3 Adrift
'T-the sword'
Shin searched around for the sword that he had picked up from the corpse with its head crushed on the deck.
The lifeboat was not very big, it had enough space to hold 4 people if they got together and were a bit cramped.
However, Shin soon realized that the sword was not in the boat.
'Where is it?! Damn it!'
As much as he searched over and over again as the boat rocked aggressively and the ship sank deeper and deeper, the sword did not appear.
Because the moment Shin jumped into the lifeboat and it hit his stomach, he unconsciously dropped the sword, which fell into the water, sinking into the depths forever.
Shin checked his body and noticed that he was still carrying the gun that he had kept between the space of his pants and his skin.
He didn't have much time to keep looking for the sword when right next to the boat a large tentacle came out of the water. Shin felt as if everything had momentarily gone silent and as if the waters had relaxed as he watched the tentacle come down hard towards him.
'I curse you for sending me to this place!'
Shin instinctively closed his eyes at the threat that was approaching to take his life, and a second later he felt how the boat he was in went flying next to the water ejected by the great impact of the tentacle.
The squid had attacked the other boat, immediately destroying it, and breaking the support and ropes that held the boat where Shin was, thus freeing him.
Shin felt his whole world spin before the boat fell back into the water, sinking a few meters before bouncing back up.
Shin coughed up the water he had inadvertently swallowed, but the world didn't want to give him a break when a big wave hit the boat again.
Shin managed to hold on to a part of the boat and didn't let go even if it cost him his arm. If he were to be separated from the boat, it would be his doom.
For several minutes, the wild waves constantly hit Shin's boat, causing it to receive blows as it collided with the floor of the boat and various wooden parts of it.
'If I survive this, I swear never to get on a boat again in my life!'
Shin didn't know what was going on around him and he didn't know if it was normal for the water to be so agitated. He also did not know the destination of the ship and only cared about continuing to cling to the boat.
After several minutes of constant suffering and fear, the waters somehow began to stop being so constant and even though the boat continued to move along with the flow of the waves. It seemed that the worst part was over.
Shin held on to the boat, managing to relax a bit as he lay back on the uncomfortable floor of the boat.
His whole body was soaked, and he was shivering from the cold, but at least he could breathe for a second without having to swallow water.
Trying to cling to the boat as best he could, Shin lay on the ground waiting for the great storm to pass.
***
Shin woke up and felt how his whole body was screaming in pain.
"Ugh!"
Shin sat for a while looking at the blue sky above him. There wasn't a single cloud and the waters seemed to be calm, if Shin didn't know he was in a boat he would think he was on dry land. It seemed that the storm from the night before had just been a bad dream.
But Shin couldn't dream.
Sitting up slowly as he held his hand to his torso, Shin sat on a wooden plank in the boat, intended to serve as a chair.
The oars on the boat that he had seen yesterday while he was looking for the sword were gone. In addition, the boat seemed to be damaged and only floated miraculously.
Shin guessed that the boat wouldn't last another storm.
Looking at the horizon, Shin could only see water and more water on either side. With no sign of land, and without even knowing where she was or how she had gotten to the ship from the wooden capsule. Shin suddenly found himself adrift on a collapsing boat.
Shin took off the thin cloth shirt he was wearing to look at his body. Both his arms, chest, stomach and what he could see of his back were covered in bruises from the night before. He even had a few scratches along with clotted blood.
But luckily, he had no serious injuries.
With everything that had happened, Shin didn't have time to stop and think about his situation. But now that all he could do was stare at the empty horizon, he began to reflect a little.
His body seemed to be the same as before, his brown hair and fair complexion were also the same as before. So, it seemed that his body was definitely the one from before even though he couldn't look at himself in a mirror.
He also noticed that the clothes he was wearing were different. In the laboratory, when entering the wooden capsule, Shin was wearing a tight neoprene suit that stuck to his body. But instead, he was now wearing a white cloth shirt, similar to that of pirates, and baggy burgundy pants made of some unknown material, it wasn't like Shin was an expert in clothing materials.
Obviously, all his clothes were totally soaked, and he was not wearing any underwear, just a shirt and pants.
Shin took off all his clothes and laid them on the wooden board in front of him to dry in the sun that was shining brightly high in the sky.
There was no one to see him naked so he just sat with his private parts exposed and waited for his clothes to dry.
A bit bored with nothing to do, Shin looked at the gun he had put aside and examined it thoroughly.
[Worn Flintlock Pistol]
[A pistol frequently used by pirates, this pistol has a long history in the hands of very famous pirates who left a mark of terror in history. But its last possessor was a cowardly pirate unable to be a good leader and without any great achievements.]
The description and name of the gun was still the same as what Shin had seen on the ship.
"Why do I feel like the person I know who described the gun hated the captain?"
The description of the weapon was somewhat hurtful to the captain that Shin had seen on the ship. Although he never met him in person, or at least not while he was still alive. If he could see how the captain was not brave enough to face the threat facing the tribulation of him and his ship.
He didn't even understand how he was able to become a pirate captain. It seemed to Shin that the muscle man was a better candidate to be captain, but it wasn't a problem anymore. In the end they were all dead.
After examining the gun for a while he fiddled with its mechanism, Shin looked at the mark on his hand.
The circular symbol with the leaf inside it was still the same as it was when he had looked at it in that dark space.
With some care, Shin rubbed the symbol not to try to erase it but to feel his skin. He was somewhat afraid of feeling that intense pain that he had after trying to erase the symbol.
His skin felt normal as if he had nothing, he hadn't had any tattoos before either, so he didn't know what it felt like to have one.
Suddenly, as he continued to carefully touch the symbol, it lit up a light green color and gave off a light that formed a screen in front of him.
"So, this is what happened before"
Last time Shin had to close his eyes because of the light but this time he could clearly see how the screen was formed.
Name: [Shin]
[-------]
Stage: [Mortal]
Soul: [Mortal]
Core: [0/100]
[-------]
Items: [Worn Flintlock Pistol]
The screen showed the same information except for a new option, objects.
Apparently, the screen recorded his information, his name, something blank, the stage that didn't know its meaning like the soul and the core.
Then there was another blank space, and then the objects where the pistol he had picked up appeared.
Knowing that the screen was solid and could be touched, Shin tried to touch each word to see if something would happen but only by touching the space where the gun was, he did the description of it unfold again.
"Hmmm, for now I don't understand anything"
Shin didn't know if this was normal or something special, but he hadn't had anyone to ask. He had only seen the pirates, but he had neither the opportunity nor the idea to ask them. He therefore he had to wait and find the information later.
When Shin lost interest in the screen, it turned into light which converged towards the symbol in his hand which turned black again.
Shin looked at all of this curiously before his stomach growled.
"I'm hungry…"
All the effort he had made to stay alive made him spend a lot of energy, which led to him being hungrier and a little thirsty.
Shin looked around and sighed before looking up at the sky.
"I'm screwed up"
***
It had been about 3 days since Shin drifted and his face looked haggard and his eyes a little dull as he looked at the horizon.
According to the survival classes he had been given, a common person could last up to weeks without eating but a maximum of up to 5 days without drinking water before his body stopped working, and that was with luck.
Shin was in that limbo. His stomach ached horribly from hunger and his lips began to break from how dry they were, his head ached horribly, and he suffered from cramps in most of his muscles.
'At this rate it would be better to have been crushed or eaten by the squid'
Not only was the lack of hunger and water bothersome, but the sun was also unbearable. During the night the cold was too intense and during the day, the sun could start a fire on the boat if Shin was not careful.
At this rate in 1 or 2 days he would die if he continued like this, but what could he do?
Looking at the cloudless blue sky, Shin felt goosebumps break out on him. He thought it was an effect due to the lack of water until a great roar was heard that woke him up from the lethargic state in which he was.
"GHRAAAAAARGHHH!"
Immediately, Shin started looking at the direction from which he heard the roar. Far away on the horizon, clouds of darkness could be seen with thunderclaps that echoed with death and despair.
Luckily for Shin, the storm seemed to be moving in another direction and not towards the boat. But the waves began to churn a bit, rocking Shin's boat that had been sitting still since the first storm.
The movement wasn't too sudden, so Shin just sat on the ground to be safe while he let the waves steer the ship.
However, thanks to his weakened state, Shin couldn't feel how his insides were churning and he started to feel dizzy.
The last thing he needed was to vomit and become even more dehydrated.
Closing his eyes with a little tiredness, Shin went to sleep hoping that something would happen to get him out of the horrible situation in which he found himself.
