Battle Royale • Wilderness Survival (10)
Had the whale stopped showing a defensive posture—was it allowing her to approach?
She wasn’t sure. She should observe a bit more.
Everly stood still for a mont, then took another step forward.
During this ti, her muscles were tightly coiled, ready to turn and run at the first sign of danger.
At this point, the distance between them was only about an arm’s length. If the whale were to flick its tail or lunge its body forward slightly, it could easily touch Everly. She had to be prepared to protect herself.
Fortunately, the worst-case scenario she had imagined did not happen.
Even as she moved closer again, the whale remained lying still. It made no calls, nor did it move erratically.
At last, Everly could see its eyes clearly.
They were located in front of white circular patches resembling the eye markings of an orca. Each eye was about the size of a ping-pong ball, with no visible sclera—just a single round, jet-black orb. Within it, about two-thirds of the way in, was a distinct ring of blue. The ring was a pure Klein blue, and its purpose was unknown, but it looked strikingly beautiful.
Still, for a creature of such enormous size, the eyes seed so small—an odd proportion. Or was that just how whales were?
Everly found it all strangely fascinating.
Mixing curiosity with caution, she leaned in slightly and t its gaze.
As she looked at the whale, the whale was also looking at her.
In a gaze unique to intelligent beings—calm, steady, profound, and gentle, carrying a faint, quiet scrutiny—it looked silently into her eyes.
“….”
For so reason, Everly even felt as though the whale could understand what she was saying.
After thinking for a mont, she gestured and tried to communicate with it:
“I want to help you take out that rubber thing… the one I just threw into your mouth. If you swallowed it, it might affect your body. I won’t hurt you, so can you not bite ?”
After saying that, she rembered the whale couldn’t speak, so she added:
“If you agree, make that sharp little ‘ah’ sound like before. If you don’t agree, make an ‘wu’ sound to tell , okay?”
Then she stopped moving and stood still, looking at the whale with clear expectation.
The whale stared at her for a while, then opened its mouth and emitted an “ah” sound from deep in its throat. It was sowhat like a cat’s ow and also like a baby crying—thin, delicate, and surprisingly gentle. It was hard to imagine such a massive creature producing a sound like that.
“You agree, right?!”
Everly was overjoyed. Without thinking, she placed her hand on the whale’s lower lip.
The sensation was warm and smooth, like touching a piece of jelly that had absorbed body heat—soft, slightly springy, and incredibly strange.
Until now, Everly had never realized that whales in the sea could have body warmth.
Unable to resist, she secretly stroked it a couple more tis. The whale seed to think she was urging it on and cooperated by opening its mouth wider, revealing a vast oral cavity and rows upon rows of dense, white, pointed teeth on both upper and lower jaws.
Those teeth looked genuinely nacing—each one as thick as Everly’s wrist.
Behind her, Misha saw this and couldn’t help but warn, “Maybe you shouldn’t go in there. It looks way too dangerous.”
Everly also felt a bit uneasy.
But this whale had been sent for her to save by Buddy, and Buddy would never harm her.
Moreover, ever since Everly received the blessing of her Lamia Mother, not only was the ocean willing to obey her commands, but even the marine creatures she encountered were generally friendly toward her. Yesterday, when their wooden raft drifted in the sea, they ca across a pod of dolphins. The dolphins circled the raft for quite a while, nudging and bumping her palm affectionately, and one of them even brought her a fish as a gift.
Whales were also sea creatures—so they should like her too, right?
With that thought, Everly steadied herself against the whale’s body, bent down, and looked into its eye again to carefully confirm its intent.
“If you really won’t bite , could you make that sa ‘ah’ sound from before?” she asked.
The whale moved its mouth, paused for a mont, then opened it again and let out a drawn-out, almost singing, humming “ah.”
That seed to be a sign of agreent… such a clever whale. Had she perhaps encountered a legendary rare variant?
Without further delay, Everly moved to the corner of the whale’s mouth. She crouched down, squeezed herself into the gap between its jaws at an angle, knelt on both knees, steadied one hand on a pointed tooth on the upper jaw, and stretched the other hand forward to reach the damaged condom.
“Everly, I’ll help you!”
Seeing what Everly was doing, Misha beca uneasy and rushed over as well. She wrapped her arms around Everly’s waist from behind so that, if anything went wrong, she could pull her out of the whale’s mouth like pulling up a plant.
The object had drifted a bit far. Even with Misha helping to steady her, Everly still had to exert great effort before she finally managed to retrieve it.
As she was about to leave, her gaze casually flicked upward—and she noticed sothing in the whale’s upper palate: a narrow, flat strip of rope tangled between two of its pointed teeth.
“What is that?”
The rope was made of polyester, a deep blue color, very similar to the kind of lanyard Everly had used in her past life to hang a student ID card.
Out of curiosity, Everly pushed up slightly on the whale’s upper jaw, signaling for it to keep its mouth open. Then she braced herself against its palate with one hand, leaned her body forward, grabbed one end of the rope, and worked it free from between the teeth.
At the end of the rope was a blood-stained magnetic ID badge.
Wait—this doesn’t make sense. Why would sothing like that be inside a whale’s mouth?!
Everly carefully withdrew from the whale’s mouth with the broken condom and the rope, but as she walked away, she couldn’t help glancing back into its throat.
An ID badge stained with blood had co out of its mouth… could it be—
Stop. Better not overthink it. The more she thought, the more terrifying it beca.
The whale had already been stranded on the beach for too long. Everly rembered reading news before that although whales breathe with lungs, being stranded on land was still extrely harmful to them. Over ti, not only could their internal organs be damaged by their own weight, but they could also suffer severe dehydration.
This was a whale she had spent three drops of the “panacea” to save—if it died like this, wouldn’t that be such a waste?
“I’m going to use the waves to carry you back into the sea next. Get ready.”
Everly gestured to the whale as a warning, then waved at Misha, who was still secretly touching the whale’s mouth.
“I’m coming!”
At Everly’s call, Misha jogged over. The two girls stepped back together until they reached the edge of the beach.
Then Everly focused her mind and used her ntal power to communicate with the ocean before her.
“Whoosh—”
A massive wave suddenly rose from the distant center of the sea.
It towered like a great wall, its white foam resembling tiles set along its crest.
Carrying an overwhelming montum, the moving wall arrived in the blink of an eye. When it reached the shoreline, Everly suddenly released her control over it. The wall of water collapsed at once, transforming into a roaring maw that swallowed the entire whale—along with a large stretch of beach.
“Crash—!”
Tons of water slamd into the ground, shattering into countless smaller waves and droplets. The spray rained down like water droplets, drenching Everly and Misha from head to toe.
The two of them spat out seawater, awkwardly wiping the salty, fishy moisture from their faces with their sleeves. When they finally cleared their vision and looked again, the surge had already rged back into the ocean and vanished.
On the sand, only the stranded whale remained. Its head was partly exposed while most of its body was subrged in shallow water. It was still stranded—but only slightly less so than before.
Alright… it seed Everly had miscalculated. One wave wasn’t enough to fully free it.
Rubbing her faintly aching temples, Everly once again commanded the sea, summoning a second massive wave.
After the second ca the third, then the fourth…
It wasn’t until the fourth wave crashed down that the stubborn “stranding offender” was finally lifted off the beach and carried into waters deep enough for it to swim on its own.
As the wave receded, a huge tail burst up from the sea.
Just like its fins, the whale’s tail was surprisingly transparent.
Under the sunlight, its glass-like tail reflected a dazzling, gemstone-like rainbow shimr. When it struck the water again, two long translucent strears at the end of its tail carved graceful arcs through the air—like ribbons in a rhythmic gymnastics performance. It was so beautiful it felt almost intoxicating to watch.
After flicking its tail, the waves on the sea gradually cald, and the enormous whale disappeared from sight.
“Did it leave?” Misha stared at the sea for a while, still unwilling to give up, and asked reluctantly.
“Probably,” Everly sighed as well.
So creatures, just by being seen, could evoke a powerful sense of awe and emotion deep in one’s heart—and that whale was one of them.
Perhaps that was why, even though saving it had cost Everly three drops of the “panacea,” once Buddy gave her the reason to rescue it, she agreed without hesitation.
Even though there was no imdiate reward, and the rescued creature hadn’t even gone through a proper “repaynt process” before simply swimming off, she didn’t feel regret at all. Instead, she was genuinely happy that it had finally regained its freedom.
…But still, what exactly was that whale?
Why had it ended up stranded here, covered in injuries?
Everly lowered her head and looked at the magnetic ID badge in her hand.
Due to wear and scraping, the text on it was sowhat blurred, but she could still vaguely make out fragnts like “…biology… experint… Paul…”
Horror Movie Survival Rule #1: pay attention to hints.
An ID badge containing such sensitive information was definitely not sothing that had been blown here by accident. There was almost certainly so major conspiracy behind it.
Everly had already found it strange—she had never heard of any whale species with transparent fins. Putting that together with the ID badge, she began to suspect that the whale might not be a naturally occurring rare species at all, but rather a special experintal subject created by so kind of biological research lab.
Following that line of reasoning, the bullet holes on the whale’s body also had an explanation.
Maybe it had attacked researchers during transport, damaged the transport ship or even a transport aircraft, and escaped by any ans necessary. After all, in ten monster movies, nine of them go like that.
Of course, considering that Buddy was the one who asked her to save it—and that it was also very beautiful—and in monster films, “beautiful” monsters were usually on the friendly side, Everly didn’t feel too worried about it.
It was quite intelligent too, able to understand human speech. It had even cooperated by keeping its mouth open when she wanted to retrieve the remaining condom. A whale like that would naturally not suddenly turn around and attack them.
Standing there for a mont longer, Everly rubbed her slightly heated arms, then stopped lingering.
She and Misha left the beach together.
There was still a lot of work to do. Anyway, that earlier experience had already been worth it. For now, it was better to get back to proper business.
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