Boom boom boom... boom boom boom... boom...
Early in the morning, before Lansi was even fully awake, a series of loud booms shook the world outside.
An earthquake?
The deep, rumbling sound brought with it real vibrations. Lansi lay on his stomach in the cabin, feeling the bedframe trembling beneath him.
[Damn it ＆%...#! ]
The grumpy old hermit crab outside cursed loudly in the chat group.
[That idiot's going crazy again?]
In the group, a calm, elderly voice quickly chided:
[Watch your language. There are children in this group.]
Sure enough, a younger voice piped up right after:
[What's happening? What's happening?]
The hermit crab snorted irritably before continuing his rant:
[That damned octopus is at it again. Banging on those metal things... bang bang bang, bang you to hell—]
[Hermit Crab!]
[...Fine, sorry.]
Lansi read the chat with amusement. He swam out of the cabin and surfaced next to the hermit crab on the wrecked boat.
[What's going on out here?] he asked.
The hermit crab was still recovering from his outburst. The noise clearly wore him down. His beady little eyes were filled with the weight of long-suffering exhaustion.
[What else? That crazy octopus is back at it again.]
With the booming steel percussion thundering in the background, the hermit crab began complaining in broken, bitter pieces. Lansi pieced it together.
Sunset Bay had a "master." That "master" was the one making all the racket right now: a sea monster the hermit crab simply called "the octopus."
The hermit crab was just a later tenant, a neighbor forced to live with the noise.
According to him, the bay wasn't always like this. Sure, ships often wrecked here, but it wasn't a graveyard of metal until the octopus moved in.
That creature had a bizarre obsession—it loved collecting shipwrecks.
While the wrecks provided convenient shelter for creatures like the hermit crab, the octopus's regular "concerts" were unbearable.
[What the hell is it trying to do, anyway?]
The hermit crab grumbled.
[If I could beat it, I'd wring its damn neck!]
[Have you ever told it how you feel?] Lansi asked, curious.
[Too lazy. Who wants to talk to that dumb freak?]
Lansi: [...]
Knowing it was pointless to argue, he turned his attention to the rhythmic banging echoing through the sea. He nodded in time with it.
[You're crazy too? ...Forget it, I'm done here.]
The hermit crab snapped, waving his claws before retreating into a shipwreck to escape the sound.
"It really sounds like drumming," Lansi muttered to himself.
There was an undeniable rhythm—one-two-one. At the high points, the tone would even shift, as if something were changing.
"But this isn't important right now."
He sighed. What really mattered was finding the cruise ship Queen Mary.
Digging through this junkyard of rusting wreckage felt like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Lansi dove into the wreckage and kept searching.
Hours passed as he swam among the hulks, reading what names he could make out, getting more and more dizzy. Many of the wrecks were so corroded that the names were completely illegible.
It felt less like searching for a ship, and more like searching for a forgotten piece of himself.
Should he even keep looking?
Lansi floated in the sea, dazed, eyes unfocused. He drifted above the scrap metal, tail swishing slowly.
The banging had stopped. The sea was silent again.
Even the hermit crab had gone quiet.
It really felt like he was the only one left in this whole stretch of ocean.
He pulled himself together and headed for the last unexplored section of the wreck site. If he didn't find the ship here, he would give up and return to the deep sea to find Winsor.
With his mind made up, he swam into the area without much enthusiasm. He did a quick circuit, scanning lazily. None of the ships looked like the Queen Mary.
He turned to leave—then froze.
A huge sea creature was staring straight at him.
Lansi couldn't even tell what species it was. The others he'd seen—jellyfish, hermit crab—were clearly giant versions of normal creatures.
But this?
It had the arms of a squid, but the body of an octopus.
Squids had ten limbs. Octopuses had eight.
This one had eighteen.
One of them held a massive iron rod.
Two beady eyes stared right at Lansi.
Lansi: "..."
He glanced at the rod. Swallowed.
Is it going to hit me with that thing?
[AHHHHHHH—]
The creature's tentacles twitched. The rod waved wildly as its skin began flashing in crazy neon colors—red, blue, green, white.
[Oh no! There's someone here!]
Lansi screamed too:
[AHHHHHHHHHH—]
The monster didn't hesitate. It started poking at him with the rod.
Lansi panicked and fled.
[A human?! Why is there a human here?!]
Its voice was sharp and shrill. It felt vaguely familiar, but Lansi didn't have time to think. He swam faster.
Clang!
The metal rod slammed into wreckage, echoing through the bay.
Lansi dodged desperately, but the thing was relentless. It backed him into a sunken cabin.
[Come out!]
It had clearly lost all sense. It couldn't tell a human from a mermaid. It stabbed through the hull, trying to skewer Lansi along with the ship.
Lansi hugged the cabin floor, shaking with fear.
"Yi—"
He trembled, unable to stop calling out for Winsor.
[Damn it, come out!]
The rod bent under the strain. The monster roared in frustration and shoved its tentacles through the hole.
[Come out here!]
Several limbs groped blindly inside.
Lansi stared at them and paused.
These tentacles were dumb. Unlike the ones in the coral caves that had eyes, these seemed blind.
His mermaid reflexes kicked in. Watching their trajectory closely, he waited, then pounced.
He grabbed a tentacle, wrapped it around a cabin pillar, and knotted it tightly. Then he darted out the side window.
Just like he hoped—
The monster froze. Then it howled in fury, trying to yank its tentacle out.
But it was stuck.
It thrashed. The whole ship shook.
Lansi didn't stick around to gloat. He hadn't noticed the shard of glass near the window frame.
As he squeezed through, it sliced his tail.
Red blood bloomed in the water.
Lansi winced, clutching the wound.
His white tailfin flushed red where the blood spread—like silk stained with dye.
"Just great," he muttered, then glanced back at the monster.
Suddenly, it clicked.
This was the "dead squid" the jellyfish had warned him about.
Despite being called a squid, it was clearly not one.
The hermit crab called it an octopus.
Lansi decided to split the difference.
He'd call it the Uzhang Monster—a hybrid of youyu (squid) and zhangyu (octopus).
It had a shell, like a squid, but a brain, like an octopus.
A furious, crazy brain.
The Uzhang Monster screamed, yanked its tentacle free, and charged at him again.
[I'm gonna eat you!]
Sixteen tentacles flailed behind it like a parade of angry worms.
[Oulei, Oulei, Oulei~~]
Lansi had no idea what that meant, but he didn't stick around to ask.
He swam faster, but forgot—he was still in a shipwreck field.
Steel masts, jagged metal—he veered sharply, too late.
His eyes widened as he hurtled toward a mast.
But before he could hit—
A thick tentacle wrapped around him and yanked him aside.
He crashed into a massive black limb.
Dazed, he touched it. Familiar.
Rough. Black.
The same as the one that fed him in the coral cave.
Realization hit him. He flinched and pulled away.
The black tentacle hesitated, then gently reached toward him.
But Lansi, still shaken, darted into a nearby cabin and slammed the door shut.
The tentacle paused.
Then turned to the Uzhang Monster.
The Uzhang Monster froze. It quickly tucked its sixteen tentacles under itself, trying to play innocent.
But it was too late.
The black tentacles wrapped around it and began to drag it away.
[Wait! Why are you tying me up?! AHHHHH—]
Lansi heard the distant sound of something huge being pulled through the sea.
Silence followed.
He slumped against the cabin wall and groaned. What a disaster.
Boom boom boom
The door rattled.
Lansi's heart jumped. He curled his tail and bared his teeth at the door.
If the Uzhang Monster came in, he'd blast it with sonar. (Uzhang Monster (鱿章怪) is a nickname Lansi comes up with for a strange sea creature he encountered meaning squid-octopus hybrid.)
He wasn't running this time.
"Lansi?"
A familiar voice.
"It's me. Winsor."
Lansi froze. Then his heart soared.
He flung the door open and saw the black-tailed mermaid floating there, dark eyes filled with worry and gentle calm.
Without a word, Lansi threw himself into Winsor's arms.
"I missed you so much."
Winsor blinked, stunned. He had questions, but they evaporated the moment Lansi hugged him tighter.
"I really missed you," Lansi whispered, then repeated it, each time more heartfelt.
Then, suddenly, he leaned in and kissed Winsor.
Winsor's eyes widened.
"Wait... are you blushing?" Lansi teased.
"…No."