Chapter 49
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Translator: True Detective
Chapter: 48
Chapter Title: Bearer of the Great Ocean
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To live more stably in this world, recruiting companions is an extremely important step.
But human companions die off at the drop of a hat, which could end up being a device that drastically drains your mental strength instead.
Plus, you can't just recruit anyone indiscriminately. Every faction has its own affinities, and keeping people with clashing personalities close by could lead to fights that cause the whole team to implode.
In short, blindly bulking up your companions comes with equivalent risks. You can't manage them all even if you recruit more, and you have to split the commission fees too.
Above all, finding trustworthy humans willing to walk into the jaws of death with you is no easy task.
For all these reasons, humans make for pretty ambiguous companions.
So why not make anomalies your companions?
Thanks to the Baby Mode Pack for Cowards, I can run a pseudo-dating sim even with anomalies.
With anomalies, I can build up favorability and turn them into companions, no matter what. No need to bother with humans.
Name: Silent Sea Ghost King
Threat Level: Disaster-Class (Sealed)
Classification: Submerged Spirit, Great Ghost, Ancient One
Origin: An ancient being sealed away by the hands of those who lost their faith
Extermination Method: Either enshrine all who have forgotten the faith, or awaken the Scorched Earth Ghost King for mutual destruction.
The deepest wall of the shrine.
Embedded there was the Silent Sea Ghost King's heart, hardened solid as stone. Staring at it brought her favorability and description window into view.
I'd gone ahead and asked her outright to join my side, but with no response coming back, I felt a bit awkward. Had my voice not reached her?
'That said, what kind of extermination method is this? What a headache.'
Enshrining all who had forgotten the faith meant tossing every Korean into the sea.
But trying to awaken the Scorched Earth Ghost King for mutual destruction would wreck the Korean Peninsula's climate and end up massacring the Koreans anyway.
In one word, it meant don't poke the beast that's behaving itself—just leave the seal be.
Most extermination methods shown in the description windows completely erase the anomaly in question. Sealing is a separate matter.
Once they hit Disaster-Class, killing them gets ridiculously tricky, so it's cheaper in the long run to just drain their power and shove them somewhere sealed away.
Offer seafood as tribute—she likes that. She craves worship and care.
The extermination method was absurdly difficult, but the strategy method was ridiculously simple.
Offer seafood and worship her, and her favorability just goes up?
Is there an easier way to raise favorability than this?
"Ahh, O deity. Can you hear my voice?"
Now that I knew the strategy method, it was time to attempt communication.
While Sowol slept, I placed my hand on the Silent Sea Ghost King's heart and tried to commune. It seemed direct contact was necessary for conversation.
-I hear thee... Speak...
With my hand on the heart, her voice faintly reached me. How to describe it—extremely slow speech with a massive echo. There was also a faint sound of crashing waves mixed in.
Good, communication was possible. I'd been worried she might be like Bungbung and unable to converse directly. But words got through.
"O deity, I plan to leave this place soon. But leaving you behind weighs on me—how about coming with me? Would that be alright?"
Continuing to speak politely, the Silent Sea Ghost King conveyed her assent.
-If that is thy desire... thou mayest free me...
The moment her permission came, I yanked her heart right out of the wall.
The Silent Sea Ghost King's heart was hardened like a fossil—less organic tissue and more like actual stone.
And it was huge. About the size of an adult man's torso, but my strength was high enough that it didn't feel particularly heavy.
"Once we're out, I'll offer you any seafood you like."
-...Truly...?
"Yes. Squid or octopus would be good. Clams or shrimp too. How about sea bream?"
-Thou... art a good human... Unlike that bastard who stole my power at will... Thou canst converse...
Mentioning seafood offerings bumped her favorability up a bit.
More than that, she seemed thrilled that conversation was possible, which suggested that bastard Jang-cheong couldn't communicate with her.
He'd probably just extracted power from her sealed heart.
She is inwardly pleased by your courteous demeanor.
She is quietly sniffing your scent.
The heart was so large I had to cradle it in my arms, and apparently she'd taken the chance to sniff me in the meantime. Why the obsession with smells? Maybe because she's a beast-type anomaly.
Folklore tracing had revealed the Silent Sea Ghost King took the form of a massive sea lion, whale, or seal.
Seemed like marine mammals were her origin, with sea lion or seal forms being the most common. That might explain the constant sniffing.
"That said, O deity, do you have anywhere to return to?"
-Me...?
"Yes. Your shrine seems ruined. I'm worried you have no place to go."
-Dost thou... worry for me...?
"Overstepping as I am. I worry for you, O deity."
Saying I was genuinely worried sent her favorability up without a word in response.
She is happy at the prospect of being cared for.
She has memorized your scent.
The Silent Sea Ghost King had nowhere to return to.
The original caretakers of this temple—the only ones managing her—had all been slaughtered by that bastard Jang-cheong.
She had lost her home. And with no one remembering or worshipping her, she was little more than an abandoned existence.
"O deity, if it's alright with you, would you come with me?"
-With thee... to where?
"I'll take you to where I live. I can set up a modest shrine, and offer seafood you like. Would that be okay?"
-Why... dost thou go so far for me...? Thou couldst just dump me anywhere in these mountains...
"No. I don't want anything from you, O deity. I just feel sorry thinking of all you've endured. Sorry. I've overstepped by pitying you."
-...
Showing worry, pity, and the resulting protective instinct elicited a deeply satisfied, wordless reaction from her.
She feels comfort in your presence.
She likes your scent.
She was gradually coming around to me.
At this rate, pushing favorability past 70% should let me recruit her as a companion.
Just as I thought things were going smoothly, she spoke up in a voice thick with concern.
-I have been sealed all this time... I have naught to give thee... Taking me in... will bring thee no gain...
"Are you perhaps... worried?"
-Worried... about what...?
"Worried you might be a burden. Or that this human might end up disappointed in you. Something like that."
-I... such worries...
I'd hit the nail on the head; she couldn't respond easily. A deity with surprisingly low self-esteem who couldn't hide her inner thoughts.
Well, honestly, for a Disaster-Class, her aura felt faint. With "Sealed" next to it, she was probably truly weak until fully awakened.
But did that matter?
"No need for such worries. If I leave you here, villains like Jang-cheong will come sniffing around to exploit you again. Better I take full responsibility for you."
This was my honest feeling. I wasn't dragging her out of that deep darkness just to exploit her.
Abandon her, and incidents like this one would repeat. In her sealed state, she was too easy to exploit.
Regardless of her own will. Even in this incident, she'd been used by Jang-cheong's hands.
Sowol had pinpointed the Black Night Society's base thanks to the victims' wails and the Silent Sea Ghost King's agonized screams.
She hadn't wanted that either. She didn't wish for people to die because of her power.
"You didn't want to harm humans, did you? You wanted to be worshipped again like in the old days, to care for them. Right?"
The Silent Sea Ghost King's strategy method.
The desire to be worshipped and cared for.
She longed for the days of yore.
Simply the era when humans exalted her, and she bestowed blessings and protection upon them.
Yet she knew full well she couldn't return to that time.
"I know you were betrayed by humans. So you're surely worried I'll betray you too in the end."
Folklore tracing had shown the Silent Sea Ghost King's past to be tragic.
Humans who offered her meager food and reaped excessive blessings.
By their hands, the guardian deity was slain, her heart ripped out and discarded.
Thus, her deep grudge birthed her current form, and her extermination method became the annihilation of this land's humans.
"But afterward, you regretted cursing humans, didn't you? You hated those who killed you, but you didn't want to drag their descendants down too. That's why you let yourself be sealed away underground so obediently."
She hated the humans of that era but couldn't extend that hatred to their children.
As a result, the Silent Sea Ghost King, sealed by her own will, slumbered long thereafter—only recently roused by Jang-cheong's hands.
"Deep down, you wanted to be with humans, didn't you?"
While tracking the Black Night Society's base, Sowol had felt the Silent Sea Ghost King's sorrow.
That sorrow was likely born from fear of disappointing humans.
If she kept being exploited by Jang-cheong, she'd remain a malevolent entity forever.
Never again loved by humans.
Thus, she grieved.
I knew it. Touching her heart let me share some of her emotions. I felt her desire to escape, to live once more as this land's native deity, loved by humans.
-I am the seed of disaster... Best to seal me eternally... for all's sake...
"Nothing is absolute. Nothing lasts forever. Being a seed of disaster doesn't mean you must stay sealed eternally."
-But...
"I'll take care of you from now on. No need to worry. I won't betray you, O deity, nor grow disappointed in you."
She wants you to raise her.
She is imprinting your scent.
-Why dost thou seek to save even nonhuman existences?
Was this her final question?
If she asked why I bothered saving an anomaly...
"I'll ask in turn. Is there any reason I shouldn't save you, O deity?"
The Silent Sea Ghost King had no reply.
I saved her because I could. I wanted her as a companion.
Friendly anomalies toward humans are rare.
That's why I pulled her out.
Far better to emerge into the world and aid me than rot trapped in that darkness.
-I shall aid thee... Until thou castest me aside... I too shall never abandon thee...
At last, the Silent Sea Ghost King became my companion.
Simultaneously, her heart vanished, replaced in my arms by a girl with deep ink-black hair like seawater from the ocean depths mixed with ink.
Jewel-like eyes and a beautiful yet cute face.
"I remember your promise to take responsibility. Treat me well."
With those words, the Silent Sea Ghost King reverted to her rigid, massive heart form, and the barefoot girl I'd glimpsed vanished.
She'd shown me her true form, if only for a moment, just for me.
'Bearer of the Great Ocean' Challenge Complete!
Condition: Win the heart of the Silent Sea Ghost King.
Reward: Breath of the Silent Sea
Winning the Silent Sea Ghost King's heart completed the challenge.
Feels like I've gained a pretty loyal companion.