Chapter 205
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 205
“What kind of dreams are they having?”
“Happy dreams.”
“Happy…?”
“That way, they won’t try to escape.”
His face etched with exhaustion, Eun-ha sat on the marble stairs, which shimmered with the reflection of golden waves. Cha Yi-sol followed his lead and sat beside him. Gio was seated just a few steps above them.
He gazed at the humans submerged in the seawater that now filled the Pope’s chamber.
“The scars only multiply as the years go by.”
The world was not as beautiful as a dream.
“I know what humans are like. When they find themselves at a disadvantage, they struggle desperately to find a way out. My sister and Teacher called that ‘growth.’ It’s a highly ambiguous concept to a mermaid, though…”
“Mermaids don’t grow?”
“It probably varies by dimension, but on my world, mermaids aren’t born from a creature’s womb. We are born from the sea. At a certain point, the seawater coalesces, and a mermaid takes form.”
“Uh…”
Cha Yi-sol poked Eun-ha’s bare arm.
“…But you’re right here?!”
“Of course I am.”
But mermaids were beings of a cycle.
“We are born from the sea and take on a form similar to humans. As time passes, we gradually assimilate with the ocean and wield its authority, until we eventually dissolve back into it and vanish. That is the cycle of a mermaid.”
It was the providence of the sea.
“Strictly speaking, I didn’t assimilate with the sea nearly as much as my sister did.”
“Why? Your sister seemed really smart. Did she not help you?”
“Because I lacked the aptitude…”
Iser was neither a pure mermaid nor a pure human. Though every mermaid looked slightly different, he had been born from a branch particularly distant from the sea. Even his tail was detached, like that of a beast.
“I was not a vessel suited to contain such a vast ocean.”
Thus, while Aria had devoured all the seas they passed through, Iser had devoured the sun, whose divinity had shattered after being trapped in those waters.
“That’s one of the reasons I can still mimic a priest of the sun.”
“How do you devour it? It’s the sun! Wasn’t it hot?”
“It was hot.”
Eun-ha laughed hollowly.
“It’s why my body remains so incredibly weak, even now.”
Aria had made him as strong as she could, but it was far from enough. In the end, he had ‘grown’ into nothing more than a key to contain the sun’s vast divinity and authority.
“So, if it came to a direct fight, I would definitely lose. That’s why I usually stayed behind in the safety of this dungeon, using the weapons and traps my sister made or borrowing her authority.”
“What about the sun?”
“As you can see, it’s not me but this golden staff that holds the sun’s divinity. To use the corrupted authority of the divinities, I have to make it bloom into a form that can handle the power, and that requires growing it into a massive tree like this…”
“Tedious?”
“Just troublesome.”
Cough, cough.
Eun-ha let out a dry cough.
“…And it takes a toll on me like this.”
Iser was a pathetic mermaid.
“If my sister hadn’t taken me in at the very beginning, I was so weak I would have died on my own.”
“She must be a really strong sister. Mine is like that too—she protects me.”
“My sister used to be like that, once…”
“She doesn’t protect you now?”
“Because of a sin that was committed.”
“What sin? What did she do wrong?”
“I devoured Teacher.”
“……”
Cha Yi-sol’s eyes trembled as he asked.
“…Are you going to eat me too…? Is—is that why you kept me alive all this time…?”
“Why would I do that now?”
“R-Right? I got scared for a second.”
“Of course, I wasn’t in my right mind when I did it.”
To begin with, mermaids were born with bodies incapable of digesting humans. Their mouths weren’t even structured for eating meat. What would it take for someone like Iser to tear apart and eat a living human? He would have to have been driven mad for such a thing to be possible.
“Since that day, my relationship with my sister has been… strange.”
The two still cherished and loved each other. The form and weight of their affection remained unchanged, but since Teacher’s death, hatred had seeped in between them. It was inevitable.
“In times like this, Teacher would usually make us reconcile. After he was gone, it became rather difficult.”
“You don’t know how to reconcile…?”
“We just never brought it up.”
“But why?”
“Hmm…”
Iser raised his hand and stroked Cha Yi-sol’s small belly.
“Let’s say you ate something wrong, and an indigestible thorn got stuck right here.”
“In my stomach…?”
“Deeper than that. Below your throat, below your solar plexus, right inside your stomach.”
“I don’t like that.”
“I’m sure you don’t.”
“Can’t you take it out?”
“To do that, you’d need major surgery.”
He pulled his hand away.
“The thorn is tangled so intricately that it can’t be removed easily, and it’s not the kind of thing that will digest naturally if you just wait. To have that surgery, you’d have to endure a lot of pain. They’d have to cut open your stomach, and pulling the thorn out would leave scars…”
“……”
“And, well, it would probably cost a lot of money.”
“I don’t have any money…”
“I know. That’s why I used it as an analogy.”
But here was the thing.
“Instead, you could also just leave it there.”
“The thorn? Even though it’s inside my belly?”
“You only notice it on the rare occasion it moves. Even if you leave it, it doesn’t hurt much. It might sting once in a while, but not enough to bother you all day. Your health is perfectly fine, too.”
“Oh…”
“Would you still get the surgery? Enduring the pain, spending the time, and pouring in the money?”
“…I-I’d need to think about it.”
“We were like that, too.”
They needed time to ponder what to do with the thorn that was Teacher.
“Because it wasn’t something we had to remove in a hurry.”
They had far too much time.
“Let’s use another analogy. What if it wasn’t actually a thorn, but something you cherished… like a Resonance Stone?”
“…The one Iruda gave me?”
“Exactly. If you leave it as it is, the Resonance Stone remains unbroken. But if you perform surgery to take it out, it will shatter, and you’ll never be able to see or hold it again.”
“That would be such a waste.”
“You understand well.”
It was the same for the mermaids.
“I was afraid that I would end up erasing Teacher like that, too.”
“Teacher?”
“The person who was my thorn, and my jewel.”
“…But you still have to reconcile,” Cha Yi-sol said. “You only have each other left, after all.”
“You’re right. But I’m a coward.”
He had always sidestepped the right path. In the past, he had walked only the straight and narrow, only to find his hands and feet scraped completely raw. Regretting that, he had simply chosen this way.
“Maybe if I had been born a little stronger, it would have been different.”
Whether in body, authority, or mind.
“If only I excelled at something, like my sister…”
He would have guided his revenge-crazed sister back to the right path. He wouldn’t have been possessed by the drug and devoured Teacher. He wouldn’t have been captured by the priests and subjected to a demonic trial, and he could have helped the humans so they wouldn’t fear him.
And.
“Teacher…”
He might have helped that person avoid being captured on that day.
“…Or perhaps I wouldn’t have held onto Teacher at all.”
He wouldn’t have reached out to the sun in admiration from the very beginning.
“When I think about how all of this happened because of my greed, it makes me sick.”
“Why is wanting to be close to a good person greed…?”
“I knew you would say that.”
He was a kind human.
“In the end, even now, I use these petty tricks to vent my hatred toward humans.”
Iser looked at the people immersed in their ‘good dreams.’
“Oh.”
“…Ah!”
Just then, a man woke up.
“……”
It was Kang Seo-dam, the Priest of the Sun.
“…Why are you… sitting there…”
“Would you care to have a little chat?”
“Would you, if you were in my shoes…?”
Iser smiled faintly as Kang Seo-dam glared at him like a vengeful ghost, grinding his teeth. Just as Kang Seo-dam frowned at the smile that somehow resembled ‘Mr. Seo Gio,’ the mermaid pointed to the empty space beside him.
“This spot is closer to Hunter Seo Gio, though.”
“……”
Kang Seo-dam cursed the world once more and reluctantly sat down.
“Did you have a good dream?”
“…Thanks to you, I saw my partner’s face for the first time in a long while.”
“I assume that’s sarcasm?”
“No, just…” He let out a deep sigh. “…It’s true that I have you to thank.”
After all, Kang Seo-dam had been on the verge of completely forgetting his old partner’s face.
“What on earth is this? Why are you sitting here so peacefully, chatting?”
“I was waiting for you to wake up.”
“I mean, why? For what reason?”
“Because there is something I need Priest Kang Seo-dam to help me with.”
“Do you think I would help you right now? When my mood is at its absolute worst?”
“It won’t be a bad deal for you.”
Iser pointed to himself.
“Kill me.”
“……”
“And wake Teacher up.”
Kang Seo-dam narrowed his eyes. “What’s your reason?”
“Teacher has already made his decision.”
“What did he decide?”
“To stay on Earth.”
“Then why isn’t he waking up?”
“He is simply showing us consideration.”
Since the humans would win anyway, and the mermaids would leave forever.
Iser stood up and leaned against his teacher’s knees once more.
“He is merely spending what little time remains with us.”
“…Are you saying Mr. Seo Gio still has lingering attachments to his life as a human? Are you seriously saying that right now? To an entity of such immense mystery?”
“He is a normal person who can have normal attachments.”
“You’re comparing the divinity of the sun to a mere human—”
“He is a person.”
He listened closely.
“……”
The sound of falling tears drifted over.
“…He even knows how to cry.”
Perhaps it was the sound of dream bubbles popping.
“I’ll say it again, this isn’t a bad offer for you humans. With the deaths of my sister and me, the existence of the ‘Black Cloak’ will be made clear to this world. You won’t have to shed unnecessary blood, and we… can take responsibility in our own way.”
“Was this your goal from the very beginning?” Kang Seo-dam stared at the mermaid. “For your ‘Teacher’?”
“That’s part of it.”
But this stage wasn’t set solely for his teacher.
“Regardless of the method and the process, we too must reach our end…”
“To speak of an end—what utter sophistry. Do you know how many humans have died at your hands?” Kang Seo-dam finally let his anger flare. “Don’t you find it disgusting? Even now, you bandy about a heavy word like ‘responsibility’ while committing sins out of your own greed. How is what you’ve done any different from the priests of the sun you hated so much?”
“My regret is not for our sins, but for our greed. That is why we are monsters.”
“So no matter how well you wag your tongue, you’re still just a monster. It’s truly pitiful that with all that intelligence, the only thing you know how to do is repeat the same sins.”
“If everything we do is deception anyway, wouldn’t it be cleaner to choose the path that suits us? That is why I can presumptuously speak of ‘responsibility.’”
Only then could he obtain even a sliver of a ‘chance’ to be accepted by his teacher.
Even if it is a chance named hell…
Iser blinked as he leaned against the thigh of his teacher, who sat like a corpse on the Pope’s throne, before straightening his posture.
“…The others will wake up soon. You must kill me while there are no watching eyes to avoid a useless battle. I have fulfilled my role, and I have cast aside all unnecessary emotions.”
“……”
“But killing me won’t be easy. My sister turned me into a fragile vessel for the sun she devoured. But as I said earlier, this body is far too weak and pathetic compared to my sister’s…”
“So if we cram an excessive amount of the sun’s power into you, you’ll burst?”
“You seem to understand perfectly.”
He looked at Cha Yi-sol.
“……”
“…Hey,” the first apostle of Giovanni asked. “Is it cold here?”
“Yes, it’s cold.”
Despite being a mermaid, he felt the cold of the deep sea.
“So, show me your sun.”
Eun-ha prayed.
To return to providence, he needed the sun.
*
CRACKLE-BOOM—!!!!
“—Gasp!!”
An immense roar echoed as heat exploded outward.
“W-What is going on…?!”
“Where are we right now…?”
“Everyone, pull yourselves together! We’re inside the dungeon!!”
A chaotic roar, as if a thunderbolt were being forced through a narrow crack, filled the air. The hunters, jolted awake by the massive impact, were only able to regain their bearings after the blinding flash of light subsided.
“Cough, hack…!!”
“What the… Where did all the monsters go?”
“Ah, my eyes…”
Only then did silence descend.
“……”
“…Ah…”
The golden tree that had strained their eyes had shrunk back into a slender branch.
“…Hunter Seo Gio?”
The apostle of God, who had been bound to the throne, had awakened.
“Excuse me, are you alright…!”
“Quiet.”
“Why…!”
“Something’s wrong.”
One of the hunters held back a companion who was about to step forward.
“…He’s crying.”
In the temple, now devastated by the sun’s power, Gio stood holding the golden branch, weeping.