Pioneer of the Abyss - Book 2 - Chapter 22

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Don't mind this. It's so that free readers can't see half the chapter when the chapter eventually becomes patron only.

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Table of Contents

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Click the following link for the 1430 word chapter 22:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1weVIo-Ryz857nWM3mDJpiLrXs85ItkiNyYeF9LrJWwc/edit?usp=sharing

Or you can read the unformatted version below:

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Aqua

After returning to the city and getting a good night’s sleep, I decide to go on a bit of a break for the next couple weeks. All the way until the drama finally starts airing.

And the drama itself starts out quite well with overwhelmingly positive ratings on the first episode. Ratings that only go up with its viewership when my duet song with the idol releases.

Although that song ends up being… uh… well something happens that actually ends up drawing more attention to it than it would’ve normally gotten.

Specifically the fact that the idol Pioneer who I did the song with is now dead.

He died on his Pioneer planet the day before the song released. So all of his fans were overwhelmingly interested about the song since it’s his last song.

I feel a little bad for not remembering his name now. But he isn’t the only Pioneer from Equeter that’s died since.

All of the Pioneers of my batch on Equeter are dead at this point except for me. Including several of the people I’ve done interviews with.

Not a single one of the nine others from Equeter are alive.

Although several dozen other worlds have gone through Selections over the course of the last two months since I was selected. Making for hundreds of other Pioneers on hundreds of newly initialized worlds.

Even if a lot of those are already dead as well.

I let out a sigh at the thought of all the dead. And a part of me wants to ask the Chairman again about stopping the Selection.

But the last time I did that, he said it wasn’t possible. That he already tried at one point because of my grandfathers asking him to stop it.

Something about them thinking I wouldn’t be happy with the Pioneer System continuing to select more people. So they tried to force the Chairman to stop it.

Only for the Chairman to be completely rejected by the System when he proposed it. Proving just how much power he actually has over the System.

Which apparently isn’t much.

According to him, the System’s taken a liking to the Pioneer System. And on top of that, the Pioneer Broadcast System has grown into such an important part of the System that the System doesn’t want to bother with changing everything.

Thanks to that I’ve learned that the System is lazy.

I let out a sigh as I finish up a promotional broadcast for the TV drama. Following which I move on to my next and final job of the day.

A commercial for a restaurant. One where I’m wearing a formal dress and am drinking wine at a table next to the window of a high-rise.

Overall, it’s a rather nice commercial shoot. And the dress looks nice on me.

Most of the outfits I end up modeling or wearing for shoots are ones more meant for the water. Or just for water themes.

Outfits like swimsuits, diving suits, casual clothes to wear to the beach, and so on.

So this is a nice change of pace.

And after this shoot, I return to Oceana again and begin stretching. But before I can decide on what to do for the day, I hear a knock on my door. Following which the door opens to reveal a certain tour guide looking rather anxious in front of my door.

“What’s wrong now?” I ask while tilting my head.

Over the course of the last couple weeks, the guild has been asking me for numerous favors. Most of which are all to do with clearing out monster nests that are too close to cities and are dangerous to the cities.

The tour guide rubs the back of his neck with an awkward expression on his face before taking a deep breath and putting on a serious expression to replace it. At which point he says, “This one is the most dangerous request the guild has made, so you don’t have to feel pressured to accept it.”

I raise a brow at that without saying a word in response.

He takes that as a go-ahead to continue as he says, “The guild would officially like to request that you handle the migration that is currently resting inside of a fallen deep city.”

A migration? Interesting.

“How many monsters, what type are they, and what are their levels?” I ask while crossing my arms and automatically equipping my armor through the System. Making said armor appear on me in an instant over my casual clothes.

The tour guide pauses for a moment before answering, “This migration is made up of thousands of shock turtles. All of whom are at least level one hundred and sixty. But there doesn’t seem to be a leader of the migration.”

“Shock turtles?” I ask with a frown. “I haven’t seen those before.”

“They’re monsters from the seven thousand one hundred to seven thousand two hundred meter depth of the Lectro Ocean,” the tour guide says with a frown of his own. “You can think of them as turtles ranging anywhere from ten to twenty meters in length with a metal shell coated in electricity.”

Hmm…

Wasn’t the Lectro Ocean the ocean full of electric centered monsters? To the point that just entering the deeper layers of the ocean requires wearing a special suit to protect you from the electricity in the waters.

And considering that this is an entire city full of thousands of turtles covered in electricity, the place is going to be dangerous just to be in.

I probably wouldn’t go there if it weren’t for the fact that I’ve already learned that I have quite the tolerance for electricity. So it won’t be that bad for me.

“The migration took over an entire city that was abandoned thanks to the migration’s approach,” the tour guide continues as his frown turns into a grimace. “A lot of the hunters and craftsmen living there were killed in the process. But we can’t just abandon the city itself since the city was the Hunter’s City for the ocean.”

Right. If they lost the Hunter’s City, I’m sure they lost a lot of their data on that ocean and its monsters.

The Hunter’s Cities are incredibly important after all.

So important that even if they can’t recover the city they have to at least try to recover the data.

Unfortunately Oceana has strange magnetic waves likely caused by powerful monsters that interfere with data being transferred. It also completely blocks the internet from stretching for more than a couple thousand meters underwater.

I let out a sigh at that thought.

Well, whatever their situation, I want to go there just to deal with the migration personally. Since these turtles will make for great leveling fodder. Not to mention good monsters for REGEN stat point farming.

Also, I can just send out my abyssal servants to hunt the turtles.

It’s too bad I can’t send the maw servant after it though. Not when it can’t swim.

Plus that thing would probably end up eating the city too.

Wait a second…

I focus on the tour guide again as I ask, “Is the city close to the surface?”

The tour guide blinks and answers, “Yes. It has to be since the ocean is filled with electricity that deep. So that the city can have lightning rods all around it stuck into the ground.”

A smile stretches across my face at that.

“In that case, I’ll take on the job,” I tell him while thinking about the different ways to clear the turtles.

He looks pleasantly surprised at that and begins to tell me all the details about the monsters before adding that he’ll guide me to the ocean personally. Then he leaves, mentioning that we’ll be heading out in a couple days.

But my thoughts are still on how I’m gonna deal with the turtles.

This is going to be interesting.

And what’s more is that these turtles will make for very nice abyssal servants to add to my reserves. Both because of their level and because of their electricity.

Assuming their electricity is biological and not magical, that is.

Since I won’t be able to use their electricity if it’s magical.

Which would be a shame, but still.

Even if I can’t get that, just their levels alone along with the levels I’ll get from killing them and the REGEN stat points will be enough for me.

Now to plan how to use that maw servant.