Extra's POV: My Obsessive Villainous Fiancee Is The Game's Final Boss-Chapter 267: Walking Among Heroes
Days had passed and if there was one thing the crew could agree on, it was that the sea had never looked so endless.
There was no storm now. No dragons. No towers of stone stretching into the sky. Just sky and sea, and more of it, and more of it, and more of it.
The kind of blue that started to claw at the mind. The kind that made you forget that land was ever real.
The Lady Rill drifted like a leaf in a blue desert, waiting for something that wasn’t coming.
Ren stood at the bow, his eyes scanning the horizon for the hundredth time that morning.
His hands rested on the damp wood of the rail, and his expression never changed.
Still, still, still. Watching. Hoping. Or maybe just pretending to hope.
Behind him, the crew felt it.
Restlessness.
Zuzu sat at the helm, her hands loosely on the control water rope, barely manipulating the current anymore.
There was no urgency now. The sea wasn’t hostile. Just vast and indifferent. The shine in her eyes had dulled over the past few days, her shoulders slumped with fatigue and doubt.
Thorn had taken to carving strange little animals out of driftwood scraps. A row of them now sat in front of him.
A crooked wolf. A crab with too many legs. A fish that looked vaguely embarrassed. A bat. A sad turtle. He’d even tried carving Lilith, but gave up halfway when the figure ’started judging him.’
He held one up to the light and made it speak in a squeaky voice.
"Day five. We have now eaten all the good snacks and resorted to cannibalism. I have claimed Elias’s thigh."
"Try it." Elias muttered from where he sat cross-legged, sharpening a long, curved signal blade. "I dare you."
"He loves me." Thorn whispered to the wooden fish, then placed it gently beside its odd companions. "They’ll find our bones and wonder why one guy had wooden friends."
Lilith hadn’t said a word to anyone not Ren in nearly two days.
She sat at the stern, throwing knife in hand, gently running a cloth over it.
Sharpening. Polishing. Maintaining. Her eyes were always half-lidded, like she didn’t need to watch anything, because anything that needed killing would walk right to her.
Zuzu had noticed. She’d noticed a lot of things.
Like how Elias always checked the water barrels first each morning. And how they were getting lighter. Too light.
The slosh of water had become quieter with each day that passed, and each inspection becoming a little more grim.
Or how Ren never showed when he was worried, but he stopped cracking jokes when the days stretched long without progress. How his silences lasted longer.
Or how Lilith didn’t sleep. She just watched.
"We’re almost out of water." Elias said on the third night after the storm.
No one answered at first.
The boat glided through the water. Zuzu had reduced the speed lately. Not from fatigue, but resignation. What was the point of racing nowhere?
"We’re not dying out here." Ren said quietly, not looking at anyone. "We have backup."
Elias nodded and reached under the supply crate. He pulled out a half-built cylinder of brass and rope.
"Signal beacon." He said. "If we need it. Sends smoke high enough to be seen for miles. Maybe even across the Fingers."
Thorn tilted his head. "You mean, if we finally give up and call for help."
"If we need extraction." Elias clarified.
"Extraction." Thorn repeated, holding up his crab carving. "Why would we ever need it when we’ve got Ren and Lilith."
"They can take care of themselves. We can’t." Elias said grimly.
Thorn chuckled. "That’s just code for ’we messed up and need mommy.’"
Zuzu snorted softly, then tried to stifle it.
Ren looked over his shoulder at her. "Something funny?"
She looked embarrassed. "It’s just... it’s real."
"What is?"
"All of it. The storm. The dragons. You stepping off the boat and flying. Her fighting like death incarnate."
She glanced at Lilith. The lady was still polishing her blade.
"I mean, Thorn did tell me a few of what you guys have done before, but I didn’t really believe them. I mean, they just sound so… fairy tale."
"But now I’m here. And it actually happened. I actually saw a man and a woman battle dragons and come out with barely a scratch. Fucking dragons!"
"She actually does have a point." Thorn chuckled, looking up from his turtle. "Killing just one dragon is enough to get your name inducted into legends. Lilith kills them for breakfast and Ren kills them for breakfast too but they die in time for lunch."
Zuzu looked around at them, wonder in her eyes. "You know how weird that is?"
Ren smiled. "A little."
Elias adjusted the beacon parts. "Stories always sound like lies until you survive them."
Zuzu leaned back, arms behind her. "I thought Thorn’s stories were just exaggerations. Stuff to scare kids or impress girls."
"Some of it probably is." Thorn said. "I once told the guy’s on Hook’s crew that I killed a leviathan with a spoon."
"Did you?"
"No. But it was a very convincing story. Even I believed it."
They laughed. Even Lilith let out a quiet snort that almost counted as a laugh.
"Still." Zuzu said, her voice softer. "Being here... it’s different. I thought people with the power to kill dragons would be more like heroes. But you’re..."
"Exhausted?" Elias offered.
"Weird." Thorn said.
"Human." Ren finished.
Zuzu nodded. "Yeah. That."
For a while, no one spoke.
They drifted. Stars blinked overhead, and the sea glowed faintly as glowing fish swam beneath them.
But there was no sign. No roar. No storm. No Deep.
Just water. Just silence. Just the slow press of time.
"I hate waiting." Thorn said. "Let me fight a kraken. Let me get flung into a volcano. Anything but this."
"Be careful what you wish for." Ren said. "The world has a twisted sense of humor."
"Does the Deep usually take this long to show itself?" Zuzu asked.
Ren exhaled. "It’s not a place. It’s a thing. A will. It hides. It watches. It waits until it’s ready."
"Then how do we find it?"
"You don’t." He said. "You get close enough, and it finds you."
Elias looked up. "And if it doesn’t?"
Ren didn’t answer.
He didn’t have one.
