[CHAT] Anonymous: “What is going on?”
[CHAT] Anonymous: “No death notice… does that mean there’s still a chance?”
[CHAT] Anonymous: “What happened to Player 0344?”
In a cramped cabin aboard the steamship Jellyfish, Ethan Vale kept the chat feed hovering at the edge of his vision—and felt something twist in his gut.
If Player 0344 had really abandoned concealment and swum up to the surface, the pirates should have spotted him sooner or later. Worse, there had been two Abyss Thralls among them. A desperate, half‑Awakened swimmer shouldn’t have slipped past their senses.
[CHAT] Anonymous: “You think he made it up? Like… clout-chasing?”
[CHAT] Anonymous: “Clout for what? There’s no ads here, no followers, no money.”
[CHAT] Anonymous: “Yeah. Nobody’s donating him a thousand gold.”
[CHAT] Anonymous: “We’re not even a thousand anymore…”
The channel spiraled—anger at the Abyss, fear of the sea, people trying to fill silence with noise.
Five minutes. Ten. Twenty.
No announcement. No kill notice. No confirmation of anything at all.
Outside the porthole, the sea had turned the color of old steel. Mist smeared the horizon, and the Jellyfish’s engine throbbed like a heartbeat under the deckboards.
Ethan forced himself to look away from the chat and pulled up his own status instead.
[PANEL]
Name: Ethan Vale
Race: αK49 Blue Star / Human
Background: Shipwrecked student from the Eastern Isles; sole survivor of the Explorer
Tier: 0 (Pre‑Awakened)
Talents:
– SSS-Rank Infinite Fishing (Talent)—Evolution: Rodless Fishing
– F- Rank Stamina Boost +3%
– D+ Rank Mind Boost +33%
– C+ Rank Agility Boost +43%
– F- Rank Strength Boost +3%
Class: Locked
Awakened Abilities: None
Faction: Unchosen
Knowledge: Hunter’s Wisdom
Mind and agility were coming along. Stamina and strength… not so much.
Player 0344 had said his Talent was C-Rank Stamina Boost—a clean forty percent. He’d lasted underwater long enough to dodge the first sweep of the pirates.
So that was what stamina looked like in the real world. Not flashy. Not heroic. Just the ugly, stubborn ability to keep going when everything else said stop.
Ethan glanced at his own number again. Three percent.
Pathetic.
The engine rumbled. A thought flicked through him—sharp, dangerous, tempting.
What happens if I fish the ship itself?
Fishing Moonlight Island had given him Rodless Fishing… and the Moonshadow Elixir. The Elixir’s whispers still made his skin crawl. Since then, he’d avoided hooking anything that felt too ancient, too vast—things that had baked in natural power for millions of years.
But a steamship wasn’t an island. It was big, sure, but it was built by hands, rivets, and sweat. A machine with an owner and a name.
Ethan placed his palm against the cabin’s inner wall. In his mind, he anchored the medium—Jellyfish, the steamship—and let Rodless Fishing trigger.
[ITEM] Dried Jellyfish ×1
[SYSTEM] Gained: Ironclad Fortitude
[SYSTEM] Stamina Boost +5%
Five percent. Not earth‑shattering.
Again, he only thought it was small because he’d tasted the Moonshadow Elixir’s ridiculous boost—and because he’d fished the corpse of an Awakened. Comparing those situations was like comparing a lantern to lightning.
He eyed the dried jellyfish in his inventory and let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
Thank god the ship was called Jellyfish. If it had been Mermaid, he probably would’ve pulled up something that came with teeth and a moral crisis.
The chat still offered nothing new about Player 0344. People drifted off to their quests. Fear, like any storm, eventually burned itself out.
Rain started tapping the glass. Somewhere on the ship, Skye—currently in black‑cat form—was up to something, but Ethan could feel through their contract that she was still aboard.
With the afternoon empty, he did the only thing that made him feel less helpless. He tested his Talent. Hard.
He fished his own hair. His shirt. His trousers. The Dragonblood Dagger. The Common Luck Potion.
The cabin itself: the porthole, the door, the bedframe, the blanket, the table, the chair.
After enough attempts, a pattern snapped into focus.
If the target belonged to him—his personal property—the returns were better. Not always incredible, but better.
If the target belonged to someone else, especially the ship, the yield dropped off a cliff: scraps, trinkets, worthless nonsense. Sometimes nothing at all.
Public resources—things without clear ownership, like seawater or wild plants—paid out somewhere in the middle. Consistent. Modest.
And anything non‑unique? Clothes, chairs, rope—he could fish them again and again, but the loot was insultingly tiny. A drop of water. A wood splinter. A stray thread. Dust.
Unique things were different. Moonlight Island. The Jellyfish. Supernatural items like the Dragonblood Dagger or the Luck Potion. Those only paid once—
—but when they paid, they mattered.
He’d already pulled a chip of refined iron from the dagger, and ten drops of snow‑lotus water from the potion.
When they made port, he’d run a hand along every boat in the harbor. If ownership mattered, then docks were going to be a gold mine.
And the thought that followed that one made him go still.
If he ever owned an island—if he became its governor, its recognized master—then what would SSS-Rank Infinite Fishing do to something that vast… and truly his?
That answer was a long way off.
Night thickened behind the porthole. The rain turned steady. Ethan checked the chat one last time—ready to close it—
—and a message finally surfaced.
[CHAT] Player 0344: “Sorry to keep everyone waiting. I’m alive. And… there’s something I need to tell you all.”