Chapter 132: Reel in the Big Catch
After gazing at the fresh meat for a while, I began to notice the shadow of a large fish flickering beneath the surface. It seemed that the sizable chunk of raw meat was doing its job quite well.
“Isn’t that thing huge?”
The shadow appeared to be several meters long, which was quite surprising. While Earth does have fish of this size, catching one by hand would be impossible.
“Hahaha! If you manage to reel that in, I’ll teach you how to prepare it for free!”
There was an unspoken implication that he might be saying, “But that’s unlikely,” but I couldn’t help but want to ask if it was really okay for him to say that. I had him on record, Mognov.
“Alright, then! I’m counting on you!”
As I smirked inwardly, the prey lunged at the raw meat. The fishing rod was yanked with tremendous force, and without a reel, it felt like I might be pulled in along with it. I braced myself with my legs, but the boat began to tilt dangerously.
“Whoa! Wait, hold on!”
Mognov’s panicked shouts were unintelligible, but I understood his concern. If this continued, the boat would surely capsize. Upon closer inspection, the fish I had hooked was about three meters long. The strength with which it was pulling was no joke.
“This won’t do.”
I decided to give up on holding my ground on the boat and instead floated into the air.
“Whaaaat!?”
As I hovered above the water, Mognov let out a strange cry upon seeing me pull away to avoid damaging the boat. In hindsight, I realized I didn’t actually need to have a boat to fish out here. Still, Mognov had taught me a lot, so it wasn’t entirely pointless.
“Go for it!”
I could hear Rio’s lackluster encouragement from the side.
“Now that I’m up here, I don’t think it’ll escape.”
With no need to be overly cautious, I decided to use sheer strength. As I slowly ascended, the fish’s head began to break the surface of the water. Just then, a massive shadow surged up from the depths.
“Whoa!”
The large shadow swallowed the three-meter fish I had just hooked in one gulp and leaped out of the water, aiming to bite me next. I instinctively jumped back to evade it, completely unprepared for such an attack from below the surface. I had sensed the presence of a large fish in the water, but still—
“If you want me to reel you in that badly, then I’ll do just that!”
I struck the enormous fish, which seemed to exceed seven meters in length, right in the jaw, knocking it unconscious before stowing it away in the Dimensional Box. The three-meter fish was still thrashing about, so I subdued it and laid it on the deck of the boat.
“Today’s haul is impressive!”
“Haha, but we’ve only caught three so far.”
“True, but it’s been easy to catch them. We might really end up with a big haul.”
Given the size of the boat, the three-meter fish was already pushing the limits. I removed the fishing hook from its mouth and stored it in the Dimensional Box as well.
“Alright, next up!”
As I pulled out more raw meat to hook onto the fishing line, I suddenly paused to think.
“…What’s wrong?”
“I just realized that at this depth, I might not reach the school of fish.”
“Yeah, the fishing line isn’t that long.”
“I thought I’d need to pull it up all the way to get the hook above the surface, but I could just float up high like before and pull it from there.”
“Should we extend the fishing line then?”
“Yeah, let’s do that.”
I retrieved the Metal Spider Thread from the Dimensional Box and extended the fishing line. The water was quite deep, so I decided to make it about twenty meters long. Rio seemed to aim for around ten meters. I also swapped the hook for a larger one and attached a bigger piece of raw meat to the end.
“Alright, done!”
I leaped from the boat, hovering about a meter above the water’s surface, and let the line drop, waiting for a bite. I could sense the presence of fish circling the raw meat, but they hesitated to take a bite.
Glancing over the side of the boat, I saw Rio was also letting her line down, mirroring my actions.
“Wha—what the heck is that!?”
Mognov, who had been frozen in shock until now, finally found his voice and shouted from the boat.
“Why isn’t the line breaking!? Normally, you can’t catch such a big fish with a rod! Only those with large ships struggle to reel in fish of that size!”
Recalling the ships I had seen at the harbor, it made sense that they would have trouble with fish nearing ten meters. After all, there are whales on Earth that exceed twenty meters in length. In this Otherworld, there could be even larger creatures lurking beneath the waves.
“Oh?”
As I pondered this, I noticed movement in the water below. It seemed something was heading straight for us. The shadow beneath my feet grew larger. Was it aiming to eat me? Having faced this once before, dodging it was easy. I drew it in close, and as the prey broke the surface, I swiftly leaped back.
The boat that had been visible in front of me was now obscured by the fish that leaped from the water.
“Ahhh! It got eaten! Are you okay!?”
I could hear Mognov’s frantic cries from the other side. While I hadn’t been eaten, it must have looked that way from his perspective.
“Got myself a second big catch!”
I was thrilled with the bounty of seafood I was reeling in. Realizing that I could use myself as bait and catch fish without a rod, we continued to harvest fish while Mognov panicked over the bizarre situation. By the way, I checked the status of the giant fish I caught, and the highest stat was in the 3000 range.