Chapter 305
Chapter 305
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 305
Chapter Title: Monstrous Strength Chaos God 305 ? Monstrous Strength Chaos God #5
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“Lord Hassan, we should probably release this mermaid back into the sea as soon as possible…!”
Paranoia was trembling all over.
And then she went so far as to say we should return the sea nymph she herself had caught back to the ocean.
Paranoia, who yelled arrogantly at everyone without exception, only ever backed down like this when she felt her defeat was certain.
I knew that better than anyone.
“I-I’m Aerriol, the beloved concubine of Tritan the Monstrous Strength Chaos God! Touch me, and Lord Tritan will unleash massive waves against this Delphi!”
And the reason she was scaring Paranoia was probably that name, Tritan or whatever.
Who the hell was Tritan?
Monstrous Strength Chaos God, huh.
After Yabez of Monstrous Strength, now Tritan the Monstrous Strength Chaos God.
I’d felt this way for a while, but the people in this world really loved giving themselves cool nicknames. Wasn’t this that severe case of chuunibyou, middle-school syndrome?
Thinking about it that way, my own nickname, Samaritan, started to feel simple and nice.
If they’d slapped something like Dark Prince Hassan or Prince of Darkness Hassan on me just because my hair was black, I’d have been mortified in all sorts of ways.
“Lord Hassan, we must return this one to the sea right away…! If we keep this up, we might incur that bastard Tritan’s wrath…!”
While I was lost in those thoughts, Paranoia’s shrill scream snapped me out of it.
“What kind of guy is this Tritan?”
“Do you know who rules the seas?”
“Neptune, right?”
I recalled something I’d read in an encyclopedia long ago. In this world, the god named Neptune ruled over water and the oceans.
His might was so great that he was called one of the Three Supreme Gods alongside Jupiter and Pluto.
Right now, with the faith in Pluto completely collapsed and suppressed, he was truly an absolute ruler who divided the world in two.
I’d lived in Sodomora, so I hadn’t had much occasion to encounter him, but in a coastal city like Delphi, they even said his stature surpassed that of the king of the gods, Jupiter.
“Why Neptune?”
“Tritan is Neptune’s one and only firstborn son…! He’s a young wastrel notorious for being terrifying and merciless…!”
“If he’s Neptune’s son, does that make him a demigod too?”
I thought about the countless demigods with numbers tattooed on their wrists.
Just yesterday, I’d dealt with Sijona, son of the mountain god, and Yabez, son of some river god, so hearing someone was a god’s son didn’t shock me as much anymore. Humans adapt, after all.
But Paranoia was foaming at the mouth like she’d struck gold.
“Not a demigod…! He’s a boy god…! A young god, but his power is downright monstrous…!”
If he wasn’t a demigod, did that mean both his parents had divine blood? I felt a sense of wonder that there was another being like Luna in the world.
But thinking about it, it wasn’t all that surprising. Gods marrying gods and having children was probably commonplace.
So, to sum up Paranoia’s words: this Tritan guy was the only son of Neptune, the absolute ruler of the seas. And this mermaid named Aerriol was Tritan’s beloved concubine.
And Paranoia and I had dragged that mermaid onto land and tried to stuff her into a bucket.
Sigh. Thinking it over soberly, it did seem a bit messed up.
“Let’s send her back to the sea, Paranoia.”
“A wise decision, as expected…!”
“Wh-what are you touching! I told you not to lay a hand on me!”
“Hey, how am I supposed to send you back without touching you?”
“That’s for you to figure out! Idiot! Just try touching me with a single fingertip! Lord Tritan won’t let you get away with it! Lord Tritan is the strongest in all these vast seas!”
This was exactly what a fox riding on a lion’s back looked like.
Paranoia often used me to bully others, but maybe nymphs had a racial trait of latching onto someone they saw as strong and wreaking havoc on the weak below them.
The problem was that it worked pretty damn well.
So Paranoia and I racked our brains over how to return this noisy, cunning mermaid to the sea without laying a finger on her.
But no ideas came to mind. No matter what, our hands would end up touching her.
“Screw it, should I just toss her in?”
With that thought, I finally scooped up the mermaid in my arms.
“Kyaaah! Where are you touching! Where, I say!”
The mermaid flailed her little tailfin every which way, rejecting my grasp, but this frail thing couldn’t overpower me.
Having gone fishing in seas and rivers with my father, I knew plenty of ways to subdue a live fish.
Flop, flop.
“Hey, hold still for a sec.”
“Th-this guy’s so strong! Get your hands off! Barbarian!”
I strode right to the water’s edge. But just then, something started popping up from the previously calm, serene sea.
Splash, splash—.
It was colorful hair. More precisely, wet hair. And between those locks, I saw ears like fins, so they were probably other mermaids.
This was bad.
Had they come looking for her?
As I felt a twinge of panic—
“Aerriol! I sent you on an errand, and here you are slacking off again?”
“You good-for-nothing, I played with you as requested, but you couldn’t even do your job! We ended up doing your errands for you because of that!”
“You don’t even deserve to be in Lord Tritan’s clamshell!”
“Don’t you dare go around saying you know Lord Tritan—! You’re too low-class!”
Splashhh, splashhh—.
The mermaids chattered noisily and sprayed water at us.
“What the fuck, what’s this all of a sudden!”
I got hit with an unblockable water-attribute attack, soaking me to the bone and leaving me utterly dazed.
The problem was that the jets of water didn’t just wet my clothes—they hurt like hell.
They were like spear waves.
“Kyaaah—!”
The mermaid I was holding, Aerriol, got hit too. She couldn’t withstand the intense streams and screamed.
Even I, with my high pain tolerance, found it painful, so for a delicate mermaid like her, it must’ve been scream-worthy.
If this one got hurt, would that Tritan guy get mad? To be safe, I draped the beast hide over my head onto Aerriol.
Splashhh, splashhh—!
“Ha, that was fun! Let’s go, sisters!”
“Aerriol, just you wait until you get back! You won’t sleep a wink tonight!”
After spraying us for a good while, the mermaids giggled and vanished back into the sea.
“What the hell was that? Mother Nature striking back at those who defile her?”
Blinking against the stinging saltwater in my eyes, I gently placed the sea nymph Aerriol back into the water.
“There, go on back.”
Splash, splash.
She seemed thrilled to be back in the water after being on land, like a rescued dolphin, slapping the surface a few times before hesitantly turning to me.
“…D-did you hear that just now?”
“Hear what? Your splashing?”
“N-no, nothing. Good if you didn’t.”
“I heard it all…! This nymph’s been ostracized by the others…! And yet she lied about being Tritan’s concubine…!”
But as always, Paranoia pounced on the opening.
Paranoia was a hyena of the wilderness. The scent of wounds or blood, and she’d tear in without hesitation.
“This one’s definitely gonna get bullied by the other sea nymphs when she gets back…! Serves her right for acting high and mighty to me! Poetic justice…!”
“Th-that’s… not….”
Was it Paranoia’s gleeful taunting? Aerriol’s face, as she entered the sea, grew even darker than when she’d been pulled ashore.
“It’s not like that!”
And soon, thick tears began flowing from those brilliant blue eyes. But her tears gleamed with a strange silvery light, like droplets of mercury.
Paranoia exclaimed in surprise.
“Nymph tears are an incredible magic ingredient…! And sea nymph tears are especially renowned for their beauty, and it turns out it’s true…!”
“Hey, Paranoia. She’s a nymph like you—can’t you two get along?”
“She’s a sea-dweller…! Different species from land nymphs like me…! Closer to fish than nymphs, so they’re total idiots…!”
Whatever it was, the nymphs seemed to have some regional rivalry. I decided not to bother understanding.
*
*
*
Even after I released her back into the sea, Aerriol didn’t return to her village or whatever. Instead, she slowly crawled back onto land and sat on the beach, pouring out her woes.
“If I go back to the underwater village like this, the seniors will chew me out! I need some kind of accomplishment, anything!”
So Paranoia and I ended up sitting on the beach for half a day, listening to her chatter nonstop.
Unlike her earlier boasts, this Aerriol turned out to be a total nobody. Not Tritan’s concubine, not the one with the prettiest scales or anything.
The Clamshell—a fan club or harem-like group for Tritan, Neptune’s sole heir. She was the lowest-ranking member, handling odd jobs and errands. That was Aerriol’s true identity.
She said the only time she’d seen Tritan was from afar, passing by.
Finally, I could relax.
“What, so even if I touched you, that scary Tritan guy won’t show up seeking revenge?”
“Y-yeah…. But someday he will! Someday! I’ll climb the ranks and bear Lord Tritan’s child!”
A burning ambition blazed in her, mismatched with her chilly mermaid vibe. As I felt a bit puzzled, Paranoia explained as if reading my mind.
“Tritan is Neptune’s heir…! Becoming the heir’s wife and bearing his child means becoming queen of the seas…!”
Ah, like marrying into chaebol royalty.
They say people envy the doctor’s wife more than the doctor himself. Same logic—maybe they envy the chaebol heir’s wife more than the heir.
It was obvious that marrying this golden spoon called the “heir to the seas”—who sounded like a total prick—would fix her fortunes.
Harem life came with its own infighting and power struggles, it seemed.
Of course, to me, Aerriol didn’t seem to have much shot. She was dumb enough to get reeled onto land by Paranoia’s finger.
As I thought that, Paranoia spoke up.
“Tritan’s famous for deliberately pitting his harem members against each other, making them tear into one another…! Only the survivor earns the right to be his wife…!”
“What a prick.”
“But Lord Hassan, you could learn from that…! Wise children come from strong, clever women…! Pitting harem members against each other is a very wise move…!”
I had no idea why my name came up, but Paranoia often veered into irrelevant topics.
As I let her words go in one ear and out the other, the mermaid Aerriol—who’d been sitting beside us, gazing at the sea and sighing—spoke up.
“I may be the lowest at rank 32, but my love for Lord Tritan is second to none! I have a plan too! A plan to turn the Black Sea green!”
“What? What plan?”
I jumped, wondering if I’d misheard. Did she just say turn the Black Sea green? I grabbed Aerriol’s shoulder and looked her in the face, asking again.
“Tell me more about that.”
“Y-you’re not mocking my story? You’re not gonna laugh it off as nonsense?”
“Yeah, I won’t mock you, so tell me. What’s this Black Sea thing?”
“You’re the first one who hasn’t laughed at my words! You’re a nicer guy than you look! You even shielded me from that spray earlier!”
At my question, Aerriol suddenly burst into tears. Silvery pearl-like orbs rolled from her eyes onto the beach.
I pocketed them without her noticing. Luna would love these. Heh heh.
Sniffling through her tears, Aerriol said to me:
“…D-do you, uh, like me? Sorry, but I can’t accept your feelings—I have Lord Tritan…!”
Fuck.
She turned me down without me even confessing. I got why Paranoia called mermaids idiots. Hadn’t something like this happened before?
Anyway, that wasn’t important right now.
“What’s this Black Sea?”
“It’s the nest of the monster serpent.”