Chapter 147

The Sea Elder looked down.

With two giant eyes protruding from beyond the shattered ceiling, it stared intently at them. Emitting a fishy stench, it blocked the night sky.

It was a scene so bizarre it was grotesque.

A house with its roof blown off, a scaled monster peering inside at them as if looking into a toy box from the outside.

The village chief prostrated, Kobet knelt and Amethus did not lose his balance.

“Oh, ooh……!”

The village chief prostrated himself even deeper in worship.

He bowed his head to the giant fishman, revealing his will to revere it.

On his face lingered an unconcealable joy, and a gaping expression that resembled a fish more than a person.

“Good heavens… good heavens…….”

Kobet, his mind gone blank, crawled on the floor.

He trembled, his soul so shaken it was a wonder he hadn’t wet himself.

The monster called the Sea Elder was not merely gigantic.

Its glistening scales held a certain stench that disturbed a person’s mind.

It would draw out primal emotions like a fear that had been hidden away, having had no reason to be used since the age of myths.

Crushed by an immense terror he had never once experienced or even imagined in his life, Kobet could do nothing but tremble.

Likewise, the monster called the Sea Elder also stimulated a primal sense of awe that humans had forgotten.

In the case of the village chief, who had already been influenced by the fishmen, he was captivated by such awe and fell into a state of ecstasy.

“Heheheh… Welcome, welcome… Elder of the primordial sea…….”

“Oh, uh, oh… heavens, that such a being… how can such a being exist…….”

Awe and fear have their similarities.

The two quickly became mad and were bound as one.

And madness was an emotion terribly distant from Amethus.

His jade-colored eyes did not waver in the slightest.

“…….”

Amethus simply drew his sword slowly.

It was a double-edged sword he treasured dearly, one steeped in his student days.

A phrase had once been inscribed on its blade.

But it was no longer visible.

This was because he had covered the phrase with lead after coming over to the West.

He raised the double-edged sword.

In front of the monster looking down from outside the ceiling, he moved the blade this way and that, then soon sheathed the sword again.

“…Heheheh, right, as if you’d even dare…….”

The village chief chuckled.

He presumed that Amethus was thoroughly terrified.

He considered the act of drawing and then sheathing the sword as the clearest proof.

Indeed, what human could stand their ground before the majesty of the Sea Elder?

“Meekly offer your body as sustenance to the Sea Elder……. Put down that pathetic blade so you don’t accidentally pierce the Sea Elder…….”

Kobet, filled with terror, slowly turned his head. Amethus remained as calm as ever.

‘…He’s scared? No, from what I see…….’

It was strange.

Before his eyes was a monster covered in scales that tore off the ceiling like a leaf.

Yet, looking into those jade eyes, it felt as if that monster was nothing at all.

‘As if he’s sizing it up…….’

The village chief continued to prattle on.

Various stories about the proper way to worship that monster—in other words, utterly useless nonsense.

“…….”

Amethus said not a single word to the village chief.

He preferred not to speak with worthless opponents.

It was a stark contrast to his master, Shion Pollinglight, who enjoyed mocking his opponents more the more worthless they were.

“Kobet.”

“…Yes?”

“You cut down a few fishmen earlier, didn’t you? Their blood seemed to possess a considerable toxicity.”

“Ah, yes, that’s right…….”

“No matter how I think about it, cutting something of that size would likely damage the sword.”

He unfastened his scabbard and handed it over.

Kobet took it in a daze.

“I’ll entrust this to you. It’s a precious sword.”

Amethus leaped up.

Kobet had no time to ask anything.

With one leap, he was outside the house.

Stepping on the back of the Sea Elder’s hand, he leaped once more, and was immediately in front of its fishy-smelling face.

The Sea Elder blankly followed Amethus with its eyes, then slowly moved its hand.

Its actions were incredibly foolish.

Though its body was huge, it was nothing compared to Shion’s ‘The Screaming Hunchback’ or the Breath of Light.

A monster that fell far short even when compared to the Horned White Serpent Lacrosha.

Amethus couldn’t hold back a scoff.

A roaring sound.

Thousands of scale fragments scattered and the air trembled.

Amethus lightly kicked the Sea Elder’s face, and the monster lost its balance in an instant.

It tried to collapse, its neck bent at a grotesque angle.

Amethus rushed at the falling Sea Elder like an arrow and another roar echoed.

This time, along with scales, fishy blood splattered.

His fist had punched a large hole in the Sea Elder’s chest.

The Sea Elder collapsed.

One kick had broken its neck, and one punch had pierced a hole in its chest.

Its scales, impenetrable to blades and its monstrous strength for swimming in the deep sea, all met a meaningless end.

The monster’s blood rained down like a shower.

The smell was absolutely horrid.

So fishy that it stung upon contact with the skin.

Amethus swatted his hand as if chasing away a fly, and the falling drops of blood scattered in an instant.

This was because Kobet’s life could have been in danger if he were to be covered in it.

“…….”

“…….”

Both the village chief and Kobet looked up at the sky.

They stared blankly at the spot where the monster called the Sea Elder had been, but was now gone.

Everything had happened so quickly that they didn’t know what expression to make or what to say.

However, Kobet saw Amethus approach and hold out his palm, and he was able to come to his senses as he returned the sword.

The jade-eyed man was so calm it was hard to believe he had just defeated a monster the village chief had revered.

“Village chief.”

“Ye, yes……?”

Amethus did not answer and looked down at the prostrated village chief.

The village chief saw the blood-soaked Amethus and the sword returned to his hand and he hastily bowed his head.

“…Yes! Yes! Just, just say the word……!”

“You would know their main base.”

The jade eyes flashed.

“Guide me.”

***

“Truthfully, even if you call it a main base…….”

The village chief kept glancing at Amethus.

“I don’t really know…….”

“Speak carefully.”

Amethus’s voice was sharp.

“If you don’t know their main base, there is no reason to keep you alive. Chew on that fact once more before you speak.”

“…….”

The village chief gnawed on his lip.

“…Follow me.”

They left the village chief’s house and headed for the seashore.

The village chief and Kobet couldn’t help but let out sighs at the sight of the Sea Elder’s wretched corpse.

The village chief lamented how the Sea Elder could die so cruelly and Kobet marveled at how such a bizarre monster could exist in the world and what kind of person Amethus was to kill such a monster like an insect.

Their steps halted at the seashore.

The endless sea was breathing with a bizarre and strange shimmer under the night fog. Its breath, carrying the scent of salt and fish, clung to their skin.

The village chief gestured with an unpleasant smile.

“…It’s here.”

It was the sea.

With nothing more to see than just the night sea, Amethus moved his hand to his scabbard.

The village chief hastily waved his hands.

“…N-No, no! It’s true! It really is!”

Amethus gestured with his chin.

The village chief had no choice but to desperately squeeze out his words.

“It’s an island. There’s an island. I’ve only been there once, just once. And I was unconscious then, so I don’t know how I got there and back……!”

“Did you take a boat?”

“N-No. You can never get there by boat. The fishmen are always guarding it, and the waves are incredibly rough. Unless you swim…….”

“Direction.”

“…Uh, probably, that way…….”

The village chief raised his hand, and Amethus took a telescope out from his clothes.

He already had exceptionally good eyesight.

He could make out a faint shape even in the dark night sea.

“It wasn’t a lie.”

“…I-I’m telling you the truth.”

The village chief, intimidated, mumbled his lips.

Though he acted strangely, he seemed human.

He recalled Shion’s words.

‘The Empire might remember you, the jade-eyed confidant of the emperor.’

Those words were correct.

To think the entire Cordis Empire had forgotten him would be overly optimistic.

He was a famous special operations unit commander under the name of the Security Bureau’s diviner and had even defeated the former Ten Great General, Marina Debius.

‘I won’t tell you to purposely grovel. But don’t go out of your way to escalate things. If there’s someone you don’t have to kill, don’t kill them.’

Amethus looked at the village chief.

Was he a person, a fish, or something in between?

Hearing only Kobet’s story, he seemed to be someone with no reason to be kept alive, even if he was a person.

“Village chief.”

“…Yes, what is it now…….”

“I heard you were abducted by the fishmen, disappeared, and then returned.”

“…Well, that’s right.”

“And you changed after that.”

“…Is that so? I suppose so.”

The village chief’s voice lacked self-conviction.

There was no sign that he was lying.

“What changed?”

“…I’ve never thought about it. Hmm, why have I never thought about it……? Come to think of it, where did my children go……?”

Kobet felt a chill run down his spine.

He had thought the village chief was a monster until now.

That the former village chief was gone, and a monster had taken his place, wearing his shell.

But what if he was the former village chief?

What if he was originally a person he knew well, but a part of him that should not have changed as a person had changed, turning him into what he was now?

Kobet felt as if he had looked into an abyss too deep for a drunken old man to handle.

Wrestling with problems like what makes a human human or the self-awareness of the ego was not his job.

“A voice…….”

The village chief slowly opened his mouth.

“…I hear a voice. It has subsided a little now, but… yes, that’s right, I heard a voice…….”

“What kind of voice?”

“Serve the sea……. Worship the great sea……. You who came from the sea, return to the sea…….”

“Village chief.”

“…That’s right, that is right. We, our ancestors, everything on land came from the sea. From that deep blue place. Oh, ooh. The sea is calling. Listen to that voice. The benevolence that embraces the land that betrayed it, benevolence! How vast you are, O sea, our mother, the great sea. Send your messengers. Please send your messengers. Let us serve the elder of the sea. We need that. Please take us, to you, to that deep blue waterhole…….”

“Useless.”

A grunt was heard.

The village chief fainted and collapsed.

Amethus casually pushed the collapsed village chief aside.

He had intended not to stop Kobet if he tried to take revenge on the village chief, but it seemed he had no such intention.

“Let’s go, just the two of us, Kobet.”

“…Huh, am I going too?”

“Right. I didn’t ask. Are you going with me?”

“I suppose so…….”

“Good.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Amethus stared at the other side of the sea and drew his sword.

Then, just as he did when facing the Sea Elder, he held the sword before the sea and measured it this way and that.

How was he planning to get to that distant island, unreachable even by boat?

Did moving the sword around provide a solution?

Towards the puzzled Kobet, Amethus gestured for him to come closer.

Amethus grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and said.

“Kobet, don’t talk. You’ll bite your tongue.”

“…Yeees?”

Amethus swung his sword.

And the sea parted.

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