Chapter 1
The sensation of having eight legs… Hmm. It felt strange but not exactly bad.
After all, my usual state was lazing around in my room.
If I were still in my room, I could probably do several things at once with all these legs.
For example, I could log into five different accounts and play a 5-man queue by myself. Ah, wait, I’d need two more legs for that.
Actually, I could make two more legs. No, I could make hundreds more if I wanted to.
When I first became this octopus, I had an unimaginable number of legs.
Feeling all of those legs squirming at once was a bit dizzying.
Although I named myself an octopus, it wasn’t really an octopus.
After a few days of getting used to this body, I realized that I could control its shape.
As I was pondering what form I should take to make it onto the trending page, I decided to choose an octopus since it was the closest shape I was familiar with.
Even though calling myself an octopus was a stretch since I looked quite grotesque.
And in reality, my legs weren’t even octopus legs but bizarre tentacles.
Still, changing my form beyond this was difficult. I wasn’t used to it yet, I suppose.
Honestly, even forming this shape took a considerable amount of effort.
I felt pretty proud when I managed to extend eight legs at the exact same angle.
It all started when I followed my parents’ suggestion to go on a summer vacation.
I had been failing to find a job for years.
My parents, who usually just scolded me, suddenly suggested we take a trip to Busan.
Since I was pretty exhausted at the time, I left my room and headed to Busan with them.
But while swimming in the sea, I got a cramp in my leg and ended up drowning.
Even I thought it was a pathetic way to die.
But what do you know?
I woke up underwater as some creature with an enormous number of legs.
After much time passed, I arrived at my current state.
I defined myself as an octopus. I only let eight legs out and lived as I do now.
I drowned off the coast of Busan and reincarnated as an octopus?! Isn’t this the kind of plot you’d find in a third-rate web novel?
But there was no one here in the deep sea to hear my story, not even a fish.
There was no one else here.
More accurately, there was no life other than me.
The surroundings looked like a collapsed temple.
Was it some kind of ancient civilization that sank into the sea?
This temple was unbelievably vast and expansive.
There were also countless enormous pits scattered around.
I was pretty huge myself.
When I first woke up, I felt like I was the size of Mount Everest. I’ve shrunk quite a bit since then.
I searched the entire collapsed temple for a friend but couldn’t find even a single fish.
It felt like I was trapped here.
It was like being alone in a soundproof booth with the lights off.
It could just be because I’m in the deep sea.
But shouldn’t there usually be at least a few deep-sea fish?
So, I decided to go up.
Even though I looked quite embarrassing, I was bored being alone.
I swam upwards, wriggling my body awkwardly like an octopus.
But the problem arose before I could even see the light.
Woom-
I bumped into something. But there was definitely nothing there.
It felt like some invisible force was blocking me.
I tried pushing through it with my massive body, but it was impossible.
The more I crashed into this unseen barrier, the more I began to feel something.
The harder I slammed into it, the stronger the sensation became.
It felt like some force was pulling me.
That force was drawing me towards the centre of the collapsed temple.
In the end, I decided to head back down.
I wouldn’t be able to reach the surface like this anyway.
I had to figure out what was pulling me.
Since I’d climbed up so far, going back down took quite a while too.
I thought it would be quicker since I’d be going down with the force of gravity, but that wasn’t really the case.
Is that how it is in the deep sea? I’m not sure.
Wriggle, wriggle-
So, I kept wriggling my way down for days.
I don’t know the exact amount of time, but it was definitely much longer than a day.
Eventually, I reached the source of the pulling force, and there was an egg-like object.
It looked delicious, like a salmon roe, but it was glowing purple.
When I got closer, I could tell for sure.
I was connected to this thing.
Then wouldn’t taking this solve everything?
If I’m attached to it, it shouldn’t pull me back.
So that’s it. You tried to hold me back because you didn’t want me to leave, right? Then I’ll take you with me.
But the purple salmon roe didn’t want to come off the pedestal-like structure it was on.
To be precise, it felt like something below was holding it down.
“Hmph. You’re a stubborn one, aren’t you? But I have no intention of living the rest of my life in the deep sea.”
I tried swallowing it up through the hole in the centre of my tentacles, but that didn’t work either.
It simply wouldn’t come off.
But I felt like I could break it if I really wanted to.
However, I had a gut feeling that I shouldn’t do that.
It felt like something terrible would happen if I broke it.
Given the circumstances, something disastrous would probably happen, right? After all, purple salmon roe is quite a rare find…
Rumble, rumble…
But even in my previous life, I didn’t like salmon roe that much.
I preferred salmon sushi over salmon roe sushi, so I struck the purple salmon roe hard with my tentacle.
The entire collapsed temple—no, the entire seabed—started shaking as if an earthquake had hit.
Was it really something I shouldn’t have touched? But the salmon roe had already been shattered.
Fortunately, it seemed that the tremor was caused only by the impact of my super powerful punch, and the vibration subsided quickly.
The shattered pieces of the purple salmon roe scattered into light and dispersed.
The scattered light somehow flowed into me, and I started feeling the sensation that I had felt from the purple salmon roe inside my body.
It seemed like it was the kind of thing that needed to be hit once to snap out of it.
It should have just listened to me when I was talking.
Anyway, I started swimming upwards again, wriggling along toward the surface.
Last time, it felt like I had been swimming for days without seeing any light.
But it didn’t really matter. Swimming like this was still fun for me.
And so, I began a swim that seemed endless.
***
“Did you know, Hans? In the past, ships couldn’t pass through this area and had to take a long detour when crossing the continent?”
“Pardon?”
Bruce pulled out a map and drew a large triangle in the middle of the ocean.
The ocean was a vast sea situated between the Eastern Continent and the Western Continent.
The triangle Bruce drew almost filled up the entire ocean.
“This triangle covers nearly the entire area! If we had to go around it, it would take at least a month longer.”
“That’s right. But back then, they had to take the detour. Not a single ship that entered this area ever came back.”
“Pardon?”
“Sailors called this place the ‘Triangle of Death.’ There are some terrifying stories explaining why, do you want to hear them?”
Bruce stroked his beard and gave a sly smile.
Hans, a rookie sailor who had just boarded the ship for the first time, became curious and sat down on the deck.
Bruce chuckled and was about to begin his story in earnest when someone interrupted him.
“Hey, you’re still talking about that? How long are you going to keep bringing up that old story? That was hundreds of years ago! You weren’t even born back then.”
“Hahaha, come on, Ronse. What else can we do for fun on this tedious voyage? You never know when our ship might sink, right?”
“There’s no way that’s happening, old man! This route has been in use for centuries now.”
Hearing Ronse and Bruce’s conversation, Hans looked confused.
“It’s nothing, really. Back then, navigation techniques were lacking, so it wasn’t unusual for ships to not return after crossing the continent. A lot of ships disappeared, which led to various baseless rumours. Once technology advanced, ships stopped going missing when passing through this area.”
“Hah! How could that be? Even if navigation was poor, how could not a single ship make it back? It’s a story with a lot of credibility, I tell you!”
“Now it’s just an old legend, isn’t it? Get back to work if you have time for idle talk! Save the tall tales for break time!”
Hans returned to work after Ronse’s scolding, and Bruce clicked his tongue in annoyance.
In truth, Ronse was right.
Back then, navigation techniques were indeed poor, and ships often sank.
As technology advanced and new routes were established, ships no longer vanished in the Triangle of Death.
The numerous ghost stories surrounding the Triangle of Death were now just topics of idle chatter among sailors.
“Hmm… This is strange.”
“What’s the matter, Hans?”
Hans, who was carrying the freshly caught fish, felt something off and began inspecting the fish.
Seeing this, Ronse approached him and asked what was wrong.
“All the fish we just caught are lying still as if they’re dead. Normally, they’d be flopping around, wouldn’t they?”
“…That is odd.”
“Oooh! Does this mean we won’t be able to return either? This must be the Triangle of Death, right? You get it now, Hans?”
It was clearly a bizarre phenomenon.
Freshly caught fish normally should be twisting and flopping around wildly.
Ronse and Hans poked the fish with serious expressions.
Some of the fish even seemed to be foaming at the mouth.
Bruce, however, didn’t pay any attention to the strange phenomenon and kept blabbering on about ghost stories, spitting as he spoke.
“So, this isn’t entirely wrong. From what I’ve heard…”
“Help over here, please!”
Someone shouted from the opposite side of the deck, and Ronse and Hans rushed over to them.
The sailors on the other side were struggling to pull up the net.
It seemed like they had caught something massive, or perhaps the net had gotten caught on a reef.
“It seems like it’s snagged on a reef. Cut it off.”
“Yes, sir!”
At the veteran Ronse’s command, the sailors began cutting the net.
It was unfortunate to lose the net, but if it was caught on a reef, there was no other choice.
Just as they were nearly done cutting the net—
Slash-
Something like a tentacle shot up onto the deck with a slap.
The sailors, too focused on cutting the net, hadn’t noticed it yet.
But when they finally looked up after finishing their task—
“It’s done… Wha…?”
“H-Hii, hiiiieeeek! Hihihihihiek!”
“Uweeoaaaaargh-”
The sailors who saw the tentacle started reacting strangely.
As soon as the net was completely cut, something massive leaped out of the sea.
Splashhhhh-
“So, this isn’t something to take lightly…”
Bruce, who had approached belatedly, was still rambling on about ghost stories.
Then he noticed the strange reactions of the sailors.
And when he looked up at the enormous figure that blocked out the sky—
His eyes—
Bruce’s eyes began bleeding and then burst simultaneously.
It all happened before he could even comprehend what he was looking at.
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