Chapter 67
Chapter 67
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 67
Chapter Title: The Aquarium Holding a Whale (9)
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I first crumpled Cosmo up like a ball of paper and tucked him into my arms before turning my steps toward my cabin. It wouldn’t do to catch anyone’s eye here.
While Cosmo was drooling and looking around with his gluttony boiling over, Ragia came over laughing heartily and spoke to me.
[The Garden Warden seems to be reacting to the new skill. How fascinating. Hey, Sierra, can you tell this old man exactly what skill you got? I might be able to help! Hahaha!]
“…Karma.”
[Eh?]
“It’s a skill that lets you see the sins a target has committed so far. I used it on that Crown Prince you were calling warm and all that, and I saw a hellish place. A hell where magical beasts and humans were tangled together in death.”
Hek hek! At the words “magical beast,” Cosmo reacted and tried to bounce up like a rubber ball. I restrained him with effort and grabbed the door handle to my cabin.
“A skill like this is just creepy and useless. What am I supposed to do, see someone’s sins? Judge them? I don’t have the right or the power for that.”
[Hmm. No. No, no, no. It’s not useless.]
Ragia vibrated repeatedly as if denying my words.
[If you could harness that Karma, wouldn’t it be amazing? The Garden Warden is a gate, right? If you could summon that Karma through the gate of your Garden Warden, it’d be tremendous firepower, no?]
“…….”
My hand paused for a moment on the door handle. Ragia’s words overlapped with what had just happened, sending chills down my shoulders.
Cosmo had smelled magical beasts in the Karma. He’d said he felt the grudge of evil spirits too.
As Ragia said, if I could extract evil spirits from someone’s Karma?
“…I’ll think about it.”
Cosmo’s eyes sparkled as he sniffed toward Ragia with interest.
[This is just a lump of metal. Can’t eat it. But it said something good just now. Magical beasts to eat, right? Evil spirits to eat too, right?]
[I’m metal, so my senses are dull, but it’s kinda damp? Sierra, is your Garden Warden bleeding? Just call it blood. I don’t like getting drool on me……. Not that I’m some cheap metal that rusts from a little drool!]
“Both of you, shut up.”
I forced a calm facade, hiding my complicated feelings, and entered the cabin, slamming the door shut. Pippin, who had been snoring away under the blanket, flung it off and sat up.
“Ugh. Master. Where’ve you been? Yawn.”
“You’re a guard knight who snores like that? You’d sleep right through my head getting chopped off.”
“Should I stay awake right now?”
“Snore some more. Loud enough to wake everyone else.”
I snatched my blanket back from Pippin. He got up with bedhead and shuffled to his own bedding. Cosmo lunged at Pippin, who could barely open his eyes.
[Oh! Human who catches magical beasts! Pipi! Pipi!]
“Eek.”
[Sniff sniff. Smells like magical beast. Did you eat one behind my back? Sniff sniff. Smells like bad-tasting magical beast. You’re really satisfied with that? I smelled way better magical beasts.]
“Ugh. Master, take your monster, please.”
Ignoring Pippin, I lay down on my bed. Setting Ragia by the bedside made the whole scene look downright ominous.
“A weapon and a magical beast in the bedroom. Quite the combo.”
Pippin had been wrestling with Cosmo in the meantime. Cosmo was clinging to him, drooling everywhere, while Pippin rolled him up in a blanket, tossed him off, cleaned him up, moved him around—making a huge fuss.
“Now that he’s smaller, how about using Cosmo as a pillow?”
“No way. Absolutely not. He’s super slimy right now. And what if he turns back into that giant lizard while I’m sleeping? It’s gross.”
“It’s hilarious hearing that from a guy who butchers magical beasts without batting an eye.”
“Not funny at all.”
[Magical beast smell! Magical beast! Eat! Wanna eat! I wanna eat magical beast too!]
They made a perfect pair. Both obsessed with magical beasts, both total gluttons.
I watched them for a bit, then reached out toward Pippin while lying down. Perhaps sensing my mana flow, Ragia, who had been quiet, spoke up.
[Hey. You’re gonna use a skill again, right? Won’t it consume a lot of mana?]
“Just bored. Thought I’d test it.”
[Hmm. That Karma thing—nothing good comes from looking at it, does it? Feels ominous. In my opinion, you’re young and fragile-minded, so use it carefully.]
“Young and fragile-minded. That’s a new one.”
I clenched my outstretched fist tight. Black mana gathered around Pippin like ink, then burst.
Just like with the Crown Prince’s Karma, the cabin’s scenery shifted.
“Not bad.”
Pippin’s Karma was a total mess, just like the Crown Prince’s. The blood-soaked ground looked almost like a meadow. Piled atop it were Veridis’s massive severed head and neatly butchered magical beast carcasses for meat, stacked neatly. It was more orderly than the Crown Prince’s hell, which made it even creepier.
‘At least no people.’
Of course, with Pippin’s personality, he wouldn’t have killed anyone.
As I scanned the countless beast corpses and was about to close my eyes in disgust, something unique caught my eye. There was a warm light enveloping Pippin from behind as he wrestled with Cosmo. I hadn’t seen anything like it in the Crown Prince’s Karma.
“That’s…….”
It looked like it was protecting Pippin. Looking closer, it took the shape of a person. A very familiar one.
‘Phoebe, maybe?’
Even amid the gruesome history of slaughtering beasts, there was a power watching over Pippin.
No wonder the Crown Prince seemed lonely. He had nothing like that. Just a hellscape. Walking that path alone.
“Ragia. Karma might not just show sins, actually.”
[Eh, stop practicing that skill and sleep. Good kids grow tall if they sleep soundly! I can change my size whenever, but you can’t! Hahaha!]
I rolled over and reached out to Ragia.
What would Ragia’s Karma look like? He’d served as the merfolk king’s weapon all this time, so probably on par with the Crown Prince’s.
I focused my mana and burst it like before.
“Argh!”
My hand burned like fire; I clutched my wrist. It stung and scorched. The mana that should have shot out had exploded trapped in my hand.
“Master? You okay?”
[Owner? What’s wrong, owner? Mana feels weird.]
Pippin and Cosmo looked at me worriedly. I shook my head to signal I was fine, then poked Ragia while holding my wrist. Ragia cackled in a gravelly voice.
[You just tried using a skill on me, huh? I’m way too pow~erful for a newbie like you to read. Sheesh. I told you to grow up and sleep. Don’t overestimate yourself?]
The numbness in my hand was fading bit by bit. I shook out my wrist to ease the pain.
[My sins are bigger than you think. Gotta be, to serve at a king’s side.]
“Yeah? So how big are the sins of Sierra Gluttony, who’s only lived depressed until now?”
I fumbled for the mirror by my bedside.
[Didn’t learn after one scolding, huh.]
“If my right hand’s sore, I use my left. Humans have two hands. Oh, right—you don’t have any?”
[Ha! Sass like that? You’re all grown up! Fine! I’ll let it slide this time.]
“Will it show in the mirror?”
I held up the mirror and raised my uninjured hand to use the skill. But nothing changed.
I definitely felt the mana directing……
Then, a shadow flickered inside the mirror.
“A woman?”
It was too dark to see well. I tilted the mirror this way and that, and it became clearer.
Definitely. It was a woman. Long hair, strikingly pale forehead.
Flash. Our eyes met for an instant.
“!”
I whipped around, but there was no illusion. Just the dim cabin as is. Ragia humming beside me, Pippin and Cosmo tumbling around.
“…….”
I looked back at the mirror. Nothing.
Just my imagination? Yeah, using the skill on a mirror wouldn’t show my own Karma.
I set the mirror down and tried to lie back, but a chilling sensation gripped my throat. My body stiffened. Sounds around me cut out instantly.
Cold fingers wrapped around my neck like strangling, then leaned a cold body against mine. Nothing physically touched me, but a heavy presence pressed in.
“Mirrors don’t lie.”
A quiet voice whispered in my ear. Very soft and faint, but I understood it. A voice I’d known all my life.
My little sister—the real one, Juyeong’s—voice. Even reborn, I couldn’t forget it.
“Juyeong? Juyeong, is that you?”
I wanted to turn, but my body wouldn’t move.
“Brother is my sin itself.”
The sleep paralysis lifted in a flash.
“Juyeong!”
I spun around fast, but nothing was behind me. My ears rang.
“Master, what’s wrong? You’ve been muttering to yourself. And that weapon keeps giggling—it’s creepy.”
Pippin asked with Cosmo on the back of his head like a pillow. Cosmo stuck out his tongue, panting happily for some reason.
[You used mana? Why? Gonna summon a magical beast? Can I eat it?]
“No, nothing like that…….”
I checked the mirror again. Nothing. I irritably set it back and flopped onto the bed. A strangely comforting mana flowed from Ragia.
[Regretting not listening to me? Don’t let your own power devour you, Sierra~]
“Looks like…… I won’t sleep easy tonight…….”
I pulled up the blanket, but something welled up inside. The cabin felt unusually quiet.
I was used to this silence.
The feeling of lying alone in my room after my sister was hospitalized. When my parents died, at least we could hold each other and cry. But when even my sister was gone, no.
The Crown Prince must have felt this toward Sierra—ridiculous. I didn’t know the original Sierra, but I hadn’t chosen my own loneliness.
I’d never chosen it.
“Hey, Pipi.”
“Y-Yes? Even Master’s calling me Pipi now……. I’m still awake. Want me to patrol?”
Pippin replied in a sharply disciplined voice. Hearing it somehow put me at ease.
“Snore your heart out tonight. Real loud.”
“Huh? Can’t exactly control that.”
“Do it.”
“I’ll…… try.”
I rolled over. No doubt I’d be tossing and turning tonight.