Chapter 78
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 78
There was a reason Yoo Seong-un always stuck close to Gio.
'If I look away for even a second, he says or does something utterly bizarre.'
It would have been better if he were a mimic-type monster who was terrible at pretending to be human. At least then, no matter how they acted, you could always tell they were a monster. But “Gio’s Portrait” was strangely, exceptionally skilled at mimicking humans.
'Which only makes him more confusing.'
Even when your head clearly told you he wasn’t human, your heart was convinced he was. The cognitive dissonance was deeply unsettling. It was a different kind of fear from what one felt toward monsters or a Child of the Origin.
'It’s like a living ghost story.'
Yoo Seong-un’s job was to help Gio blend in seamlessly among humans.
“There we go.”
Squelch.
Yoo Seong-un stepped onto the squishy floor.
“This feels kind of like jelly.”
“It certainly does,” Kang Seo-dam, who entered the dungeon right behind him, said with a nod. “It feels like a low-viscosity slime, but it’s surprisingly solid.”
“Even though it’s just seawater when you scoop it up.”
Shaking the water from his hands, Yoo Seong-un looked back at Gio and Cha Ah-ra, who had entered with them.
“Oh, you made it in?”
“Ye-yes… Yes.”
“Don’t be so nervous. There are three A-Rank Hunters here. Surely we can protect one Hunter Cha Ah-ra?”
“Three…”
“That’s right, three.”
“Ah… Y-yes, of course.”
Having learned the hard way how to read the room, Cha Ah-ra quickly played along. She stole a glance at Gio, who was looking around the dungeon, and recalled the rule: Do not point out that Gio is not human in front of him.
'Well, Hunter Cha did receive the official notice, too.'
The notice had repeatedly advised them “not to question Gio’s identity.” Cha Ah-ra had clearly decided there was no need to provoke him.
'By the way…'
If his guess was correct, this dungeon was practically a second home to “Giovanni.”
“…Gio, are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“I was worried since this is your first time officially entering a dungeon.”
“I’m a little nervous, but not as much as I thought I’d be.”
Gio pulled back his black hood, his platinum-blonde hair catching the light as he offered his signature gentle smile.
“The scent of the sea is quite pleasant.”
“Come to think of it, did you always like the sea?” Yoo Seong-un asked, then looked down.
“……”
Submerged deep within the ocean, an entire nation lay before them.
“…Getting all the way down there is going to be a chore. Gio, can you swim?”
“To be completely honest, I cannot!”
“Why are you so proud of that?”
The dungeon was literally called the “Deep Sea Kingdom,” so most hunters who came here knew how to swim. In fact, it was rare for any hunter to be unable to swim.
“I didn’t think of this…”
Yoo Seong-un turned to the other two with a troubled expression.
“What about you, Hunter Cha? Or Priest Kang Seo-dam?”
“Huh? Ah, I can swim, but… since I’m an F-Rank…”
“I can swim without any trouble.”
“Well then.” Yoo Seong-un looked back at Gio. “Either Priest Kang Seo-dam or I will have to help you. Is that okay?”
“No?”
“Oh…?”
“There are plenty of ways to get there without swimming.”
“And why, exactly, are there ‘plenty of ways’?”
“I learned a great technique from the elder of our house.”
“……”
Wait, hold on.
“…The elder of your house?”
“Yes.”
“Th-that elder is that person, right? That…”
“I shall provide a comfortable escort.”
“Escort us with what?!”
Without answering Yoo Seong-un’s question, Gio placed his hand on the ground.
At that moment—
“……”
—Rumbleeeee!
“……”
“There we go.”
Accompanied by a deafening roar, a path opened up through the ocean.
“Now we can just walk.”
“……”
“Let’s walk.”
Yoo Seong-un and the other hunters stared blankly at the tunnel that had formed in the sea.
“Uh…”
Inside the hollowed-out space, which resembled a giant straw plunged into the ocean, a neat staircase had formed. The path stretched incredibly deep, and with their enhanced hunter vision, they could see it reached all the way to the “Deep Sea Temple.”
Yoo Seong-un, who prided himself on being the human Gio favored most, asked, “How on earth did you do this?”
“Seawater is still water. Doesn’t it evaporate if you heat it?”
“So you evaporated it?”
“Yes. Convenient, isn’t it?”
“Just because you didn’t want to swim?”
“It’s not that I didn’t want to; I literally cannot. It’s not a matter of preference.”
“So you altered the dungeon…”
Altering the very shape of the ocean just because he couldn’t swim. Yoo Seong-un turned to look at Kang Seo-dam, the Child of the Sun.
“……”
“I cannot do that.”
“Of course you can’t.”
Please, Gio.
'What hunter in the world remodels a dungeon just to avoid swimming?'
In the first place, being able to remodel a dungeon was already far beyond the realm of a hunter. There was no point in such a person even entering a dungeon. It completely invalidated the dungeon’s existence and the purpose of a hunter’s visit.
'This is like the Master of the Bisabeol Guild—one of South Korea’s richest men—hiring part-timers to collect scrap paper just to earn five bucks of pocket money.'
If he was going to do this, why did he even bother with the identity of “Seo Gio”? Did he have absolutely no intention of pretending to be human? Was this a warning not to play petty tricks on him? Yoo Seong-un felt himself sinking into a deep quagmire of confusion.
'Fortunately, Priest Kang Seo-dam and Hunter Cha Ah-ra are doing their absolute best to look away and pretend they didn’t see anything…'
Confirming their silent cooperation to keep everything that happened today a secret, he looked back at Gio.
“Gio, everyone here is trustworthy, so I’m going to speak frankly.”
“Please, go ahead.”
“This kind of thing… is a bit of a stretch to call human.”
“But I am an ordinary human—”
“Ah, I know, I know. We all know that very well, so you don’t have to worry about that. It’s just…” Yoo Seong-un took a deep breath. “Other people might get scared or misunderstand you, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t show off your abilities too much in front of anyone else. Do you understand what I mean?”
“I understand. Thank you for your consideration.”
“Right…”
Cha Ah-ra watched Yoo Seong-un with pity as he desperately tried to reason with Gio. Even Yoo Seong-un found his own situation rather pathetic.
'To think that I, a mere human, am giving social skills lessons to an incomprehensible entity of the Origin.'
It was only because “Seo Gio’s” status was lowered to a human level outside the Collector’s shop that he could even manage this. In truth, the pressure was still so immense that he felt like he might burst.
'It’s a relief Gio actually thinks of himself as human…'
In a way, the plan to separate “Seo Gio” from the “Black Cloak” had succeeded. It wasn’t a bad situation.
'The pressure is definitely less than when we’re inside headquarters, so yeah, I can handle this much.'
If worst came to worst, he could just compare Gio to S-Rank Hunters. At that level, they were practically walking natural disasters anyway. The problem was that Gio wasn’t even human, which was where Yoo Seong-un had to put in the effort.
“Normal hunters can’t just change someone else’s dungeon like this.”
“I see. That must be inconvenient.”
“…Yes, it is…”
“But you have me, so you don’t have to worry.”
And Gio truly didn’t think much of it. It wasn’t as if he had done something unethical just by changing the dungeon a little.
No one had died, no one was hurt, and no one was offended. Gio’s ultimate positive mindset refused to yield to mere human limitations.
Limits were meant to be surpassed. Giovanni had overcome his limitation of being unable to swim using the power of the sun. He took pride in this remarkable growth.
“Let’s go now.”
If this solidified his ‘concept,’ then it was a welcome development.
Tap.
In any case, all’s well that ends well.
* * *
Giovanni died.
“……”
If anyone had asked if they were in their right minds after that, the answer would have been no.
The farewell Iser had been preparing was supposed to be a warmer one. As Gio aged, wrinkles would form around his eyes, his back—once as straight as a divine statue—would bend, and his sturdy body would grow infinitely frail.
Gio was supposed to pass away while watching countless people express their gratitude for his life. His breath would slowly fade, his eyelids—which had always curved in a gentle smile—would close, and his heart, beating slowly, would quietly come to rest…
“…Where was Teacher’s body?”
“It must be in your stomach.”
“……”
“And in the sea.”
None of what he envisioned had come to pass.
“…How old was Teacher?”
“He lived a little over thirty years after he was born.”
“How long of a life is that?”
“Humans can live past a hundred if they are well cared for in a good environment.”
“What if they aren’t cared for in an ordinary environment?”
“Unless they suffer continuous abuse, normally around eighty years.”
“Teacher did not even get to enjoy half of my lifespan.”
He was so young.
“It was only thirty years.”
“Yes, it was only thirty years.”
“I thought it was longer than that.”
He felt utterly hollow.
“A hundred years, or two hundred. To say all of that happened in a mere thirty years… it was too chaotic… too much happened…”
Giovanni spent his entire life saving people.
“Why did no one defend Teacher? He saved so many lives. He sustained the dying and saved the cursed. The people saved by Teacher… didn’t they clearly say thank you back then? They even shed tears of joy at his touch.”
His sister agreed.
“You’re right. Gio was a truly kind person. He saved many humans and mermaids.”
“But when he died, no one remained by his side.”
He was not a man who deserved to die like that.
“Teacher should have closed his eyes in an older body, lying in a warm bed, surrounded by so many people. Shouldn’t he have? He was someone who lived so selflessly for others. A human like him should have passed away more warmly, bathed in the sunlight…”
“It seems the death you imagined only exists in fairy tales.”
“…It didn’t have to be a fairy tale… What I described was something that could have happened at any time, even in reality. It was only… that much. I wasn’t asking for a miracle. I didn’t wish for humans to live as long as mermaids, nor did I try to bring the dead back to life.”
Was that really so much to ask?
“Humans die anyway. No matter how good of an environment they grow up in, or how well they are cared for, their lifespans are so short that they die in the blink of an eye. If they spent such a short life shedding blood and sweat without a single moment of rest, shouldn’t they at least be entitled to that much?”
“And did you receive such treatment?”
“……”
No.
“…No…”
He had respected Teacher, the man named Giovanni.
Gio was both a priest and a doctor. Iser had learned the virtues of a priest from him, and Aria had learned the skills of a doctor.
Because they had learned from Gio, both of them had treated humans with great care.
“We didn’t. In the end, it was just…”
But not a single human knew how to be grateful.
“…In the end, they are a species that would cast aside even the kindness of Gio, one of their own, in an instant.”
“Humans are truly fickle. They are different from mermaids in many ways.”
Mermaids live for over a thousand years. Perhaps because they were born to live so long, they were indifferent to external stimuli, insensitive to emotions, and did not change easily.
And because of that, once a mermaid received a single stimulus, emotion, or change, they would harbor it for a very long time.
“…Ah…”
Iser already knew that “it” would be Giovanni.
“Please, why… why… this… this isn’t right…”
“……”
“It shouldn’t be like this, Aria…”
That was why he had wished for him to meet a sweet and gentle death.
“Why on earth must I carry this memory for the rest of my life…?”
He knew that every single moment of that short life—belonging to a man who resembled the sunlight, a man as soft as a warm blanket—was ultimately what he had to harbor.
And so, he had been relieved. He believed that someone as wonderful and noble as Giovanni was a human a mermaid could rightfully harbor.
“Aria, I ate him.”
A mermaid ate a human.
“Why? Because I was hungry! Those vulgar humans locked him and me in a cramped water tank…! Gio couldn’t even die! Giovanni was rotting away in pain and cold, and I was hungry! I ate him!”
Watching that, the Children of the Sun mocked them.
“Saying that in the end, no matter how much a mermaid tries to mimic a human, they are still just a mermaid—a man-eating monster…!”
“……”
“…Are we monsters?”
His only sister answered.
“Everyone is a monster.”
“……”
“Except for Teacher… everyone was a monster.”
“…I see.”
Gio was human.
That much was certain.
“…I miss Teacher…”
“Me too.”
For a very long time, Iser could not open his mouth. He felt that if he did, the Giovanni he had swallowed would spill out.
He feared his chewed and swallowed entrails would escape, his eyes would weep, and his mouth would scream or pour out resentment toward the mermaid.
And now that he finally opened his mouth, what Iser harbored was, in the end, still Giovanni.
“Sister.”
“…To be honest, I think I hate you.”
“I think this is the first time I’ve seen you hate someone.”
“I don’t even know if this emotion is real.”
“I will gladly accept it. For even that is a change brought about by Teacher.”
“I will cover the sun with the sea.”
Her words were arrogant, but Iser knew they would soon become reality.
“If the whole world is covered by the sea, Gio will be able to remain in the sea forever too.”
“……”
“And mermaids… are ultimately a part of the sea as well. Just like the paintings of mermaids he always drew…”
“……”
“…You know.”
Aria was wearing a pure white coat.
“…I don’t know what I want either, Iser…”
It belonged to Giovanni.
“……”
“……”
A long time passed after that.
A very, very long time…
* * *
“Did you have another nightmare?”
“……”
Round, black eyes.
“…Priest Cha Yi-sol.”
“I’m not a priest yet.”
“I am not human.”
“Why not?”
“…I wonder.”
Why wasn’t I?
“What would it have been like if I were human?”
We would have had a future.
“…I sometimes indulge in such delusions.”
“But you’re human right now.”
“I am a mermaid, as I told you when I brought you here.”
“But you’re human?”
“……”
“What’s the difference between a human and a mermaid? I don’t really know.”
“That is…”
There were countless differences, but perhaps because today was the day he would meet Teacher, his mouth refused to open.
“…Indeed.”
What difference could there possibly be?
How big of a difference could it really be?