Mercenary Black Mamba

The thought waves broke up. Some people remain as acquaintances even though one spends one's whole life with them. Some people become close friends over a cup of tea. Kamdoong and Mu Ssang had only spent a day and a half together in the underground world.

The expression "to be in someone else's shoes" refers to empathy. If you have a similar experience, you can easily empathize with someone going through the same thing. The ordeal Mu Ssang went through in the Caparuza valley where a dam collapsed was indeed horrible.

Could it be the loneliness of life so far? Was it the empathy of having gone through the same ordeal? Was it the impossible odds of an encounter that hardly happened once in countless eons? Like the heart trembling at a verse of poetry, Kamdoong's distress was conveyed to Mu Ssang intact through the thought waves.

[Have you eaten?]

Food was the alpha and omega of Mu Ssang's life.

[Eat? I don't understand the question but I get the intent. My energy is depleted.]

[That's serious!]

If Samdi's energy was depleted to the extent that he could not get himself out of a whale's stomach, it meant the situation was serious. Maybe he was showered with lava, massaged by hundreds of millions of metric tons of rock, or engulfed in a viral storm. Mu Ssang felt deep pity as if his own flesh was ripped apart.

Stories were for later. A clear membrane covered his hand. He was going to rip open the side of the humpback whale and extract the stomach.

He heard a bizarre screech and his hand, which was about to rip open the whale's skin, stopped midair. The baby whale, which was swimming alongside its mother, struggled to get on her back. Deducing from its size, it had not even been weaned off breastmilk yet.

"Huh, what shall I do?"

He sighed. He needed to get Kamdoong out of there immediately but the struggling baby made him reluctant. Without its mother, the baby whale was definitely going to perish in the vast ocean. If he killed the mother to save his friend, the baby was just going to be like Mu Ssang when he was nine.

While Mu Ssang was hesitating, the mother whale accelerated abruptly. She turned and shot forward at once, suggesting something was happening. Its screeching wails betrayed the desperation of a herbivore fleeing a predator.

'Is there a predator?'

The waters near Cape Agulhas were teeming with seals and sharks. Attracted by the abundance of big prey, orcas frequented the area too. Great white sharks fed on orphaned baby humpback whales and orcas even hunted the baby protected by its mother as they hunted in a pack.

Mu Ssang used Dimensional Sight. 100, 200, 300, ... 1,500. On land, its range ranged from 400 to 500 meters but in an ocean, its range spanned 1,500 meters.

He sensed a pack of lifeforms targeting the humpback whales. The mother whale and the baby were panicking because of them. He sensed the frenzy of the chasers that was akin to that of a pack of lions ambushing a wildebeest.

"Orcas!"

The chasers were orcas, also known as the ultimate sea predators. There were only two predators with a body size from five to eight meters that were suitable for hunting humpback whales: great white sharks and orcas. Great white sharks were solitary because they fed on each other too. If the chasers were in a pack, they were orcas.

White waves relentlessly jumped 1,000 meters behind the whales. He could see the stark contrast of their black back and white bellies. The orcas accelerated and the humpback whales hurriedly swam.

The speed of the orcas and humpback whales was roughly the same at 30 kilometers per hour but the baby was the issue. The mother had to slow down many times to make sure the baby was not falling behind. The distance between the predators and prey was shortened in no time. The mother humpback whale, scared, changed her course frantically.

Her back was slippery as it was. The frantic movement annoyed Mu Ssang.

"Calm down. I will save you."

He tramped on the back as he shouted. The heavy impact was sufficient to rein in the massive humpback whale. The whale calmed down as if she understood what Mu Ssang said. He was quite a demanding passenger and he did not even pay any fare.

"I didn't expect to play white knight today!"

He pulled out Dragunov from his backpack. It was not right to meddle in the wildlife's ecosystem, but the screeching baby kept tugging his heartstrings.

Dragunov started firing. The bullets kicked the water in front of the orcas. Orcas were smart and friendly enough to perform a show with a human. He did not feel like hitting them directly.

"Be good and go eat sharks or seals."

The orcas were relentless. They approached the whales rapidly. He had to hurt them to chase them away. Mu Ssang placed Dragunov in its place and pulled out Rakshasa.

"Rakshasa!"

A deafening shout containing resonance waves exploded. It shook the atmosphere and rippled the water. Mu Ssang stood on the whale's back in Heavenly Pillar Stance and wielded Rakshasa.

Rakshasa, seeing the world after a long while, roared. It surpassed the speed of sound at once. A frenzied form of a dinosaur resonated with an asura's call. The atmosphere fell back from Mu Ssang.

The humpback whales flinched and the orcas, now close by, looked up from the water. They noticed that the lifeform on their prey's back was extraordinary.

If caught in the path of supersonic Rakshasa, even a massive orca was cut in half. Mu Ssang purposefully reduced its speed and hit the head of an orca with the flat side of the weapon.

Even with reduced speed, the momentum was equivalent to one metric ton. The orca who received the blow withdrew hurriedly. Mu Ssang pranced around on the whale's back, which was as wide as a boulevard, and hit the orcas surrounding it. They screeched and dispersed in an instant.

"Look at them!"

Orcas do not relinquish their prey just because they were hit several times. They withdrew and reorganized their formation. The pack of orcas charged into a linear formation. White waves rose robustly.

"They know how to use a distraction!"

Mu Ssang was rather entertained. Only three of them were conspicuously charging through the spray of seawater. His Dimensional Sight spotted two other orcas diving deeper below the surface.

Rakshasa struck the surface of the ocean at supersonic speed in a path shaped like many overlapping circles. Each time it struck the surface, the ocean parted like a deep crevasse. The depth was over 10 meters.

Something heavy was caught in the path of Rakshasa. One of the orcas who dove was hit. He screeched and rose to the surface. He was bleeding from his blowhole. The orcas stopped charging and held their heads up and seemed to communicate.

The one who seemed to be the pack's leader screeched. It must have meant something similar to "Not worth it" in human language. They had an abundance of prey. They did not need to obsess over this one. The orcas who were charging swam away in a different direction. They were indeed intelligent.

"Look at this one!"

When the orcas were out of sight, the baby humpback whale approached Mu Ssang with its snout. It whimpered like a puppy when Mu Ssang caressed its snout. Its big eyes showed a certain emotion. The mother stopped in place when she saw Mu Ssang touching her baby.

His hand covered in Billion's Water Armor caressed the rough skin around the baby whale's mouth. The barnacles and big parasites whose names were unknown to Mu Ssang were swept away at once. The baby screeched joyfully.

"Is this a whale or a puppy? Yes, I name you Humpie. Do you get it?"

Mu Ssang's lack of flair for naming persisted in the southernmost tip of Africa, in the Indian Ocean.

"I must get Kamdoong out of there. Let's play later, buddy."

Mu Ssang patted the baby humpback whale's head as if it was a puppy and moved onto the nose of the mother whale.

"Open your mouth!"

Its massive eyes blinked. Mu Ssang was in a hurry. He grabbed her upper and lower jaws and tried to open her mouth forcibly. They did not budge. When he exerted more power, the whale shook her head. Her jawbones might break if he tried to open her mouth forcibly.

"You are a whale. Of course, you don't understand me."

Mu Ssang grumbled and took a military rope out of his pocket. Humpback whales filter krill out of the water with their massive brush-like teeth. There was a space between the upper and lower teeth in which he could insert the rope.

He straightened the rope with Psychokinesis. He recalled a saying that when you are gifted with a talent, the universe had planned a specific use for it. As soon as he acquired Psychokinesis, an opportunity to use it presented itself.

Just as he was about to insert the rope, the mother whale opened her mouth wide. Mu Ssang was overwhelmed by the cavern-like maw. He could not understand how such a massive and powerful creature subsisted on krill.

Thanks to the whale's cooperation, the operation became easier. The rope passed through her esophagus and entered deep into her stomach. The rope's width was only two millimeters. She must have barely felt it.

He located the jellyfish with Dimensional Sight and drew the rope close to it with Psychokinesis. The rope in the stomach poked the jellyfish.

[Can you hold onto it?]

[F*ck! If I could move, I wouldn't even need your help now!]

Kamdoong's retort was rather fierce.

"Whoa!"

Kamdoong must have been tired of waiting. Mu Ssang himself routinely used strong language in the underground world. A cuss word was not learned, it was absorbed.

[I am sorry. I will get you out of there soon.]

The rope wound around the jellyfish. The act required him to maneuver both Psychokinesis and Dimensional Sight. It was quite taxing on his stamina. All that was left was to extract Kamdoong by pulling on the rope. The operation was nearly done.

He wipe away the sheen of sweat that formed on his forehead with his sleeve and patiently pulled on the rope. Fortunately, the whale continued to cooperate until Kamdoong was out of her body.

"It's done, buddy."

Mu Ssang gently smacked the space above the whale's mouth. The whale closed her mouth and wailed.

"Is she going to be a spiritual creature like Dino? Am I talented at turning animals intelligent? Haha!" Mu Ssang, with a heavy burden off his chest, giggled.

[There is the sun! What a relief.]

A thought wave resonated.

"Are you really Kamdoong?"

Mu Ssang checked the extracted object which startled him. It was a box jellyfish missing half of its body and ripped apart like a rag. Could this really be the epitome of the great Concretus biotechnology, Kamdoong?

[Nice to see you again, friend. It's quite embarrassing but it really is me.]

"Haha! How are you going to regenerate?"

Samdi's response made Mu Ssang laugh. Samdi was neither animal nor plant. Losing half of his body was not life-threatening.

[I lost half of my eukaryotic cells. I had to expend my regenerative energy. It is hard for me to communicate now. I need you to touch my body, friend.]

The sprawled jellyfish inspired pity. He held it up and touched it with his head. An immense stench assailed his nostrils but now Kamdoong's thought waves were more clearly heard.

[Why is the atmosphere different? Has the sun aged? With the current solar energy, the Earth needs to rotate 40,000 times before I could regenerate my body.]

"A hundred years?" Mu Ssang, surprised, yelled. It meant his friend would only come into being after Mu Ssang's death.

[Why are you surprised? Epidium allows us to live for 1,000 years. Even with gene fragmentation, we surely would make it past 500 years. A hundred years is nothing.]

"Hey, you and I have a different concept of time. A hundred years is quite long. What is taking you so long?]

[The sunlight in this world is feeble. My bionic generator cannot run efficiently. To restore the eukaryotic cells, it will take a long time.]

"What if you could use somebody's epidium?"

Mu Ssang asked abruptly. Kamdoong answered after a while.

[I would like to see the world for some more time but I don't want to sacrifice a friend for me to survive.]

"That means it certainly will be useful. I have some dysfunctional epidium."

Mu Ssang, relieved, pointed at the sky. High up in the sky, Falcon was continuing its circular flight.

[Do you have some epidium tissue? If I remember correctly, humans refer to this kind of situation as "lucking out." If I utilize epidium-enhanced tissue, I can enter a mobile state immediately. Within a year, I will be able to regenerate all of my body and even redesign it.]

Mu Ssang could feel Kamdoong's joy.

"What do you mean by 'redesign'?"

[There are some restraints to my transformative ability. If I have access to some epidium tissue, I can use the epidium as a carapace through reverse transcription. I don't need to go through the process of regeneration. Moreover, I can alter my essential nature. I can go over the boundary between lifeforms and inanimate objects.]

"Could this be? Everything under the sky has its use!"

Mu Ssang genuinely marveled at the lucky situation. All the trouble of dragging Ocelot around had borne fruit. Mu Ssang pulled out a satellite phone without hesitation. He set up the antenna on the whale's back and tweaked the frequency.

"Leon, drop the titanium box in the cargo area and a lifesaving buoy."

"Aye. I will attach a parachute then drop them."

"No. Lower the altitude and drop them right away."

"Aye!"

Falcon emerged from the clouds. It lowered its altitude in a spiral then dropped a silvery object from the cargo area. The titanium coffin was submerged in the water then rapidly floated up.

Leon accomplished the feat of dropping cargo 50 meters away from the target with not a helicopter, but a jet. A horseshoe-shaped orange buoy dropped in the coffin's wake.