Chapter 184
Chapter 184. Offspring (3)
As the sun set and darkness spread around them, they decided it was about time to move.
There wasn’t really anything to prepare.
They had only been sitting and resting, so there was nothing in particular to pack.
At most, it was just folding up the blanket they had been using and putting it away again.
Ah, there was one more thing.
“I don’t think we can move with a torch lit. How’s everyone’s night vision?”
Anagin, whose night vision was sharp like a wild beast’s, asked.
Back home, if your night vision was poor, it was hard to deal with beasts.
“I’m fine. But.......”
Sphinx answered, then cast an uneasy glance at the subordinate woman.
She called herself a god and whatnot, but right now, she was nothing more than a powerless ordinary person. However, contrary to expectations, the subordinate woman also said she was fine.
“I’m fine too, so don’t worry about me.”
Judging by her tone, it didn’t seem like empty bravado. After all, this was about her younger sisters—she wouldn’t put on airs over that.
That was a relief.
If even one person had poor night vision, their movement speed would slow, like a lame person trying to walk.
On top of that, the subordinate woman also had to guide the way, so if her night vision were bad, it would have been a real headache.
‘Ah, so that’s why she didn’t say anything when I suggested moving after sunset. Then all that’s left is.......’
Anagin trailed off in his thoughts and looked at the small, transformed Horse-head.
Did this guy have good night vision too? Considering he had attacked at night, he probably did.
‘No, wait. Before that, can he even move?’
That thought had barely crossed his mind when—
The subordinate woman spread both hands and held them out in front of the Horse-head.
The Horse-head dipped his head once, as if apologetic, then carefully climbed onto the subordinate woman’s palm.
Even if the subordinate woman couldn’t touch the Horse-head, the Horse-head could touch the subordinate woman.
After placing the Horse-head on her hand, the subordinate woman carefully moved him, as if afraid he might fall, then slipped him inside her outer garment.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Then that’s settled—wait, what?”
While they were exchanging words out of consideration for the Horse-head, the subordinate woman met Anagin’s gaze as he was looking at her. She narrowed her eyes and covered her collar.
Anagin shrugged.
“It just seems like you’re awfully affectionate with each other.”
“.......”
Thinking it was sarcasm, the subordinate woman said nothing.
That hadn’t been his intention, but instead of explaining, Anagin changed the subject to business. Clearing up misunderstandings one by one was too much of a hassle.
“Do you know where we are?”
“No. But if we head toward somewhere with a view of the sea, I’ll know.”
The subordinate woman explained that she hadn’t been able to venture deep into the island, but she had thoroughly scouted the coastline, so she would recognize the area just by seeing it.
Fortunately, she said the prison where her younger sisters were being held was near the coast. Since they were mermaids, they would weaken if kept too far from the sea.
‘That makes sense. Their real goal isn’t just to capture mermaids but to use their power. They can’t let them weaken too much. Then the chance they’ve been moved elsewhere is low.’
After hearing her explanation, Anagin organized his thoughts, and reading his expression, the subordinate woman continued.
“So we’ll move near the coast first, then use that as our base to go to my sisters. Any questions?”
“No.”
“Good.”
The subordinate woman nodded and began walking at the front.
Since she had to guide the way, it was only natural.
By the same logic, Anagin naturally took position behind her.
If something unexpected happened, this was the spot where he could respond immediately.
Naturally, the rearmost position fell to Sphinx.
With sharp hearing and keen senses, she would notice right away if anything happened behind them, so it wasn’t a bad arrangement.
And so they walked on for quite a while, step by step.
“Brother.”
A small voice, like a breath of wind in his ear, reached him.
It was a sound far removed from a normal speaking voice.
Anagin slightly turned his head back and asked quietly.
“Is that you?”
“Yeah. I’m using magic so only you can hear it.”
Sphinx was carrying her words on the wind to Anagin’s ears. For reference, she said she was also controlling Anagin’s words through the wind so that only she could hear them.
It was bothersome and ticklish, so he had told her to just speak normally, but Sphinx refused, saying she had something sensitive to convey.
His ear tickled, and it was a bit uncomfortable, but he decided to listen.
“So what exactly do you want to say?”
“Well, it’s kind of awkward to bring this up now, but.......”
Sphinx began cautiously.
“Thinking about it, don’t you think the fisherman mage might already know why we came here?”
“What are you tal—ah.”
Anagin let out a sound as if something had just clicked.
Of course. That fisherman mage bastard must have seen it.
Anagin traveling in a skiff blessed by a mermaid, guided by the Horse-head. The subordinate woman might have seen it too. No—she definitely had.
How Anagin was traveling on a rowboat imbued with a mermaid's blessing, led by Horse-head. He might have even seen the subordinate woman. No, he definitely saw them.
If the subordinate woman and the Horse-head were cooperating with him, it wasn’t hard to infer that it had something to do with her sisters.
In other words, the chances were very high that they were prepared for this.
Now he understood why Sphinx was going to such lengths to speak in secret using magic.
Just talking about this would obviously make the subordinate woman think they were giving up on her sisters and cause an uproar.
“Do you think they moved her sisters somewhere else?”
“No, probably not. I don’t think they could have moved them.”
Rather than dismissing the idea outright, Sphinx offered a more plausible alternative.
“They probably reinforced their forces.”
Anagin, who liked to contradict Sphinx, was about to retort, but instead smacked his lips.
No matter how seriously he thought about it, he couldn’t find a counterargument.
Unless the fisherman mage was blind, he would have seen the Horse-head and the subordinate woman, and unless he was empty-headed, there was no way he wouldn’t have guessed they’d come because of the sisters. And quite a bit of time had already passed.
There was a high probability that they had sent more troops there.
He could roughly tell what Sphinx was getting at.
That instead of infiltrating to rescue the subordinate woman’s sisters, they might be walking straight into a trap.
Sphinx began to broach the main point.
“So maybe we should—”
“Stop.”
Anagin cut her off with a short but firm tone.
He could guess what she was about to say.
She probably wanted to suggest moving somewhere else to cause confusion—like the Ruin, for example.
It was a reasonable, logical suggestion.
If more troops had been deployed near the prison, other areas would be relatively less guarded.
That might even catch the enemy off guard. However.......
“That’s just a possibility. They might have reinforced the Ruin even more.”
“You think so?”
“The fisherman mage doesn’t have command authority over the Barbaroi Cult.”
He did have the ability to manipulate fish-men, but that didn’t necessarily mean he could control the troops themselves.
Even if he had gained partial command authority, it wouldn’t be over all of them.
Considering that the island belonged to the Barbaroi Cult, it made more sense that the Ruin would be even more heavily defended. Judging by the situation, the Ruin was the reason they couldn’t leave the island in the first place.
“...Well, that’s possible.”
Since she didn’t want to abandon the subordinate woman’s sisters either, Sphinx didn’t argue further. In the end, it was all speculation.
“And if Ruinwe cause a disturbance too deep inside, don’t you think the fisherman mage or that ugly one would come rushing over?”
Anagin hadn’t agreed to save the subordinate woman’s sisters on a whim.
He had made the decision after calculating things in his own way.
After all, Anagin’s real objective was to crush the fisherman mage bastard and that ugly one.
The Ruin and the Barbaroi Cult were secondary concerns.
What mattered here was how to draw the fisherman mage and the ugly one out of the sea.
The sea was like the front yard of those two.
Anagin had thought long and hard about this problem, and the answer was that it was impossible to lure them out entirely.
If they had any sense at all, they wouldn’t abandon an environment that favored them. So he had to compromise.
Lure them to a place where Anagin still had some advantage, a place where a fight could at least happen.
Anagin concluded that the place was the prison where the mermaids were bound.
Near the shore, it was a minimum point of compromise where the ugly one and the fisherman mage could feel somewhat at ease, while Anagin still had ground to stand on. A place where sea and land coexisted.
If it was a prison holding mermaids, they would surely have taken measures so they could tell immediately if the prisoners escaped.
Anagin planned to free the subordinate woman’s sisters, lure the ugly one and the fisherman mage there, and settle the score.
Although the odds of winning were much lower now—especially with Longbald falling short in raw power—he had no intention of backing down at this point.
Either way, now that they were trapped on the island, whether he liked it or not, he had to defeat them to get out.
“Then we’ll proceed as originally planned. Attacking the Ruin might cause more chaos, but that doesn’t mean they’d necessarily come there. And who knows—maybe freeing the sisters will weaken the fisherman mage’s power.”
After hearing the explanation, Sphinx simply nodded, as if she understood.
She had voiced her concern out of worry, but seeing that Anagin had already considered it and steeled his resolve, she backed off.
“But still.”
“What?”
“Is that really the only reason you’re saving the sisters?”
“.......”
“No other reason?”
Just as Anagin was about to answer, the subordinate woman walking ahead came to a halt.
They had finally reached a spot where the coastline was visible.
After wandering the path for a bit, the subordinate woman let out a sigh of relief, surveyed the surrounding terrain, and whispered happily.
“Thank goodness. This isn’t far from the prison where my sisters are being held.”
“Looks like it. Given how they’re crawling all over the place.”
Anagin checked the terrain and pressed down on the subordinate woman’s head, making her lower herself.
In the distance, fish-men were patrolling.
Worried about being noticed by them, the subordinate woman didn’t brush Anagin’s hand away roughly like before. She only nudged it aside slightly.
“What are you going to do?”
“We take them out. Sphinx.”
Anagin answered the subordinate woman’s question without hesitation.
This sort of problem was Anagin’s responsibility.
At his call, Sphinx naturally used magic.
They had already discussed situations like this and decided what to do while reorganizing in the Nereid Fishing Village.
There was no need for anything grand, nor for Spirit-Form Manifestation.
Shaaah.......
All it took was subtly altering the flow of the wind.
The wind blew in a direction that wouldn’t carry Anagin’s scent to the fish-men.
The moment Sphinx said it was taken care of, Anagin, still crouched low, moved behind the fish-men.
Getting behind them wasn’t difficult. He had experience hunting ferocious beasts back in his home village, and sparring with his master at night had helped too.
The instant he got behind one, Anagin stabbed the fish-man’s neck with the dagger he had already drawn, killing it in one swift motion.
.......
So quietly that not a single sound escaped.
After dealing with all the nearby fish-men like that, they moved again, and whenever more fish-men appeared, Anagin, assisted by Sphinx, silently slit their throats.
They repeated this several times.
“This is strange.”
Anagin muttered as he hid a fish-man’s corpse in a corner.
“What is?”
“The guard is looser than I expected.”
In truth, the guard wasn’t actually lax.
They had to deal with fish-men at regular intervals as they moved.
But that was a relative issue.
Considering Anagin had infiltrated the island and it was easy to guess why he’d come, the vigilance wasn’t as tight as expected.
It was enough to make him suspect some kind of trap.
“So...?”
“Well, it’s just odd.”
Anagin brushed off the subordinate woman’s anxiety with a vague answer.
If he said any more, she’d surely misunderstand something again.
The subordinate woman let out a sigh of relief and continued guiding them, her impatience obvious.
“What the.......”
The subordinate woman, who had been hurrying, saying they were almost there, stopped in shock.
Wondering what was wrong, Anagin looked ahead and saw a cluster of fish-men standing guard in front of an underwater cave, seawater flowing along the ground.
‘Is that underwater cave the prison? There are a lot of guards, and judging by her reaction, this is more than usual.’
It seemed the fisherman mage hadn’t neglected preparations entirely.
“Too many to take out quietly.”
“Then.......”
“We wipe them all out at once. And fast.”
Anagin pulled out the Beast Devourer from Pairon at his waist.
Then he asked Sphinx for Spirit-Form Manifestation.
Taking out that many wasn’t difficult, but to do it quickly, he needed magical power.
‘And I need the practice.’
Sphinx smoothly entered Spirit-Form Manifestation, her body turning half-transparent like a ghost as she floated in the air.
In that state, Anagin boldly walked forward.
When Anagin appeared, the fish-men on guard tilted their heads, their expressions filled with surprise.
They clearly hadn’t expected him to show himself so brazenly.
It was a little irritating.
Their expressions and gestures seemed to say, “Is this lunatic for real?”
Well, there was no need to care what men about to die were thinking.
Anagin immediately drew the Beast Devourer, and Sphinx cast wind magic onto it.
The fish-men flinched, tensing up.
Following what he had practiced, Anagin swung the wind-infused Beast Devourer, sending out a massive blade of wind.
With that single strike, the fish-men were all... not cut down completely.
Only a few at the front were slashed.
“Ah, figures it failed.”
Anagin muttered, as if he had expected it.
He had already seen how underwhelming the result was.
Faced with power that didn’t live up to the buildup, the fish-men were dumbfounded a second time. But they soon snapped out of it and tried to signal.
Just before they could, Anagin spoke.
“Let’s go with the second plan.”
The moment he finished speaking, Sphinx spread her massive wings and sent countless feathers raining forward, sweeping the fish-men away.
“See? This is why you have to prepare for things. I’m really smart.”
[Brother, aren’t you embarrassed?]
“Shut up.”