The Novelist Forced to Become Famous

Raj, not particularly brave but quite cunning, asked in surprise, "Why haven't you gotten on the lifeboat yet?"

"Lifeboat? Good heavens, what happened?" The Screenwriter, carrying a small bag and sporting a bruise on his forehead, looked even more surprised. "I woke up to hear that the ship was sinking and we were told to gather. While going upstairs, something hit me out of nowhere, causing me to twist my ankle. Why do we need to go to the lifeboats now? Is the ship about to capsize?"

Not knowing what to imagine, he suddenly panicked: "Titanic? Are there icebergs here too?"

Just as Raj was about to explain, he felt a sudden tremor above his head, and debris from the ceiling began to fall.

Turning around, he saw a thick, strong tentacle piercing through, aiming directly for his face.

Raj was so frightened his legs nearly gave out.

It was Andrei who kept his composure, grabbing the oil at hand and throwing it, then lighting it with a lighter.

The force of the burning oil was incomparable to wood or fabric. The tentacle, startled, retreated behind the wall of fire, peeking out cautiously. After a moment, it seemed to have found a solution, its tail drilling through the floor, circumventing the burning area, and emerging from another end.

But it was too late.

Andrei grabbed the Screenwriter like a chicken and, along with the panicked Raj, ran down the stairs.

"I'm terrified, absolutely terrified," Raj said, still shaken. "I quit. Why should I risk my life like this? I'm done. Let's go to the stern, there are lifeboats there."

He sought support: "Are you coming?"

The Screenwriter nodded quickly.

Raj looked at Andrei, but he shook his head: "I'm going to help Jian."

They parted ways.

The Screenwriter clung to Raj, his face pale: "What's going on? What was that monster? Oh god, could it really be a giant squid?"

"You're asking me? I don't know either!" Raj snapped. "Let's just get out of here quickly."

The two rushed towards the stern.

Fortunately, they didn't encounter any more monsters on the way.

But the lifeboats were gone.

The cruise ship had 8 lifeboats, each capable of holding 30 people, plus 5 life rafts, which should have been enough for everyone on board.

But now, looking around, only one life raft remained.

They hurriedly lowered the life raft, which drifted on the waves.

The heavy rain beat down on them, cold and painful.

An orange life raft tried to approach, carrying Jiang BaiYan and others. They asked in a jumble of voices: "Where are the others? Should we move further away?"

Raj hesitated, but still said: "No, they're still up there."

"What about the monster?" Zhang Xue'er asked, "Is it still on the ship?"

"This life raft was left for you few..." Ran-er Kim began, then trailed off.

Wataru Kojima was more direct: "You came down, what about the others?"

In a life-or-death situation, there was no room for politeness. Raj retorted mercilessly: "If you're so concerned, you should have stayed behind. At least I helped out. What right do you have to criticize me?"

The others were immediately silenced.

But Jiang BaiYan said: "Without the life raft we secured, you wouldn't have been able to come down either."

Raj glanced at him but said nothing.

The wind, carrying large raindrops, violently assaulted the small life raft.

"With only two of you, it's too easy for the waves to push you away," Jiang BaiYan seemed to have forgotten the conflict, expressing concern for them. "We'll share some of our people with you, to balance it out."

Wataru Kojima said: "I'll go over." He acted immediately, not waiting for Raj and the Screenwriter to react, grabbing onto their raft and climbing over.

Liu Sau-chi hesitated, then went over too.

Hiroto Ishikawa was the third.

Zhang Xue'er, Ran-er Kim, and Valeriya exchanged glances, each seeing wariness in the others' eyes.

They all remained silent.

A few minutes later, Zhang Xue'er couldn't help but speak up, her voice slightly trembling: "Is the ship going to capsize?"

On the dark sea surface, the cruise ship was visibly tilting to the left, with water already flooding the third floor and continuously rising to higher levels.

On the same left side, on the upper floors, glass windows had been shattered, and thick tentacles extended from the openings, like an octopus stretching lazily, firmly gripping the top of the ship.

Its weight was astounding, and being on the upper floors, the cruise ship was inevitably being pressed over by its weight, further tilting into the sea.

However, just as everyone was anxious about this, fearing it might sink the ship, something unexpected happened. As it felt the shift in center of gravity, the windows on the right side also shattered completely, and agile tentacles poured out, competing to adhere to the starboard side of the ship.

The ship's sinking momentum stopped.

"Phew—" Everyone secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

The rain fell in sheets.

More and more tentacles emerged, coiling densely on the upper decks of the ship. From a distance, they looked like oil-slicked earthworms, tangled in clumps, disgusting and terrifying.

"What on earth is this thing?" Ran-er Kim couldn't help but ask, "A deep-sea monster?"

Wataru Kojima said: "It's more like an eldritch god."

"A god?" Hiroto Ishikawa's face was full of disbelief, "Is this the deity that rules the sea?"

"Not Watatsumi, I'm referring to the fictional eldritch gods from the Cthulhu Mythos," Wataru Kojima explained. "Created by American novelist H.P. Lovecraft, the name is pronounced similar to 'Cthulhu Fhtagn', sleeping in the Pacific Ocean, with a form based on an octopus and a bat, but actually of extraterrestrial origin."

Ran-er Kim was dumbfounded: "So you're saying the fictional god from a novel is real?"

Wataru Kojima shook his head slightly: "I don't believe in the existence of gods in this world. It's probably an undiscovered new species from the deep sea. As far as I know, deep-sea creatures tend to look frightening due to their environment. They evolved that way to withstand the pressure at the bottom of the ocean."

"No, gods do exist," the Screenwriter objected. "Just because you haven't seen them doesn't mean they don't exist."

Jiang BaiYan asked: "Have you seen one?"

The Screenwriter reflexively answered: "A god that can be easily seen is not a god."

However, Jiang BaiYan didn't follow the script: "I have seen one."

The others looked at him in surprise.

"The gods in human mythology are just humans, because people can't imagine things beyond their understanding. Perhaps, true gods are beyond imagination." He looked into the distance and suddenly asked, "The question is, who summoned this deity?"

The wind and rain howled, with no one answering.

*

Andrei returned alone, and Jian wasn't too surprised.

Their group, tasked with setting up bait, had completed the preparations, dropping lots of raw meat on the stairs, leading down to the oil storage below.

But just then, the ship tilted sharply to the left, and after a while, it slowly leaned back to the right.

Kumiko Terauchi pressed herself against the corner: "What's happening?"

"The monster is moving," Wu Lie said. "Is it coming down?"

Outside, the rain was pouring, and the sound of rain and waves almost drowned out everything else. Jian placed her hand on the wall, using the touch sense of her Five Senses Card to carefully feel the vibrations of the ship.

After a moment, she said: "No, it's still up there, and it's not moving anymore."

The others also closed their eyes to listen, and indeed, after the ship slowly regained its balance, all was quiet, with only the sound of rain outside.

Quiet, too quiet.

Everyone's nerves unconsciously tensed, their hearts pounding, almost bursting out of their chests. Min-cheol Park took a deep breath, striving to remain calm: "What do we do now?"

"Has it eaten its fill?" Wu Lie said softly. "Animals become less aggressive after feeding, like snakes, they'll find a place to slowly digest."

Jian nodded slowly, not hesitating much: "If the mountain won't come to us, we'll go to it. How much oil is left?"

"Plenty," Andrei suggested. "After spreading the oil, I can find a suitable place to start the fire. It's no problem within 70 meters, much safer than you taking the risk."

Although the Red-White Lighter could be controlled remotely, it was best not to expose their tools if possible. Jian immediately agreed: "I remember there's flour in the kitchen, we can sprinkle some of that."

Because the monster was temporarily resting, the process went very smoothly. In no time, the sixth floor was covered in oil, with large amounts of flour scattered in the rooms.

However, they were powerless to do anything about the floors above. The corridors and rooms were completely filled with newly grown tentacles, making it impossible to enter.

But while pouring oil, Kumiko Terauchi found a drone left behind by the film crew.

"That's useful," Jian immediately started operating it, tying on a fuel barrel and controlling it to fly up and pour oil.

The wind was strong, making the drone fly erratically, as if it might be blown into the sea at any moment.

Jian didn't dare let it fly for long, so she quickly released the switch, allowing the fuel barrel to free fall. As expected, this small disturbance attracted the tentacles' attack.

A tentacle shot out like an arrow, its tip instantly piercing the plastic barrel.

Fuel splashed all over.

Jian inwardly cheered, but then saw that the monster seemed to realize the danger of the fuel. Another tentacle chopped down, severing the oil-soaked tentacle and flinging it into the sea.

She drew in a sharp breath: "We need to act fast. Its intelligence is increasing rapidly; it already knows that oil is bad news."

The group quickened their pace.

Jian struggled to make out the images transmitted by the drone.

The monster was mainly coiled around the bow of the ship, corresponding to the location of the ninth-floor cinema below. There were noticeably fewer tentacles at the stern. Although the top deck was covered in tentacles, there was no sign of anything resembling a main body.

She wanted to maneuver the drone to fly forward for a clearer look, but the tentacles had already grown wary of the moving drone. Another tentacle lashed out, piercing right through the machine.

The video feed cut off.

Jian tossed aside the drone and ran ahead to lead the way: "Let's go to the stern." After days of gameplay, she was thoroughly familiar with the cruise ship's layout. "There are fewer tentacles there, and we can use the stairs."

The others nodded.

To avoid alerting the monster, they moved as quietly as possible, slowly making their way from the sixth-floor deck to the seventh floor via the stairs.

The upper deck was inaccessible, completely blocked by tentacles.

Jian climbed up one more level to survey the area, confirming that there were no more lifeboats.

"They're over there," Kumiko Terauchi's sharp eyes caught sight of flashing white lights on the sea, surely someone using a phone flashlight to signal them.

Wu Lie: "Should we light the fire?"

"Not yet, we need to get further away," said Andrei. "The monster will make big movements, and the ship will likely sink. The suction could drag us all to the bottom of the sea."

Jian: "That's easy, we'll make a fuse."

She tore down the curtains and twisted them into a rope, then said: "You all go down first. I'll go up to set it, and after we've all retreated, Andrei can light it remotely."

Kumiko Terauchi: "OK."

Jian tied the long fabric strip around herself and continued climbing along the outside of the ship. This required extreme caution to avoid disturbing the dormant tentacles.

After carefully considering for a long time, she finally found a suitable spot. She knotted the end of the fabric, activated her targeting card, and threw it into the room.

It landed right in a pool of fuel.

Perfect.

"Retreat!" she called as she jumped down.

The others used ropes to quickly descend to sea level.

Kumiko Terauchi went first, followed by Min-cheol Park, then Wu Lie, and finally Andrei.

As he went down, Jian lit the arrow before handing it to him: "Be careful."

Andrei thought she was worried about lighting it in the rain, so he cupped the flame carefully as he descended. Wu Lie and Min-cheol Park helped adjust the position of the life raft, catching him safely.

The flame was weak but didn't go out.

Andrei sighed in relief. He took out his bow, nocked the lit arrow, his face covered in what might have been rain or sweat: "This is terrible, the conditions are even worse than I imagined."

"What's wrong?" the others asked anxiously.

"The wind and rain will seriously affect my accuracy, and the bow and arrows are damp," he gritted his teeth. "Jian, come down quickly, we can't wait any longer."

Jian didn't hear him, but feeling there was nothing more to do, she slid down the rope to the sea.

Jiang BaiYan grabbed her and pulled her onto the raft.

At the same time, Andrei released the burning arrow.

The arrow wavered in the wind and rain, everyone's hearts suspended with it.

With a "whoosh," the arrowhead's flame accurately ignited the fabric strip.

The alcohol-soaked fabric immediately caught fire, its bright red glow dazzling in the darkness.

"Yeah!" Andrei couldn't help but cheer, then quickly started rowing. "Let's get out of here."

He didn't need to say it; everyone was already working together to paddle the life raft, those with oars used them, those without used their hands. In a life-or-death situation, no one was holding back.

But just then, Kumiko Terauchi screamed: "It's putting out the fire!"