Wizard of the Deep Sea

At first, I couldn’t immediately tell who the child being beaten actually was.

Partly because her face was covered in blood, but mostly because the scene itself made no sense. Rather than pain or suffering, the girl looked overwhelmingly humiliated while being pummeled.

Normally, someone getting beaten that badly should at least look hurt—

"Huh, Jern!”

"...Jern?”

While I stared in confusion, Linmel looked even more shocked and sprang to her feet. She ceased her relentless ground-and-pound attack on the girl’s face.

"Why did you come in here? I said I’d handle it myself!”

"Your sword came flying outside, bent out of shape.”

I used seawater to drag the broken blade fragments over and showed them to her. Linmel glanced down at the child with a startled expression.