Chapter 130: The sea!

“For now, let’s calm down. Kai and Ragdoll haven’t checked the entire island; they’ve each only explored half…” Tiger commented solemnly, almost as if trying to convince himself. At that moment, Mandalay spoke with authority.

“Tiger is right. First of all, Kai and Ragdoll need to explore the entire island, each on their own. Besides…” Mandalay turned to look at Pixie-Bob and Tiger, then asked in a serious tone.

“Tiger, Pixie-Bob, did you find any data in the base?”

“We found a few USB drives and other devices where they stored data, but every electronic device, if it wasn’t destroyed, it was fried, so we don’t know if they work.” Pixie-Bob answered in a tense tone, prompting Mandalay to nod before turning to Mirko, Kai, and Ragdoll to speak again.

“Then Mirko, Kai, and Ragdoll should explore a bit more. They might find something. Meanwhile, Tiger, Pixie-Bob, and I will stay at the base since the helicopter won’t take long to arrive.”

“Alright, I’ll keep looking.” Mirko agreed with a serious expression. Ragdoll and Kai did the same, and moments later, the three of them dashed off in different directions.

…

“What do you think happened on this island?” As they walked back, Ryuko asked gravely, to which Chatora responded in a similar tone.

“Hard to say. Hopefully, we can do something with the storage devices we brought, or we might be facing an impossible mystery to solve…”

“What worries me right now is Kai’s attitude. Even though I’m glad he’s taking all of this seriously, somehow I feel that ‘strange sensation’ he’s been talking about got to me too. I sense that something very dangerous is hiding here…” Shino remarked while staring into the forest with a sharp, worried gaze, which inevitably made Chatora and Ryuko nod in agreement.

“You’re right, I’ve also started feeling a bit anxious for a while now, like something is watching us.” Ryuko commented uneasily, to which Chatora replied in a serious tone.

“Let’s hope it’s just Kai’s demeanor making us feel this way and nothing else…”

Minutes passed slowly, and finally, after sprinting at top speed using only enhancement to strengthen himself, Kai checked every corner of the island with Observation Haki and En. Yet, he still couldn’t find a single trace of the scientists, not even their corpses. So, in the end, he ended up at one of the island’s edges—a small cliff overlooking the sea—where he stood with a complex expression, watching in the distance as the helicopter flew off with the lizard man.

(Could it be that an explosion erased the scientists’ corpses…? No, that doesn’t make sense. Even though there are indeed some traces of explosions in certain areas, if that had been the case, there should have been some remains of them. But I found nothing, even when I looked into cracks. Something else happened here, but what…?

On the other hand, I also didn’t find any fish, animal, or any other kind of corpse—like they were erased somehow. But if that was the case, why was one corpse left intact, and how did someone survive…? Did they forget them or not notice them...? So many questions and not the slightest clue to unravel the mystery…)

While Kai was lost in thought, his gaze fixed on the waves crashing against the cliff—feeling as though he was missing something crucial—he suddenly noticed something odd on the water’s surface at the edge of his vision. It inevitably caught his attention, to the point that he sent out his [En], which at this moment could extend up to about 750 meters if he tried his hardest, causing his eyes to widen in shock.

“Of course!! The sea!!”

Kai exclaimed in realization as he leaped at high speed toward the ocean, landing upright on the water, where he retrieved from the surface what appeared to be a notebook inside a damaged waterproof bag.

“Webbing…?”

On inspecting the bag and the notebook, Kai couldn’t help noticing that they seemed to have been damaged by some kind of fangs. But the truly striking detail was a faint trace of a whitish substance—a spiderweb—which left him stunned for a minute, while his mind started racing through his memories.

“Now that I think about it, there were no spiderwebs on the island… How is it possible there wasn’t a single spiderweb on a wooded island? Isn’t that just as strange as not finding any corpses…?”

Standing on the water as though it were solid ground, Kai murmured to himself in disbelief. Then, he conjured a sword in his hand without even bothering to do the trick of making it appear from Salem’s fur. He concentrated his Armament Haki and enhancement into it and unleashed a fierce black slash that split the sea as if Moses himself had done it.

By parting the sea, Kai intensely scanned the surroundings and even pushed [En] and [Observation Haki] to their limits, unwilling to miss anything. This allowed him to quickly spot, in the distance, a trail of spiderwebs on the seabed stretching out in a straight line. It began to fade rapidly, as though contact with air accelerated its dissolution.

“Got you, you son of a bitch.”

[Kai, what happened?! Did you find something?!] Seeing Kai suddenly unleash his colossal power, Shino hurriedly contacted him via telepathy, alarmed. Kai answered with a broad smile on his face.

[Yes, I’ve got them. They’re under the sea, but the trail is disappearing. I’ll move on my own; if anything happens, I’ll let you know.]

[Wait, Kai! What did you find? Is it dangerous?!] Shino quickly asked, worried. Kai responded in a calm tone while running at high speed over the turbulent sea, which was returning to its normal state.

[It’s a trail of spiderwebs. I found one of the scientists’ notebooks with traces of web on it in the ocean, so I decided to check below and discovered a kind of spiderweb tunnel that was vanishing. And I found no spiderwebs anywhere on the island, so it’s very likely this is them.]

[Then wait for us. We can ask for transport and reinforcements.] Shino responded immediately, but Kai refused in a serious tone.

[That’s not possible. I can’t sense them, which means they must be too far away. So all I have is this spiderweb trail that’s fading. If I lose it, I might not be able to find them. But as soon as I can, I’ll contact the base and request a transport for you, and I’ll give you my position so you can come find me. Besides, you all know that, in an emergency, I can always escape, so nothing will happen to me.]

[Kai… Why are you so interested in this…?] Shino asked in a somewhat indecipherable, gentle tone, to which Kai replied after a moment’s consideration, never ceasing his sprint.

[… Because I have a bad feeling. Somehow I sense that if I let this slip away, I’ll end up regretting it. So I want to see with my own eyes what’s going on—whether it’s just my paranoia or if there’s really something to worry about.]

[… Alright then. We’ll wait for transport so we can follow you.] After a brief pause, Shino responded firmly and seriously, causing Kai to smile as he replied cheerfully.

[I love you, Shino.]

[And I love you more.]

After saying goodbye to Shino, Kai continued running over the ocean, guided by the faint “outline” of the spiderweb he could sense with his Observation Haki. It was so weak and subtle that if he didn’t focus on it specifically, he could easily overlook it as something else. After a while, he called out to his trusty assistant.

“Sage, can you connect to the satellites now?”

“Yes, Master, I’ve regained the connection.” The beautiful fairy answered in a serious tone as she flew beside her master. Kai quickly gave an order in a stern voice.

“Perfect. Then show me the profile of all the scientists. I want to know why they were taken. And contact the base we left from—tell them to send a maritime transport for the others, preferably a fast boat.”

“Right away.”

Sage replied seriously, her wings flashing various colors as a hologram with all the information appeared before Kai, who began reviewing it with a serious expression while running.

“… No matter how I look at it, they don’t have anything interesting—no signs of ‘special research’, and their quirks aren’t strong or even noteworthy. Wait.” Kai muttered to himself, confused, as he checked the scientists’ information over and over. Suddenly, something caught his eye.

“There was one without a quirk…?”

Swiftly, Kai zoomed in on the file for the person who lacked a quirk, only to realize it was actually the same person found dead in the base. Although he looked a bit different when alive, Kai could still recognize him, which sent him into deep thought.

(Was it because he didn’t have a quirk that they left him…? No, but if that were the case, why weren’t there more remains of animals or anything else…? It must be something else. Besides, the survivor did have a quirk, and the other scientists had very weak quirks—like reducing their need for sleep or humidifying the air around them, nothing special at all. Actually, the lizard man might be considered the strongest, at least having heightened senses and some super strength. So maybe it’s not about quirks…)

Thinking through various possibilities, Kai kept sprinting full speed over the water, aided by his first-stage Lightning Mantle. He wasn’t willing to burn too much energy yet. Then, all of a sudden, at the very edge of his Observation Haki’s range beneath the sea, he sensed multiple voices gathered together, causing him to abruptly stop.

“How can this be…?”

Kai’s expression showed utter disbelief as he focused on the five “voices” he could sense at the ocean floor. Each of them was incredibly strong. If he had to compare, they were around the same level as the current All Might, which shocked him to the core. Even though they were weaker than he was, fighting five current All Mights at once could be potentially fatal, forcing him to go all out or simply flee.

Moreover, there was a fundamental difference between these “voices” and the “voices” of other powerful beings he had sensed before, like the Nomus. Those Nomus, although quite strong, were actually a strange amalgamation of multiple voices, which for some reason made them vulnerable to his Haki—like they had a special weakness—so they were actually very easy enemies to handle.

But the “voices” he felt right now were different. In some way, they felt more “solid”, “real”, and much harder to predict, as though, unlike the Nomus, these were truly real threats with overwhelming power, not those odd entities that used their abilities in a stupid, pre-programmed way. Additionally, he could instinctively sense that these things did not share the Nomus’ same vulnerability to his Haki.

(How can they be so strong? Wasn’t the current All Might supposed to be invincible…? Though wait, what I know from the original series is way too little. I’m basically in uncharted territory now, and while that’s helped me relax a bit and adjust my mindset, it also has its downside: I have no clue what happens next, which is pretty dangerous.

(But looking at it from another angle, this world definitely has something to do with that anime I once watched, so for now, I’ll just turn a blind eye and pretend that somehow the author managed to learn about this world in a magic dream or something and used that to create his story. If that’s the case, there must be elements that would be interesting for a battle-themed story, and there’s nothing more interesting than powerful enemies.

(If we follow that line of reasoning, we could assume that what the author got in his “magic dream” were the events or main players in this world—like All Might, his successor, his companions, and a bit of how things work here. Logically, he would also have known about some powerful “villains”, which inevitably led him to create a 'shōnen', given the world’s structure and its “agents”.

(Though I’m really forcing things here, that train of thought leads me to a conclusion: if you want to maintain a shōnen over time, there always have to be increasingly powerful villains, so that must have been a key point the author considered when deciding to make this kind of story rather than something else with the info he got in that “dream”. Hence, there’s a good chance that All Might’s level is not absolute or invincible. There are far more powerful things that appeared later on, which I know nothing about.

(Therefore, I need to erase from my mind right now the idea that I’m the strongest. Even though if I gave it my all, I should be able to defeat prime All Might, his level can be surpassed, and there may be unknown things out there much stronger than me. Plus, One for All is acting strange. Midoriya’s data is starting to differ from All Might’s, and his quirk factor is mutating at a rapid pace. His “voice” is also starting to sound different from when All Might had it.

(In conclusion, there’s a high likelihood that One for All is evolving and will reach a qualitative change that makes it absurdly more powerful. Consequently, there’s an extremely high chance that in the future, “strong entities” will show up as a challenge for the “protagonist” and, by extension, for me. So I have to be very cautious and gather as much information as possible before doing anything else, or I might end up throwing my life or my family’s lives away.)