"A giant sea fish, and four people dead?"
At Arlong Park, Arlong and his pirate crew had just returned after seven days of plundering at sea. Upon hearing Hachi report the loss of four Fish-Men, Arlong glared at Hachi and angrily demanded, "I told you to stay and protect this place, what were you doing?"
Hachi scratched his head and replied, "I only found out later. I went into the sea to try and catch the sea fish, and I injured it, but it got away."
"A single sea fish, and you yourself got injured too."
Arlong glanced at the bandage on Hachi's hand and said coldly, "Kuroobi, Chuu, go with Hachi to where the sea fish appeared and hunt it down in the sea."
"Yes."
Kuroobi and Chuu followed Hachi to the harbor. Seeing the three of them leave, Nami couldn't help but feel nervous.
"Nami, why are you so nervous?"
Arlong suddenly looked at Nami beside him.
"I..."
Nami was startled by Arlong's words. She looked at Arlong, opened her mouth, and dared not say that her nervousness stemmed from her fear that the sea fish would be killed by Kuroobi and Chuu.
"You are very useful to us. As long as you honestly work for us, I won't do anything to you."
Arlong narrowed his eyes as he stared at Nami, then added, "So you don't need to worry about anything."
Hearing this, Nami let out a sigh of relief. Arlong had thought she was afraid of him.
Nami said softly, "I, I will do my job well."
Arlong nodded and asked, "How is your chart drawing coming along? The currents in the sea area I asked you to map out, it's been a month, is it not ready yet?"
Nami looked at Arlong and said, "The current changes in this area are too complex. Measuring them requires not only the Lagrangian method but also the Eulerian method. The Lagrangian method requires buoys, and the Eulerian method requires fixed-point monitoring. Either way, it requires long-term, timed observations."
"What are you trying to say?" Arlong asked directly, not understanding anything she was saying.
Nami stated plainly, "Because the current changes here are unpredictable, the buoy method is best done from a small boat, and fixed-point observation requires observation points. Both require going out to sea. But now there's a sea fish in the water, and even Hachi couldn't defeat it. I don't dare to go out to sea at all, and I also need someone to protect me."
"So you need to go out to sea, but there's a sea fish in the water."
Arlong nodded and said, "Yes, Kuroobi and Chuu have already gone to deal with it. After today, the sea fish will be gone."
"Also,"
Nami's eyes darted around as she looked at Arlong. "If you want me to measure the currents and weather patterns of other sea areas, I need to go out to sea myself. The Lagrangian and Eulerian methods are time-consuming and labor-intensive. There's also a method called 'sailing current measurement'. You follow a ship out to sea and measure the ship's absolute speed and direction relative to the seabed, as well as the ship's relative speed and direction to the seawater. Then you can calculate the speed and direction of the seawater's movement relative to the seabed."
"What the heck?"
Arlong looked utterly bewildered. Just as Nami was about to explain, Arlong impatiently waved his hand and said, "What you mean is, you need to go out to sea on a ship, right?"
"That's right," Nami nodded.
Arlong looked at Nami and said, "Then when we next go out on the Spab, you can come with us."
"But when you leave, you either attack villages or collect protection fees. I don't want to go with you," Nami said with dissatisfaction.
Arlong snorted upon hearing this and looked at Nami, asking, "If you're not riding our ship, how do you plan to leave and go out to sea?"
"Merchant ships, freighters, anything will do."
Nami looked at Arlong and said, "You shouldn't worry about me sneaking away."
"Of course."
Arlong looked at her, a sinister smile on his face, and said, "If you dare to run, I will kill your relatives, friends, and the villagers in your village."
Hearing this, Nami felt immense anger, but she didn't show it. She shrugged and said, "So, Boss Arlong, did you agree to my request?"
"Yes, but we'll talk about it after you've finished this sea chart."
Arlong agreed to her request, but then added, "Also, you're too young. It's difficult for you to go out to sea alone now. I don't want a future surveyor to die out there, so I'll find someone to protect you."
"Hachi."
Nami immediately called out, repeating, "I want Hachi to protect me."
If she had to choose someone, Nami would rather choose Hachi. He was relatively straightforward and simple-minded, making him easy to deceive.
"You and Hachi, you seem to have a good relationship?" Arlong raised an eyebrow, asking with some surprise.
Nami said coldly, "Because Hachi is different from you."
"Different? He's a coward. He has decent combat ability, but he's unwilling to attack humans proactively."
Arlong snorted and said, "If you're going out to sea, let him accompany you."
Nami nodded, very satisfied with the outcome.
She had to go out to sea. Although she needed these things to complete Arlong's tasks, the most important thing was that she needed to accumulate 100 million Belly to save her village. The work of drawing sea charts alone wouldn't be enough.
She had to steal, deceive, and rob to achieve this.
For her village, Nami was willing to do anything.
Leaving Arlong's side, Nami, with her short legs, went upstairs back to her room. She couldn't wait to pick up her telescope and look towards the harbor.
Hachi stood on the shore, Kuroobi floated on the surface, and Chuu was underwater.
There were no signs of a fight for now.
Nami prayed that the sea fish wouldn't encounter them and would run far away.
...
At the bottom of the sea, Xia Qiu swam towards the distance in the deep ocean.
He stayed close to the seabed, but his massive body was quite conspicuous. Wherever he went, all the fish scattered.
Whoosh.
Xia Qiu accelerated his swim and caught up to a fish.
This fish was about three meters long, with a slender body, a flattened shape, a pointed tail, and a sharp head.
Most importantly, the fish had fins with spikes on its back.
A Spiny Fish.
Spiny Fish were usually limited in size, under a meter long. Only in this world could they grow to three meters.
Xia Qiu immediately charged forward, bit the fish, crushed it, and swallowed it.
Then, he continued swimming towards the deeper distance.
Spiny Fish lived between 200 and 3,500 meters below the sea. The area Xia Qiu was in was about 300 meters deep.
Xia Qiu was searching for octopuses, squids, and cuttlefish.
All three were creatures belonging to the Phylum Mollusca, Class Cephalopoda.
Octopuses were in the order Octopoda, while squids and cuttlefish belonged to the superorder Decapodiformes, which included the order Teuthida, and others like the order Oegopsida.
Squid generally referred to the order Teuthida, also known as inkfish, while cuttlefish usually referred to the order Oegopsida, also called needle squid.
Octopuses and squids were benthic creatures, accustomed to living on the seabed. Octopuses were temperate-zone soft-bodied animals with high requirements for seawater temperature and salinity, while squids were accustomed to living in the deep sea.
During the spring and summer breeding season, both octopuses and squids would come to coastal waters.
In autumn and winter, and once their young grew to a certain size, they would head to the deep sea.
As for cuttlefish, they generally lived in the upper-middle layers of shallow seas, vertically migrating up and down by a hundred meters. Most cuttlefish swam in waters about twenty meters deep, but they were generally smaller in size.
The larger the cuttlefish, the deeper the water they lived in, such as the Giant Squid and the Colossal Squid.
It was now winter, and Xia Qiu found it difficult to encounter octopuses and squids within the coastal range. Their numbers were pitifully small, and occasionally eating one, it would be less than a meter long.
As for cuttlefish, their numbers were few and their size was small.
Xia Qiu ate a lot, but he hadn't grown any tentacles.
Xia Qiu was unsure if it was because he hadn't eaten enough to provide sufficient Evolution Energy, or if he was simply incapable of evolving tentacles.
Therefore, Xia Qiu swam towards the deep sea, attempting to catch larger squids or octopuses and cuttlefish.
He opened his mouth and emitted ultrasonic waves, exploring the distant depths below. He detected many fish.
So big.
Xia Qiu discovered a giant sea fish about three thousand meters away. Its body was long and narrow, about fifty meters in length.
It resembled an eel or a hairtail fish. Although it was long, its weight was less than his, and its combat power was far inferior to his.
Xia Qiu saw no need to fight it. Killing it meant he couldn't eat it all, and it would instead attract more sea fish.
So, Xia Qiu took a detour and continued downwards.
The water depth increased, and soon reached about four hundred meters.
Suddenly, Xia Qiu detected a signal. About four hundred meters diagonally below him, there was a creature whose reflected sound waves indicated a soft body, similar in frequency to the squids and octopuses he had eaten.
At the same time, it was about twenty meters long, with a large head and many tentacles, floating up and down.
It should be his target.
Xia Qiu thought, and then charged directly towards the creature.
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Translation by: randomtranslator.com
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