“Surely...you don’t assume that of everyone you meet.”
Well...apart from Kanade and Tsumugi, I usually keep the possibility in the back of my head. The only people I’m pretty certain aren’t like that are Shouko and Yamikage.
Rather, I just wanted to have fun playing games with everyone. It wasn’t like I was looking for a relationship.
“That look speaks volumes. Island lord, just because you ended up like that, that doesn’t mean that everyone is like you.”
“I’m like this because of my sisters... I actually planned on playing a burly, hard-boiled fisherman.”
“Even so, assuming we are all basement-dwelling middle-aged men is hardly fair.”
“It’s not impossible for everyone here to be one...”
It was actually more realistic than not. Sure, I wasn’t a basement-dwelling middle-aged man, but I had no way of proving that to them.
“What kind of hellish picture is that...?” Emoji groaned.
Sure enough. It was laughable from a third-party perspective, but hell for those living it. Hmm, what an interesting development.
I laughed a bit to myself, causing my hand to slip and let the Fever Lure tumble into the post-harvest rice paddy field’s drainage channel.
“How should I put this... It’s been bothering me for a while, Kizzy, but the way you quietly fish while dishing out farming advice, and even this whole training camp... You’re like some wise old mountain hermit.”
“Indeed... The man behind your avatar is quite a withered one. I’ve not seen your type before.”
“And you too, Lahal. Once you start making a fuss, you start to look like a basement-dwelling middle-aged man yourself. How is it really?”
“I-I cannot speak about my real life. But I am neither basement-dwelling nor a middle-aged man.”
Sounds complicated. She has it rough.
Just as I flicked up the rod to get my lure back—thunk! I felt the strongest tug yet.
“Oh!”
I jerked the rod up and watched it bend like crazy. There’s no doubt about it! It’s a lord! So you’re telling me it didn’t matter how many times I cast into the Crystal Lake; if I didn’t find its hiding spot, it was pointless!
Who would’ve guessed it’d be lurking in the paddy field!
The water turned white as the lord thrashed around wildly.
“What?”
“I got a big one on the line—it’s got to be a lord. I was wondering why I couldn’t get a bite with Fever Lure II, but now I know! It was hiding out here!”
“Hmm... Do you think you can catch it?”
“We’ll have to see.”
“Lahal! Don’t underestimate Kizzy’s lord fishing! The members of his fan club would kill to see it!” Therese started making a ruckus.
I might lose it if I pay her too much attention. Let’s just ignore her.
The reel let off a grating, grinding sound as I wound it, swinging my rod to counter each and every one of the supposed lord’s twisty, turning motions. I should’ve expected it from a creature that spent its life swimming through mud, but the strength of its pull was startling.
What kind of lord would choose to lurk in a place like this? The thought began to nag at me.
As with the lords before it, I could feel it attacking the hook and the line, and the feedback I got gave me the impression of it being strange and slimy. But it had chosen the wrong foe to mess with.
My equipment wasn’t to be underestimated.
You’re dealing with the Munagi Bone Rod slotted into the Gear of the Great Blue Sea! That, on top of Cal Mira Fishing Line!
Judging by the power alone, I could tell it was on par with the Coelacanth Latimeria of Cal Mira island.
Then there’s absolutely no way I’m gonna lose!
I kicked the Motorized Reel into gear and activated my Electric Shock as I pulled up.
With a great, squelching splash, it leaped from the mud and finally showed the first glimpse of its true form, but its body was so caked in the sticky muck that I struggled to tell what it was.
“What is that?” asked Emoji.
“It looks like the meat would reek of mud,” Therese noted.
Emoji cocked her head. “Will it trigger a boss battle when you land it?”
“A battle? We haven’t had to do that since the kappa. But...I don’t think this one’s like that.”
This thing just keeps thrashing! C’mon! Settle down already!
It wasn’t bad enough that we had to start attacking it directly, but it was one rowdy catch.
“A kappa, you say... Where did you hook one of those? I’ve only heard rumors about kappa gear.”
“Oh, right, I had forgotten about that. Just when we’d gotten a hint about it, we’d called you and found out that you’d fished one already.”
Aight! Time to end this!
“Fish on!”
Squelching, more squelching and...finally, I hauled it out of the mud. The lord revealed itself as a lungfish, or rather, Protopterus Aethiopicus.
It was definitely a lord, around two and a half meters from head to tail. Compared to the other lungfish, which barely reached half a meter, this one was downright monstrous. Rather, it had to be a completely different species.
“As per usual, it’s way bigger than the shadow it was casting!”
“At that size, it’s hardly any different from a monster.”
“Aight! I finally fished it!”
With that, I could check off one of my main objectives.
But to think it was hiding in the paddy field all this time.
Still...it may be a lungfish, but that doesn’t mean it can only survive in mud...
“Having it be restricted to the mud... I’m starting to question the game design here, but...maybe it has to do with the Prado Desert being geared toward agriculture?”
I had no way of knowing for sure, but maybe dangling my line into the fields and paddies could result in other unexpected catches too. There was no law saying you couldn’t fish in paddies—they were bodies of water, after all.
Regardless, the reason it took so long to find the lord of the Crystal Lake was because he’d been hiding from me.
“Lungfish...they’re the ones that go into estivation, right?” said Therese. “It’s like hibernation, but for summer, so they can survive through the dry season.”
“You think they were trying to reproduce that? But the Crystal Lake’s temperature is set to spring...”
“Now that I’m taking a good look at him, he’s got a lovable face. Like that gross-cute sort of thing,” Therese squeed, pointing at the lord’s face. But honestly, at that size, it looked more ominous than anything else.
“That was quite the fight.”
“Hmm... It was about the same as the coelacanth on Cal Mira.”
To be honest, it wasn’t that strong. My gear was so powerful that the line was never at any risk of snapping, and I’d pretty much brute-forced it.
The lacking strength of the dungeon’s monsters had once driven Emoji’s comrades to despair, and the lord was the same. It was only maybe a hair stronger than the fish I knew.
Being stuck in a place like this, unable to venture off into any new hunting grounds, was harsh. I could understand it a bit—there were plenty of fish yet to be seen, and I wanted to catch them all.
“No key on this one, I guess.”
“You said that the other one had the key to enter Brave Pekkle’s chamber, aye?”
“And you found yours digging through the ground.”