The non-salty lake sea. The fresh air. The shining sun! What a hag of a day...

So, I'm at the beach. Why? I wanna know...

Things started yesterday when Firis' group won a set of fishing gear, along with some other stuff. This made Firis wanting to try fishing, which Bearman gladly agreed to. Wait; fishing, and that all the liquor he has is honey-based... Bearman, you're closer to them than just the shape?

No matter, the problem's not that part. It's that one of Firis' classmates was the one who told her about a great fishing place they frequently visit, and they wanted to invite her to come along... a yup. You guessed it. The classmate's a male.

As anyone could guess, Bearman, leading a mob of the strongest workers of the farm, accompanied Firis on her fishing trip, all of them acting like the incarnation of wrath. I attached the fallen angel to their group in case Healing magic is needed, but I fear for the young boy's future.

Then, Ice-guy wanted to fish as well, but no way he's gonna get a bite with the troupe of wrathful ogres close by. Mira jumped on the offer to join and dragged me along with her. Whyyy...

Armed with the new prize rod, Ice-guy's old rod, and the one I bought in town before getting Waning-ed, we sat down on the rocky shore and started fishing. It's mostly just small fish, except when we got a tire. Why a tire?! 

Both Mira and Ice-guy stopped in their tracks when they saw the tire (that I got!!), but they kick-started again after they noticed something. Ice-guy got a bite. A biiiiig one. The rod's starting to look >-shaped.

"Hey, stop that! Don't break my new rod!" shouted Ice-guy to today's big catch. Mira threw away her fishing rod and grabbed her greatsword that was laying on the rocks nearby instead, ready to face whatever Ice-guy's got. I gave Ice-guy some [Thread Control]-support to pull his fishing rod. And heave, and a ho!

*SPLASH!*

Big!? A big, dark-brown fish, around the size of a moped, flew into the air. It looks more armored than shelly... uh-oh. Either I'm seeing things, or that thing glowed in a way that suspiciously looks like an attack skill... retreat!!

*Stab!*

Before we could do anything, Mira had thrown her greatsword at the armored fish, killing it in one blow. The fish fell bleeding into the sea. No way it survived that. Still...

"What was this?" - Garami

"...Damn, it's a Breaker Trout. From what I've heard, they used to be a rare pain in the ass for the fishers before the drought, Seems like they've returned to the lake along with the non-monstrous fishes." - Alf

And that's bad because of-*Splash*-... ah. Because the smell or something from one attracts more of them. 

A group of who-knows-how-many of those armor fishes was swimming towards us, all already glowing in the same light as the first one did.

"Garami, you're weakened, so stay... good job!" - Alf

Sure, sure.

What? Is it wrong to be the first taking cover when a bunch of overgrown piranhas comes charging? I've got Waning, so there's no way I'm gonna fight those! I'll leach of the EXP till I recover.

Ice-guy retrieved the halberd from his Item Bag and emitted frozen air from the weapon. Whoa, when did he learn to do that? I'm getting the chills just looking a-a-ATCHOO! *Sniff*, like that.

"First come, first served! What's the color of your bounty!" shouted Mira while storming towards the trouts... didn't you throw away that greatsword just now? Why's it back in your hands?

Mira ran to the edge of the shore and jumped... why're you jumping into the water!? That's the fishes' home turf!

My worries were unneeded. The moment Mira's feet met the water surface, she had teleported to another area. Is she using [Blink] to facilitate some water-running technique? Damn, that's useful. Wonder if I can copy that.

The armor fishes didn't seem to enjoy Mira's Light-based acrobatics as they swarmed at her. Their complaints were met with the sharp edge of the greatsword. Mira jumps over the charging fishes while in mid-[Blink] and cuts their unguarded backs with a single stroke. From how the sword shined, that must have been that "Grand Slash" Sword Art that Mira once showed me.

...It's impressive, it is seriously an impressive feat and all, but how? I can't do such precise maneuvers when using [Blink], nor canceling it either. I've tried, and it didn't end pretty. My nose still hurts when I remember that time...

And now she did something even more mysterious! After cutting down the nth armor fish, she suddenly held TWO greatswords in a dual-sword style! Where did the second one come from...

She threw it?! The second sword struck an approaching armor fish straight to the brains. Then Mira turned around and threw her third sword... wait a minute! Another one!? 

I calmed myself and took a better look and saw that Mira's left arm was covered in a silver-white light. So that's the trick. Her Extra Skill. 

Mira's creating copies of her greatsword made of silver-white light and uses them as disposable weapons. Why didn't I notice the color difference before now? It's better than having to spend cash on getting new ones, gotta give her points for that.

Points? More like a reward! Good going, Mira! Still, not enough to get rid of Waning. The pain in my body's completely gone, but my stats and skills are still outta shape. It's progress though. 

Whether Mira noticed or not, she continued to gut the armor fishes while they're still alive. She sometimes even kicks them up to the shore with some sort of light-exploding kick? Look, I'm not sure either, but that's the only way to describe it. Is she planning on selling those armor fishes? They don't look too delicious, so will they sell?

Maybe I should recommend [Shooting] to her? That, plus her mass-produced swords, will give her a style similar to a certain red archer, creating swords to use as projectiles... let's do that. For real.

After showing, and throwing, off her copy-swords for a little while, Mira retreated to the shore. Out of MP, huh. One of the armor fishes tried to catch her, but she kicked it back into the water with that explosion-kick move of hers again. Seriously, that's not a Mana Burst-only move, right!? I-I need to be more serious about my attribute-moves...

With Mira safe on the shore and recover with an MP Potion, the armor fishes that had ganged up on her turned to join the other half that's attacking Ice-guy. Wonder how he's holding up... the heck?!

The water around Ice-guy had turned into an arctic ocean. No jokes! There are tons of miniature glaciers in the water, dropping the temperature by a visible degree. Rather, fishes are capable of shivering? The armor fishes are doing so, anyway.

Ice-guy has frozen himself on a platform of ice on the water, facing any armored fishes that charged at him. Like now! One of them jumped outta the water and headed towards Ice-guy like a missile-

*CRASH!*

...Like a missile that crashed into a wall of ice. Ice-guy must have used several uses of [Ice Wall] to make it solid enough to withstand that missile attack.

Ice-guy kept on defending himself from the armor fishes attacks, never initiating one himself except for a counter here and there. He used the walls of ice to stop the fish, slammed them with the hammer-part of the halberd, or simply guarded against their attacks, unfazed by their destructive power.

Ice-guy, you've been upgraded to Fortress-guy! This is a prime example of "a strong offense is a strong defense". Rather, are you going to be alright? That's some heavy blows you're taking. What's his HP?

He's...  holding out better than I thought. I know I'm the one who had him train his Ice-skills daily, but still... Wait, isn't his HP recovering? It's at 194 right now... 

Did he acquire something like Auto-Recovery? But there's no such skill... the only unknown is this guy, so by process of elimination...

Ok, that's a cheat in Ice-guy's hands. The water's chilled down due to his move, right? So, the reduced HP of the armor fishes are coming back as HP for Ice-guy? Someone! Call the GM! We've got a bug here! Get the nerf going!

Jokes that I don't wanna come true aside, Ice-guy found the skill of his dreams here. He's almost always taking a tank position, so this move's gonna help him big time. Even his skills are growing with "tank" in mind here... why're all his defensive skills grown so much anyway?

"I'm going in again!" - Mira

"Please do. These are starting to turn troublesome." - Alf

And there she goes again~. At this rate, the armor fishes are going to be exterminated without problems. Along with the odds of getting any bites afterward. Sorry, Ice-guy. No more fishing... hmm?

As I walked away to stay clear of any stray shots, I noticed something strange happening with the water current. There is a current here!

Wasn't this place supposed to be a lake? Like, still water? Some rivers start from this place, but not something that generates such a powerful fl-*Crack!*-ow?

*SPLASH!*

---

I got caught off-guard by a huge, and I mean HUGE, chunk of the rocky shore suddenly breaking off, plunging me straight into the lake.

Good thing I'm already experienced with how to survive a water current already, thanks to my improvised escape plan on the third floor of the Water-Knot Dungeon. Breaking the current with some well-placed Storage entrances, then dragging me up to the shore with some threads.

It's good that I survived, but where am I now? The current flushed me away from Mira and Ice-guy. And to add insult to the injury, [Auto-Mapping]'s not working due to Waning.

I dried my clothes with a Magitech I bought in town before I traveled to the island and took a look at my surroundings. I'm at a small shore just in front of a massive rock wall. I cross-referenced the info with what I had learned when I looked at the map of the island, concluding that I'm currently at the island's northeast coast. The harbor and the ranch are located at the southern part of the island, and since the place we were fishing was located at the eastern shores...

Damn, I was washed away for quite a while. How to get back...

As I was thinking whenever to climb the rock wall or simply wait for help, I noticed an opening in the wall. A rather large one, but it was hidden from view by the position of the rocks so you'll only notice it when you're so close you can touch the wall.

The secret passage is built like a channel that boats can travel, with paths for those on foot at the side. It's not that wide, only big enough to let something like a rowboat pass through. 

With nothing else to do, I decided to take a little adventure while waiting for the rest to notice my disappearance. 

There's also something that's caught my attention regarding this place: it's too well-made. There are no human-made constructs or anything here, but the path is too cleanly built. Like someone intentionally dug their way through the mountain wall. 

I walked as silently as I could without using my stealth skills, and soon reached the end of the path. What should I call it; a storage facility?

There are tons of empty crates littering around here and cranes that are supposed to help to move the crates onto boats. I can see some office-like doors by the walls, strengthening the idea of this place being a facility of some sort. If you ignore that the crates are stabled so they're making walls. If not, then this place's a labyrinth.

Not to mention that this place feels big enough to contain Bearman's ranch. The whole thing. Even the areas where the sheep grasses! 

However, the place's completely deserted. Cobwebs are covering the whole place, and dusty enough to cause allergies for almost anyone. I needed to cover my face with one of my handmade scarfs to go further into the building. 

As I walked in I couldn't see any signs of people living here, except for a few crawling, thread-spinning colleagues of mine. Isn't there anything interesting here~?

I started to look into the crates outta boredom and ended up getting lucky with one of them. A bottle filled with some sort of grey liquid... did I say I was lucky? Forget that part. What is this junk anyway?

Screw junk, this is better to be called hazardous waste!!

I thought of sending this to Armveil for destruction, but this stuff can be considered almost as dangerous as the Hydra poison I gave them. Rather, since this one doesn't affect the surroundings, won't it be worse than the poison? This thing is of low quality, enough to be considered trash, but if you screw the fate of the "test-subject", then why care?

...? Grey sludge, test-subjects... doesn't that sound similar to the case of the boss-spider's sudden appearance?

Then this place's connected to the Avalar group?

No, they started appearing three years ago. This place looks like it's deserted at least a few more years before that again, not to mention that it's probably been used a long time before that as well. How else could this place grow to such degrees? Just gathering all this equipment would take more than a few months.

After a small, mental debate, I decided to place the bottle back into the crate. The best thing would be to seal this whole cave and forget it ever existed. The entrance is hidden quite well already, enough for me being the only visitor in who knows how many years.

I left the crate with the dangerous potion and checked out the contains of the other crates.

...just my luck. Every tenth crate contained at least one bottle of gray goop. None who exceeds quality E, but just their existence is a pain.

I stopped searching the crates by hand and started to rely on [Magic Sight] to find anything interesting. Ignoring the grey, wiggling sources of magic, I looked after something more... useful and not so risk-filled. 

...Isn't it too much of that muck? If what I'm seeing is right, you could fill an Olympic pool with all of this.

Yeah, no way someone like me's gonna understand what's happened here with just this. Aren't there some documents or something here? There's gotta be something here... but if it's deserted, then they've probably taken all that with them when they left...

Let's not give up hope. Time for an office raid! Part 2!!

---

After a quick search through the offices of the place, I found... nothing. Seriously nothing. Not even an office!

Turns out this place is closer to a research facility than a storage one. The doors led to various labs that seem to be focused on chemistry. I've got no clue what stuff like this does, so research papers would be useless to me. Not that they're what I'm after.

I kept on searching through all the rooms in the faint hope of finding something, and that I would understand it, but things seem dark...

As I entered the nth laboratory, something caught my eye. Behind one of the desks is something emitting a form of weak aether force.

Move... already...! I-I hate reduced stats!! Wait, couldn't I just use the threads with everything I do lately?

A-anyway, I got the mystery item. A... book? A diary, from the looks of it. There's some kinda pressed flower bookmark that still got some mana in it. That's what [Magic Sight] locked on to.

I sat down and started to read through its contents... or not. The dust is starting to irritate me. I'm not the biggest clean freak in town, but even I have my limits. Let's go and read the diary outside.

As I walked out of the lab, I started to hear some noises from the entrance. I hurried back in haste, making sure not to make any noise.

Urgh. Just as I feared. A group of six is entering the secret cave from the entrance. They've all got boats with them, which is the reason why they've yet to enter the crate labyrinth. There are still a few that haven't disembarked, so there's still time for me to think of a plan.

I mean, it's not like people wearing clothes with the Avido group's mark are gonna have any good relationship with me. I've seen that mark attached to the stolen goods I've supposedly taken when I busted one of their HQs with the firewoman.

......Alright, that's enough. There have been too many unusual occurrences happening to me today. 

Getting an armored fish on the hook? Strange, but not too farfetched to happen.

A water current that's suddenly and visibly appearing in a lake? Weird, but this region's weird from the start.

The ground you're standing on suddenly breaking apart and falling into the lake, despite not being at the edge or anything? That's messed up alright. Don't come and tell me that was a natural occurrence.

Finding a secret area where I ended up after getting flushed away? Not that strange. It's not worse than finding a castle filled with Dread Spirits or a boss-spider in some sewers.

But for that secret area containing tons of bottles with much made from some Disaster? Ding-ding-ding! The strange-o-meter's going crazy!

And the final straw is these obvious strange guys arriving just when I decided to leave.

Someone, or something, is trying to mess with me. And I have a good hunch who is doing it...

But even if there is a puppet master here, what am I gonna do? Sneaking around those guys seems like the optimal idea, but leaving all this muck in the hands of who-knows-who...

Doesn't seem like they've noticed I'm already here. I didn't make much mess at the entrance, and I've been using [Lightwalk] to prevent making any footprints in the dust. Glad that one never improve's Assassin's level.

What's my current stats? The pain from Waning's as good as gone, so there are no problems there. My stats... hey. I've leveled up again. Mira and Ice-guy must have worked hard. Still not recovered from Waning. Damn...

I've recovered around 15% of the lost status value. No skills have recovered. My class levels are 6 for Assassin, 17 for Spectermancer. I've got some time before they'll give me more skills. This means I can use my stealth skills at least for a limited time without any worries.

And those guys don't look that impressive... except for one. Can't that guy be classified as my nemesis?

Still, hmm... I can't see myself losing! Let's prepare to welcome those guys. Ku-ku-ku-ku...