Chapter 105: Cruise Ship (3)

In the end, she still couldn’t stop them…

Watching George and the others disappear at the bottom of the gangway, Everly let out a long sigh. She moved with Misha to a spot with a better view and leaned over the railing to look down.

At the base of the gangway, the members of the exploration team had already boarded the small lifeboat that had been lowered in advance.

For this exploration, the captain had sent out a total of five crew members and three filming staff. The eight of them squeezed together like sprouting bean shoots on the orange lifeboat, rowing toward the front side of the massive cruise ship’s hull.

About one-third of the way along the side of the giant ship, a boarding ladder made entirely of C-shaped metal rods was attached to the white metal hull. It extended down from the deck and disappeared beneath the surface of the sea.

The exterior of the giant liner was as tall as seven or eight stories. Climbing a ladder like that was a major undertaking—especially at sea, where the ship’s body could tilt or sway at any moment, making the climb even more dangerous.

Fortunately, the crew sent by the Mary Jane were all highly skilled. The thinnest among them took the lead, climbing the metal ladder like a monkey. What would be an almost impossible ascent for an ordinary person took him less than ten minutes.

After reaching the top, the skinny sailor disappeared on the giant ship’s deck for a while. When he reappeared, he pushed over a folding gangway and slowly lowered it down.

Even though it had been sitting on the deck for thirteen years, the folding gangway showed no signs of rust or decay. Under the skinny sailor’s operation, it unfolded smoothly and extended all the way down to the bottom of the giant ship.

The remaining seven rowed the lifeboat to the gangway, tied it to the ladder, and climbed up one after another. Under the watchful eyes of the several hundred passengers aboard the Mary Jane, they spent quite a while climbing the long ladder before finally boarding the Golden Anchor.

The ship was simply too tall. After the explorers boarded, they quickly disappeared from everyone’s view.

The Mary Jane’s Wi-Fi signal still hadn’t recovered. With no phones to play on, the passengers on board had grown bored, and most of them had poured onto the deck.

Since they couldn’t see how the exploration was going, they gathered in small groups, excitedly exchanging all kinds of information about the cruise ship. Some people even took out their phones and began shooting photos and videos with the Golden Anchor as the backdrop.

The entire deck was filled with a cheerful, relaxed atmosphere.

Among the crowd, only Everly looked troubled.

In the end, the crew had still boarded the Golden Anchor. Who knew whether they would make it back alive—or whether they might bring something bad back with them from the ship. And she was out at sea right now; even if she wanted to run, there was nowhere to escape…

Forget it. Better gather some food and the essentials for a quick getaway first. Whether she ended up needing them or not, it was better to be prepared.

So, while everyone else was still immersed in the novelty and excitement of discovering the giant liner, Everly quietly left the deck alone. She went to the cruise ship’s 24-hour buffet restaurant, casually ate a little, and then—using well-practiced techniques—smuggled out some small snacks like chocolate, candy, and biscuits. She returned to her cabin, dropped off the food, changed clothes, and headed back to the buffet again.

She repeated the trip several times. By the time the waiter at the entrance of the buffet was almost unable to keep his polite smile from cracking, Everly had finally gathered enough high-calorie food to last for several days.

Next came water. This part was simple. The cruise ship cabins provided free bottled water, and once you finished it, you could simply ask the service staff for more. Holding firmly to the philosophy of “I’m the customer, therefore I’m the boss,” Everly shamelessly asked the room service attendant on her floor for a whole pack of 24 bottles of mineral water.

She planned to ask for another pack tomorrow.

…Well, hopefully she wouldn’t be so unlucky that she wouldn’t live to see tomorrow.

After collecting food and water, Everly began packing the items she would carry with her.

Still following the same principle, Everly packed all the important and absolutely necessary items into her backpack. Both hers and Misha’s backpacks were waterproof and could even be used as flotation devices in an emergency. As for the less important things, she left them outside—if she could grab them, great; if not, then so be it.

Every cabin came with life jackets, which was good news. But what Everly really hoped to get her hands on was a lifeboat.

In modern times, lifeboats usually came with some emergency supplies. If she could also load them with the mineral water she had worked so hard to collect, that would truly feel safe. Unfortunately, order still existed on the ship, and the lifeboats were all guarded by crew members—so getting one wouldn’t be easy…

Bah, what was she even thinking? It wasn’t a pity at all. If the ship’s order really collapsed, that would be far more troublesome.

This was the first time Everly had found herself in a situation with no possible escape, and her thoughts were unusually restless. She had to keep herself busy with something, otherwise the anxiety—so intense it felt like it might burn her heart—would consume her.

So she busied herself here and there, fiddling with various things until evening. Only then did Misha, who had been keeping watch on the deck, run all the way back to the cabin.

“Everly, something bad happened! One of the crew members got injured!”

“What happened?”

“Well, here’s what I know…”

Misha was the kind of person who could make friends with anyone. During just a few hours of watching on the deck, she had already befriended a crew member named Mark. The information she was about to share was pieced together from her own observations as well as what she had learned from Mark.

The eight-person exploration team had boarded the Golden Anchor at around two in the afternoon. They spent about three hours exploring the ship, and just before five o’clock, Misha—who had been keeping watch on the deck—saw the eight of them reappear on the gangway.

At that time, all eight explorers looked completely fine. No one seemed injured.

However, when they climbed down the long gangway and reached the lifeboat at the bottom, something went wrong. Perhaps the earlier crew members had used too much force while boarding, causing the lifeboat to shift from its original position. The last crew member stepped on empty air and fell straight into the sea.

This actually wasn’t a big problem.

For anyone who made a living at sea, swimming was a basic skill. Besides, it was late August—the weather was warm and the seawater temperature was comfortable. Even if someone fell into the water, at worst their clothes would just get wet.

The crewman who had fallen in surfaced from the water, grabbed the edge of the lifeboat with both hands, and began kicking his legs alternately beneath the surface. Just as he was about to push himself up out of the water, he suddenly felt something dart quickly past his feet and brush against his ankle.

“What was that, a redfish?”

The sailor muttered to himself and casually glanced downward.

His eyes suddenly widened, and a terrified scream burst from his mouth.

“…A p-p-person!”

“What person? What’s wrong with you?”

The others on the boat were busy untying the rope securing the lifeboat and didn’t understand what he meant.

“There’s someone—someone underwater staring at me… AHHHH! It hurts! Pull me up, he’s biting me!”

The sailor in the water shouted wildly and, as if he had gone mad, grabbed the companion in front of him in a tight hug.

The already small boat immediately began rocking violently from his sudden grip. His companions had to bend down and lower their center of gravity to steady the lifeboat. Then they reached out toward him, several of them grabbing his arms and pulling together to haul him up.

Three or four people were pulling at once—normally that should have been enough to lift anyone out of the water. Yet the crewman, Dali, didn’t rise at all. Instead, his body seemed to sink even deeper into the sea.

“One, two—one, two! What’s going on, Dali? It’s only been a few days—how did you get so heavy?!”

One of the sailors wiped the sweat from his forehead and joked between gasps.

But the face he met was Dali’s, twisted with pain.

“It’s not me—it’s that person! That person is grabbing me from underwater! He’s biting my leg! It hurts—so much… Help me! Save me, pull me up!”

The group had only just come down from the eerie Golden Anchor, and their nerves were already on edge. Hearing Dali say this, a wave of fear spread among them.

Only the cameraman, Gene, was rather reckless. Standing at the other end of the lifeboat, he was too far away to help Dali anyway. Since Dali kept insisting that there was someone underwater, Gene grew curious. He simply switched on the camera light and shone it into the water.

The lifeboat was wedged in the narrow gap between the two cruise ships. The light there was dim, blocked by the massive hulls of both vessels. When the beam cut through the darkness, it illuminated the murky seawater. Through the slightly cloudy water, everyone saw a pale white shape—as if startled—suddenly dive deeper into the dark sea below and disappear.

For a moment, all that could be seen in the water were Dali’s legs kicking and struggling, and thin streams of blood drifting from his calf.

With the pulling force below suddenly gone, the people hauling him up felt the weight in their hands lighten. Just moments ago, Dali had been impossible to drag up, but now lifting him was as easy as hauling up a bundle.

As soon as he was pulled onto the lifeboat, Dali immediately clutched his blood-soaked left leg and shrank into the middle of the boat, drenched in cold sweat. A large chunk of flesh had been torn from his calf by something unknown, the wound so deep that the bone beneath was almost visible.

There were too few supplies on the small boat to properly treat the injury. And the group had been thoroughly shaken by whatever was in the water. After pulling Dali aboard, they hurriedly steered the lifeboat back to the gangway of the Mary Jane.

Several strong crew members took turns carrying Dali on their backs up the gangway and onto the ship.

Only after everyone had climbed back onto the deck did the crew finally have the chance to talk about what had happened.

“What was that thing in the water just now… did anyone get a clear look?”

“No idea, but it was definitely big. I think I saw something that looked like arms or legs… Could it really have been a person?”

“Stop imagining things. If it were really a person, how could they hold their breath underwater for that long? It must have been some kind of carnivorous fish. What you thought were arms and legs were probably just a visual illusion caused by a school of fish gathering together.”

Several sailors spoke in low voices among themselves. First, together with George and the other two, they escorted their injured companion to the infirmary. Only afterward did they head together to the captain’s cabin to report the results of the exploration.

That was as far as the information Misha had managed to gather from Mark, the deckhand.

As for what those people had actually seen aboard the Golden Anchor, Mark hadn’t gone to the captain’s cabin, so he had no idea.