*SPLASH* *SPLASH* *SPLASH*

  “F-Finally…” Ginn rested the hollowed-out tree branch he was using as a paddle on the raft and took a moment to catch his breath. He severely underestimated the distance toward the STAAL isnds and spent the st eight hours paddling like a madman.

  Halfway through, he began to doubt whether he was even rowing in the right direction, but his determination paid off. He could now see a rge isnd with what appeared to be houses on his right.

  “On the bright side, at least nothing dragged me under…” The raft Ginn was sitting on was missing two logs and had some chunks taken out of the remaining ones, but he managed to scare away all the curious sea scorpions that tried to attack his boat with minimum effort.

  *THUD*

  Ginn turned around from the sudden dull sound behind him. He saw a slimy tentacle wrapped around one of the logs. It was bright yellow with blue spots.

  “Fuck… Jinxed it…”

  Just when Ginn thought his hellish journey was finally over, his raft was ripped to pieces by the muscur tentacles of a blue-spotted giant kraken, and this adult looked hungry.

  ~ CHAPTER 6: SEA BEASTS AND THEIR WEAKNESSES ~

  The blue-spotted giant Kraken is a trivial beast, only ever at the top of the food chain in calm and shallow seas.

  The weaknesses of a blue-spotted giant Kraken aren’t worth mentioning since even a novice knight of the Sky Kingdom can easily kill one. But for the sake of completeness, I guess attacking the eye would be the most efficient way to kill one.

  The second wife of my lord did have a particur fondness for rolled-up and fried tentacles belonging to this particur squid, so calling this creature useless would not be entirely truthful.

  ~~~

  Ginn treaded water for only a few seconds before he felt a tentacle wrap around his leg, threatening to pull him under.

  He quickly erected a bone sword from his palm and sliced at the tentacle, but the water made it difficult to apply much power to his strike. Fortunately, it seemed to injure the octopus enough for it to release its grip, though not before taking a couple of pieces of skin with it using the cws hidden inside its suckers.

  Ginn dove his head underwater to visualize the threat.

  The Kraken was absolutely massive, its eye alone was rger than Ginn’s entire body.

  But that eye did make for an alluring target…

  ‘There’s no way I can get past its tentacles… even if that monster drags me to its beak, my bone sword won’t reach it.’ Ginn’s mind raced a hundred miles an hour, devising pns to escape this situation alive. He didn’t need to kill the creature, just hurt it enough so that it would back off.

  But the Kraken wasn’t pnning on giving Ginn any more time to think. It shot out its rgest tentacle and wrapped it around the human’s waist.

  Ginn was dragged underwater and rapidly approaching the open maw of the beast. Knowing the bde sticking out of his palm would be too short, he retracted it back into his arm and focused on his shin. He then chambered his leg against his torso before kicking out with all his might, aiming at the eye of the Kraken.

  His leg fell short of reaching the beast’s eye, but luckily, the rge rapier-like bone sticking out of his foot didn’t. It penetrated the rge organ, making white liquid squirt out and clouding the waters around them.

  The kraken screeched and started filing around, but this only worsened its wound as Ginn’s bone rapier was still firmly nestled in its eyeball. Realizing the human he considered a snack was causing him all this pain, he threw the man back to where he found him, far away from his delicate body.

  Ginn broke the water's surface and could finally breathe again. He held on to a rge piece of wood drifting beside him and started paddling toward the isnd before him.

  He didn’t have the luxury of catching his breath. Now that his raft was gone, he wouldn’t have a heads-up before being dragged below the water.

  So Ginn paddled as if his life depended on it (which it might very well have). And after 15 minutes of frantic kicking, he finally reached shore.

  “L-Land… I… I made it…” Those were the only words Ginn could get past his lips before resting his head on the soft white sand. Exhaustion took him as he slowly closed his eyes.

  …

  “God, what… idiot… I swear… right after I bought that zeppelin too.” Ginn started picking up words as he slowly faded back into consciousness.

  What worried him however, was that this voice sounded awfully familiar…

  “Oh, is my little Ginn finally awake? Sure took you long enough!”

  ‘Awful indeed’ Ginn thought to himself as he recognized the voice that was talking to him, a voice he hadn’t heard in over a year.

  As light began filtering in, he was greeted by a most pleasant sight for the eyes, especially for a man who had lived thirteen months on a deserted isnd.

  A long-legged beauty in stockings wearing a nurse's costume. Her purple eyes fixed on the shirtless Ginn, as her flowing onyx-colored hair rested on her sizable bust. As Ginn’s eyes lingered on her assets, they suddenly came closer as he was caught in a tight hug.

  “M-Mary what are yo-“

  “I thought your corpse had washed up you asshole! So much blood…”

  A silence filled the air as Mary’s hug continued for several more minutes. Ginn started feeling bad for worrying her this much.

  When she finally pulled back, she straightened her top and coughed. *AHEM* “Ah yes, you owe me the money for a zeppelin you know? If you had just returned a few days earlier, I wouldn’t have had to buy one!”

  “What are you even talking abou-“ Ginn didn’t finish his sentence as the wound on his side suddenly started bleeding again. “Aaahh fuck!”

  “Stop moving, we’ll talk about this ter.” Mary pushed Ginn back down onto the operating table and poked a sharp needle into her own finger.

  She then proceeded to pull out a thin, golden thread from the wound, which she tied to the back of a different needle. “First things first, let’s get you stitched up.”

  *GULP* Ginn swallowed as he started remembering all the times she would ‘fix him up’ after one of his fights at the bar, and how she would refuse to give him any painkillers.

  The once beautiful face of Mary twisted into a perverted smile, her cheeks flushed: “Ahh, it’s been too long…”