Silence.
The two stared back at each other in complete silence. One was awaiting a response to his question while the other was stunned. Nameless's expression froze for a moment before she shook her head and asked back.
"Stunts?"
"Yes," Victor replied seriously.
"..." The girl squinted her eyes. "Why are you asking?"
To her, the question felt like it came out of nowhere. It had nothing to do with their current situation, or at least she couldn't see where it was important.
"I will explain in a moment. Just answer. Can you jump and keep your balance?" He asked. "This is important. We don't have a lot of time before the thing finds us."
The tone Victor used was urgent and quite cold. So, immediately, Nameless ignored her confusion and answered. "Yeah, I can jump and keep my balance… I think. Even though I look like this, I used to have an athletic body."
Looking at her sickly body, Nameless could only sigh. It was indeed a sad sight, and it only felt worse with the pain she was feeling through her body. Even as they were speaking, her urge to cough blood was still there but she was holding it back to the best of her ability. She knew that if she coughed, bits and pieces of her internal organs would leave her body.
She was in a very horrible state. 'I need to find blood as fast as possible or I will be dead soon.'
The moment she thought of the word 'Blood', she felt her entire body shudder. The horrible thirst she was suffering intensified and her eyes shone with a faint red light. However, she quickly shook her head.
'Not now, we need to get out of here first.'
"Good. So, here is the plan. All around us, there are dead corpses, and wooden parts of the ship floating on the surface. Since you can't swim, we will have to use them to cross the distance to the boat."
Hearing that, Nameless looked around her and realized that Victor was indeed correct. Because of all the destruction the ship suffered, many of its parts slowly rose to the surface and floated around, filling the area all around them. The rest of the gaps were filled with dead corpses of the crew mates who weren't fortunate enough to survive.
"The plan is very risky. The spider could very much take us by surprise at any given moment. However, I believe it is still better than swimming to the boat." Victor said as he analyzed the area around him, searching for the best route to leave.
He had to keep in mind the violent waves, the stability of these 'platforms', and the distance they had to pass. These were all crucial parts of the plan and making a mistake in one of them would most definitely mean death. There was no room for mistake at all.
It was certainly a very grim thing. But, Victor was accustomed to plans with very low chances of success. Those were his bread and butter as a hitman as he had done them so often, he even didn't care about the chances of success anymore. As long as there was a chance, no matter how small it was, he would do it.
His confidence in his abilities was at that level, after all.
"You're right… I guess we have no other choice." She sighed as she stood up with a grunt.
Seeing the readiness in her eyes, Victor nodded and turned around. Then, he rolled the sleeves. Closing his eyes for a moment, he inhaled a long breath, taking as much as his lungs could take before exhaling them. The moment he opened his eyes again, he was completely focused.
"Don't fall behind." He said as he was about to jump on the first wooden plank in front of them.
"Wait."
However, Nameless suddenly stopped him out of nowhere urgently. Victor looked back with a frown. "What?"
"..." The girl seemed to hesitate for a moment as if she was struggling to say something. But, then she shook her head and said. "No, it's nothing."
"..." The boy squinted his eyes for a moment before he turned around and looked at the water. Even though the area around them was considerably calm, the darkness of the water didn't make it any better.
But, without hesitation, Victor rushed forward and jumped on the first wooden plank. His exhausted body almost made him miss, but he was able to reach it with enough power. Quickly, Victor balanced himself before he looked behind him.
"Jump."
Nameless nodded her head and did the same. Running forward, she jumped. However, her jump was a little short of the target. It seemed her weak body was truly at the very edge, dangling over the end.
Her eyes widened slightly as she found herself falling into the water. The cold darkness embraced her body again with a loud splash. The sound of bubbles filled her ears, and everything went completely still.
She was floating in complete darkness. She couldn't see beyond a few inches all around her. No light was peering through the surface. It was as if she was dragged to a completely different world… A far darker and more terrifying world.
Fear struck her heart instantly as she was about to start frantically moving her arms. The terror she felt at that moment was naturally stronger than before now that she knew a giant spider was hiding in the abyss, not that far away.
However, at that moment, something suddenly pulled her up.
"Bah!" The light of the world came back to her eyes as she spat out the water. "Cough! Cough!"
Victor dragged Nameless up and put her on the small platform. As the girl was coughing, he looked at her coldly. After a few moments, the girl finally caught her breath and looked up.
"So you can't really jump in this state, can you?" He asked as he ran his hand through his hair. "You're too sick to do that."
"No, I can move! I swear!" For a moment, Nameless felt a dreadful sensation in her heart. "That was just a slip." Even as she was saying that the girl was aware that she was lying, the fact that she was still conscious was a miracle in and out of itself. Asking her body to make any physical effort was already too much.
"No, it wasn't. Your condition isn't going to help." He muttered.
Hearing that, Nameless paled visibly. 'Is he going to leave me here?'
Her eyes wandered to the dark sea around her. That split second where she was back there, beneath the surface, had made her feel a deep terror that she had never experienced before. Imagining going back there was a nightmare. Even her stoic personality couldn't hide that fear from surfacing.
'No, I don't want to die like this…' Her heart rate slowly increased. She thought that Victor was going to get rid of her now that he realized that she was indeed a complete dead weight.
Victor, unaware or not of her current turmoil, sighed. "What should I do now…"
'We're already facing a problem and we barely moved one step.' As he was contemplating his next step, he remembered something.
"Hey… You've said that you're quite hungry, right?" He asked. "And I assume you want to consume blood, no?"
"... Yes."
"Would that recover some of your strength?"
'If I can get her some power back, that would help a lot.' He mused. His logic was based on the fact that she was something akin to a vampire and vampires derive their strength from drinking blood, or at least that was what Victor assumed after reading stories about them.
"It would help. But… There is no blood." She replied. "Cough… Cough…"
"What do you mean? There are all kinds of corpses around us. Can't you drink blood from one of them?"
"... I-I can't…" Nameless replied with a frown. "We bloodborns can only drink blood from living targets. Once something dies, its blood becomes rotten and we cannot consume it anymore. I would've already drunk their blood if it would've helped me."
"..." Victor squinted his eyes for a moment. "Perfect."
"I'm sorry…" Nameless muttered.
The two went completely silent for a while. A tense, awkward atmosphere formed between them that made Nameless even more worried. 'I hate this… I'm a complete dead weight and I can't even do anything.'
Even though she was terrified of the idea of dying now, she still understood the huge problem here. If Victor was to let her go, she would understand. After all, they were nothing but strangers who met on a dead ship by pure coincidence. He had already saved her life by letting her out of that cage, asking for more wasn't something she had learned to do.
As she was contemplating what to do, Victor suddenly sat down next to her. The girl looked at him confusedly.
"How much blood do you need?"
"... What?" For a moment, the girl was taken by surprise.
"I'm saying, how much blood do you need to get some energy?" Victor repeated as he lifted his arm in front of her. "I will give it to you."
A//N: If you liked the chapter, support the book on your way!