Shrouded Seascape

Charles sprinted anxiously through the dark tunnel. He had finally gotten the hang of moving in this strange body, and he could easily hang upside down from the ceiling as if it were an innate ability.

However, Charles couldn't be happy about it at all. The fact that he was trapped in this monster's body meant that the monster was inside his actual body.

He had made a gross miscalculation earlier. He thought sending only one eye to follow Luke's exploration party was cautious enough. He could have never imagined that they'd be able to swap bodies with him despite capturing just an eyeball.

Charles was extremely anxious. Who could say for sure what those creatures would do with his body, and who would know what it would do with his crew?

Charles knew that he had to hurry over to his crew and tell them everything.

Unfortunately, the elongated creatures had no eyes. They moved according to the subtlety of the feedback that the vibrations coursing through the ground would send across their eight palms.

Charles was moving rapidly through the dark tunnel, and as if he were a car in a car crash, he came to a complete stop in just a second. He had stopped, as he could feel something approaching him from up ahead.

Thin white silk sprouted from Charles' eight arms. The white silk was one of the green, elongated creatures' weapons. Their silk was extremely sharp, and anything in its path would be instantly split into two.

Thanks to the elongated creatures' extreme speed, their silk was like swords capable of slicing through steel as if it were mud.

All of a sudden, the vibrations up ahead vanished into nothingness. It seemed that what was up ahead had noticed Charles. Both sides remained motionless, seemingly at a stalemate.

The other party had time to wait, but Charles had no time to waste. His people outside were surely being led by "Charles" step by step into a vicious trap. With that in mind, Charles raised his three right arms and grabbed the wall on the right to move slowly from the ceiling to the ground.

When Charles landed on the ground, the other party remained unmoving, so Charles was forced to kick off of the ground with his eight legs, sprinting toward the entity up ahead.

Scratch, scratch, scratch…

A series of scratching noises echoed, making Charles stop. The other party was writing something on the wall with their fingers.

The auditory and tactile receptors of these elongated monsters were incredibly terrifying. Charles could even hear which direction each stroke was drawn from and how much force was used in each stroke.

The pieces of information that Charles was able to gather from the noises were like puzzle pieces that he pieced together in his mind until a sentence in the subterranean language was formed.

Where are you going? Who are you?

It seemed that the other party was one of the humans who had fallen to those creatures and had their bodies swapped.

"We have no time to waste… where are the others? Tell them to come here as fast as possible. We will go and stop them together."

"We can't let those monsters swap bodies with the remaining crew. If they fall too, then mankind itself might go extinct even before the seawater floods the Subterranean Sea!"

"They're not going to go instinct. 1189-1 had run rampant twice in the Subterranean Sea, but the issue was always resolved in the end. Some 'things' in the deep sea are capable of restraining it."

1189-1? The strange naming convention made Charles discover the other party's identity. "You're a member of the Foundation? What's your role in the Foundation?"

"Before asking for someone else's identity, shouldn't you talk about your identity first? You're talking to a lady here as well."

Charles was truly confounded. The other party didn't seem anxious at all despite the dire situation.

"Let's converse while we walk. Hurry up. My name is Charles, and you should be able to recognize me just from my name alone," Charles wrote, and then he sprinted into the distance.

The other party followed suit. According to the subtleties in the vibrations that the other party was generating, it seemed that she had the same body as Charles, which was apparently 1189-1.

"I don't know any Charles. Anyway, a different group is supposed to interact with you, outsiders. You can just call me T." T ran on her six legs while rapidly scribbling on the ground as they ran across the tunnel.

"Let's discuss your affairs later. Long story short, the 1189-1 you've mentioned has taken over my body, and I believe that it's in the middle of luring everyone here. We have to stop it and warn my crew of 1189-1's existence! I have to tell them that these green creatures are capable of swapping bodies."

T quickly caught up to Charles' side, and she sprinted alongside him.

"I think you've misunderstood something here. First of all, you must know that these bodies that we're using aren't 1189-1. They've swapped bodies many times, as they can only reproduce through body swapping."

"Secondly, you're right. We can't let it take over more bodies, as it will disrupt our plan."

"What plan? Has the Foundation found the darkness? How far has your plan progressed?"

T immediately became wary at Charles' words.

"I can't tell you anything according to Protocol 3, and don't even try to pry information from me."

"Are you out of your mind? Why are you still keeping secrets when we're in such dire straits?"

"I'm not going to tell you even if it means saving my life. A protocol is a protocol."

Charles wanted to say something, but he discovered an empty space up ahead. The hole that Luke and his crew had used to descend into this space from above was just ahead of them.

Charles crawled out of the hole and sighed in relief upon noticing not even a single foreign vibration nearby. It was good news, as it meant that they weren't here yet.

I can't go and look for them. If I do that and we somehow miss each other, then things are going to go from worse to worst. I have to wait for them here, Charles thought. He lay prone on the ground and buried his slender form amidst the vast layer of dandelion fluff.

"Interesting," T said as she lay prone next to Charles. "You're not panicking despite suddenly finding out that you now have the body of a monster. In fact, you're more worried about other people instead of yourself. If you were a Foundation member, you'd be qualified to become a special task force member."

Sensing the vibrations next to him, Charles thought for a few seconds before replying, "Since you can't talk about topics related to the Foundation, then let's talk about topics that you're allowed to talk to others.

"Where did the others go? What happened to those who had their bodies swapped as well?" Charles asked. He decided to obtain as much information as possible before the inevitable encounter.

"They went up when they realized their plight. I'm sure they'll encounter your people soon, but what they're doing is useless."

"Useless? Why would it be?"

"Because 1189-1 knows that they're going to do that. I've read its file, and it has an average IQ of 121, far exceeding the average IQ of humans. In other words, the majority of your people will most likely die," T replied in a matter-of-factly manner.

Charles was disgruntled by T's matter-of-factly reply, and he didn't shy away from expressing his dissatisfaction, saying, "Are you even human, you selfish bastard? You knew that they'd die, and you allowed them to go to their own deaths?"

"I tried to persuade them, but it was no avail. They don't trust me at all. Besides, I've already sent a report containing the coordinates of the crash site through my intracranial chip. The Foundation will definitely send people to pick me up and dispose of 1189-1 here, so we just have to hold out until then."

Swoosh!

A powerful beam of light swept across the dandelion fluff above Charles. When Charles heard the voices of people talking to each other in the distance, he knew that it was time—they were here.