The Jelly Alien Will Save You! Chapter 74

…Did I agree to this for nothing?

 

“Dam-ah, should we just head back?”

 

Perhaps not having expected the pond to be like this either, Jaehee Oppa asked me.

 

Trembling all over, I shook my head side to side.

 

‘I’m a money fiend. I’m a money fiend….’

 

Having repeated it to myself over and over, I handed out the pale boiled eggs to everyone.

 

“How do we do this?”

 

Bora Unnie’s eyes sparkled with interest.

 

“You hook this egg onto the fishing hook, wait for the Golden Carps to eat it, and then catch them.”

 

In Planetmon, there was a bug where if a Golden Carp ate a boiled egg, a new Golden Carp would respawn in that exact spot.

 

We were aiming to exploit that.

 

That was when Unnie asked:

 

“Do we only catch the Golden Carps?”

 

“Huh?”

 

“Can’t we just catch all of them?”

 

Unnie asked in pure innocence.

 

I blinked dumbfoundedly, then lightly tapped my fist against my palm.

 

“Ah…!”

 

That’s it!

 

This wasn’t real fishing.

 

In other words, that meant we didn’t have to catch them one by one with a fishing rod.

 

Besides, we had someone here capable of roasting the fish whole with electricity all at once!

 

* * *

 

Dangle, dangle.

 

I swayed, suspended from an outstretched tree branch.

 

Bora Unnie and Jaehee Oppa were sitting in a tree on the opposite side, waiting for the signal.

 

I looked down below. Pure white fog was pooled beneath me.

 

Patter-patter-patter! 

 

Thud-patter-patter-patter! 

 

Patter-patter! Patter!

 

The sound of fish greedy for food gathering could be heard. 

 

Just from the footsteps alone, there seemed to be a tremendous number of them.

 

We had already scattered the boiled eggs below in advance.

 

Though hidden by the fog and invisible to sight, only the Golden Carps ate boiled eggs, so if the sound of something coming to eat was heard, it meant the Golden Carps had arrived.

 

Ugh, so creepy!

 

I desperately tried to think of something else.

 

“Cha Haeeon, remember? Back then, when I ate your carrot, you strung me up like this, didn’t you?”

 

Cha Haeeon, who had remained in the tree I was hanging from to serve as both guard and signaler, spoke as if feeling pity.

 

“I didn’t have any intention of killing you, though…” 

 

“I have no intention of dying right now either, you know?!”

 

Grrrrr! When I bared my teeth, Cha Haeeon let out a scoffing breath.

 

“The things I end up doing because of you.”

 

“I told you to call me Noona.”

 

“You have to act like a Noona for me to call you one.”

 

“Anyone older is a Noona, that’s just how it is. If you feel it’s unfair, you should’ve been born earlier.”

 

“….”

 

“And….”

 

“And?”

 

I glanced up at Cha Haeeon and said:

 

“…I want to hear someone call me Noona too.”

 

In my narrow circle of relationships, Cha Haeeon was the only person younger than me.

 

Naturally, you could say I came to look forward to hearing the word ‘Noona’ from him.

 

“….”

 

“Forget it if you don’t want to.”

 

It was then.

 

From below came the sound of voracious eating, chomp-chomp-chomp.

 

“Ugh!”

 

Are they here?

 

When I grimaced with all my might and looked at Cha Haeeon, he sent a hand signal.

 

Flash! 

 

Flash!

 

Simultaneously, Bora Unnie’s lightning began striking the fog.

 

Once, twice, three times… six times.

 

“Unnie, are a lot of coins coming in?”

 

When I shouted and asked, Bora Unnie made an O with both hands.

 

“Oh yeah—!”

 

When I giggled, Bora Unnie smiled along with me.

 

“I gathered 50,000 coins!”

 

“Oh!”

 

While clapping for Bora Unnie, I tilted my head.

 

Still, isn’t that less than expected? Could it be because I had grown so used to taking it easy and raking it in with the vending machine?

 

It was at that moment.

 

Patter-patter. Patter-patte-patter. The running sounds stopped all at once.

 

“…?”

 

Why are they doing that? Just as I was feeling bewildered. 

 

“…?!”

 

Question marks and exclamation marks popped over everyone’s heads at the same time.

 

Because the dense fog pooled below was forming the shape of a colossal hand.

 

“Huh?” 

 

It suddenly began to surge upward.

 

Before I could even utter a word.

 

With that as the last sight I saw, I was devoured by the colossal fog.

 

* * *

 

I was dragged off somewhere by the fog that flowed like a raging torrent.

 

I wanted to scream, but—

 

“~~~!”

 

I—I can’t breathe!

 

It was suffocating as if I had fallen into water. 

 

Covering my mouth with both hands, I kicked and paddled frantically as if swimming.

 

However…….

 

‘My strength is draining…!’

 

Unable to breathe, my strength gradually slipped away.

 

What was worse, the fog sweeping me away had turned into real water before I knew it.

 

Water rushed into my inadvertently parted mouth.

 

Gurgle!

 

The world spun before my eyes.

 

‘Am I going to die like this…?’

 

The strength drained from my body.

 

Facing death.

 

Being unable to breathe properly was something familiar too.

 

“….”

 

As a familiar helplessness welled up, my body began to sink.

 

Just as I was about to drop to the bottom, into that deep abyss.

 

“Dam-ah, not yet. Not just yet…. So please, just hold on a little longer. Dad is begging you. Don’t give up. Please….”

 

My eyes snapped open.

 

‘Dad.’

 

It was my dad’s voice, which I had heard whenever I wanted to let go of everything.

 

‘That’s right. Not yet.’ 

 

Chewing over Dad’s words, I lifted my head.

 

A faint stream of light was leaking in from above my head.

 

‘Light….’

 

I swam toward it with everything I had.

 

“Puh-ha!”

 

Barely breaking out of the water, I paddled frantically and scrambled onto dry land.

 

“Gasp! Haff! Cough-cough! Cough!” 

 

Violent coughs burst from me.

 

Only after catching my breath a long while later did I finally look up.

 

Moonlight was cascading down around me.

 

Fog still hung in patches, but it was not so thick that you couldn’t see an inch ahead like before.

 

At that moment, the sound of someone weeping was heard.

 

“Sob…… sob-sob……” 

 

I narrowed my eyes to see who was crying.

 

And then, I saw a half-collapsed pavilion.

 

One side of the roof had caved in, and the railings were broken in several places.

 

Amidst broken roof tile shards floating upon the pond, someone was crying atop the pavilion.

 

“Sob, sniff… ugh….”

 

I froze, panting for breath.

 

As I listened to the weeping, tears were streaming from my eyes before I knew it.

 

I wiped my damp face. The tears wouldn’t stop.

 

I was synchronizing with something’s sorrow.

 

Possessing such a power meant this was no ordinary mutant.

 

At that moment, the moon hovering right above the pond caught my eye. It was so low that it seemed within arm’s reach.

 

The moon tilted sideways as if looking straight at me. Simultaneously, the pond sloshed violently.

 

“…!”

 

My heart sank in an instant.

 

What hovered above the pond was not the moon.

 

It was the eye of a colossal carp.

 

That moon-like eye…….

 

‘It’s the Ten-Thousand-Year Carp……!’

 

The Ten-Thousand-Year Carp.

 

It was an exceptionally rare boss that was hard to come by even in the original game.

 

Though a spiritual beast, the lore stated it had touched secular food and was thus unable to ascend to heaven, wandering the pond ever since…….

 

‘It’s insanely huge….’ 

 

I continued to shed tears while staring at the carp, desperately fighting back the urge to walk into the pond.

 

The Ten-Thousand-Year Carp was a Siren-type boss (a sea nymph that lures sailors to their deaths with beautiful singing).

 

Just as one is sucked into the water bewitched by a Siren’s voice, if you enter the water synchronized with the Ten-Thousand-Year Carp’s sorrow, you die.

 

I stealthily stepped backward.

 

Since I vanished so abruptly, everyone must be looking for me. Wherever this place was, I had to go find them.

 

Just as I was about to turn around and run away at full speed, a thought struck me, and I tilted my head.

 

Wait.

 

Didn’t this boss drop items as rare as it was difficult to find?

 

Without realizing it, my feet stopped and my eyes darted about.

 

If only I had that, I could get my hands on vastly more money than catching a few Golden Carps.

 

It was then.

 

A fin like thin fabric enveloped me.

 

“…!”

 

It flew up flutteringly to the pavilion with me in its grasp.

 

Sitting upon the pavilion was a beautiful boy with silver eyes like the moon.

 

“I believed I had severed worldly desires by my own hand to ascend to the heavens, yet….”

 

The hand outstretched toward me was black.

 

Not just the hand, but past the elbow was stained pitch-black.

 

It was contaminated.

 

He had severed an uncontaminated part of his main body, which had turned into a Calamity, to craft the form of a boy, but even that seemed to be succumbing to contamination.

 

Tears trickled down the boy’s cheeks as he continued to speak.

 

“Only when faced with a single frog do I realize. Desire was not gone, but merely asleep.”

 

“…?”

 

What?

 

Just as I was wondering what kind of airy-fairy nonsense this was.

 

Ruuuuumble!

 

A deep, booming foghorn of a rumble resonated from the boy’s belly.

 

You mean seeing a frog just made you hungry?!