida and Minami started moving across the surface of the ocean.

And right behind them, dorsal fins—several of them—rushed in at ridiculous speed.

“Minami-chan! Long knives!”

“Going for the fins, right?”

Each of them grabbed a long, sword-like kitchen knife, and instead of waiting, they leapt toward the oncoming sharks.

With some seriously acrobatic moves, they dodged the sharks’ attacks and sliced off their pectoral fins midair before hopping to the next pallet.

“Fins secured!”

“Got mine too!”

They slashed, collected the fins, and landed cleanly.

Nishida, sure, but even Minami’s gotten super nimble now.

Just as I was admiring that, the finless sharks began floating up to the surface.

Thrashing around helplessly—they’d die soon enough if left like that.

So—

“Time to haul ‘em in!”

“Counting on you, Kou-chan!”

“Please take care of this, Master! We’ll go get the next one!”

With that, they went back to hopping from pallet to pallet, and I readied my new gear.

It looked like a beefy spear.

The blade was extra wide and had barbed hooks—“reverse spikes.”

It was a hybrid between a weapon and a capture tool. There was even a hole at the base of the spear to tie on a rope.

Basically, a giant harpoon.

I hurled it at the floating shark with full force and secured the catch.

“Alright! Shark, secured!”

Shark after shark, the two of them kept on hunting.

So I couldn’t just stand around either.

One after another, I grabbed the spears at my feet, hurled them, and reeled in the catch onto the ship.

If any of them were still alive, Azuma would slam them down with a ZUDON.

Doing that on repeat, we steadily gathered up enough food for dinner.

“Hearty Eater! Bring your comrades back on board! That’s enough! With this much, we can wipe them all out in one go!”

“Huh? There’s still tons of them swimming around! What’re we gonna do about that!?”

“Just bring them back!”

“Tch, fine, got it! You guys, back on board! Dinner gathering is done!”

Following Daryl’s orders, I had no choice but to call the two back.

They looked a little disappointed, but obediently returned to the deck.

And then—

“Tilt the ship! Everyone, hold on tighttt!!”

With that shout, the ship—which had been circling around—shifted its angle sharply and literally tilted.

“Eeeeek! We’re gonna fall! We’re definitely gonna fall!!”

『Kitayama! Kitayama! Grab us! Hurry! We can’t—we can’t handle this!』

“Oi oi oi oi! Daryl! What the hell is this!?”

The Minami – Nishida combo instantly sprang into action and clung to a nearby rail that looked like it might be stable.

The rest of us—me, Azuma, and the Saintess—lost our balance and started sliding down the slanted deck.

“Azuma! Stick it in!”

“Roger!”

Azuma slammed his pickaxe-like weapon into the deck and stopped himself, and I grabbed onto his leg.

Then, I managed to catch the falling Saintess with one arm, and the three of us came to a complete stop.

No, seriously, wasn’t that tilt way too much?

At this angle, aren’t we just gonna sink…? That’s what I was thinking when—

“Main cannons, readyyyyyy!”

“Wait, did he just say main cannons!?”

In response to that voice, several clack! sounds echoed from beneath us.

In other words, from the side of the ship facing the sea, I could hear hatches opening.

I couldn’t see from here, but… but still…

Could it be? Could it really be?

“Whoa—!!”

BOOM BOOM!—massive sounds blasted from the side of the ship, accompanied by plumes of smoke.

Yup, no doubt about it.

“They’re firing actual cannons! This is insane! They even have stuff like this!?”

“Hey, Hearty Eater! Don’t you dare fall into the ocean! You’ll get caught in it!”

I heard the captain’s voice, but I was too hyped by the spectacle right in front of me.

Cannons blasting into the water, plumes of spray rising high.

And then, all those sharks we had been dealing with one-by-one were now floating up all at once.

If we had this kind of gear, there was no need for us to mess around with spears and swords at all.

That’s what I was thinking, until—

“Ugh, damn… fire off this many and we’re barely breaking even again this time…”

“What do you mean? We’re bringing in a ton.”

I asked Azuma while still hanging onto him, and he responded with a bitter expression.

“Did your country not have this problem? Every single round costs a stupid amount. Handcrafted shells, loads of enchantments, and the cannons themselves use a ton of magic stones. It’s not a bad move for survival, but if you’re trying to turn a profit, it’s the worst possible option.”

“Ah… yeah, sounds like a hassle in a lot of ways.”

Even as we talked, the cannons extending from the side of the ship continued blasting away, taking out way more giant sharks than we ever could with our weapons.

Man, what a waste.

Still, I couldn’t help being captivated by the sheer spectacle of “naval combat.”

“Man… that was an incredibly cool battle, but…”

“Yeah yeah, I get it. You’re trying to say it’s a mess for eating, right? I know, I know. I don’t usually eat this stuff, so I never cared, but still.”

The sea was now scattered with shark chunks.

Even if we scooped them up with nets, we’d just get hit with a nasty mix of off-flavors and stench.

In the end, we didn’t really get much usable catch.

Well, we did manage to secure a few good ones, so there’s still plenty to eat.

“Let’s at least gather the fins… If we dry them out, they might still be good.”

“You heard him, guys! Gather the fins at least!”

And so, we were now fully acting like an illegal poaching crew.

But man, the fins just kept piling up.

The skillful technique of slicing off the fins from the torn-up shark corpses was definitely something to admire.

Still, we were total poachers now.

“This looks real bad…”

“Visually, yeah, we definitely look like criminals.”

“Back ‘over there’, they’d cut off the fins and dump the rest. Now we’re scooping fins from bodies that are already in pieces. I mean… I don’t even know anymore.”

Everyone was right—the whole scene was absolutely ridiculous.

“The smell is also awful at this point… If you saw this in daylight, the sea would probably look blood-red.”

“When the ship tilted, that seriously freaked me out…”

【 I’m praying that Nozomi grows wings next time, 】  came a comment from the Saintess.

While chatting like that, Minami and the Saintess were pinching their noses shut.

Yeah, the smell was brutal.

The torn-up shark meat was now being picked at by little fish.

Whether in the sea or the forest, creatures surviving in the harsh food chain are tough as hell… is what I was thinking as I dropped my fishing line into the water.

“Hmm?”

“What’s up, Kou-chan?”

Something felt off. Really off.

What is it? What’s wrong?

I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was this creepy sensation crawling across my skin.

I stared down into the sea, trying to figure it out.

Shark bits scattered everywhere, crew members finding fins and swinging their rods.

That all seemed fine. Nothing weird there.

Seriously, what is it?

That’s when—

“It’s vibrations, I think. The bobber’s moving weird, and I can kinda feel something through the line… maybe.”

“So it’s not a fish biting your line, right? If it was, you wouldn’t be this unsettled.”

Both Nishida and Azuma stared intently at the end of my line.

Then, as if they sensed something too, the two of them gripped the railing tightly and leaned over to peer into the water below.

“Master… something’s wrong. Just a moment ago, the fish were so noisy, but now, I can’t hear anything at all.”

Even Minami was starting to say that.

Yeah, this… might not be good.

“Daryl! Order everyone to stop working! There’s something out there!”

“Hah!? ‘Something’? What the hell do you mean!?”

“I don’t know! But it feels dangerous as hell! Just make sure no one’s standing where they could fall overboard—”

“Kitayama! Something huge is coming! From directly below!”

“Goddammit! Even Dragon-san’s saying scary stuff now! Daryl!”

“Move the ship! We’re getting the hell out of here, now!!”

As the captain shouted, the crew immediately returned to their stations.

And then, just behind the slowly moving ship, that thing leapt out.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me… What the hell is that thing!?”

Apparently, it was Daryl’s first time seeing it too.

A massive body, with teeth sharp enough to bite through this very ship.

And its enormous eyes—were looking right at us.

“It’s a freakin’ Megalodon!”

It was the only way to describe it—a supermassive shark.

That thing, big enough to chomp down this entire ship, swallowed the chunks of shark meat floating around in one gulp, then crashed back into the sea with a giant splash.

But there was no mistake.

That thing was watching us.

As if declaring we were its next “prey,” it glared our way.

“You guys! We’re running for our lives! Start paddling like dogs!”

At the captain’s yell, hatches on both sides of the ship flew open, and ridiculously long oars extended out.

This ship was fast to begin with, and now it had manpower on top of that.

Ah, so that’s why they call it “dog paddling.”

“Daryl! What do we do about that thing!? It doesn’t look like it’s letting us go!”

“Do!? We can’t do anything! What even is that monster!? The cannons still work, but they only aim sideways!”

“Damn it! Got it!”

With the goal of just getting away, the crew focused only on looking ahead and rowing the ship forward.

Meanwhile, we were the only ones looking back.

“Ughhh… it’s coming after us like crazy…”

“At that size, and underwater to boot… I can’t think of any way to counter it.”

“Tch. I thought maybe I could do something with a ‘breath,’ but that thing’s got sharp instincts. Every time I prepare to attack, it dives underwater.”

Its dorsal fin was approaching the ship faster than we were moving.

This is bad… What do we do?

Think. What did they say to do when facing sharks over there?

It doesn’t need to be a real countermeasure—even something from movies would do.

This thing isn’t even something that exists “over there.” So even a ridiculous tactic is better than doing nothing.

I remember hearing something about how their noses are full of nerves, so hitting them there hurts like hell.

Eyes too? Other than that… any weak spots?

And at the very least, how do we draw it into a place where we can attack it?

“Fuuu, haaaa…”

“Master?”

“Minami, the charge lance.”

“You’re serious?”

Even as she said that, she pulled out my full-on hobbyist gear from the magic bag.

“Nozomi, Kana. That ‘Protection’ spell—can you use it to create a platform over the water? One strong enough for us to stand on?”

“Um, it’s a ‘wall’ made with magic, so there’s no problem with us standing on it, but… what do you plan to do?”

“If you force the enemy onto ‘land,’ there’s no guarantee it’ll just conveniently stay there, right? And of course, it’ll thrash around. There’s also the chance it’ll escape back into the sea.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s why—”

I tied a rope around my waist and handed the other end to Azuma.

“I’ll be the bait. Not planning to get eaten though.”

“Master!”

I placed my hand on Minami’s head and then looked toward Azuma and Nishida.

Both of them gave me a firm nod.

“The moment he’s about to get eaten, Azuma pulls Kou-chan up, and the Saintess makes the ‘floor’ to get him on solid ground. My job is to charge the enemy at that timing. Sound about right?”

“I’ll pull Kita-kun back and adjust the distance, then do the final yank. Got it.”

“I-I’ll time it right and cast Protection on the water! I’ll try to make it wide and last as long as possible!”

“Fufufu. Now this is getting interesting.”

Even as we exchanged words, the enemy kept closing in.

Seriously, that thing’s fast.

“Minami, your role is the most important.”

“…Yes. There’s no point in trying to stop you now. Give me any order you wish.”

With her brows furrowed in determination, Minami also gave a nod.

I patted her head again and shared my half-baked, completely reckless plan with everyone.

It was such a dumb idea, it barely qualified as a plan.

But if we don’t act, we’re the ones getting eaten.

Actually, the ship is.

“Alright! Let’s do this, guys… Daryl! Leave the thing behind us to us! If things go south, lend a hand!”

“You guys are seriously insane! This is nuts! You’re gonna fight that!?”

“Daryl! Once I give the signal, turn the ship and fire all cannons at once! Be ready!”

We’ve been called idiots more times than I can count. Nothing new now.

No matter where we go, we’re idiots.

So let’s hunt.

That freakishly massive Megalodon.

“Hell yeah!! Let’s go! Don’t screw up the timing!”

“““Roger!!”””

With wooden boards strapped to my feet and my comrades’ responses in my ears, I leapt into the sea.

Charge lance in one hand, I headed straight for that monster’s face.

“BRING IT ONNNN!!”

With that scream, my body plunged into the dark ocean.