Chapter 146

Strange figures approached, parting the night sea.

A splashing sound was made each time they set their webbed feet on the sandy beach.

Their bodies glistened under the dim moonlight.

Where soft skin should have been, there were dense scales.

Their heavily stooped backs and long, streamlined heads seemed to prove that even if they walked on two legs like humans, they could never be human.

“Why, why already….”

The horrors walked slowly over the foggy beach.

Kobet was so terrified he felt like biting his own tongue off.

“…It shouldn’t be yet. It’s tomorrow, tomorrow….”

He muttered, completely out of his mind.

The disheveled old man’s face seemed to melt in fear, becoming one with the darkness in the room.

Those things, the strange beings appearing from the sea, those things that were neither human nor fish, had appeared, and now it was the end.

Kobet knew they did not discriminate, that they simply enjoyed greedily swallowing whatever was in front of them.

He covered his face and sighed as if collapsing.

‘Why, why did it come to this….’

In a very short moment, he was forced to look back on his life.

‘What was the problem…?’

Where had his life gone so wrong that he would end up suffering a terrible fate at the hands of those monsters in this shabby hut with an unfamiliar guest?

‘Was it leaving for the city on a whim in my youthful vigor?’

No, even if his business wasn’t successful, he had gained a family.

His wife passed away early from an illness, but hadn’t she left him a reliable son?

‘Was it returning to my hometown, not knowing it had become a den of monsters?’

Yes, it started from then. He should not have returned to Busen Village.

He had hoped for the warmth of his hometown in his sorry state, but what welcomed him was only a strange, fishy smell.

Something had changed, but he didn’t even know what it was.

‘…My son, that boy Racle…….’

Kobet squeezed his eyes shut.

Just thinking about it was painful.

Even though a considerable amount of time had passed, his chest still ached.

‘…He went out in a hurry at night to fix the nets and never came back, and it was obviously the work of those monsters, yet I stood by like an idiot at the village chief’s insincere excuse that it must have been an accident…?’

Finally, a sigh he could no longer hold back leaked out between his old, crooked teeth.

“Racle, your pathetic father will now be by your side….”

“Mr. Kobet.”

Amethus cut off his thoughts.

Unaware of how deep in reminiscence the old man had sunk in a short time, he asked the same question again.

“I asked if those things are enemies.”

“If those things are enemies? Yes, of course, they are enemies….”

Kobet made an angry face.

“If those damn things aren’t enemies, what are they?”

“Do they appear often?”

“They appear without fail once a month. And then a few people disappear.”

He gritted his teeth as if trembling with rage.

It was strange.

Just a moment ago, fear had shaken his heart, but talking with Amethus, anger preceded his fear. He spoke in an enraged voice.

“But everyone just stays quiet……. Keeping their mouths shut as if nothing happened, like idiots….”

“This makes things easier.”

Amethus stood up.

His hand grasped the hilt of his two-edged sword.

Kobet shouted urgently.

“Swords won’t work! Their scales are…!”

Amethus did not answer and walked away.

There was only the sound of a door slamming shut.

***

He walked on the dark, sandy beach.

Closing the hut’s door carefully was a minimum of compassion for the disheveled old man.

Amethus approached the strange figures, and the strange figures approached him.

“One, two… thirteen.”

He counted slowly, his jade eyes flashing.

“First, I’ll ask.”

As he got closer, he could see what the strange figures looked like.

They had limbs like humans but were not human, with stooped backs, long arms, and disgusting scales covering their entire bodies.

They exuded a terrible stench from their protruding eyes, and they appeared to be twice the height of an average person.

The beings, which could only be described as Fishmen, breathed heavily as they looked at Amethus.

The gills near their necks panted.

Amethus did not hide his displeasure.

“Can you understand words, you things?”

The Fishmen answered with a gurgling sound, like water draining, and by charging fiercely.

The claws on their webbed feet were sharp.

Amethus shook his head as if he had known this would happen.

“As I thought, you can’t communicate.”

He briefly gripped the hilt of his sword.

And then he let go.

At least, that’s how it looked to the Fishmen.

“There’s no need to keep you alive.”

There were thirteen Fishmen.

Therefore, thirteen heads fell from their bodies and rolled on the sand.

Even their blood had a terrible fishy stench.

***

Kobet was watching the outside through a gap in the curtains inside the hut.

Lacking the courage or strength to help the outsider, Kobet, who had been anxiously biting his nails, blinked his eyes.

Just as the Fishmen seemed to charge fiercely at Amethus, their necks suddenly snapped, and they collapsed and this was despite him not even seeing Amethus draw his sword.

While he was trying to figure out what had happened, Amethus had already returned to the hut and spoken to him.

“Mr. Kobet.”

“…Huh? Huh! No, yes…!”

The old man’s tone became very polite.

It was because he had seen that Amethus was no ordinary swordsman.

He bowed his head deeply and said.

“Please speak, Sir Knight….”

“I told you I’m not a knight….”

Amethus did not bother to correct the old man’s misunderstanding any further.

“Do you know where their stronghold is?”

“Well, let’s see…?”

Kobet tilted his head.

Those Fishmen were objects of terror to be avoided at all costs, not subjects of inquiry to find out where they lived.

Just as Amethus was about to sigh at the thought that things were getting complicated, Kobet continued.

“But I know someone who might. He’ll know, yes, he must know.”

Amethus gestured with his chin for him to continue.

“I told you that people disappear when those things appear, didn’t I, Sir Knight?”

“You did.”

“But there are a few who disappeared and then came back. They all became strange… strangely friendly with the Fishmen….”

The old man shivered with a strange fear.

The most horrifying part was that they looked exactly the same as before on the outside.

Something different was clearly inside, but why did they look the same?

Wouldn’t this make one doubt everything one saw?

“The leader among them is….”

“It must be that village chief from earlier.”

“Yes.”

Kobet nodded his head.

He suddenly remembered his missing son and the shameless face of the village chief who had covered up his disappearance, and he ground his teeth.

“I’ll guide you to the village chief’s house.”

***

“To visit so suddenly in the middle of the night.”

The village chief said in a condescending voice.

“This is troublesome, Kobet. Very troublesome. What if the children wake up?”

Instead of opening his mouth, Kobet slowly stepped back and Amethus stepped forward.

The village chief was puzzled.

It was because Kobet, who was always intimidated in front of him, was glaring at him with such fierce eyes.

However, before the village chief could express his puzzlement, Amethus spoke.

“Village Chief.”

“What is it, guest?”

“Do you have children?”

“Yes. Very cute children. One son and three daughters.”

He chuckled, but Amethus did not smile.

“That room inside must be the children’s room?”

“That’s right. Why do you ask?”

The jade eyes were sharp.

“I was wondering if your children smell of fish.”

“Hmm.”

The village chief scratched his chin. His eyes seemed to bulge forward.

“What, you knew?”

He put his fingers to his mouth and let out a short whistle.

As if responding to the indescribably strange tone, bizarre figures crawled out from the inner room.

Their contorting, scale-covered forms were identical to the Fishmen he had met on the beach earlier.

The narrow hallway was instantly filled with a fishy smell.

As those Fishmen were twice the size of a normal person, they filled the hallway even when stooping.

Sharp claws, about the length of a human forearm, gleamed.

The village chief’s lips curled up.

“If only you’d stayed in that hut, we would have found you eventually. But you just had to come all the way here and make our jobs easier, didn’t you?”

The ones who went that way must have had a wasted trip.

The village chief didn’t think that Amethus had already cut off the heads of thirteen Fishmen.

It was an utterly common-sense judgment.

“Tear him apart.”

The Fishmen charged.

Amethus placed his hand on the hilt of his sword.

And took it off.

The Fishmen were torn apart.

The Fishmen were instantly chopped into pieces, turning the floor into a fish market.

With fish chunks and fish blood, all it needed was a sprinkle of salt to be exactly like a fish market.

The village chief, covered in fishy blood, blinked his eyes blankly.

“……?”

He didn’t even have time to compose himself from his bewilderment.

Amethus immediately lunged at the village chief, kicking him in the stomach and knocking him down.

Amethus’s foot stomped on the neck of the village chief, who fell with a groan.

It was the way he used to subdue criminals during his days as a Security Knight.

“Village Chief.”

Amethus’s voice became sharp.

“You know where those things came from, don’t you?”

“Ooh. Where did they come from? I know… of course, I know….”

Even with his neck stomped on, the village chief did not stop smiling.

His neck squirmed.

As if it had gills.

“They came from the deep, from the sea you all have forgotten……. You may have forgotten, but we have not….”

“That’s not the kind of useless talk I was asking for.”

Amethus pressed down with his foot.

“Guide me to their stronghold.”

“Puhuhu….”

The village chief laughed even while making a gurgling sound.

He laughed with a sound like air escaping.

“Puhuhuhuhuhu….”

Kobet trembled. He couldn’t help but be creeped out by that laughter.

“…You’ve picked the wrong day, outsider friend….”

The village chief’s eyes glinted with madness.

“As it happens, today… one of them has come up….”

As soon as he finished speaking, the village chief pursed his lips.

Piiiiii—- he whistled.

It was an indescribably strange cry. Kobet couldn’t even block his ears and collapsed.

It was because he had heard a sound he should not have heard.

That whistle contained a magic that scrambled a person’s brain.

However, Amethus only furrowed his brow slightly.

Amethus’s mind was too strong to lose consciousness from such a level of magic.

“Oh, ooh, they are coming…!”

The ground rumbled.

It was the sign of something huge approaching.

Amethus removed the foot that was stomping on the village chief.

The village chief, without any thought of escaping, immediately knelt on the spot and bowed to the approaching something.

“They have arrived…!”

The ceiling disappeared with a snap.

It was because something outside had snapped off the ceiling and thrown it away.

Through the flown-away ceiling, the night sky was visible.

A shadow that obscured the night sky was visible. A pair of fish-like eyes attached to the shadow was visible.

The village chief burst into mad laughter.

He bowed deeply to the giant, scaled monster and shouted.

“…Sea Elder!”

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