Chapter 6: Peril at Sea

Chapter 6: Chapter 6: Peril at Sea

"A treasure chest? Open!"

The golden wooden chest opened before her, and an item notification immediately followed.

[Wood x99, Stone x99]

There was no food, but Shi Zhile was extremely satisfied.

’Sure enough, a person’s luck can’t be bad forever.’

She had two slots left in her backpack. She stored the treasure chest and continued fishing, full of confidence.

The time was now six in the evening. The summer sun was still high in the sky, but it was nowhere near as scorching as it had been at noon.

Over the course of the afternoon, she had traded the ninety-nine stones from the treasure chest for four flints, three bottles of spring water, forty-eight pieces of wood, and two sea fish.

She had also fished up another two treasure chests and a pile of underwear and trash.

The traded supplies were stuffed into the chests, which were then placed in her backpack. With that, her backpack was finally full.

As for the rotten underwear and trash, she had stuffed them into a fishing net and placed it on her raft.

The raft was fully loaded. Just as she began to head back, the seawater suddenly turned an inky black.

A chill crept up her ankles from the raft. The sun was setting in the west, and the air was still hot and dry. It wasn’t the weather getting colder; it was the seawater.

The sea was calm, without a single ripple or wave, yet water was inexplicably washing over the raft.

"Is the raft sinking? No way!"

She peered over the edge at the seabed, and in the next second, the hair on her arms stood on end.

It was an abyss!

A massive abyss was rising rapidly from the depths.

She gripped the wooden oar tightly, paddling relentlessly in one direction.

’Almost there!’

The island was only a few hundred meters away. As long as she could make it ashore...

The moment she paddled away from her spot, a gigantic monster leaped out of the sea.

The impact nearly capsized the raft. Shi Zhile threw herself onto the fishing net, her fingers digging desperately into the gaps between the logs, using her body weight to keep the raft from flipping.

Her fingernails were torn back, staining the wood with blood. The saltwater stung her wounds, but she didn’t dare let go, because the massive monster had yet to fall back into the water.

The raft was moving rapidly toward the island. She risked a glance back, and just that one look nearly made her heart leap out of her throat.

The monster was enormous. She had thought it had leaped completely out of the water, but she now realized that what she was seeing was only the upper half of its body.

Its body tilted, crashing straight down toward her.

The pressure wave slammed into them, forcing the raft to sink rapidly. Overly salty seawater flooded her nose, and she choked, nearly going limp.

Just as her strength gave out, the monster rammed the raft from below, launching it out of the sea and sending it flying into the distance.

In a daze, Shi Zhile thought she saw her great-grandmother beckoning to her.

The fishing net and the trash she had been protecting underneath her were safe, but at this moment, she wasn’t worried about supplies anymore. It felt as if her soul was floating outside her body.

The raft was about to hit the water. This time, it was doomed to sink. In this life-or-death moment, she suddenly thought of the System.

"Tong’er~ We might not have been born together, but we’ll definitely die together!"

[Player has been attacked by a Sea Monster. Activating newbie protection period.]

As Shi Zhile squeezed her eyes shut, the raft spun a few times in the air before landing steadily on the surface of the sea, her still on it.

Shi Zhile lay there like a dead fish, letting the seawater wash over her hair. ℯℯ𝘭.

She was completely drained of strength, but the island was still a long way off.

The ropes holding the raft together were damaged. The slightest wave would snap them completely, and once the ropes broke, the raft would instantly fall apart.

She needed rope or nails. She had to repair the raft immediately.

She opened the public chat. The players who had been chattering excitedly about their fishing hauls just a second ago were now exploding in a series of screams.

[Player: Don’t go out to sea! There are monsters in the water! My raft was attacked.]

[BlueMushroom: Does anyone have wood and rope? My raft is breaking apart! What do I do? The monster is coming back up.]

[HateChoosingNames: All I can say is you deserved it. [Image] [Image] There’s plenty of seafood on the shore, but you just had to go out to sea.]

The water was still pitch-black, meaning the monster hadn’t left. The dark abyss reappeared, and the monster struck again. A massive wave suddenly rose from the sea.

Shi Zhile didn’t even have time to pull back the hand she was using to type, instead grabbing onto the raft with it.

"Fuck! I’m between a rock and a hard place! You can’t just mess with people like this! Why don’t you just put me out of my misery and kill me already?!"

The giant wave reached her before the monster did. Half of Shi Zhile’s body was thrown overboard. She clung desperately to the edge of the raft, her other arm tangled in the fishing net, which constricted it until it went numb.

Just as she and the raft were about to smash into the rocky shore, a surprisingly gentle force stopped their momentum, bringing the raft to a steady halt on the very same beach where she had first parked it.

Shi Zhile sat stunned on the raft. She was soaked to the bone, and seawater dripped from her hair into her eyes, stinging so badly she couldn’t open them.

The sea was calm and peaceful, as if everything that had just happened was an illusion. But the pain in her hand and arm was real.

"So the newbie protection period only keeps you from dying *completely*."

She collapsed weakly onto the raft. When she managed to force her eyes open, she was greeted by the beautiful sight of a sunset painting the evening sky.

"Life is so beautiful. Live if I live, die if I die, whatever."

[Player detected encountering a Sea Monster during the newbie protection period. Compensation: Wish Drifting Bottle x1]

[Wish Drifting Bottle (Make a wish within ten minutes, and it will help you achieve it~~ As one blessed by the goddess of fortune, if I begin to glow with a golden light, then congratulations, your wish will come true.)]

Shi Zhile struggled to look around, but for the life of her, she couldn’t see a drifting bottle anywhere.

But it didn’t matter!

"I wish for my body to be restored to the state it was in before I went out to sea."

A golden light enveloped her. Shi Zhile felt a pleasant warmth spread through her body. When the light dissipated, her exhaustion was gone, and even her clothes were dry.

Immediately after, the pain in her hand became even more pronounced.

She sat up to check her hand. Her palm was a mess of torn flesh, and the nail on her middle finger was completely ripped off, exposing the bloody nail bed underneath.

"Hiss— what happened to restoring my state?! System, get out here!"

[Player 138138’s stamina, mental state, mood, and clothing condition have been restored!]

"What about my wounds? Why wasn’t the state of my wounds restored?"

[The player’s physical state has been restored. The Wish Drifting Bottle is a product of the System. All rights of interpretation belong to the System!]

Shi Zhile: ...’This brainless, scamming piece of junk!’

Her wounds hurt terribly, but her mood was as cheerful as ever. She even felt an eager impulse to head back out to sea.

It was true she felt this way before encountering the danger, but to still feel this longing now just made her seem a bit masochistic.

’Could it be that the System takes after its master?’

’No, I must have been corrupted by this damned System.’

"Where is the bottle from the Wish Drifting Bottle? I want to take it back and use it to hold water."

The System went silent, its silence hinting at a guilty conscience.

This evasive, non-responsive attitude made Shi Zhile even more suspicious of its true identity.

’Is it really the game’s default system?’

’Is it afraid of dying?’

’No!’

’The damned System is afraid of *me* dying!’

’If it’s a system from the game, why would it be afraid of me dying?’

’It can manipulate game gifts—or wishes, for that matter. Does that mean its Level is higher than the game’s built-in system?’

Once she thought it through, the answer became obvious.

’This System is bound to her. As for what specific type it is, that remains to be seen.’