Too Small

Just as I expected.

Seyul smiled as he cut through the water at full speed. Just as he'd guessed, he could move through the water as if it were his own home.

His body in the game was nothing more than a human's. Aside from being extraordinarily beautiful, it had no special abilities whatsoever. Using a Melusine's powers with such a body was out of the question—but swimming was a different story.

If he could wield martial arts with this worthless in-game body, then swimming was no different; it was just another way of using the body. All he had to do was apply the swimming techniques he'd mastered in his true body, and it came naturally.

It's been a while since I've felt this sensation.

Able to swim again after so long, Seyul closed his eyes in satisfaction.

The nation where he had made his home in the Otherworld was one bound tightly to the sea. The Melusine lived by the water too, so he had naturally fallen in love with swimming. He'd swum every spare moment he could find—though after returning to Earth, he'd been holed up at home, with no opportunity at all.

It was only a game, but getting to satisfy his urge to swim after so long put him in a wonderful mood.

Just as Seyul's mood had improved, the viewers watching him swim were enjoying themselves too. To their eyes, his swimming was nothing short of mesmerizing—which was only natural, given that his technique ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had been born from the physiology of a non-human species.

The way both his legs moved like fins, paired with that beautiful face, made him look exactly like a mermaid.

And then—

Since he'd gone into the water, his clothes were soaked through, and the sight of him swimming was so lovely that the viewers couldn't help but feel good. They were so absorbed in his swimming that they'd all but forgotten he'd been marked as an enemy for disrespecting the God of Water.

"Hahaha!"

He was crossing the river smoothly, holding everyone's attention, when it happened. A shadow suddenly surged up ahead of him.

Whatever had burst out of the middle of the river was grotesque. A fish-man—no other name could describe it. Half human, half fish, its body covered in scales. And with a harpoon in its right hand, the creature threw its head back and laughed at Seyul.

"I am Crasher, master of this river! You've got some nerve trespassing through my domain, the territory of the mermen's chief!"

Crasher. The boss monster of the River of Division.

It was a boss mob's grand entrance, but the chat's reaction was poor. Among gamers who had played God's Warrior, Crasher was an unlikable boss. He wasn't even that strong, but the water made fighting him tedious. His character wasn't great either—a textbook third-rate villain drunk on his own inflated ego. On land he'd be nothing, so he mostly just got flak for posturing.

But then—

This Crasher was different. The exhibitionist that he was, Crasher always brought his mermen underlings along whenever he appeared to torment players. This time, strangely, he was alone.

"Haha, and to think you came at this particular time. What terrible luck you have."

Just as the viewers were thinking no way—

Crasher spilled everything, unasked.

"Just days ago, a mysterious man came to my river and taught me Drain! Thanks to that skill, I've been empowered beyond anything you could compare to my former self. Even my useless underlings were of some use, for once."

Crasher bragged openly about having devoured his own underlings with Drain.

Yet another unexpected creature had learned Drain and shown up with it, and the chat erupted into chaos.

With an unlikable mob showing up having stolen a player skill, the viewers' reaction was icy.

"Hohoho!"

But Seyul, oddly enough, didn't level his spear the way he had with the others. He laughed instead.

"...Why are you laughing?"

Crasher's face stiffened at the sudden laughter. He took it for mockery, but inside, Seyul felt something quite different.

I haven't seen an aquatic species like me in ages!

The Otherworld was full of non-human races, and water-dwelling species like the Melusine were hardly few in number. Encountering them while swimming had been common, and relations were never bad.

Just as dragons were considered auspicious on Earth, dragons held a special status in the Otherworld as well. Among them, water dragons were regarded as something like the Dragon King or the heralds of his underwater palace, in Korean terms. Every aquatic species that learned Seyul was a Melusine treated him accordingly, and because they'd shown him such courtesy, his impression of the other aquatic races was a fond one.

"I'll let you go, so why don't you scurry off? Walk away now and I'll spare you."

Crasher, a merman he could more or less call friendly. Seeing him made Seyul even more homesick than the orc had, and so he extended his mercy.

"You DARE mock me!"

Crasher flew into a rage like a struck match. Coming right after that laugh, the offer could only sound like pure scorn.

"Who do you think you are, daring to look down on me? You think I'm the Crasher of old? I'll make you regret it!"

Exploding into fury to an almost excessive degree, Crasher charged at Seyul.

"If you insist on attacking, then so be it."

Seyul took up his spear in response, and what followed was a spectacle no amount of money could have bought.

The merman, whose home field was the water, being utterly toyed with by a human—on his own home field.

Until now, Seyul had overwhelmed his enemies with pure martial skill alone. But against Crasher, that wasn't the case. He still used his martial arts, but more than that, he exploited the field itself.

When Crasher moved at tremendous speed, Seyul simply surrendered his body to the resulting wave and slipped aside with ease. From afar, he struck the river's surface to send up sheets of spray that blinded his enemy's vision. He dove beneath the river and moved in three dimensions without a sound. Hiding his body in the darkness of the deep, he carved wounds into Crasher's arms and torso with such finesse that even a merman couldn't sense him coming.

He went beyond being a good swimmer—he moved like one who commanded the sea itself, and the viewers couldn't take their eyes off him.

"Th-this isn't reality!"

Beaten black and blue from fighting in the depths, Crasher scrambled to the surface and screamed as if in a nightmare. None of what was happening felt real. He was a species that lived in the water—how could a human move through it better than he could?

How was anyone supposed to accept this as reality?

"How can a human do this?!"

"Actually, I'm an aquatic species too. Just like you."

"Sh-shut the hell up!"

Seyul surfaced alongside him and told him the truth, but Crasher believed none of it.

"I only just—only JUST finally obtained this power!"

Crasher looked ready to go mad with the injustice of it all. Right now, he was stronger than either the Orc Chieftain or Gerard. He'd originally been on par with the two of them, and on top of that, he'd absorbed their strength through Drain—so the outcome was only natural. Which was precisely why being beaten to the point of death by a mere human felt so unbearably unfair.

"I finally gained the power to show those mainland bastards what for—they who dismissed us mermen as low-grade monsters! And I'm supposed to die HERE, to some incomprehensible human?!"

"Yep."

Seyul agreed without a moment's hesitation. It seemed this one, unlike the Orc Chieftain or Gerard, wasn't good-natured. He didn't seem worth granting last words to, so Seyul moved to kill him at once.

But just as he was about to—

The water rose up like a wall and enveloped Crasher.

"What the—?"

Seyul, who had been about to run his heart through with his spear, frowned at the unexpected development.

A familiar voice echoed from somewhere. Then a system message appeared out of nowhere, and its contents were strange indeed. Seyul, a player, had chosen no blessing whatsoever—so who, exactly, was it being granted to?

"UWOOOOH, the power! It's overflowing!"

The answer was Crasher. Wrapped in an azure aura, the merman's body swelled enormously, transforming into a colossal fish-man the size of a whale.

Beside the now-gigantic Crasher appeared the God of Water, glowing blue. Hovering in the air, he sneered down at Seyul.

The God of Water's proclamation turned the chat upside down.

An unprecedented situation: the guide NPC—a god, no less—betraying the player and siding with the enemy. The chat drowned in pure pandemonium.

"......"

Yet Seyul, the very party who'd been betrayed, showed hardly any reaction at all. He simply looked up at the giant Crasher and the God of Water floating in the sky, and said one thing.

"Too small."

Seyul was an exceedingly lovely, delicate girl. And the moment such a girl spat out the word small in a cold, contemptuous tone—

Crasher, the God of Water, and most of the viewers—all the men present flinched before they could help it.

"Wh-what's small?!"

Crasher especially—though his scales hid everything from view, just in case—covered his crotch with both hands.