Chapter 622: Sea Serpent Trap (1/2)
As Ottley and the crew worked to repair the Marrissa, they couldn't help but wonder why Zero was herding livestock to the land near the sea. They couldn't understand why or where the huge monster spider came from. All they knew was how dangerous the snake trap looked.
”A little more to the left,” Zero shouted into the wind.
They had to work fast because the tide was rising. Penelope did not work well with water, even with Zero's magic buff.
Truen and Bob sat back to help with ship repairs. However, they kept an eye on Zero and his crazy ideas to create a sea serpent trap out of invisible sticky webs, livestock and a floating hut.
The hut was probably the most ridiculous thing anyone saw. It sat anchored in the middle of the ocean on a platform that Zero and Monoman hammered together with the trunks of trees sliced in half and tampered with magic. The livestock was fenced in, and they stank badly. Zero was starting to reconsider his idea. Why did he make a floating hut and put an animal pen so close to him? He should have at least made a second level to put the hut in. However, it was too late for regrets.
Fine-tuning the sea serpent trap took Zero almost a week to get things right. Initially, it was slightly difficult to keep the floating raft in place with the anchor, especially when the tide came in. The waves were violent and tossed it around, making several animals seasick. Pepper designed a simple pulley anchor system to counter the moving raft issue and added weight stabilisers so it wouldn't capsize easily with huge waves. The hut and animals might receive an unhealthy amount of saltwater baths during the high tides, but that was about it. Zero worked on adding seasick medicine in the animal feed, and the livestock started getting better by the fourth day. They were slowly accustoming to their new life at sea.
Penelope's webs were very sticky and difficult to break. Zero constantly dove beneath the water to monitor if the net trap was still in position. Sometimes, they would tangle with each other, and many strange things were caught in the trap. As the Night Terror Queen could not always be around, she sent a few of her children to help Zero maintain the net trap. The mini spider monsters were also afraid of water so Zero had to design a swimsuit for these spider helpers. Jynx helped to design them and used the spider helpers as test subjects for her waterproof silk. According to the fashion label owner, she manufactured the swimsuit fabric with alchemy on Penelope's fine spider silk. The spider helpers loved it, and with Zero's air bubble oxygen magic, they worked tirelessly, maintaining the trap every hour.
Mii and Wii took turns keeping an eye on the mini-map. So far, Sebastian did not appear on the map. However, neither mindscape assistant relaxed their guard. More powerful mana signatures have been detected outside of their trap area. It could be the scouts of Indra Seagloo, but before anyone could confirm the situation, they disappeared without a trace.
Truen was on guard duty after the third sighting. The sea creatures in the area were also behaving oddly after the second week. Monoman confirmed that it was a sign of Indra Seagloo's attack approaching.
”Normally, marine life will evacuate before we get attacked. It's a natural instinct in animals.”
Ottley agreed. ”They can sense dangers that we cannot tell. What about the water?” he asked. ”Are there any significant changes right before the attack?”