The Main Characters That Only I Know

Chapter 155:

Chapter 155

Boom!

Huge flames erupted from inside Moby Dick’s body. The scorching fire burned its flesh and transmitted heat to its organs and muscles. Flaming debris flew out of the wound where Nautilus had penetrated.

Moby Dick let out a painful scream. It lifted its head once, then slammed it down on the ground.

Nautilus was not in good shape either.

It had detonated the torpedoes with the intention of blowing up both itself and Moby Dick. The fire and explosion engulfed Nautilus along with Moby Dick.

“Captainnnn!!”

“No! Ishmael! Don’t go near! It’s dangerous!”

Ishmael, who had a blank expression on his face, tried to run towards Nautilus, but his colleague Queequeg stopped him.

The crew shed tears as they watched Nautilus being consumed by the flames. Their tears were swept away by the pouring rain in an instant.

Nautilus, which was burned and broken in half, and Moby Dick, which had stopped moving.

As if everything had stopped at this moment, no one could utter a word.

Then, the burning iron door of Nautilus opened, and a man staggered out.

“Wha, what? Look!”

“It’s the captain! It’s the captain!”

The one who came out was Captain Nemo. The collectors and the crew exclaimed in surprise.

Captain Nemo looked quite miserable. His uniform, which he always wore neatly, was scorched and torn by the fire in many places, and his hat was nowhere to be seen. His white hair, which he had combed back, was disheveled by the wind and rain.

Captain Nemo was bleeding from his head, but he still held a saber in one hand as he came out of the submarine.

The crew supported Captain Nemo. Ishmael was among them.

“Ha, captain! You’re safe!”

“Ishmael. You’re alive.”

Ishmael nodded his head with tears in his eyes. Then Ahab approached him.

He smiled as if he was not worried a moment ago.

“Hahaha! Nemo! You’re alive! You scared me!”

“Shut up. You barbarian.”

Ahab was happy as if his old friend had returned alive, but Captain Nemo’s expression was not very good.

Everyone knew why.

“What about the other crew members…”

“They did their duty.”

Captain Nemo said in a heavy voice, and everyone sighed. It meant that there were no other survivors inside.

Captain Nemo’s survival was all thanks to the sacrifice of the last remaining crew members.

‘Captain! Please survive!’

‘You are our hope!’

Before the heat of the torpedoes that exploded from inside Moby Dick swallowed them up, the last remaining crew members threw themselves to protect Captain Nemo’s body.

It was not his order, but their voluntary sacrifice.

Captain Nemo, who had already accepted all the outcomes coldly, could not react to anything to their sudden actions.

The last thing he saw was the crew members smiling as they were engulfed by the flames.

Captain Nemo clenched his fist.

‘Foolish bastards. Who would be happy if you do that.’

I will try to translate the text into English for you. Here is my attempt:

Nemo, the captain, felt utterly pathetic for surviving by the sacrifice of his subordinates.

He hated the monstrous creature that caused this situation even more.

But, with this, he had brought down that monster, so this was it…

Flash!

That was when Moby Dick opened his eyes that he had closed.

Woooooo!!

The survivors were horrified by the sight of him roaring louder than before he fell.

“What the hell. He’s still alive after that attack?!”

“How can he have such a ridiculous vitality?!”

He had pierced his side with the Nautilus, and exploded dozens of torpedoes in that wound. It was an attack that would kill not only the devil of the bottom, but also his grandfather.

Moby Dick was still alive after taking that unbelievable attack. It was unbelievable, but this was reality.

“We, we were wrong.”

“How do we kill him?”

Some of the weak-hearted sailors collapsed on the spot.

He was not a whale or anything like that. He was truly a devil that ruled this sea.

How could humans ever kill a devil?

The hearts of the people who faced something huge and irresistible broke one by one. Their eyes were filled with darkness.

“Snap out of it! You stupid bastards!”

It was Ahab’s whip that woke up their minds.

“Look at that monster! Look at him! He’s full of wounds! He’s bleeding! Do you still see him as a devil in your eyes?!”

Ahab gripped his harpoon tightly. Creak! A strange sound came from the harpoon rubbing against his palm.

“He’s just a living thing, too! He bleeds like us, and dies when he gets hurt! He’s nothing but a filthy big whale! He’s exhausted! He has no more strength to run away! So, pick up your weapons! Do you want to let go of the prey you’ve caught? Can you call yourselves men of the sea?!”

Breathe in. Hold your harpoon.

If you were a person who walked on the sea, you should never be afraid of any creature in the sea.

This man never bent his mind even at that moment when everyone fell into despair.

“Fight, you bastards!”

He didn’t need any rational persuasion.

He didn’t need any inspiring speech.

The sailors got up one by one as if they were possessed by something.

It was strange. Their bodies moved on their own, not their minds.

“And, guests! You should reflect on yourselves too!”

Ahab smiled happily at the sight of the sailors, and pointed at Kwon Jia who was gasping for breath.

“There are so many of you who are worse than this lady here! Is that all you can do? You should have run away instead of being here! It’s better than being food for that whale!”

His words struck a nerve in the collectors.

The collectors gathered here were all mid-level collectors. That meant they had pride as strong as anyone else.

They were pushed back by Kwon Jia, who was not even a sword master, and whose name was not even well known?

“Damn it! How dare he talk nonsense about us!”

“Don’t make me laugh! I will definitely kill that whale!”

The collectors got up from their seats, holding their painful bodies.

Ahab’s words hit their pride hard.

While everyone was burning with the will to fight, Moby Dick, who had regained his senses, stared at us. Moby Dick had given up on running away. His wounds were too deep. If he tried to flee like this, he might really fall prey to those humans.

So, he would kill them all here.

He would show them. Who was the real hunter, and who was the prey.

By chance, Moby Dick’s eyes caught sight of the piles of rocks that rose sharply.

Moby Dick’s cunning mind turned. They had blown up those rocks and crushed him with a huge mass. It was not a pleasant feeling to be pressed down by something that he couldn’t escape from.

At this moment, Moby Dick learned one thing from this place.

To pay back what he had suffered, in the same way.

Woooooo!

Moby Dick roared again. Everyone tensed up and prepared to avoid his attack. But contrary to their worries, Moby Dick’s attack did not target them.

What he aimed at was higher than that.

The piles of rocks that were as sharp as porcupine quills.

Crack!

A huge sound bomb hit the piles of rocks. In an instant, cracks appeared on the rocks, and countless fragments fell to the ground.

“Crazy! It’s not here, it’s above! Everyone, get out of the way!”

“Ru, run!”

People screamed. The sailors tried to run away in panic, but it was already too late.

“Crack!”

“Cough!”

Some of the sailors were hit by the debris and fell or were pierced. The gunpowder piles that were left outside collided with the falling rocks and caused a huge explosion.

Kwaang! Along with the hot heat, debris burst out in all directions again.

“Everyone, retreat behind me!”

Park Cheol-oh shouted and turned his whole body into metal. Immediately after that, countless fragments hit his body.

Ting ting ting ting!

“Kuuk!”

Even if his skin hardened, the kinetic energy of the huge mass still seeped into his body. Park Cheol-oh clenched his teeth and swallowed the pain, trying his best to protect the people.

The collectors were not idle either. They used their own skills to fend off or erase the falling debris and protect their bodies.

The only ones who couldn’t do that were the sailors.

“My, my leg…”

Ishmael was no different. Ishmael, who was still inexperienced, was flustered by the sudden falling rocks and didn’t know where to run. The fear of death gripped his ankles and didn’t let go.

A sharp rock fell over Ishmael’s head.

“No! Ishmael!”

Queequeg, who noticed too late, shouted. 

Ishmael raised his head and saw the falling rock. Ishmael’s pupils shrank.

‘Death…’

Crack!

A gruesome sound of piercing flesh was heard.

Ishmael’s fingertips trembled.

“Why, why…”

Ishmael lay down slightly away from the scene. His body was intact.

“Why did you, captain…”

Instead of being pierced, it was the square captain who took the hit.

Just before Ismael was struck by the falling rock, the square captain jumped in and pushed Ismael away.

Cough!

The square captain spat out blood and looked down at his stomach. A rock that had pierced through his back was sticking out of his abdomen. His intestines were shattered. It was a fatal blow, especially in his already weakened state.

“Captain!”

Ismael rushed to the square captain’s side. He sobbed and didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t pull out that huge fragment, but if he left it alone, the square captain seemed like he would die.

Aihub hurried over.

“Old Man Nemo ! You crazy bastard! You barely survived, why did you do this again! Do you really want to kill yourself so badly!”

“Cough! Sh… shut up. You ignorant fool.”

“Is this the time to say that! Just hang in there! I’ll get the medical team right now!”

“It’s no use. My body… I know it well. I’m done for. It’s already… too late.”

“But doing nothing is… damn it!”

In fact, Aihub knew it too. That there was no way to save him.

“You crazy Old Man Nemo. Why, why did you do this.”

Aihub clenched his teeth.

They always swore at each other and fought whenever they met, but they both felt it at the same time.

That the man who stood in the opposite position of himself was none other than the only one who understood his life.

But they never said it out loud. They thought there was no need to say it. That’s how men were.

That didn’t change even now, when he faced death.

“Ismael… are you there?”

“Yes, yes! Captain. I’m here.”

“Good.”

Ismael whimpered. He blamed himself for being inadequate and insufficient, for making the square captain he admired like this.

“It’s not your fault.”

The square captain saw through Ismael’s inner thoughts and said that.

“This was, the result of my actions.”

“But!”

“If one of us had to live in this situation… I thought it should be the young man with many dreams, not the old man consumed by revenge.”

Before he knew it, the blood from his mouth soaked his entire upper body. The square captain’s face turned pale and his vision blurred. He couldn’t focus his eyes.

The square captain sensed his end and moved his mouth with all his strength.

“It’s a life spared by the sacrifice of the crew. If I die to protect someone, there’s nothing more valuable than that.”

Ismael shed tears and couldn’t say anything.

“I’ve lived my whole life with a sense of guilt for not being able to protect them.”

The square captain muttered as he looked at Ismael. He overlapped the shadow of the distant past with Ismael’s figure.

“But now, I finally did.”

“Captain…”

Ismael didn’t tremble anymore either.

In the end, he realized it too. That he couldn’t stop this man from leaving.

Then at least in this moment.

He had to smile and do his best to see him off.

A free man of the sea, who had lived his whole life on the water, was meeting his end in the graveyard of shipwrecks.

He shouldn’t be sad. That would be an insult to the man who sacrificed himself to save him.

Ismael clenched his fist and gritted his teeth as he said.

“Thank you… for everything.”

The square captain nodded his head with a faint smile at his gratitude.

“Sure.”

In his blurred vision, he recalled a memory from a very long ago past.

‘Grandpa!’

Splash.

His one and only grandson, who was priceless to him, was running around on the pier where the waves crashed. He felt a warmth in his chest as he watched him look at the barnacles, catch starfish with his hands, and laugh gleefully.

The square captain sat on a chair and watched him with a contented expression.

He saw his grandson waving at him.

A scene from that time, which he could never see again.

So close that it seemed like he could touch it if he reached out.

‘Sure.’

The square captain finally tore off the pendant he was holding in his hand.

‘I finally did it.’

He was happy with that.

A warm touch came over his cold and stiff hand.

Before he knew it, his grandson had returned from the pier and grabbed his hand, leading him to the sea.

‘Grandpa, come on!’

‘Hehe! You rascal! Okay, okay.’

The square captain followed his grandson to the sea. He didn’t look back. His steps as he walked along the pier with his grandson’s hand in his.

They looked lighter than anything else.

Click.

The pendant fell from his limp hand. The pendant opened from the impact of hitting the floor, revealing a small picture inside.

In the picture, the square captain was holding a boy in his arms.

His face had a happy smile that he could never imagine from his usual appearance.