Strongest Among the Heavens
Chapter 420: Beginnings of an Ambush

Chapter 420: Beginnings of an Ambush

"Why can’t we deflect it?" Astrid asked. "We get all our players to use a water blocking spell and bam."

Samantha looked at her as though to say, "Are you stupid?" Being the kind woman she was, the blonde ended up with, "I did a headcount of the players that are either enrolled in school or magic users and came up with twenty-three. Unless we learn a Cooperative Spell for a waterfall, it won’t be enough."

"So...practice?"

"You think three weeks is going to be enough for twenty people to synchronize, you dumb bitch," is what Samantha wanted to say. Being the kind woman she was, she smiled and shook her head. "We won’t have enough practice."

"Think of a band," Kazi explained. "It takes a lot of time and hours to understand each other’s roles, get together, and then execute them. We always hear about the best bands but we never hear about the failures. About the thousands of musicians that fail when they come together. Teamwork is harder than you think and talent can’t always bridge it."

"Ohhhh. That makes sense." Astrid nodded, yet still questioned, "Can’t we, I don’t know, shoot it from a distance? Actually, no wait, that would be boring, never mind."

"Arrows do not work because of the heat it emits. You shoot a hundred arrows and it will blast them away with a hot mist," Mikinosuke explained. "It is as though it knows the arrows are coming before they touch its skin. An impromptu armour, as it were."

"Even though it doesn’t have eyes?" Astrid questioned. Mikinosuke gave a nod. "Okaaaaay. So how did Sasaki Kojiro stop it?"

"Sasaki Kojiro wielded the fan and mask of Fujin the wind god. Both the mask and the fan were broken during the clash," Mikinosuke informed them.

"So we can’t ask for last second help from Sasaki Kojiro either, huh?" Astrid threw her arms up in the air. "I’m all out of ideas! Skullmask, any ideas?"

"We kill it before it can launch the attack." Skullmask sat casually with a knee raised and an arm dangling off of it. "It lost a fin. Its movements are limited. If we ambush it, we can kill it quickly. Find openings and, if we’re lucky, I’ll personally be able to slash its innards. If I cut enough, I might be able to cut the mechanism that causes it."

Silence.

"Utterly ridiculous," Mikinosuke said. "Going into its throat is suicide, Otherworlder. You will not be able to cut its bones."

"My scythe can cut through anything," Skullmask declared.

"Quick question." Booker Davis Jr raised a hand. "One, where’s the bathroom and two, can it even be ambushed?"

Booker earned strange looks except from Kazi himself. As always, Booker was keen and on the same track as him.

"I don’t want to go into an ambush and then realize it’s no ambush at all," Booker explained.

"What do you mean? An ambush is an ambush," said Samantha.

Booker looked at her like she was stupid and face-palmed. He explained after a sigh, "Just yesterday, the monsters attacked the port. Why? For the jokes? Of course not, there was a reason: scouting. When the fishermen started sending boat loads to fish, the Bake-kujira must have sensed it and sent out monsters to check it out."

"But none returned," Mikinosuke stated.

"So? Monsters follow their own rules and these monsters ultimately were born from the Bake-kujira. If you want theory, tiny Etherparticles likely came back and informed the whale what it saw. Either that or every one of those monsters are its eyes." Booker gestured at Kazi. "Meaning, the Bake-kujira is waiting for players to fight it. It knows about Kazi."

Booker stretched his arms and crawled over to the table. Once settled, he took out a quill and ink and drew on the diagram of the Bake-kujira.

"Ever hunt real whales? Anyone? I have. They have echolocation and magnetic sensing. Judging by how quickly it responded to those fishermen leaving, we can assume it’s significantly more robust than what a normal whale can do. The magnetic sense is in the brain, contained in that super thick skull. Impenetrable. I bet that is why your arrows don’t work either." A lightbulb flashed in the eyes of the samurai. That made sense. "As for the echolocation, that occurs through vocalization from the slightly below the blowhole and the reception of the echo in the ear."

"Ah. Is this echolocation what lets it navigate the monsters from a long-distance?" Yoemon asked.

"Probably," Booker said.

"Or," Kazi joined in, "if it’s anything like a sperm whale, there might be a spermaceti organ. That way, we focus purely on the top of the head. If not and it’s like you say it is, we go for the jaw."

"Am I going crazy or didn’t Junior say the whale receives it through the ear?" Astrid pointed out.

"Specifically, through the lower jaw which then travels to the inner ear and then the brain." Booker’s quill went from the jaw to the ear. "It’s a process. A process we have to take advantage of."

"Meaning...?"

Kazi answered, "We either send out a special arrow or..."

"A gun," Booker finished. "I see what you’re saying. If I buy a sniper and an anti-magic bullet, I could land a good shot and get rid of its echolocation."

"It’ll have to be fast. We don’t have much information on this thing and this thing’s structure is nothing like the local whales. It’s been battered and bruised and morphed for combat. I’ll bet the jaw is the key spot though."

"Agreed. If it’s been morphed for combat, its body wouldn’t be dumb enough to put two key components of its sensing abilities in the same area."

"Precisely. So with that in..." Booker trailed off. He felt the deep, deep stare of the biggest man and turned. "Something you need?"

"I have a question," Kurōtarō said, a hand up. His gaze flicked to Kazi. "To you too."

"What’s up?"

Kurōtarō looked between Kazi and Booker and then asked, "Why is your skin tone so dark?"

"..."

"...?"

"Your skin is so dark it is almost black rather than brown. Is it ink?" Booker couldn’t even answer because the samurai kept going. "And you...you look as though you come from mud." He very specifically pointed at Kazi for the second remark. "Do you not wash yourself?"

Booker Davis Jr was not the type to laugh so heartily. For the first time in a long time, he did. He laughed until he could only chortle and lay down. Kurōtarō was decidedly more confused.

Fortunately, Kazi was already used to this reaction. It came up quite often during his travels.

"I can tell you well-meaning. Ignore him." Kazi cleared his throat and wore a professional smile. "We were born with this special tone of flesh. Think of it as a gift from the god Daikoku."

"Ooh, a lucky charm."

"Yes. It allows us to bathe in the sun more."

"So a blessing from the sun goddess too! Impressive!" Kurōtarō gave a decisive nod. "Could this blessing potentially stop the flames of the Bake-kujira?"

"No. We would most certainly die," Kazi replied.

’From the look of it...’ Kazi almost snickered as he scanned the expressions on the other samurai. ’The others of this era had the same question too.’

"...will the skin not weigh you down?" Mikinosuke asked quietly, as though he were a child in a classroom.

"I have fought Kazi myself," Yoemon said. "Kazi is faster than you or I."

"Faster?" The long silent Iori spoke his first word. He immediately eyed Kazi as though he were prey.

"I might be fast enough to cut up the Bake-kujira from the inside-out like Skullmask suggested. Like all whales, it does have a blowhole," Kazi said, returning the topic at hand. "If it starts heating inside the blowhole, I can create Magic Barriers around us."

"Us?"

Kazi nodded at Skullmask. "Yep. I can keep track of you and maintain a barrier as long as you’re in a twenty meter radius, give or take. Ah, but I guess none of this matters if we get sensed in advance."

The Bake-kujira—as Booker stated—possessed two distinct sensing abilities: echolocation and magnetic sensing.

"That magnetic sensing is the big problem. All of us carry metal weapons and we won’t be strong enough to fight if we go without them." Kazi crossed his arms. He went through every option. "To be honest...I don’t think we can surprise the Bake-kujira."

"If we do not have the element of surprise, then what is the point?" Kurōtarō demanded, slamming a fist. "We must find a way! I will strip myself of my armour if need be!"

"And I’m saying we can’t," Kazi said. "Kurotaro, you will die without your armour. Yoemon, you rely on your blade. Every samurai does. The fishermen will throw metal spears. What do we do to compensate for lacking metal? Wood? Plastic? No, we have to turn our thinking around. Do not think of risk: think of all the advantages. To put it another way, carrying metal on our person also gives us the ability to move the Bake-kujira to our whims."

"You sound like you have a plan," Samantha said.

"The beginnings of one." Kazi smiled at everyone. "I think I know a guy and gal that could help too."