Chapter 425: Joyful Friends Under the Sea! (3)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 425: Joyful Friends Under the Sea! (3)
And the Dragon King spat blood once more.
This time, it wasn’t an issue with his divine abilities, but rather because he had received some rather shocking news.
“…General Byeol and General Gyo are retreating?”
For a moment, he recalled an incident in a neighboring country a few years back where a general had turned his army around and changed the very name of the nation. However, the Dragon King quickly shook his head, telling himself that was impossible.
They weren’t the type to do such a thing, and if they were, they wouldn’t have sent a messenger in such a hurry.
There must have been an incredibly urgent situation.
“Tell me the details—the full story. There must be a reason you alone returned in such haste.”
Whether the enemy was stronger than expected and they needed to bolster their defenses, or there was news even more significant than that, it was clear they were trying to deliver the word as fast as possible.
“Sun Wukong.”
…Wait, why was that crazy stone monkey’s name coming up all of a sudden?
“The intruder is Sun Wukong!”
The power to effortlessly crush the Dragon Palace’s military might.
The Taoist arts that easily shattered his own divine abilities.
And the fact that the sea refused to obey him—it wasn’t strange at all if the opponent possessed the ‘Ruyi Jingu Bang.’
“How should we prepare?! Should we concentrate all our forces at the main gate?!”
“What are you talking about?! If we do that and get attacked from another direction, then what?!”
There was supposed to be a manual prepared specifically to ensure they never suffered at that monkey’s hands again. Yet, the moment he heard the name ‘Sun Wukong,’ instead of a burning fighting spirit, a fear he had never felt in his life took hold of his body.
In truth, he had been too young to even remember the incident when the monkey had last stormed this place. He thought he would be able to handle things differently than his father had.
His mockery upon hearing about the chaos in Hell not long ago had been pure arrogance.
To be this terrified just by hearing that he had arrived…
How was he supposed to face such an opponent?
“A-A banquet.”
However, even amidst his terror, he did not lose his composure or make the wrong choice.
The strategic mind and talent that had earned him the most trust among the Dragon King’s many children—allowing him to ascend to the throne despite being the youngest—began to shine in this moment.
“…Pardon?”
“I said prepare a banquet! A big one! Host the most magnificent welcoming banquet possible!”
What kind of madness was this?
Most of the officials stood dazed, unable to comprehend why they would hold a feast when an enemy was invading. However, the wise ones grasped the King’s intent and immediately began to move.
“We have to be brazen. We didn’t know who the opponent was; we were simply trying to drive them away with a warning.”
“But… will she really fall for that?”
“She will. Can’t you see why she let the messenger go?”
“Sir?”
“If a mere common soldier could escape just by running with all his might, how could that stone monkey have turned the Heavenly Realm upside down?! She let him go on purpose! To give us a chance! She wants to see just how plausible an excuse we can come up with!”
In fact, the Dragon King’s guess was remarkably close to the truth.
It would have been almost perfect, if not for the fact that the real reason was simply that Sun Wukong didn’t want to hit her friend’s subordinates ‘too hard.’
“But what if we already launched a preemptive strike…?”
“We can call it a warning shot. Do you really think we could have inflicted a single scratch on her?! No, we wouldn’t have even been able to get close! Not if the opponent is truly Sun Wukong!”
It might have looked cowardly, but it was a truly perfect response.
Even in the past, among the countless places where Sun Wukong had run amok, the place that suffered the least damage was, without a doubt, the Dragon Palace.
Why?
Because the previous Dragon King had recognized Sun Wukong’s extraordinary nature faster than anyone else!
Because the Dragon King had been the first to offer gifts and avoid a battle with her!
Even if history recorded him as a humiliating coward, by avoiding the fight, he had been able to send Sun Wukong away while losing nothing more than the ‘Ruyi.’
“Prepare the finest wine, refreshments, and food—all of it…! From this moment on, the Dragon Palace is a party venue!”
“We were preparing for a state of war! Wine, all of a sudden?!”
“We have to be alive to prepare for war…!”
At the truly desperate cry of their new King, the ministers hid their tears and began preparing for the festival.
* * *
Meanwhile, at the same time.
What was the much-discussed Sun Wukong doing?
“So, did you deliver the news well?”
He was enjoying an undersea drive, with the party riding on the backs of softshell turtles and tortoises.
“W-What do you mean by that?”
“Oh, don’t play coy. If I let your soldier go and you still act like this, I might get a little disappointed, don’t you think?”
“Yes! Yes! It was delivered perfectly!”
“See, isn’t it much better when you speak frankly? I told you to guide us, but I’m even overlooking the fact that you’re taking the long way on purpose. The Dragon Palace needs time to prepare for our arrival, after all.”
“Ha, haha. It’s not necessarily that we’re trying to buy time, but rather that we wanted to escort you comfortably while showing off our famous undersea scenery!”
“Right. Since that fellow Ao Guang won’t likely be hostile once he hears it’s me, let’s take our time.”
“…Pardon?”
“Hmm?”
“The thing is, the current Dragon King is not Lord Ao Guang. Lord Ao Guang has retired from the front lines, and the youngest prince has succeeded the throne.”
“Ho…? Is that so? Then, if we’re unlucky, there might be a battle.”
Seeing him tilt his head as if troubled, General Byeol couldn’t understand why this monster was worried. But the monster soon resolved his confusion.
“I’d hate to hit my friend’s son. I truly hope he’s as wise as his father.”
The two generals and their subordinates prayed that the new King had made a wise choice as they slowly guided them through the undersea scenery…
“Ah, but I’m in a bit of a hurry. I’ve seen enough of the sights. I’ve been quite patient.”
…Guided them.
“If you don’t want to die, go at full speed.”
“Yes, sir.”
They began to swim toward the Dragon Palace at maximum velocity.
* * *
At this point, Sun Wukong handed my body back to me.
Mm, there was some stamina depletion, but it wasn’t at an unbearable level like before.
Glancing back, it seemed everyone was now so used to me running wild that they weren’t even surprised anymore.
“Wow, it’s really amazing being able to breathe underwater.”
“The ocean floor is so beautiful.”
“…Hmm, I wonder if moving like this is faster underwater?”
Ga-eul and Ha-ni seemed to like the ocean scenery, and Cathy Noona was watching the movements of the turtles and fish intently, perhaps thinking of mimicking their motions.
Everyone else seemed to quite like the undersea world as well.
Unfortunately, the pleasant sea voyage didn’t last very long.
Is it strange to call it a corner of the sea?
Something began to glint in the darkness of the abyss, deeper than where we currently were.
— Hmm? This is a presence I’ve never felt before. Did things like that live in these waters? Their attitude is a bit poor for something the Dragon Palace is raising.
So far, only Sun Wukong and I had noticed, but soon the others would start to catch on, with Cathy Noona likely being the first.
And while most of them probably wouldn’t know, I had a rough idea of what those things were.
The only question was that in the 1st Timeline, their first appearance was still far in the future, and their location was nowhere near Korea.
Well, I suppose Seo-ha or an Evil God could have intervened. Or perhaps, with so many incidents happening in Korea, a portal leading to that place opened in response to the malice and toxicity of the events.
— That place?
‘Ah, it’s a bit hard to explain, but there’s a place where all sorts of bad things gather.’
R’lyeh.
A fictional ancient city said to exist at 47°9′S 126°43′W, the Point Nemo of the Pacific Ocean, and an ancient entity within the fictional mythos appearing in the stories of the novelist Lovecraft.
It is also the place where Cthulhu, one of the Great Old Ones, is said to lie dreaming.
It’s a place filled with all sorts of ghost stories—that it’s the same as the lost continent of Mu near Easter Island, that it’s a place filled with toxicity and moisture, and that humans go mad upon reaching it.
Naturally, Seo-ha, who loved mixing in all sorts of stories, had inserted that myth—popular among occult enthusiasts—into her world as well.
Now, here’s a bit of a problem, or rather, one of Seo-ha’s dark secrets.
When Seo-ha first read stories related to the Cthulhu Mythos, she mistakenly thought it wasn’t a work of fiction but a ‘truly’ existing mythological system.
That period overlapped with when she was creating the draft for this world. Later, when she heard the truth from me, she went into a frenzy, tearing up and rewriting settings out of sheer embarrassment.
Ah, well, I explained it a bit in a complicated way, but what I’m trying to say is this:
The Cthulhu here is a mess—a mixture of superficial knowledge from someone who hadn’t even properly read the Lovecraft collections, uncertain details easily found on the internet, and Seo-ha’s own bizarre fan-fictional creations. It’s an entity that differs significantly from the original.
She took a result that was already quite scattered and closer to a tertiary creation and modified it at her own whim, so how could it be normal?
Anyway, because of that, the first characteristic of this Cthulhu and its minions—which differ greatly from the official lore—is…
That they are extremely aggressive toward humans and modern creatures.
As I blocked a tentacle that surged from the darkness of the abyss, my mood soured slightly.
The setting that their mere existence spreads madness and harm to their surroundings is, unfortunately, faithful to the source material.
“…Wow, I’m glad I came.”
What if the Dragon Palace incident hadn’t happened and the undersea tunnel had been successfully completed, only for a portal connected to R’lyeh to be nearby?
A catastrophe I didn’t even want to imagine would have occurred.
In any case, the rest of the party seemed surprised by the sudden attack from the deep, and the Dragon Palace group was shocked, crying, “Already in a place like this?!” But Sun Wukong and I, having seen through the creature’s secret, were rather indifferent.
This was also a setting error caused by Seo-ha’s misunderstanding from her half-baked reading.
The Cthulhu here isn’t actually that difficult to deal with, aside from the mental pollution.
— Hey, but is a steamship really that great of a weapon? How does it blow a god’s head open and get away?
— No, the Great Old Ones are more like incredibly powerful aliens than gods. Well, even considering that and the era it was written in, a steamship isn’t exactly what you’d call a magnificent weapon, right?
— Huh? Then why does its head get popped by a steamship if it’s such a grand being?
— Who knows? It’s not like there’s a description of it dying, and some say it’s because it hadn’t properly resurrected yet, or maybe the author just wasn’t interested in modern weaponry at the time and failed at game balance…
— I get it. Actually, Cthulhu isn’t even that strong among the Great Old Ones! That’s why humans keep stopping its resurrection in games and stuff! It was a total weakling.
— …Probably not? Or is it? I’m not really sure either.
Through such a process, the non-religious element of facing an incomprehensible being made of pure absurdity—a staple of cosmic horror—with the weak weapons of humanity…
Had transformed into the idea that, cosmic horror or not, a weakling can be hurt by human weapons.
So, to show it simply through action…
“What are you staring at?”
When I glared with the full power of my Fiery Eyes and Golden Pupils, the gaze watching us from the abyss began to scatter and vanish.
Since the Fiery Eyes and Golden Pupils can block mental pollution, I can make something at the level of a Cthulhu minion run away just by glaring at it.
And as the deep sea grew quiet, I looked at the Dragon Palace group to signal that we should head out again.
Unlike my companions, who remained calm, the faces of the Dragon Palace officials had brightened considerably.
“Distinguished Guest.”
“W-We failed to recognize such a Distinguished Guest…!”
…Wow, look at how quickly these guys flipped.
Are these really the same bastards who were trembling in fear just a moment ago?
You were so terrified of Sun Wukong, so why are you suddenly acting all friendly?
“Distinguished guests who will save the Dragon Palace have arrived…!”
“Hurry! Didn’t you hear the Distinguished Guests say they were in a hurry!”
…Hah, the skin on these guys’ faces must be as thick as mine.
But I have to resolve this anyway.
If I leave something like that alone and Cheon Mu-jin’s investment money vanishes into thin air, it’s a loss for me too.
Still, it feels a bit annoying to just help the guys who were trying to pick a fight…
— Just help them? Don’t talk nonsense. There’s no need to worry.
Hmm? Sun Wukong?
— The Ruyi Jingu Bang was also an item in the Dragon Palace’s treasury; do you think they don’t have other treasures? And do you really think they’ll just play dumb after you save them from a crisis? They probably don’t even know that you’re in a position where you absolutely have to solve this, so what exactly are you worried about?
Oh, that’s a great shift in perspective.
Instead of thinking of it as doing something I have to do anyway, let’s act like I don’t have to do it and squeeze them for all they’re worth.
‘That sounds pretty good.’
As expected of Sun Wukong. It was a truly delightful suggestion.