Water Breathing… Was this yet another method I didn't know about?
Razor looked at Roy with cautious curiosity. Elena looked at him, then at Roy—this "Water Breathing" clearly came from the boy.
She adjusted the blue-light glasses on her nose and silently counted the abilities Roy had shown since they met. Too many. Completely too many. He was like an iceberg stretched across the ocean—every time Elena thought she'd finally pinned down his nen, Roy would casually reveal something else from another angle and leave her speechless.
"Heh… good, then." Ging's gaze drifted over Razor and Gotoh, then he stared at Roy for a long moment.
He didn't say anything. Didn't ask anything.
After breakfast, they packed up and boarded the chartered ship Elena had arranged, heading for the target waters.
Vrrr— the engine roared, and the ship cut through the waves, leaving the shore behind.
Roy and Ging each held a fishing rod, sitting cross-legged at the bow to fish.
A gust flipped Ging's hood up; he pressed it back down, flicked his wrist, and the red bead on his line arced neatly into the sea. Then he glanced sideways—Roy was using the staff-sword "Waning Moon" as a rod, extending a nen line as fishing line, practicing the "hookless fishing" technique he'd learned from Jegg's notes. He was only ten-something, yet he carried a kind of maturity that didn't fit his age at all.
"Roy… I can't read you anymore and more."
In the cabin, Elena held her blue screen like a navigation board, directing the helm.
On deck, Razor used his palm like a blade, carefully running through Water Breathing off the thin booklet.
Behind Roy, Gotoh wiped down the Infinite Pistol with a square cloth, slow and meticulous.
A seabird cried somewhere above. Ging, with Fescher's Parrot on his shoulder, glanced at the boy.
"Gah—!" The three-legged crow popped out on Roy's head, fat as a chicken as always, found the little whirl in Roy's hair, and flopped down. "Jii—!"
Fescher's Parrot fluttered over, landed beside Little Goldie on Roy's head, narrowed its pea-sized eyes, and affectionately nuzzled the chubby crow's cheek—making Ging's mouth twitch, just a little.
"What's so hard to read? Aren't you the same?" Roy said. "In two days, besides borrowing Fescher's Parrot to copy Razor's nen bullet and trading one move with me, you haven't shown anything else. Not even your own nen."
Of course, if his surname was Freecss—if his ancestor Don had personally ventured into the Dark Continent and left behind New Continent Travelogue that the Voyage Bureau treated like scripture—then together with that parrot, and the fact that Ging was always surrounded by magical beasts and phantom beasts… and even the rumor that he'd once ridden a dragon while stacking gigantic monsters like blocks…
Roy had long suspected Ging's ability was tied to beasts, to contracts, to borrowing.
"No. We're not the same." Ging stared out at the sunlight glittering on the sea, and his voice sank. "You've got it harder."
"You're trying to control people. I…" He snapped his arm, and the red bead dipped—then he yanked up a dogfish, flinging it onto the deck. A sailor clubbed it once and it went limp—lunch candidate.
Ging turned and smiled. "I just have to get along with animals."
"Human hearts are too complicated. You can't control them?"
"I can't." Ging scratched his head. "I hate the petty scheming, the backstabbing… I'd rather stay with animals."
He beckoned. "Little Sakura."
Fescher's Parrot reluctantly fluttered back to his shoulder and rubbed against Ging's palm. Watching that easy bond with animals, Roy couldn't help thinking of Kite—Kite had been the same, loved by beasts, and that was part of why Ging took him in.
Ging once told Kite: If animals like you, your character can't be that bad.
Now Roy lifted his staff-sword too, hooked up another dogfish, flung it onto the deck—and it got the same one-stick knockout.
Roy nodded. "So your nen is tied to animals."
"Contract." Ging made another beautiful cast, eyes following the hook as it splashed down. "I can choose any magical beast, rare beast, or phantom beast and make a contract. Anyone contracted to me becomes my partner. I can direct them, and… they can even lend me their innate nen abilities."
Roy paused. That sounded a lot like his Monster Codex, except Ging didn't need to kill anything to get the talent. It was gentler—partners instead of prey. And because it was "partnership," the backlash from nature would likely be lighter than the brutal faith-harvesting route.
"You're my friend, and we're entering a secret realm soon," Ging added. "I'd rather you know in advance. If we understand each other, exploration goes smoother."
He glanced at Roy. "Razor's emission. Elena… you already know hers, don't you?"
Roy didn't deny it. Last night, his heart-worms had definitely "talked" with Elena.
Roy said calmly, "Conjuration. I'm a Conjurer-type. You can think of it as…"
He looked out across the sea.
"There's a world standing behind me."
The Demon Slayer world.
On deck, Razor—who'd just finished a "Droplet Ripple Thrust" that split the sea wind—twitched, ears catching that line, and stared at Roy the same way Ging was staring.
"You've got guts," Ging muttered, stunned.
Roy didn't explain. He wasn't going to explain.
He simply planted Waning Moon into the bow, leaned back on the deck, spread his arms into a lazy starfish, and let the sun pour over him.
"It's not that my heart is big," Roy said through his fingers as he stared at the blazing sun.
"It's that the sun is big."
Hunter world has a sun. Demon Slayer has a sun. Even his past life—steel and concrete—couldn't escape the sun.
Ging's laughter started low, then grew broad and bright, startling a flock of seabirds.
"Heh—okay, okay." Ging shook with laughter. "I believe it now. It's not the Zoldycks that are scary."
"It's you. You're just ridiculous."
Razor finished his Water Breathing set and exhaled. Then the three of them just sat there in different poses, baking in the sunlight.
After a while, Elena poked her head out of the cabin.
"We're here."
The engine cut out with a whirr, the ship drifted forward a few meters on inertia, then bobbed to a stop.
"Let's go." Ging slung his rod over his shoulder, reached out, and Elena clasped his hand. Blue light bloomed around them, forming a perfect translucent water bubble that wrapped them both.
Ging looked back. "You really don't need help?"
Roy didn't answer. He simply reached out, used Magnetic Attraction to pull Waning Moon into his hand, then stepped forward—
A blur.
A leap.
He speared into the sea like a thrown blade and shot downward toward the deep.
"Boss—wait!" Gotoh followed, Infinite Pistol on him. He vaulted the railing, hit the surface, and instantly moved like a different species—legs together, one kick to the sky like a tail flick. Spray exploded around him. Clean. Fast. Elegant.
Elena, using Total Control, tagged everyone with her radar. On her small blue display, Roy and Gotoh were dropping like missiles—faster than a marlin.
"They're not affected by pressure or oxygen at all…" Elena muttered. "So that's what 'Water Breathing' does…"
On deck, with only the captain and sailors left above water—
Ging called, "Razor, come with me. No need to spend your aura."
Razor jumped in anyway. "I'm not a landlubber."
Splash.
He dove after Roy and Gotoh. He started clumsy, but once he forced himself to calm down and adjusted his breathing rhythm—trying to align with "Water Breathing"—he began to find that "merge with water" feeling. Each small push sent him five meters deeper. He was adapting.
Ging and Elena followed in their blue water bubble, oxygen-rich and pressure-proof, chasing the three sinking lights.
Half an hour later, they hit the bottom.
And there it was—
A towering, magnificent Gothic cathedral-like structure, sitting on the seabed like a mountain. Its soft glow washed the surrounding darkness away. Roy, Gotoh, Razor—then Ging and Elena—arrived in a line, all craning their necks, unable to see the top.
"Who would imagine something like this exists under the sea?" Gotoh breathed, arriving beside Roy.
In theory, ten thousand meters down should be pitch-black and dead. Yet this place radiated light, and even pushed back the water, creating a spherical pocket filled with fresh air. The roof tiles and walls—who knew what material, or what lighting glyphs—were embedded into them.
"This is the place my ancestor mentioned," Ging said. "Where the Baku was once seen."
"Without an exact lock, it'll be hard to find," Razor muttered.
Razor pulled his wet vest off, wrung out water, and threw Ging a look. Ging just smiled.
"That's why we explore." He stepped forward. "That's what makes it an adventure."
He walked shoulder-to-shoulder with Roy toward the cathedral doors. The doors were carved with reliefs: armored soldiers with greatswords, armless women half-naked, little girls holding their mothers' hands, preachers with books raised high—thousands of faces. A whole forgotten epic sealed into stone.
"You've never been here?" Roy asked, studying the carvings. For some reason, a strange familiarity prickled at him.
Ging shook his head. "Only saw a fragment in my ancestor's records."
Roy's sense of déjà vu grew stronger.
Gotoh noticed immediately. "Boss… did you find something?"
Ging, Razor, Elena all looked over.
Roy was quiet for a beat. Then he said, "Maybe we'll know once we're inside."
He exchanged a look with Ging and Razor. The three of them moved in unison—each placing a hand on the door and pushing.
RUMMMBLE—
The cathedral doors cracked open.
And the moment that narrow slit appeared, something unseen yanked them forward—
The gap widened—
And the three of them were swallowed inside.
Far away, deep under the Voyage Bureau's underground levels, in the lab where "calamities" twisted into monsters were sealed in jars…
In the very back corner against the south wall,
A rope-like thing in a tank slowly split open—
And an eye blinked.
Its pupil reflected flickering images.
A guard saw it, went pale, and scrambled for his comms.
"Something's wrong… the calamity's manifesting."
~~~
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