Ha-neul took a slow, deep breath. He had been dreading this all day, but the thought of fresh meat was too powerful to ignore. 'It was worth it,' He told himself with gritted teeth. He was wearing nothing but his underwear, and holding Bloodbath by his side. The magic butcher's knife was glowing faintly, and was his only source of light. It could sense all the death around him.
He took another deep breath and shuddered violently.
'Here I go. I'm going now.'
He took his first step forward. His toes landed in the icy water and sent shock waves up his body. He stared daggers at the underwater lake. It felt colder than yesterday! He needed to be careful not to splash, but also get fully into the water as fast as possible before his will gave out and he returned to camp empty handed.
He stepped forwards again, plunging in up to his knee. He did not pause, perfectly aware of what he was standing on, and quickly lowered himself in the water so he could swim without touching the bottom. He had no idea how deep the lake was, or exactly how wide. No light was bright enough to see the far side. For all he cared, though, it could have been infinite. He had no interest in swimming more then a few dozen meters out. Tomatsu had crossed a portion of the lake on a handmade raft when he first got here, and seemed not to want to talk about it. Something horrifying was in the water, which was why Ha-neul swam as quietly as he could.
He did breast stroke, spending as little time with his head above the water as possible. He went out to where the lake was maybe twenty meters deep and began treading water as lightly as he could. He dared not go farther, and was horrified by the idea of swimming any deeper than that. He waited in the icy pitch dark, the faint light of Bloodbath only serving to reflect his cold face on its surface and the surface of the water. In the three days of rest sense he'd gotten it, the cut on his forehead faded to an ugly red line, and there was a notch missing from his eyebrow. He still felt a disconnect between how old he felt, and how youthful his face looked. The scar did a little to dampen the effects.
After waiting for what felt like a long time, but was really only a minute since he stepped into the water, he heard a distant hum. That was his cue. He dived and furiously swam down as hard as he could. He could swim with an almost inhuman grace and he plummeted down very fast. His hand slammed into something sharp at the bottom of the lake, and so he stopped again. He held the bloodbath tight and waited again. He relaxed his whole body and was still in the tranquil waters.
A moment later there was a deafening whistling noise followed by a flash of red light from deep in the lake. For a moment he could see how crystal clear the water was. While he could not see the true bottom from his angle, and could not see the other side because the light started in the middle, he could see several miles all around him. He could see that the bottom of the lake was lined with human bones. The bones of untold millions; an entire civilization was buried here. When he first was shown it, he was horrified. Now, he ignored it completely. The bones had to be thousands of years old, and as far as he was aware, were just the regular kind of dead.
What Ha-neul was looking for during the flash of light was any source of movement. Two meters to his right, he saw a long bony fish with two bulbous, milky eyes. The moment darkness returned, he sprung into action. He launched himself from the pile of bones and wrapped his arm around the fish. It struggled much more than he thought it would, pulling him down. He was spun in circles. He lost his sense of direction after only a second, but could feel his ears popping and knew he was going deeper. Still, he did not let go. After a moment the fish twisted back towards him. It's a face hitting him in the chest. He seized the moment to bury bloodbath in the side of its head. It went limp and he could feel a momentary pause from the cold as warm blood flowed around them.
The fish was dead and caught, but Ha-neul was fully lost. He had no idea which way was up and down. He had forty-seven seconds of oxygen left before he blacked out. While the timer was analytical, his body was already starting to panic. He forced himself to stay calm. There was almost an hour before the red light would pulse again. He would need to find another way to orient himself. The situation was becoming dire. But then he realized he could just let go of Bloodbath and watch which direction it sank. He saw its dim light drift towards his chest. Compared to the surface, he was sideways, facing up.
His oxygen deprived body, now that rationality had shown it a direction, furiously swam that direction. He was half swimming, half thrashing as he broke through the surface. He gasped for air. That had been much too close. He could feel the weight of the fish tucked beneath his arm. It was massive, nearly a meter long! They were eating well tonight.
He smiled between gasps of air, before he realized he didn't know which way shore was. He'd been in the water for nearly four minutes now and was getting quite cold. This was only his second time doing this, and the first time he hadn't lost his orientation. The fish he caught yesterday was much smaller than this beauty, so he'd kept track of things.
Even with plenty of oxygen , he couldn't think of a clever way to find his way back home. There were really only two ways. The first was to wait an hour for the flash to show him the way to shore, but he really, really didn't want whatever caused the flash to see him. It was one thing to be looking at it from the shore, or still at the bottom of the lake. Floating in the middle was a different story. Plus, he wasn't really hankering to spend that much time in the freezing water.
The second option was to simply choose a direction at random and swim. He chose this. He pulled the fish onto his chest and crossed his arms. Then he started kicking for thirty or so meters in the direction he was already facing. He ended up bonking his head against a rock. Then he swam along it until he reached a point he could climb out of the water. There was no moon, water current, or wind here to erode the shore, so all the rock and bone was sharp. Ha-neul ignored it. He also did not really care about sound any more, and just splashed out of the water and lay on the rocks, shivering and breathing heavily. He had gotten a few minor cuts climbing out, but they were small enough to not worry about.
He laid the fish down by his side. After a moment he crawled to his feet and used Bloodbath's light to find where he'd left his stuff. He dried himself off with a long piece of white linen and then changed into his clothes. He had pilfered them from a tomb, but there wasn't really any other option. His clothes from Earth had been so badly destroyed nothing was usable. He put on his stolen wool gambeson with the coat of arms of an unknown lord. He also had some trousers, boots, gloves, and a leather cap. The gloves had a magic property to them that made it impossible to accidentally drop something, but everything else was just regular clothes. He also had a bag made of canvas, which he shoved his towel and Bloodbath in.
Ha-neul took a length of cord from his bag and put it through the fish's gills, and then began dragging it towards camp. He trudged away, shaking his head at how much he had overcomplicated fishing! Next time he was going to tie a rope to shore so he could find his way back.
He laughed at how simple the solution was as he left the underground lake behind.