Chapter 53
Chapter 53
Saint, You’re So Vulgar! – Chapter 53
One moment, the surroundings fell silent.
The radiance that blanketed the sky the instant Asher reached out his hand, the shockwave that erupted in blinding light, and the tsunami that swept the island clean.
"Aaaahhh!"
Even from this distance, the mermaids' screams rang out.
It left the sailors utterly dumbfounded.
Pirates, naturally, weren't well-educated.
They were people who had survived outside the law relying solely on their own bodies.
In the face of such an overt miracle, the only one trying to judge it rationally was the lone mage, Perric.
But crowd psychology was a terrifying thing, too much for him to sway
"The Goddess of the Waves!"
"Sh-she really is a goddess!"
Their reaction to Asherwho had summoned a tsunami with a mere gesture, the very miracle sailors feared mostwas only natural.
"Whay-yes?!"
Asher startled and whipped his head around in panic, but the sailors didn't care.
A baseless frenzy of worship erupted.
"Goddess of the Waves! Goddess of the Waves!"
"The goddess looked at me!"
"Look at me too!!!"
Morale was certainly boosted.
Everyone except Asher, that is.
"Uh, um, ugh."
Asher's eyes spun in circles.
He flailed about in confusion.
Versia placed a hand on his shoulder and said,
"Just give the order to charge. Look, the mood's perfect."
Was she so nonchalant because it wasn't her problem?
Asher glared at her with eyes dripping betrayal, but nothing changed.
"Goddess!!!"
"Ahh, Goddess!!!"
When a few sailors dropped into some inexplicable prayer pose they'd picked up who-knows-where, Asher felt a sharp pain shoot up the back of his neck.
Fine, if it was like this, better to just order the charge.
Asher swallowed his tears inwardly, drew his cutlass,
and with flushed cheeks, eyes squeezed shut, shouted in a trembling voice,
"Ch-charge."
At that, the sailors, swept up in madness, leaped from the ship.
"Waaahhh!!!"
"Offer blood to the goddess!!!"
"Holy warrrr!!!"
It was chaos.
* * *
The heart of the western archipelago bore no trace of its former glory.
The opulent palace built from plundered treasures had become a demonic realm plastered with chunks of flesh, and among those traversing it, scarcely any could be called human.
In other words, everyone except former captain Gon and the heretics had mutated into mermaids.
At the center of it all, Gonthe king of the archipelagorushed into the throne room from a building badly shaken by the tsunami's aftermath.
His long black hair was a tangled mess.
"Mira! Mira!!!"
Bam!
The throne room doors flew open.
And at the far end of the furious gaze he directed, the woman called Mira smirked crookedly.
Pale purple hair, fox-like features, black eyes.
With an aura that didn't seem human at all, she said,
"Why are you so angry?"
"You crazy bitch! Don't you know what's happening outside? The church! The church is intervening!!!"
His rage had its reasons.
Gon hadn't wanted things to turn out like this from the start.
The reason he'd allied with Mira was because she'd promised to let him conquer the archipelago.
In truth, the soldiers she'd turned into mermaids were strong.
Used well, they could conquer not just the archipelago, but even the mainland ports.
Then all trade passing through these waters would fall into his hands.
As for the church at that point? He figured he could hold the port citizens hostage, trap them on the islands, and fend them off.
After all, to enter the archipelago, they had to pass through the islandsand spotting them at sea would be child's play.
But things had gone south like this.
In Gon's view, it was all because of Mira's reckless extremism.
"I I told you we needed to move more secretly! Fuck, we had to swallow the islands on the sly!!!"
She'd rampaged too openly.
If she'd just hidden the mermaid troops underground, they wouldn't have been discovered this quickly.
Anger and anxiety warred across Gon's face.
'Definitely a 1st Class Knight. Unless it was one of them, no way they'd unleash a tsunami!'
How had the church become the world's watchdog?
It was all thanks to those damn 1st Class Knights.
Peak powerhouses called legions unto themselves, tyrants who crushed every war on this land with raw force.
If they'd intervened, the end was clear.
Annihilation.
Especially since heretics were involvedeveryone connected would be slaughtered under the pretext of heresy trials.
Gon's body trembled.
Resentment flickered in his eyes.
But Mira remained calm.
"I called them on purpose, you know?"
"What?"
"We need them here for the plan to be complete. This plan."
As blood rushed to Gon's head, Mira rose from the throne, her heels clicking as she approached.
Her sensual figure dazzled his vision.
She reached him and stroked his cheek.
Her upturned eyes curved in a bewitching smile.
That was the moment.
"Think about it. You planning to stop at just one port city? Huh? Aim big while you're at it."
"Big?"
"Yeah, big. How long are you gonna play king on this backwater island and call it quits? The mainland's right there. Nations are right there. Mermaids obey us absolutely. If we throw every soldier at it and capture just one 1st Class Knight?"
With every whisper, Gon's eyes grew duller.
He saw a vivid illusion.
A 1st Class Knighta walking strategic weaponturned into a mermaid.
Turned into a puppet dancing to his whims.
If that happened, just as Mira said.
"King real king."
Gon grinned vacantly, eyes unfocused.
Mira's lips stretched wide in a smile.
Then she pulled his head to her and breathed into his ear.
"Yes, you'll be king and I'll be queen."
"Ah, ah."
"So quit your whining and go get him. Capture him. Or lure him here."
"King you'll be queen."
Lust gleamed in Gon's eyes.
His breathing grew ragged. His hand strayed toward Mira's hips, but she gently pushed him away.
"Catch him, and then I'll really give it to you."
With that, Gon staggered out of the throne room.
The moment he was gone, Mira's expression froze.
"Ugh, fucking bachelor stink."
She brushed off her dress with a few pats, then hummed back to her throne.
The heretics lined up on either side bowed their heads.
She savored the sight.
"That's right, everything'll work out. I've got someone as amazing as me, after all?"
How had such incredible luck fallen into her lap?
The world called her a witch, but Mira was undeniably a real saintess of a god.
Just that her god came from another realm.
Artificially made? What difference did it make from those naturally chosen?
She was treated the same, wasn't she?
Mira propped her chin, murmuring cheerfully.
"Hope he's handsome. That 1st Class Knight."
Otherwise, there'd be no fun in playing with him.
To her, the whole situation was just delightful entertainment.
* * *
At that same time, somewhere in the northwest continent, in catacombs where heretics had hidden to plot.
Thud!
A building-sized giant toppled.
It was a giant formed from countless human heads mashed into humanoid shape, one that had been sweeping away church forces with horrific screams just moments ago.
Now, it was merely a pile of corpses.
"Hic"
Lubena, hiding behind Satern, let out a hiccup.
At the end of her gaze, Halia grinned fiercely, soaked in blood.
Halia had felled the giant.
'I-is she really a monster?'
Lubena hadn't even been able to follow the fight with her eyes.
All she remembered was a flash of light, the giant's scream, and then coming to her senses to see Halia wrenching its head clean off.
How could such a tiny body do that?
Her twin golden pigtails and cute face only amplified the disconnect in that moment.
Amid it all, Halia spoke in a refreshing tone.
"Hmm, definitely strong. I can't even remember the last time I had to use this much power. No wonder a 1st Class Knight fell. Even we have our weaknesses."
Crunch. Halia shoved her hand into the giant's neck and pulled out a woman from inside.
The woman bled from every orifice, giggling insanely.
An artificial witch whose mind had shattered.
Halia stroked her chin, inspecting the witch this way and that.
"How could they create something this vile?"
Lubena whispered to Satern.
"H-hey. That's really okay, right?"
"Lady Halia handled it herself, so it's fine. No one matches her destructive power."
Lubena suddenly resented the world.
Saintesses were supposed to be helpless except for receiving oracleswhy were all the ones from her generation monsters?
Being compared soured her mood. And she vowed never to pick a fight with Halia.
With that, the cleanup finished.
"I get the gist of these artificial witches. They're ones who fully inherited a single authority from an outer god. More precisely, they kept jamming outer god authorities into human bodies until one survived. Anyway, wielding a god's authority directly makes them strong. Can't take them lightly."
"Didn't end too quick for something like that?"
"Only because it was me. Hmmm! I'm worried about Versia."
"Her? Why?"
If anything, wasn't Versia the monster of monsters?
As she pondered, the answer came.
"Authorities aren't just raw physical power. Some specialize in exploiting human vulnerabilities."
Halia spun the witch's hairwho was little more than a corpselike a top and sighed.
"That girl, she's great in every way, but her mental fortitude is paper-thin."
Lubena couldn't deny it.
Thinking back to what Versia had shown while Asher was down, it made sense.