Chapter 140: The Die Had Already Been Cast

Something is wrong. Things are going too well.

"Even with our party formed and our roles divided perfectly, this is going entirely too smoothly."

It's not that there's a trap, necessarily. It's more like the overall difficulty is set to "Easy"... Even factoring in the possibility of this leading to a Unique Scenario, it's far too simple for a scenario you pick up in the final town of the continent.

"There are three possibilities I can think of."

One: It's just coincidentally an easy scenario, with no deeper meaning.
Two: The moray eel fish-man is actually just a trash mob, and there's a real boss waiting.
No, while those aren't impossible, it's actually...

Three:

"M-monster... I'll avenge my Papa!!"

"Ah, crap, I should have noticed way sooner!"

This is an Escort Mission!!

An Escort Mission is a type of mission with special victory and defeat conditions found in many games—one that people who hate it will absolutely despise to the bitter end... yet, within the RPG genre, it serves as an easy way to reinforce the world-building.
The NPC set as the escort target is usually programmed to be weak, and you have to protect them from spawning enemies, guide them to a specific location... and conversely, no matter how much the players go wild and dominate, the moment the NPC is killed, you lose. That is an Escort Mission.
And the moment the key person in this Unique Scenario, the "Self-Proclaimed Great Pirate Stude," boarded the ghost ship Crying Innsman, the situation shifted.

"Hey, hey, pulling total aggro like that, you've got the makings of a Tank... you little shit!!"

Every single fish-man in the area aimed their aggro squarely at Stude, who had leaped over to the ghost ship armed with nothing but an incredibly pathetic dagger. Even the moray eel fish-man ignored Rei-shi right in front of it and locked onto Stude.

"B-bring it on!"

"Don't say 'bring it on'...!"

"W-uwah!"

Stude's body was yanked backwards. Rust, who had grabbed him, was trying to drag him back to the Scarlet Whale, but since the fish-men that had boarded the pirate ship were also targeting Stude, she had to start running straight into the ghost ship side to escape them.

"Why did you even come...!"

"I-I can fight too, you know!"

"Throwing a rock would be more useful than you...!"

"Wha!?"

Lower than a rock, she says. Well, if your weak point moves around on its own while making a bunch of noise, that's just top-tier Trash Game design.
Still, it's a blunder on the players' part for not seeing through the Escort Mission gimmick. We need to formulate a recovery plan and a way to break through.
Fortunately or unfortunately, Emul and I were being completely ignored, so while I was thinking about how to move, Mold—who had climbed up the broken mast at some point—looked down over the maddened fish-men and started shouting orders at us.

"Rust! Break through the right side! Sorry, Sunraku-san, but attack the swarm on the left!"

"Alright, leave it to me! Rei-shi!!"

"I'll handle, that fish-man...!"

What to do? For now, I need to hold back the fish-men chasing Rust and Stude, but we can't just keep running away while carrying baggage; I have to break this reactive situation somewhere.

"Emul, I give you a great command."

"Y-yes, sir!"

"You see that wimpy guy standing up there?"

"I see him, desu wa."

"I'm gonna chuck you over to him."

"Desu wa!?"

I firmly grabbed Emul and lined up my sights...

"Wait! Wait, desu wa! Rushing things is bad! It's very bad, desu wa!?"

"Emul... Akitsu Akane said it too, right? Rabbits are counted as birds[*1] in Japanese, so you can definitely fly."

"Ceecrue-oniichan already denied that, desu wayaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!?"

I chucked her!!

Emul flew over the heads of the fish-men. Because I put a little bit of a twist into the throw, she was spinning like a gyroscope, but that's just a margin of error, margin of error! Honestly, the fact that Emul managed to land perfectly on Mold's shoulder shows just how terrifying getting used to things can be!
Anyway, I'm about to pull off some reckless maneuvers, so I needed to put Emul somewhere, and she'll be much more useful over there as a direct laser-pointer for Mold, who seems to excel at providing support from a bird's-eye view.

"Alright............ Go!!"

First, I need to steal the aggro. I don't know what kind of trick it is, but I'm going to carefully peel off the aggro Stude hoovered up, one by one, and paste it onto myself.
Riot Accel activated; my HP chips away while my speed and physical strength accelerate. Sprinting forward, I launch a flying kick riding the momentum of my acceleration right into one of the fish-men to draw its attention. Because the one whose attention I grabbed stopped moving, the ones behind it piled up. That gag-like chain reaction forced the mob to focus on the cause of the traffic jam, successfully directing a certain amount of aggro toward me.
Next, Vorpal Secret Art [Shifting Water Mirror] activated; I leave the gathered aggro right there in that spot and move. Even if they sped up compared to before, they're basically just zombie cousins; legs running an AGI-focused Level 99 build can easily outpace them.

"Rei-shi, take care of the trash mobs over there!"

Rei-shi nodded silently and ran toward the spot where my skill effect lingered—the spot where a dozen or so fish-men were currently swarming.
I don't care how many enemies there are anymore, I just want that spot cleared.

"Rust, can you still run?"

"My stamina is at its limit. I need a moment to recover..."

"Got it... Rei-shi is scattering the trash mobs, so run through there and head back."

"Understood... Mold will probably send support."

"Though I'll end up repelling any buffs."

"It's firepower support, so rest easy...!"

There's not a single fragment of ease in this current situation, though!!
I watched Rust run past, roughly dragging the fainted idiot who looked like he had just been punched in the face to forcibly shut off his noise-making, and I tightened my grip on the Aspiring Blades of the Hero (Duxram).
Looking purely at the situation, it's a massive death flag, but I have a plan. Basically, I just need to stop that zombie train[*2] somehow, and there's no rule saying I have to stop it politely.

"Trip the one in the front and catch the ones in the back in the pileup, just like earlier..."

No, wait, I just need to stall them. In that case, what I need isn't Dynasty Warriors-style overwhelming strength... but the sheer annoyance of a puzzle game penalty block.

"In that case...!"

I selected an item from my Inventoria, designated the coordinates right in the path of the approaching blasphemous procession, and...!

Rust's stamina ran out, her running pace slowing down; Mold and Emul's magic blasted the moray eel fish-man; I was just about to finish the final step of pulling out my item; Rei-shi's swung sledgehammer smashed into a fish-man... As everyone took their respective actions, once again—or rather, it made me want to interrogate her to see if she was just born under that kind of star—she provided the final push that turned the gears.

"I'm sorry! I got delayed recovering Ceecrue-san who went rolling away!!"

It wasn't necessarily Akitsu Akane's fault. Akitsu Akane was simply the "last person," and the trigger was likely the fact that every player was finally present on this side. The moment Akitsu Akane, who was carrying Ceecrue in an incredibly haphazard manner, jumped onto the Crying Innsman, I felt the illusion that time had stopped for a split second.

(No... wait, this really has... stopped...)

A raindrop was frozen right next to my eyeball. This stoppage of the world—which felt like a lag lasting less than a second—resumed as if nothing had happened, taking the massive pillars of water erupting around the ghost ship as the signal to reboot.
A shaking on a completely different scale from the rough waves up until now forced everyone present to interrupt their actions.

"Haaa!?"

The water pillars fell back into the sea along with the torrential rain following gravity, but I froze in a daze at the sight of the massive... the utterly gargantuan "Octopus Tentacles" that had been inside those pillars. Realizing my carelessness, I hurriedly turned back to the fish-men, but those things—which had been frenziedly chasing Stude just moments ago—were completely frozen in place without so much as a twitch, as if that entire chase had never happened.

"Eh, eh?"

"W-what is going on!?"

"This is bad, desu wa, this is really bad... Sunraku-san!!"

Emul's voice sounded terrifyingly clear. And those words reached everyone present almost simultaneously with the situation shifting.

"I-It's Ctarrnid, desu waaaaa!!"

"Haaah!!?"

There were eight water pillars, which meant eight pitch-black tentacles firmly clamped down onto the Crying Innsman. For a moment, my vision nearly went dark as I thought this was an instant-death trap, but the remaining calm part of my brain denied it.
Whether it applies to a certain number of players or all participating players, there's no way a game would have a mechanic where just entering the combat area results in instant death—wait, there is. But at the very least, not in ShanFro.
If that's the case, then all participating players boarding the Crying Innsman was the condition that triggered something... and the Unique Monster "Ctarrnid of the Abyss," which has revealed itself, even if only its legs... Where are we even supposed to fight Ctarrnid in the first place... A special area?

"Don't tell me, the moment this scenario started, it was a non-stop direct express train straight to the EX scenario?"

The Crying Innsman, completely gripped by the eight massive tentacles, began to sink as its hull groaned. This isn't sinking, this is...!!

"Normally, there's a warning before stuff like this startssssss!!"

It seems Ctarrnid isn't gentle enough to loosen its grip just because I screamed. With an abnormal physical strength that completely disregarded both gravity and buoyancy, the Crying Innsman was dragged down to the bottom of the sea, into the abyss of darkness...!!

[Unique Scenario EX "O Human, Look Up at the Abyss[*3], the World Inverts[*4]" initiated.]

And then, everything flipped upside down.

Author's Afterword

Fwaaaah! Welcome! Welcome to the Abyss~!! Right this way, right this way! Take your time and relax~!!
No, I've been waiting for you! We finally got some custom—er, guests! (Smug grin). I'm so happy! Hey, what do you want to die from? We've got all sorts of things! The Prof—er, Hakase taught me these are called "Thralls"! The raid starts here, so have fun and rest in pieces!! [*5]

Translator's Notes

• *[1] Rabbits counted as birds: In traditional Japanese counting, rabbits are counted using the counter "wa" (羽), which is the counter for birds, rather than "hiki" (匹) for small animals. Sunraku uses this linguistic quirk to justify throwing Emul.

• *[2] Zombie Train: An MMO slang term used when a player pulls a massive, trailing line of aggressive mobs behind them.

• *[3] Look Up at the Abyss: The Kanji written is "Abyss" (Shinen), but the forced reading in the raw text is "Sky" (Sora).

• *[4] The World Inverts: The Kanji written is "Invert/Reverse" (Hanten), but the forced reading is "Spins/Turns" (Mawaru).

• *[5] Afterword Parody: The author's entire afterword is a twisted, horror-themed parody of the incredibly wholesome and viral anime Kemono Friends, specifically mimicking the energetic dialogue of the character Serval ("Welcome to Japari Park!").