Chapter 108
Chapter 108. The Reason for the Rejection Phenomenon
Lucian was looking out at the churning sea. He recalled what had happened after Yul descended into the Deep Sea.
The storm had arrived faster than expected, leaving them on the outer edge of it. Something was moving within the pitch-black sea.
The first to discover it was the sperm whale Yeruld. As soon as the message was relayed, Brodin shouted.
“Enemy coming from below!”
Two unusual individuals lurked in the darkness. Each had a long, sleek body and carried a spear. At first, they seemed to be in human form, but a closer look revealed otherwise.
Their faces resembled lizards. Their tails were longer than their legs, and their legs themselves were shaped somewhat like those of cows or horses. In one hand, each held a long spear.
The moment the warning ended, they climbed onto the ship. One of them immediately thrust its long spear into a sailor’s torso.
“Graaagh!”
Even though its speed had clearly been slowed by Carmen’s magic, it was still unbelievably fast. No one on board could keep up with that thing’s speed.
“Shit! What the hell is that? Boatswain! Take that thing down!”
Carmen cursed while gripping the helm. On a day with rain pouring down like this, the gunpowder would get soaked, making it impossible to fire guns. They had no choice but to fight with the cutlasses hanging at their waists.
It would have been nice if Carmen could support them with magic, but she couldn’t entrust the helm to someone else in the middle of such a storm, so she had to keep steering.
However, the enemy was incredibly strong. The two of them complemented each other perfectly as they cut down the sailors.
“Damn it! They’re too strong!”
Lucian immediately fired a barrage of magic bullets, but the creature cleverly positioned itself among the sailors, blocking his line of sight.
‘Using them as shields!?’
It knew a barrage of fire was coming and used its own allies as shields. That meant they had to engage in close combat, but Lucian wasn’t confident. His physical strength had improved, but dealing with an enemy moving at such ridiculous speed was another matter entirely.
‘Maybe I should’ve learned martial arts.’
It was his first time seeing a Sea Horror, but it was terrifyingly strong. A vague piece of information flashed through Lucian’s mind.
‘Sea Horror Knight?’
Because his connection with Yul wasn’t perfect, the information wasn’t complete, but he still grasped what it was. One of the Mother Nest’s close attendants, among the strongest of the Sea Horrors.
“Damn it! Yeruld can’t fire the Hydro Cannon, the firing angle doesn’t work!”
At Brodin’s shout, the enormous sperm whale surfaced beside the ship, but it couldn’t attack. No matter how they tried, the sailing ship was simply too tall, leaving no angle to fire the Hydro Cannon at enemies standing on the deck.
“Aaaaah!”
One by one, the sailors collapsed from exhaustion. The Sea Horror Knights then hunted those fallen men with ease.
And then Yera Mul, who had been quietly standing there as if she barely existed, stepped forward.
“Pinky.”
The creature that had been in the form of a carbuncle leapt from Yera Mul’s arms. It had originally been in a Polymorph state, and it began returning to its original form.
Its shape resembled a giant jellyfish. Most of its body was transparent, and it was covered in crystalline scales. And it used tentacles.
“Kill.”
It moved forward immediately. It wriggled, then stretched out its transparent jelly-like tentacles. At a glance, they looked soft and not particularly fast.
The moment the Knight tried to strike the tentacle down with its spear, the soft mass slipped straight into the spear.
It was like stabbing into a highly viscous swamp.
The tentacle pulsed as it burrowed inward toward the Sea Horror Knight. The Knight clearly looked startled.
It dropped its spear.
The moment it let go, Pinky hurled its body straight at the Sea Horror, clinging tightly to one of the Sea Horror Knights.
Squish, squelch.
Then Pinky injected something into it, and a fountain of blood began erupting from the Knight’s torso. The spray of blood started to form shapes that looked like human faces.
“W-what the hell!?”
“W-what is that?”
The blood fountain soon spread even further. Through the spot where Pinky and the Sea Horror Knight were in contact, the creature’s internal organs were dragged out. The organs briefly entered Pinky’s transparent body before slipping back out through its skin.
The deck turned into a fountain of blood. The Sea Horror Knight struggled wildly, but once its head was completely taken over, it suddenly stopped moving.
The second Sea Horror Knight cautiously retreated.
But Pinky, which had been moving slowly at first, suddenly leapt like a frog and swallowed the second Sea Horror Knight in an instant.
Squish, squelch.
The grotesque process was so transparent and clearly visible that it inspired pure revulsion. If even Lucian felt that way, the others must have felt it even more strongly.
The second Sea Horror Knight was dealt with as well.
Even though the enemies had fallen, silence enveloped the surroundings.
Without receiving the cheers it rightfully deserved, the transparent creature returned to its carbuncle form once again. Then it trotted over toward them.
“Aaaagh! Stay away!”
One sailor in its path shrieked and ran backward in terror. But the carbuncle paid no attention and simply leapt into Yera’s arms.
Yera Mul, wearing the same languid expression as before, gently stroked the carbuncle’s chin as usual. Then she sat down somewhere as if nothing had happened.
However, the sailors would never be able to treat her the same way again.
After that incident, Lucian realized he was thinking about it too much.
Yera Mul had used her power to save them. And yet instead of receiving respect or cheers, she was met with disgust and contempt. Some sailors even treated her as if she didn’t exist at all.
Lucian approached Yera, who was still sitting there as usual.
“What is it? Yaaawn.”
“I… came to apologize.”
“For what?”
“You helped us, but everyone treated you kind of badly.”
“That’s not something you need to worry about. We know very well that we’re monsters, and we know we disgust others. Right, Pinky?”
The creature in the form of a carbuncle closed its eyes as Yera stroked it, enjoying the touch.
“Just like Pinky, I’m the same kind of monster. If you saw my true form, you’d probably feel disgust, too.”
“Maybe. But we’re friends, right?”
“Friends?”
Yera didn’t smile or cry, nor did she remain expressionless. For the first time, she showed an expression Lucian had never seen before, then spoke.
“Yeah, maybe. At least until the day you say you don’t want to be friends anymore.”
* * *
There was one important matter left. The handling of Puyo.
-You’re not planning to kill me after I worked this hard like a dog, right?
-I’m thinking about it.
-I worked like a dog!! Not only should you spare my life, but you should also pay me too!!
Based on everything Yul had observed so far, he hadn’t found any evidence that Puyo had attempted to summon that Outer God. And until now, Puyo had followed Yul faithfully.
-Fine. What do you want?
-Don’t you have any spare mounts?
-Of course, I don’t have something like that.
-W-well, I saw one of those Knights that looked pretty intact. That one will do.
The Mother Nest had disappeared, but the corpses of the things it had created still remained. Yul had smashed most of them to pieces, but a few corpses were still left in relatively intact condition.
-Alright. I’ll allow you to pick one.
-Yes! Thank you!!
-And before you go.
-Yes?
-You’re coming to my island, too.
-It’s not some kind of prison camp, right?
-Don’t talk nonsense. Just stay on the island. After some time passes, I won’t care where you go.
-Understood, boss!
Puyo boarded one of the remaining Sea Horror Knights that was still relatively intact. Now it was time to prepare to leave this facility.
After finishing various preparations, Kaiman asked Yul.
-Where are we going?
-The Island of Boundaries.
* * *
Puyo had already proven capable of adapting well even outside the seawater, and Kaiman was fine as well.
As he rose above the surface, Kaiman pulled a device attached to his left arm and instantly adapted to the pressure difference.
Yul, Kaiman, and Puyo arrived at the Island of Boundaries. Around the island, a ship they hadn’t seen before was anchored.
-So this is your island? Quite a backward place. There’s nothing but trees.
-It was an uninhabited island until recently.
-Oh. So someone lives here now?
-Sea elves.
-Sea elves? What are those?
Judging by the timeline, sea elves probably didn’t exist during the era Kaiman had lived in.
Yul stepped onto land and naturally began to fly.
Soon afterward, Aranmas, the one responsible for guarding the island, immediately appeared.
“Lord Yul! You’ve returned!?”
-Bring me my clothes.
“Yes!”
Endaira, who had been standing beside Aranmas, hurried over and brought Yul’s clothes. After ending his Polymorph and changing into them right away, Yul patted Endaira on the head.
Cute little fellow.
“Now I finally feel like I can live again.”
“W-where have you come from? And the, uh… beings beside you, who are they?”
They all looked bizarre, so it was natural that he seemed confused. After all, Kaiman was some strange figure wrapped head to toe in a black hood, and Puyo was wearing the shell of a Sea Horror Knight.
“I just went down to the Deep Sea for a bit.”
“The Deep Sea… you mean?”
“The one in the black clothes is Kaiman. He’ll help develop the island. And that one over there, Puyo… well. Just let him stay on the island and do whatever.”
“K-Kaiman and Puyo… understood.”
Kaiman briefly observed the sea elves with apparent curiosity.
Normally, a child might avoid such a gaze, but Endaira simply blinked and met Kaiman’s eyes directly.
Quite the gutsy kid.
-This race has no master.
-What do you mean by that?
-Something that should exist is missing. Most likely, the Progenitor Organism died.
-What’s the Progenitor Organism?
-You know about karma but not about Progenitor Organisms? Your knowledge is quite skewed. I’ll give you a children’s educational book later, and read it.
Should I smack the back of his head? A faint killing intent flickered in Yul’s eyes, and Kaiman quickly added an explanation.
-To put it simply, some organisms can influence their entire bloodline. Higher species that live for a very long time do so. Just by being alive, they influence their descendants.
-Huh?
-A Progenitor Organism existed, allowing sea elves to be born. Eventually, that Progenitor Organism died or something happened to it, and the sea elves lost their power. Do you get the rough idea?
-…That’s possible? The sea elves have wandered the seas for thousands of years, but they have never mentioned anything about a Progenitor Organism.
When you think of elves, don’t you usually think of the World Tree? Yul had heard there was once a World Tree somewhere beyond the eastern lands of the former Imperial territory.
But sea elves had wandered the ocean for so long that they had no such legends or origin stories.
-The sea elves and their Progenitor Organism were probably bound together by karma. Think about it. Do you really believe it’s possible to live on ships and wander the sea for thousands of years? That creature doesn’t even have gills or fins. At a glance, it looks like something meant to live on land.
-I suppose so.
In other words, there must have once been a being, the Progenitor Organism, connected to the sea elves.
And it had likely been bound to them through karma. Recently, however, the sea elves had begun experiencing a rejection phenomenon.
-Is the reason the sea elves are experiencing rejection from the sea because something happened to that Progenitor Organism?
-Probably. It likely died. Wasn’t there a major incident recently?
-Heaven and Earth Resonance…
-It might have died because of the aftermath of that event. Once they lose their master, their civilization will slowly fade and decline, just like any other species.
As Kaiman said that, he looked somewhat lonely.
-So, what exactly should I do now? I only work as much as I’m paid for. I’m not doing any extra!!
Was it just his imagination?