Chapter 0001 The Captain’s Journal
The 3rd of July, the 9th year since I arrived in this world. Clear.
“The mumbled whispers in my ears have come back again lately. It’s not even a proper ‘sound’—muddled and grim. This godforsaken place was never meant for humans.
Old John, my first mate, told me I could try his trick: go find those sweet-smelling women at the Red Lips Inn.
I’ll admit the thought crossed my mind, but I held back in the end. I can’t waste the Echo Coins I’ve slaved for on a place like that. To get home, I can’t let my guard down for a single second.
Humans are creatures of the surface. If we’ve ended up in this underground sea, that proves there must be a way back up. I will find it!
I dreamt of my family again last night. I miss them, but their faces are slipping away—I can barely remember what they look like anymore…”
A sudden lurch of the Horizon Chaser cut Finn Callahan Reed’s writing short.
An old oil lamp beside the journal cast light on its owner’s face. With black pupils and black hair, he had a perfectly ordinary Asian features, but his complexion was pale almost to translucency—like a vampire from a movie.
By modern standards, Finn Callahan had a decent sort of good looks, but right now, his expression was heavy and exhausted, making him seem unusually haggard.
Finn listened intently to the sound of waves outside the window for a moment. When he confirmed there was nothing amiss, he picked up his pen and went on writing.
“I don’t need those ‘special service workers’—keeping a journal eases my auditory hallucinations just as well. Lately, I’ve been getting a full five hours of sleep every night. It’s been ages since I slept so soundly.
Of course, lessons from those journal-keeping predecessors taught me better. I 特意 write in a script only I can understand—Chinese characters.”
Screech～～ A shrill metallic scrape cut through the air from outside the window. It sounded like something was scratching endlessly at the ship’s hull with sharp claws.
Snap. The journal was shut. Finn Callahan, his brows knitted tight, walked toward the round porthole.
He leaned out, and what he saw outside was just as it had been eight years ago: a starless sky and an emerald-green sea merged into a curtain of darkness in the distance.
Darkness ruled over everything in the Sea of the Depths. Something monstrous seemed to be brewing within that darkness, and an eerie feeling lingered everywhere.
But here, there were no stars, no moon. Even if someone looked straight up with night-vision binoculars, all they would see was the rough, uneven rock of the earth’s crust above.
This was the Sea of the Depths—an ocean beneath the ground. Endless darkness was its constant refrain, and that darkness, of all things, was a sign that everything was “normal.”
Staring at this “normal” scene outside, Finn Callahan’s brows furrowed even deeper. Years of sailing experience told him something was off. He decided to go check it out.
Finn opened his nightstand. Inside, over a hundred glinting golden bullets rolled back and forth with the ship’s sway.
He drew the revolver at his waist, loaded it skillfully, then stepped toward the bridge.
“Captain? Why so early today? It’s not your shift yet,” someone said.
At the helm of the bridge stood a stocky old man with a scruffy beard. On the chair to his left, a boy of seventeen or eighteen lay half-asleep—his sailor’s uniform gave away his identity. Both had Eastern European features, and like Finn Callahan, their faces were utterly bloodless.
“First Mate, why’s the Horizon Chaser jolting so much? Is our course on track?” Finn Callahan asked John, who was at the helm.
As soon as he spoke, he walked over and kicked the leg of the boy’s chair, jolting him awake.
When the boy saw it was the captain, he quickly wiped the drool from his mouth and scrambled clumsily to his feet.
“Haha, must be something underwater catching a whiff of our flesh,” the old man said, stepping back to hand the helm over to the captain. “You know how it is—those disgusting things in the Sea of the Depths are more common than fish. Don’t worry, the Horizon Chaser’s an iron ship. They can’t break through it.”
Even after hearing the first mate’s report, Finn Callahan didn’t let his guard down.
In a place this bizarre, humans were no longer at the top of the food chain. The only thing you could rely on to survive was caution.
Finn pressed a button on the old, worn equipment. The forward searchlight blazed to life, and his eyes scanned back and forth across the pitch-black sea beyond the glass.
Between the bridge and the sea lay a deck piled high with cargo. The ship wasn’t large—just over thirty meters long in total.
“The route to the Coral Islands has been traveled so many times by all kinds of cargo ships. Those things would never come here to ask for trouble. This is abnormal,” Finn said, his hands wrapped around the helm—polished shiny from years of use—his brows locked in a frown.
Old John froze for a second. “Did we drift off course? Impossible—look, the beacon’s still there in the distance,” he said, pointing to a faint, blurry glimmer far away.
In this starless underground sea, the only things that could guide them were the compass and the glowing beacons placed along the routes. If you could see a beacon, it meant the path had been mapped and confirmed safe by exploration vessels.
Just then, as Finn stared at the sea, his pupils suddenly shrank to pinpricks. He swallowed hard. “Tha… That beacon—how long have you been watching it?”
“Must be a few minutes now. I’ve had my eyes glued to it the whole time,” John replied. His voice trailed off toward the end, and a flicker of fear crept onto his round face.
They’d been sailing for so long, yet they still hadn’t passed that beacon. Clearly, the beacon was moving at the same speed as the steamship. That thing was wrong!
Suddenly, Finn moved like a wound-up clockwork toy. He grabbed the helm and spun it wildly, cranking it all the way to port.
Metal screeched as the steamship beneath their feet began to turn. Luckily, small ships could turn quickly—the Horizon Chaser started to put distance between itself and the strange beacon.
Before Finn could even catch his breath, the boy beside him pointed at the glass behind them, his eyes wide as saucers, as if he’d seen a ghost.
“Ca… Captain! It’s closing in on us! So fast!! It’s gonna catch up!”
“Damn it!” Finn roared into the nearby communication pipe. “Chief Engineer! Crank the boilers to maximum! Something’s chasing us!!”
“Aye, Captain!” A hearty, honest voice came through the iron pipe.
Thick black smoke poured nonstop from the ship’s smokestack, and the steamship’s speed began to climb.
“It’s still coming!! It’s so fast! It’s gonna catch us! God—what kind of monster is that?!”
The boy’s voice rose several pitches with sheer terror. He trembled all over like a sieve, as if he was about to pass out.
“Dip! Close your eyes!!” Finn, his nerves stretched taut, kicked the boy in the calf, knocking him to the floor.
John, standing beside them, grabbed the boy’s head and pressed it firmly against the floor. His face flushed red as he shouted frantically, “Don’t look! Don’t listen! Don’t think!! The captain will get us out of here!”
As soon as the words left his mouth—Boom! A deafening crash shook the cabin violently. The two men on the floor tumbled into a heap. Finn Callahan clung tightly to the helm to keep from being thrown off his feet.
“Captain! It rammed us!”
Finn’s face turned ashen. His cheeks bulged slightly from gritting his teeth so hard.
He pressed his mouth to the pipe and screamed, “Chief Engineer!! Overload the boilers for thirty seconds!!”
“Captain! We can’t! This thing’s too old!! It’ll explode!”
