24-Hour Friendly Market, Specializing in Dimensional Items - Chapter 100

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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24-Hour Friendly Market Specializing in Dimensional Items Episode 100

Episode 100. Lost Puzzle Piece (6)

My luck seems to have gone completely insane.

Getting exactly the right scenes every time I read memories is quite a talent if you think about it.

A bright sea under the blazing hot sun.

On a pirate ship with a bright red flag fluttering without any trace of age.

I was looking at the back of a woman shouting toward the sea from the deck of what was once the intact Something Merry.

The woman had black hair tied tightly back, wore a comfortable shirt and leather boots, and had a sturdy build.

In her right hand, with sleeves roughly rolled up and fluttering, she held a thin, long cutlass that any pirate would naturally have.

I carefully moved my steps and approached the woman from the front.

The woman with a black eye patch over one eye looked to be in her 40s, and her face was rigidly hardened with tension.

‘Turn the ship! Get away from the monster!’

‘It’s Lady Sonia’s order! Turn the ship!’

Whether she was the captain of this pirate ship, the crew moved in perfect unison at the woman named Sonia’s command.

Sonia pointed her cutlass, meant for close combat, toward the vast ocean.

At its end was a massive shadow visible beneath the water’s surface.

It was when all the crew members were tensely loading cannonballs into the cannons.

What emerged cutting through the water’s surface was a familiar tentacle.

‘Is this the first time the pirates encountered the kraken?’

If so, being this wary wouldn’t be strange.

If hit by those massive legs, the pirate ship would be smashed to pieces, and the crew would immediately meet their maker.

That much was obvious without seeing it.

Thinking this, I turned my head back toward Sonia.

But looking closely, what appeared on Sonia’s face wasn’t tension.

Rather, it was a stern expression as if she was about to scold someone saying ‘You little…!’

Realizing I had misunderstood something, I stared at the sea again.

The kraken’s legs were still standing upright in that spot, but moving very slowly.

Swaying left and right above the waves, it almost looked like it was greeting…

Then Sonia let out a deep sigh.

Before I knew it, the crew members were also sighing as if deflated.

Sonia, who waved her hand dismissively at the crew telling them to disperse, approached the railing without hesitation.

The kraken, which had come close, attached its sucker to the ship and lifted its leg over the railing, swaying it gently.

Sonia, leaning against the railing, smacked the tentacle.

‘I told you not to appear from below pretending to be a monster.’

The wet ‘smack’ sound was too crisp.

‘What, they’re acting quite friendly?’

I had thought there was a possibility the kraken once interacted with humans, but they seemed much closer than I had imagined.

The human the kraken was looking for was probably this woman, Sonia, the captain of the pirate ship.

Sonia, not scared in the least, stroked the side without suckers and leaned her body over the railing.

Then the kraken, as if happy, lightly tapped Sonia’s hat with the tip of its leg.

What amazing strength control.

‘Hey, what’s with the human discrimination?’

This creature that controlled its strength so well had seriously attacked Kim Seol and me?

Feeling oddly hurt, I glared at the kraken that couldn’t even see me, when Sonia opened her mouth.

‘So, did you go all the way south? Were there many fishing boats? How were they, were the ships bigger than ours?’

When the kraken waved its legs in movements whose meaning was unclear, Sonia nodded as if understanding something.

…This woman looked brave and cool.

‘She was tricking the innocent kraken into piracy?!’

Since the kraken had no facial expressions, I couldn’t tell how it felt, but seeing those massive legs swaying gently, it didn’t seem displeased.

Rather, the way it kept tapping her hat as if asking for more stories made it seem like it thought this kind of relationship was natural.

‘Or maybe it doesn’t know it’s being used.’

Anyway, to me it just looked like tentacle dancing, but it was amazing to see that communication seemed possible.

Of course, Sonia was only asking very simple questions that could be answered with yes or no.

Then Sonia took off her hat as if it was routine.

Sonia, who bent down and even took off her leather boots, looked at the crew and said casually.

‘I’ll go play with it for a bit.’

Then she climbed onto the railing without hesitation.

She acted so nonchalantly that I didn’t realize it was strange, but the next moment Sonia jumped into the sea without hesitation.

“Are you crazy!?”

However, the crew members, as if accustomed to it, just organized her boots and hat to one side, and no one looked over the railing.

The only one shocked here was me, who couldn’t swim at all and wouldn’t even be accepted into the dolphin class at children’s swimming school!

I frantically leaned over the railing and looked out at the sea.

But at that moment.

“What the heck!”

I fell out of that memory and returned to the dark deep sea.

The pirate crew’s flag that had shone with red majesty had changed to a dully faded appearance.

“Hey, give me more!”

I didn’t see everything!

All I saw was that the kraken had a win-win relationship with Sonia, the pirate ship captain!

Expecting me to solve all the mysteries with just this one thing is ridiculous!

I grabbed the flag without hesitation and cast my skill.

And as a sharp headache suddenly stabbed at my temples, I frowned.

‘This time it’s night?’

I was back on the peaceful pirate ship’s deck under the moonlit, quiet sea.

This time, the kraken wasn’t visible anywhere on the water’s surface.

Of course, this wasn’t reading the kraken’s memory but the memory of this fake Merry.

I hadn’t expected it to show me a continuation of that previous memory, but I still felt somehow dissatisfied.

‘If you’re going to show me, at least show me a long one at once.’

This feels like they didn’t even fill up a tasting spoon properly.

I swallowed my complaints and turned my head this way and that.

Unlike before, the deck wasn’t bustling, and the crew members were standing still here and there, blankly staring at the moon.

Sonia was also sitting on the stairs, gazing endlessly at the moon.

At first, I had the ridiculous thought that they were admiring the moon’s beauty.

‘It’s not even a full moon but a crescent moon, what are they looking at to be so amazed?’

Most of all, the crew members’ movements were strange.

They were all standing there in a daze, blankly – could all the crew members on deck really stop at once like this?

As if they were all collectively enchanted by something.

At that moment, I heard a strange singing voice tickling my ears.

“…Sirens?”

On the deck where only I remained sane.

I turned my head to look around the surrounding sea.

On the high reef rising in the direction of the bow, sirens with beautiful faces were sitting.

Ancestors of mermaids, beings that lure sailors with beautiful songs to make them jump into the sea.

I immediately understood why the sailors were in a daze.

That was the moment.

Crash-

With a thunderous roar that shook the quiet sea, the ship began to tilt to one side.

I was fine since I was outside the physical laws of this time period, but the sailors who had lost their minds and were standing blankly weren’t so fortunate.

The unfocused sailors fell and rolled on the deck that tilted in an instant.

Several sailors fell into the sea without any resistance.

Sonia, who had been proudly raising her cutlass, was one of them.

“This ship sank because of the sirens.”

They were supposedly sea people, so if they had been in their right minds, they would have found a way to survive even after crashing into that huge reef.

However, even in this chaos, the sirens’ songs that echoed through the night continued without cease.

This meant that even the sailors who managed to stay on board without falling into the sea never came to their senses.

The Nemomeri, which had been a proper sailing ship, began to sink into the sea at a very slow pace.

Until the flag that had been flying high disappeared below the surface, no struggle for life could be felt anywhere.

For the final moments of the cheerful pirate crew I had read about in the memories, it was far too quiet and futile.

The sirens whispered among themselves and giggled, then jumped into the sea as if their game was over.

‘No, I want to take back feeling sorry for Atari.’

Give me back the emotions I felt when I saw the magic harp.

Wait, but Iona died from being hit by a harpoon?

So did humans come to subjugate the sirens because of this incident?

‘But what does that have to do with the kraken?’

The kraken probably discovered the shipwreck at the bottom of the sea much later and realized it could no longer meet Sonia.

If the kraken turned evil because Sonia’s pirate crew was wiped out, shouldn’t it hate the sirens instead?

Looking at the circumstances, it doesn’t seem like it just became a ferociously violent monster due to the Tower of Babel’s influence…

My head became complicated.

In the blink of an eye, I was back at Laoko’s shipwreck.

‘Something feels really unsettling.’

The puzzle pieces are fitting together one by one, but it feels like only the edges are filled while the center is completely empty.

This isn’t enough.

Even if I read more memories from this shipwreck, I won’t be able to read the memories that follow.

What I’m curious about is what the kraken experienced after this incident.

Then, isn’t there a way to directly read the kraken’s memories?

* * *

Just in case, I placed my hand on the kraken’s leg and tried appraising it, but nothing came to mind.

It was natural.

The kraken isn’t an object but a living creature after all.

[⁕ Your current Item Appraisal skill cannot appraise living creatures :)]

Thanks for the confirmation kill, birdie.

‘So it’ll be possible later?’

Are you setting the stage for me to level up my skill, or what?

I sighed while removing the seaweed stuck to Kim Seol’s sleeping face.

I don’t know what happened while I was briefly away, but Kim Seol’s pale face had bundles of seaweed stems attached to it.

Looking at it, the current situation is really absurd.

A plank that can barely float with Kim Seol lying on it alone, and me floating while holding onto it.

‘Isn’t this really Titanic?’

Setting aside the idle thoughts that anyone would scold me for having, I turned my head toward the kraken.

Anyway, since I had seen the pirate ship’s memories, I needed to confirm with the kraken.

“Do you remember Sonia?”

When I casually asked, the kraken gently swayed its legs.

I still don’t understand the kraken’s hand signals, but anyone could tell this meant yes.

“I saw that the pirate ship sank because of the sirens. What happened after that?”

The kraken’s legs moved earnestly as if answering my question.

‘What are you saying?’

But it’s all for nothing since I can’t understand.

I wonder what I’d see if I went to the kraken’s nest.

Or maybe I should go to Sminyak, the mermaids’ territory, and try appraising the colosseum there?

Should I ask the kraken to show me the oldest reef or plants in the sea?

I randomly thought of various methods, but none of them really caught my interest.

Even though I’m the type of person who lives by improvisation and cramming, I do have something called intuition.

None of the ideas that came to mind seemed like plausible solutions.

“This is really frustrating.”

I muttered quietly and rested my face on the plank.

“Oop-!”

The plank suddenly tilted as if it would flip over, so I hurriedly lifted my chin in surprise.

A strange shock enveloped me.

‘Is my face… this heavy?’

Would it flip over this much just from resting my face on it?

If the loyal monster kraken that had been protecting my side hadn’t grabbed the other side of the plank, Kim Seol might have sunk to the seabed and left us forever.

I aged ten years.

I placed my hand on the smooth surface of the kraken’s leg and muttered.

“Thanks, buddy.”

It doesn’t make as satisfying a sound as with Sonia, but this texture is quite satisfying.

Then I thought of a very strange solution.

It might sound a bit odd.

‘But this feels like the right answer.’

I casually turned my head toward the kraken.

“By any chance.”

What I was looking at was the tip of a plump crimson tentacle.

With a very careful attitude and a benevolent smile that said ‘I absolutely don’t mean this with bad intentions,’ I asked.

“Do your legs grow back if they’re cut off?”

A severed leg would be hard to consider a living creature, right?

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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