I Hate Systems

Skieee!

A screeching sound akin to a piercing whale's scream resounded, rattling the ears of everyone that shielded their ears in response.

"That's loud!" Earth Star growled in response as his body was partially doused by the blood that gushed out of the tentacles. The severed part twitched on the deck beside him while the remainder seemed to have retreated into the waters.

"It's only the beginning!" The captain of the ship announced from the control room as all the sailors took on fighting stances, having stationed themselves at various locations throughout the ship. They were transporting valuable cargo and hence couldn't afford to keep any areas unprotected.

"Uh…shit!" When the ship passed by a low tide, Earth Star peeked out and noticed hundreds of creatures swimming alongside the ship, with each spanning a dozen metres in size, sporting a long tentacle that they used to hunt prey.

Earth Star had only neutralised one such creature by cutting its tentacle. Therefore, the situation was still troublesome.

"Die!" A sailor screamed as he pointed his rifle at the ocean and unleashed a barrage of bullets that splattered a lot of blood. But immediately in response, the sea monsters dived deeper into the water.

The bullets lost all momentum mere metres into the water, allowing them to easily travel alongside the ship without any danger.

Moreover, they began to attack the hull of the ship, intending to make a hole through it and sink it. Even though the hull was created using reinforced steel that was at least a metre thick, it didn't matter as they could shave it little by little.

Earth Star observed a group of sea monsters congregating around an area as a sawing sound resounded, despite the loud noise of thunder. Such a loud sound meant the sea monsters were making progress in drilling a hole through the hull.

Earth Star looked around and noticed a large block of stone on the deck and approached it hurriedly, pulling out a rope from nearby as he wound two grenades around it and then rushed towards the edge and dropped it at the congregation spot.

The rope was tied around the grenade pins, making it easier for him to yank them out the moment the two grenades sunk the required depth thanks to the density of the piece of rock.

Kaboom!

The shrapnel from the grenade explosion resulted in a sea of blood at the explosion, followed by a collective screech of pain from the sea monsters.

"Nice, Rahakh!" The sailors cheered in response as they shot the bodies of the sea monsters that carelessly surfaced as a result of the explosion, riddling a lot of damage in response.

But the situation didn't become better. As they say, the ocean is vast. The injured sea monsters were unable to keep up with the ship and either retreated or were hunted down by other marine creatures.

And replacing them was another group of sea monsters, in pristine states.

Pata-pat-patpat!

Firing sounds resounded for the next few hours as from time to time, the sea monsters killed one sailor after another by taking advantage of the high tides.

Suddenly, the captain of the ship rushed out of the control room and stared out into the ocean in despair, "O-Our rudder was taken out."

"What?" The sailors gasped in shock, only now realising that for the past minute, they hadn't moved forward at all. They were just under the illusion that they were moving as usual thanks to the violent tides and incessant rain that messed up their senses.

"Captain, don't we have missiles or torpedoes?" Earth Star asked in frustration, grunting as he tied a gauze around his leg injury. He was exhausted, having been fighting nonstop all along.

Even though all the sailors were armed fully, the ammo was limited. And in such a scenario, they had to fight sparingly with their hot weapons. Their frustrations were piling up already.

"Yeah, captain. Fire a few and clear out a path for us to move forward." The other sailors too complained in response, having lost a lot of their comrades to the sea monsters.

"Truth be told…" The captain sighed as he spoke, "The missiles are out of order. They won't detonate even if you launch them at our targets."

He sighed, "Our company took a severe hit recently. To recoup our losses, pretty much every valuable was sold off, including the functioning missiles. This was supposed to be the shipment that would earn us enough to get back on our feet once again."

He sighed and bowed, "I'm sorry for hiding this…"

In his panic after the ship had lost its rudder, the captain didn't even realise that he was giving a speech while on the deck, unguarded. And the sailors, grumbling, stopping firing at the waters.

Of course, as a result, a tentacle swooped in, grabbed the captain, and yanked him into the ocean, stunning everyone. With that, they lost their leader.

Thankfully though, they seemed to have arrived at the edge of the storm as a few minutes later, the rain stopped while beams of sunlight shone through the gap in the clouds. The tides too became weak enough that they were no longer threatening to the ship.

It had lost its rudder, but the water currents had brought the ship forward.

"Thank goodness," Earth Star slumped on the deck in exhaustion, observing that the sea monsters didn't bother to chase them beyond the stormy region.

They were aware that without the high tides, they would be at too much of a disadvantage as the hot weapons would shred through their natural armour casually in such weather conditions.

Even in the storm, the sailors had killed hundreds of sea monsters.

"No, what are we supposed to do?" A sailor muttered nervously upon observing the weather conditions in their control room, stating, "The wind and water current in this place is close to none."

Earth Star observed the display depicting the water currents and atmospheric conditions, frowning upon noticing that they had fully emerged out of the stormy region. It was something they should have been grateful about had they not lost their rudder.

And now, the ship came to a halt, no longer moving as the sailors were mentally exhausted, "We're stranded."

"We're stranded indeed." Earth Star squinted at the ocean, unable to see anything else as far as his eyes could cover. They were stranded in the middle of nowhere.