CHAPTER 5

The Beautiful Blue Sea

01

“Um…but it’s already winter?” Mariela responded to Lieutenant Malraux of the Black Iron Freight Corps. She eyed him like he’d said something completely ridiculous. What could have made Mariela, who normally was happy-go-lucky, make such a face?

Malraux took a deep breath and, after regaining his composure, asked Mariela again. “So, is there a potion that would allow a person to move around underwater?”

Mariela muttered “But it’s so cold…” among other things before tapping her forefinger to her chin and murmuring “Mm…” as she considered his question.

“I think you could do it with a merfolk polymorph potion, but could we even get the ingredients? Aurora ice fruit, mermaid’s tears… Even if those are out of the question, things like merfolk gill gems are really, really valuable.”

Polymorph potions were also called “morph potions.” It was a sort of wonder drug that everyone wanted to try once in their life.

If you could perfectly transform into a specific person, you’d probably be able to do all sorts of things, from organized crime to personal mischief.

Unfortunately, polymorph medicine wasn’t so convenient. It used your body as a base to transform a piece of yourself into an organ of another species.

For example, in the case of the merfolk type, a high-grade polymorph potion would transform your respiratory system. You developed gills for breathing underwater, and webbing between your fingers and toes. Your eyelids disappeared, and your eyeballs changed into fish eyes. If the potion was well-made, part of your body hair would change into scales, and you’d look even more like a merperson.

However, your physique wouldn’t change just from a high-grade potion, so your skin and the hair on your head would remain the same. You wouldn’t look perfectly like a merfolk monster, but rather you’d change into a mix of merfolk and human that was neither of those things. If you wanted to transform completely, you’d need a special-grade polymorph potion, but this was distinguished from other special-grade potions by the difficulty of obtaining its materials, the difficulty of making it, and the time required to make it.

Many people who desired polymorph potions want to use the aviator type to soar through the air. With the high-grade version, your arms changed into wings like a harpy. However, the fact that humans couldn’t fly even with wings due to their body weight and lack of sufficient muscular strength was spoken of even in fairy tales.

If you thought of it that way, you could say a merfolk potion was very practical among polymorph potions for allowing you to breathe underwater.

“Aurora ice fruit and merfolk gill gems, yes? Understood. We’ll get those ready for you.”

Malraux nodded in total seriousness. Following his lead, Mariela also flashed a grave look as she asked him, “Going for a wintertime swim?”

“No.”

Seems they didn’t hold any sort of “Labyrinth Suppression Forces Beefcake Polar Plunge” event. What a shame.

As usual, after returning from Sunlight’s Canopy through the underground Aqueduct, Marlow and the others divided up the work at their base.

“Merfolk gill gems…? What’re those for, Lieutenant?” asked the dual wielder, Edgan.

As the name suggested, merfolk gill gems were gems formed in the gills of merfolk, similar to pearls in that they started off as stones or other foreign objects caught in the gills and then were coated over a long period of time by gill secretions. They had a distorted shape and a color similar to pearls, but unlike their spherical counterparts, they had a slight elasticity to them. Because they circulated in the market more than natural pearls and they were made in the gills of merfolk, they were not considered as valuable as pearls by the nobility, so they were traded among commoners as the people’s pearl. Even so, since they were not the kind of thing that could be cultivated, they were not so common that you could go to a jewelry shop and buy them whenever you wanted.

Mermaid’s tears were even rarer. It wasn’t merely a legend that tears from a mermaid become precious stones similar to pearls. Though the tears were pearlescent, they were faintly transparent and filled with a mysterious light that made them look like they were reflecting the moon from the bottom of the sea. Naturally, commoners had no opportunity to obtain or even look at one. They were fine items that royalty and nobility only had a few of.

Compared to those, merfolk gill gems were far less difficult to obtain.

“I’ll look for aurora ice fruit, then.”

“Oh, me too.”

Lynx and Edgan offered to search for the aurora ice fruit, a seemingly even less difficult endeavor than attempting to track down merfolk gill gems.

“Sigh, very well. I trust you’ll properly handle the task.”

Thinking the two young men might not be suited to obtaining jewelry just yet, Malraux requested they get the aurora ice fruit.

Yahoo!

It wasn’t until several days later that the pair regretted being happy about getting the easier task.

“Aurora ice fruit? Another rare item?”

Lynx and Edgan had visited Ghark’s shop with the hopes that if anyone could help them in medicinal herb matters, it was the old man. However, he expressed disapproval. Apparently, he didn’t have any in his shop.

“C’mon, ol’ man Ghark, you gotta know where to find some, right? Get some for us, pleeease!” Lynx requested cheerfully.

“Quit pushin’ us old folks around. Been doin’ a lot of that lately, haven’t ye? I’ll tell ye the place, so go get it yerselves. It’ll be easy-peasy fer two or three B-Rankers. This old man ain’t up to the task.”

Ghark shoved a roughly drawn map at Lynx and chased the two of them out of the shop. Though it was only just past noon, the old man closed the shop and left with a “So long.” A sign reading FOR ANY INQUIRIES, VISIT SUNLIGHT’S CANOPY hung on the door of Ghark’s Herbal Supplies.

“The ol’ man even made a sign for that?”

“He practically lives there!”

After leaving the dumbfounded Lynx and Edgan, who were gawking at his sign, Ghark arrived at Sunlight’s Canopy, handed over the herbs Mariela had ordered, made tea for himself at the self-serve corner as if it were his own home, and relaxed in a sunny seat.

“Ahh, now this’s the life.”

Next to him sat a chemist whom he’d recently become friendly with and who frequently visited the shop under the pretense of checking the condition of the mixer. Thanks to this, the mixer now had a bunch of optional parts unrelated to making medicine, such as the specialized cookie dough stirrer. In addition to bowls for making salves and for making internal medicine, there were several for making sweets. Mariela could make large batches of crisp cookies to enjoy with the tea at her store. Even Mariela herself, the owner, couldn’t help but wonder what kind of shop Sunlight’s Canopy actually was.

“Oh, Ghark, I wondered if ya might have lund petioles. No rush, though.”

“Ah, I do. I’ll bring ’em round here about this time tomorrow if that’s all right with ye,” Ghark answered the chemist. Recently he’d begun arranging product deliveries at Sunlight’s Canopy. What was he, a peddler? The man owned a shop of his own.

“The cold gets more unbearable the older ya get. Leave that kinda thing to the young’uns.”

Ghark get out a satisfied “Ahhh” as he finished his tea, and the chemist stylishly poured a second helping into his friend’s cup.

In his warm sunny spot, Ghark stretched his limbs that had been tensed up from the cold with an “Mmm” and passed the time chatting merrily with the chemist.

02

Several days later, Lynx and Edgan, who’d been tasked with gathering the aurora ice fruit, dragged Sieg with them to the ice and snow stratum, number thirty-two.

“Gaaaah, s-so c-c-cooold!”

Clad in extremely fluffy winter clothes, the three men trudged through the snowy field. The way they cried “Brrrrr” and “Freeeeeezing” made them sound just like yetis.

Mariela was at the seminar and study group at the Merchants Guild. Apparently, Elmera was spending the entire day at the guild, so Lynx asked her to look after Mariela.

As she sent Sieg off, Mariela herself had told him, “Sieg, you ought to take a breather every now and then. I’ll wait for you in the Medicinal Herbs Division after the study group, so don’t worry about me.” As for Sieg, though, he fidgeted nervously and would much rather hurry up and go home.

Knowing Mariela, she might get hungry and go home if I’m not back by dinner. No, she might be lured away by a stranger with the promise of food…

What on earth kind of person did he think Mariela was? Even she wouldn’t be that careless. Probably.

Ignoring Sieg’s worries, Lynx complained about how absolutely freezing he was while also saying things all giddy like, “Hey Ed, look, look. Water. Awesome, it freezes instantly! I’m an ice wizard!”

Thanks to the party’s use of low-grade monster-warding potions, beast-type monsters like snow wolves and snow bears didn’t attack them, but yetis, frost trolls, and other monsters that looked like the living embodiment of the frigid air did occasionally.

“Wind Edge.”

Sieg cut a frost troll to pieces with the blades of wind his mythril sword emitted, while Lynx let fly several ice daggers created from water magic at a yeti.

In this stratum, the cold was a more formidable foe than the monsters. The party’s limbs grew numb, and their bodies wouldn’t move as they wanted them to. Sometimes a powerful wind swept over them, kicking up ice and snow and stealing their body from its heat.

Howling wind began to blow again.

After a little bit of walking while enduring the wind, Edgan pointed to a cave that had come into view.

They decided to take a break there. After entering the cave, the three of them started a fire and warmed up. They nibbled on nuts coated in hardened honey and drank strong spirits to warm their bodies.

“Say, Sieg. You live with Mariela, right?” asked Edgan, his face a little red. “Sooo, how’s it been goin’? How far’ve you two gone?”

“C’mon, Ed, you drunk already? You’re such a lightweight, geez. Anyway, Sieg… He’s got the wrong idea, right?” Lynx’s narrow eyes widened and stared fixedly at Sieg.

“Uh, w-we…haven’t yet—”

“Yet?! Did you say ‘yet’?”

“The hell, Sieg?! How much younger than you do you think she is—?!”

“Chill out, Lynx. Well? Well? How’s it gonna go? Maybe you’ll get lucky one day and witness a ‘wardrobe malfunction’? That could happen, right? Or maybe she’ll be in the bath and you’ll just happen to walk in! Like, ‘Oops! It was an accident!’ I mean, when two people live together, sooner or later that’s gonna happen, yeah?!”

Edgan, twenty-four years old. Got weirdly hyped up when drunk. And he was on the market, ladies!

Edgan was convinced that guys who play it cool get all the ladies, so anywhere women were present (such as at the Yagu Drawbridge Pavilion), he would openly scoff at women to show his utter disinterest. In reality, though, he was a simple guy who loved dirty talk. He got along well with the younger Lynx, too.

Lynx quieted down Erotigan—no, Edgan—as if this wasn’t the first time this had occurred, then asked Sieg a question of his own.

“Well? Did it happen? A ‘happy accident’?” Lynx’s normally narrow eyes were still open wide from before. It was seriously creepy.

“I’ve never barged in on her…on purpose,” Sieg answered, intentionally averting Lynx’s gaze.

“Wait, ‘on purpose’? That’s what you just said, right? So you’ve done it by accident, right?! S-spill it! Tell us, what was it like?” Edgan seized on Sieg’s slip of the tongue. Lynx made no attempt to stop Edgan; maybe he was interested, too.

“No, it’s just…um…Mariela fell asleep in the bath and nearly drowned… And a slave’s brand stings when his master is in danger, so…”

With no other choice, Sieg explained. When the pain in his brand had informed him Mariela’s life was in jeopardy, he’d burst into the bathroom in a panic and found her completely submerged in the bathtub. Glug, glug.

“…She…almost died taking a bath…?” Lynx said, incredulous.

“Sure sounds like her…”

“That was the first time I felt glad I’d been branded… If it weren’t for that, Mariela would’ve…”

The three men hung their heads in exhaustion. Their slouching backs made them look like yetis. But even among his fellow yetis, Edgan wasn’t discouraged.

“And? What was she like?” Eyes ablaze, he urged Sieg to go on.

Two piercing gazes demanded to know the rest of the story. There was no escaping them.

However, his master’s dignity was at stake. Siegmund thought about it. He had to convey Mariela’s goodness and magnificence without crossing over into lust. Making full use of his brain with its intelligence score of four, Sieg returned the two men’s gazes and slowly spoke.

“She makes good use of her, um, ingredients?”

“Ingredients?! What, is she lightly seasoned?!”

“Was she tasty?! Refreshing? Or maybe more like mild?!”

Lynx and Edgan were in hysterics. It seemed Sieg had been able to protect Mariela’s honor. Probably.

After warming their bodies and killing the yetis that had gathered upon hearing their laughter, the three men headed out to look for the aurora ice fruit once more. According to Ghark’s map, they would arrive at the location soon.

The party headed through the snowfield in the gloomy polar night. The wind had largely died down, so it didn’t take them long at all to reach their destination.

Just as Ghark had indicated, aurora herbs were growing at the top of a small hill.

More resembling moss than herbs, they were fleshy plants that crawled along the icy ground with small fruit bulging from at their tips. The fruit ranged from blue to purplish red and resembled an aurora. It grew during white nights and ripened and changed color under the ice during polar nights.

The three men smashed the thin ice covering the small fruit and picked it. Each piece of fruit was only the size of about half a bean, and even after gathering all of it, there was barely enough to fill two palms.

Their hands grew numb with cold, despite wearing gloves, and they knelt on the frozen earth to gather the fruit. By the time they finally finished, their bodies, which the alcohol had warmed, were completely chilled.

It made sense why Ghark didn’t want to have anything to do with this.

“Well, shall we get outta here?”

What had happened to the enthusiasm from earlier? Their objective achieved, the three men trudged along as they left the stratum of ice and snow behind, but in a much friendlier manner than when they’d first arrived.

“Welcome back, guys! Whoa, your cheeks are bright red. Must’ve been freezing! Let’s have some pot-au-feu.”

Mariela, who’d obediently waited for the trio’s return in the Merchants Guild, talked about dinner as she fluffed up Sieg’s soft winter gear.

Since it was the beginning of winter, it was cold outside, but it felt warm to the three people who’d just come from the ice-and-snow stratum. They removed their cold weather clothing as they walked, and Mariela invited them to dinner to warm them up.

“Lynx, Edgan, you guys want some pot-au-feu, too? The ingredients give it a really robust and tasty flavor.”

“Bwa-ha, the ingredients!”

“A mild, delectable soup!”

For some reason, Lynx and Edgan blurted this out, much to Mariela’s confusion.

“All right! Let’s eat, let’s eat! I’m starved! C’mon, Mariela, let’s get goin’!” Lynx took Mariela’s hand and began to run, laughing.

“H-hey, wait! Lynx! You’re going too faaast!”

Sieg and Edgan ran after Mariela as Lynx pulled her along.

03

“This gives us the aurora ice fruit and merfolk gill gems that we needed.”

A few days after Lynx and the others gathered the aurora ice fruit, Lieutenant Malraux delivered the correct amount of merfolk gill gems to correspond with the fruit. Considering the gems were technically jewels, it was surprising he’d been able to obtain this many so easily.

“The merfolk gill gems are from mermen and sahuagins. They’re quite easy to obtain if you think about where adventurers might take them.”

He seemed to have gone to several bordellos. He said when he’d offered a higher price than the market value, the bordello ladies had scrambled to sell the merfolk gill gems their customers had given them.

“And since we acquired the aurora ice fruit so cheaply, I was able to allocate more of the budget to the merfolk gill gems,” Malraux said with a laugh. Behind him, Lynx muttered, “Sooo not fair. It was suuuper cold out there.”

As it so happens, a few days later, the dual wielder Edgan visited Sieg and grumbled to him in the least sunny corner of the shop, “You know Belisa, from the Yagu Drawbridge Pavilion? She’s not wearing the merfolk gill gem pendant I gave her anymore… And she always wears it when I visit.”

“She probably just lost it. Maybe she’ll find it again soon,” Sieg consoled Edgan, who was looking so dark and gloomy, it seemed like he could sprout mushrooms.

“You’re a good dude, Sieg…”

Ever since they’d gone to pick the aurora ice fruit together, Sieg and Edgan were apparently getting along well.

A few more days later…

“Belisa was wearing the merfolk gill gem! She must’ve lost it after all,” Edgan came to tell Sieg. “She must’ve broken the chain, ’cause she had a new one on. The gem seemed kinda different too, but those things are pretty soft, so their shape can apparently change.”

“Uh… Y-yeah, that’s right. They sometimes change color and shape and size,” Sieg replied, offering an unnatural explanation.

“Mariela always wears the pendant I gave her!” interjected Lynx, completely unnecessarily, as he looked at Edgan and Sieg.

They’ve gotten super-tight ever since they gathered the aurora ice fruit together, thought Mariela as she casually observed the three men.

She now had gill gems, which had an element of merfolk in them, and aurora ice fruit, which incited the transformation. The kraken mucus that regulated the physical functions that accompanied the transformation was secreted by Mariela’s pet, Slaken, every day. As for the potion’s base material, she always had a large quantity of lunamagia, since it was needed for high-grade potions. Beyond that, all she needed was time-cheating nectar for the preservation of the transformation effect.

To obtain this, Mariela and Sieg went through the underground Aqueduct to the ruins of Mariela’s old cottage in the Fell Forest.

“It should be buried around here.”

Mariela industriously dug up the ground in a corner of the house’s ruins, which had been completely covered with low-grade medicinal herbs.

“Ah, got it. A lot of it went bad, but with this much still left, I think we’ll manage.”

Inside the hole Mariela dug up was a large ceramic pot that could barely be held in two hands. Many small glass vials wrapped in cloth lay inside the pot. The pot was broken, and so were about 30 percent of the vials. The contents of the broken vials had spilled out, degraded completely, and been reabsorbed by the earth, but the plant seeds stored in the unbroken vials still maintained their shape after two hundred years.

Wearing rubber gloves, Mariela carefully took out the intact vials. She checked their contents one by one and transferred the usable ones into new vials. The broken or otherwise useless seeds she burned and disposed of in one go.

The seeds she’d stored here were all dangerous. They had powerful poison and couldn’t be planted normally. Instead of falling to the ground and sprouting there, they grew either in corpses or living creatures that they turned into seedbeds. Burying them in the ground was a much safer storage method than keeping them in a storehouse because even if the vials broke and the seeds spilled out, they would be absorbed back into the earth after a long period of time.

These seeds lay dormant within a thick shell to survive for long periods of time until a suitable living creature with the potential of becoming a seedbed comes along. Still, the seeds that spilled out of broken vials seemingly couldn’t withstand two hundred years of damp soil and microbe corrosion, rotting away over time, but among the ones still sealed in their vials, about 10 percent could germinate.

When Mariela found the seeds she was looking for among the ones that survived, she planted some in the corpse of a goblin Sieg had killed on the way.

Schhhwp.

The seeds absorbed the goblin’s blood, and sinews resembling blood vessels rose to their surfaces. Roots split open its thick shell and stretched out from the seeds to instantly spread throughout the goblin’s body.

About two hours passed as she transferred surplus seeds into new vials and harvested and dried overgrown low-grade herbs, and at that point, the time-cheating herbs sprouting from the goblin seedbed had reached her knees.

After plucking a number of leaves from the herbs, she crushed them between her fingers and formed them into two balls.

“Sieg, hold this between your back teeth. If you suddenly feel hungry, bite down hard on it. It’ll act as an antidote.”

Mariela also held one of the balls with her back teeth and covered her mouth with a cloth.

The time-cheating herbs had already started to bud.

She put water in the creeper rubber bags she’d brought, then covered each time-cheating herb bud with a bag and tied them closed. She fastened the ends of the cords, tying the bags to supports, so the weight of the water wouldn’t break the stems.

Each time-cheating herb seedling had two or three buds. She couldn’t afford to overlook a single one. After she’d put bags on all of them and checked several times to make sure she hadn’t missed any, the buds bloomed.

The reddish-orange flowers with multiple petals, which didn’t seem like they could have possibly bloomed within four hours of being planted, resembled ripe fruit.

The bags prevented the scattered pollen and the smell of the flowers from escaping. If she hadn’t attached the bags, the irresistibly sweet scent of the petals would have attracted forest creatures, and anyone who inhaled the pollen would have experienced an unbearable hunger from its poison. Then, thinking the petals before them were sweet fruit, they would bite them and fall asleep from the nectar, and the mature seeds within the petals would be taken into their body.

Time-cheating herbs grew from the blood and magical power of living things. After breaking through the body of a sleeping creature, the flowers beautifully bloomed in a rich profusion. It was said that a creature who’d fallen asleep from the time-cheating nectar neither aged nor deteriorated until its blood and magical power had run dry, probably because the plant could reproduce longer if the seedbed was still alive.

This was also why the flower had gotten the “time-cheating” part of its name.

You could adjust the transformation time of polymorph potions up to a maximum of one hour by mixing it with this nectar that’d had its sleeping poison removed.

When the flowers had sufficiently bloomed, Mariela shook the water bags covering them to dissolve the nectar in the water. After transferring the water mixed with nectar, pollen, and spilled seeds into an alchemic Transmutation Vessel, she was able to refine it into nonpoisonous nectar on the spot. She also took the opportunity to dry the collected seeds, seal them in vials, and bury them in the hole again along with the other seeds.

Mariela ended up with about a tablespoon of the time-cheating nectar. It was the bare minimum needed to mix with the other materials.

Time-cheating nectar sold at a high price, but looking at the shriveled goblin corpse with the blood sucked out of it didn’t really make her want to make more than she absolutely needed. After Mariela and Sieg burned and buried both the time-cheating herbs and the goblin corpse, they returned to the house through the underground Aqueduct.

“My master told me once…,” Mariela said to Sieg on their way home, “even though time-cheating nectar is valuable, you shouldn’t make more than you need. Like how a hunter only hunts as much game as they need. And…”

Although her master had been irresponsible, Mariela had been properly taught how to handle dangerous plants with only knowledge from the Library. She’d never made polymorph potions, but she’d learned how to make time-cheating nectar, so it was a big help.

It may have been the first time Sieg had heard Mariela speak of her master’s proper side. Mariela hesitated to go on, but Sieg looked at her and urged her to.

“And my master also said that if you make more than you need, time-cheating herbs will sprout from your belly button! I wonder if that’s actually true?!”

“They could be sprouting right now!”

Sieg joined in the lie, almost relieved that her master was pulling the usual shenanigans.

Mariela tightly squeezed the area around her belly button with both hands. Even though she realized it was a lie, this kind of conversation made her feel like her stomach hurt.

She unthinkingly made bean soup for dinner that night and said, “Beans are a kind of seed, too,” while chewing her food much more than usual.

Despite the fact nothing would sprout from her belly button even if she swallowed the beans whole.

“I’m going to bed early.” Mariela quickly headed upstairs, holding her belly button until she disappeared into her bedroom.

04

“The Black Iron Freight Corps is transporting the potions?” Robert Aguinas had just finished listening to the elderly steward’s report. “Are there any regular stops on their route that you feel are particularly suspicious?”

In response to Robert’s question, the steward listed names and characteristics of places from the documents in his hand.

The Yagu Drawbridge Pavilion, which was the Black Iron Freight Corps’s regular inn; the weapon shop that outfitted them; the companies where they replenished their stock to take to the imperial capital; and each member’s favorite restaurant. The steward’s report included not only a summary of each shop, but even the personal history of the shopkeepers.

“According to your report, wouldn’t you say that ‘Sunlight’s Canopy’ apothecary is the most suspicious? For one thing, the owner came to the Labyrinth City from abroad around the same time the Black Iron Freight Corps started dealing in potions…”

After hearing the steward’s report from beginning to end, Robert bluntly stated his opinion about the new resident.

“As it so happens, Lord Robert…Lady Caroline has become good friends with the shop’s owner…”

“Huh? Carol?” Robert closed his eyes for a short while in response to this unforeseen development, then gave an order to the steward. “I’ll have a little chat with her. Please prepare some tea.”

His sister Caroline arrived in the dining room around the time the tea had been prepared.

He used to have dinner with his family in this dining room, but ever since he became the family head, Robert had his food delivered to his own room or the laboratory. It had been a very long time since he’d sat down at a dining table with his sister, let alone had tea with her.

Caroline seemed to feel the same way.

“What a delight for us to be together like this, Brother,” she said, smiling. “It’s been quite some time since you last came to dinner.”

“My research keeps me very busy, as you know. But I’m glad to see you’re doing well. Come to think of it, isn’t there a shop in town that’s caught your eye as of late?”

“Goodness, Brother. Nothing gets past you.” Completely ignorant of her brother’s intentions, Caroline cheerfully told him about Mariela’s shop.

“…and Mariela and I make medicine together. Mariela’s medicine uses the effects of lynus wheat. Brother, I believe you used to focus on that as well. Moreover, she has been teaching the town’s chemists how to make it, and now their medicine has improved by leaps and bounds,” Caroline chatted in good spirits. Robert continued to listen to her with a smile as he thought.

She appears to be an excellent chemist. It wouldn’t be a long shot to assume she’s an alchemist as well. But the same age as Carol? That’s too young…

According to the information given to him, Estalia, sleeping in the cellar, should have been the youngest alchemist.

“Carol, you seem to have made a very brilliant friend. However, she’s from outside the Labyrinth City. It leads me to wonder if she has some kind of secret. Yes, I fully understand that you think she’s a very good person. That said, until I’ve made her acquaintance, I can’t be sure. You’re a young lady who’s soon to be wed; as your brother, I’m just worried.”

Robert tried to discreetly squeeze information out of his sister without hurting her feelings.

“A secret…about…Mariela? …Oh, but there is! Brother! The hidden feelings and friendship of Sieg and Lynx, who both vie for her affection! Ah, but I cannot say any further, dear Brother. I cannot talk about such things, even to you. That would be improper! I am Mariela’s friend, you know. I must consider her feelings first.”

However, Caroline’s thought process apparently veered far away from Robert’s purpose.

She’d simply found a kindred spirit in Mariela. It was clear they had their similarities.

“Er… Cough. Carol? It seems they’re all good people. I’m relieved. Speaking of which, I’ve heard some strange rumors lately; have you seen anything unusual at that shop?”

What an unnatural way to frame a question. Perhaps he was overwhelmed by the reckless behavior of his sister, whom he hadn’t seen in a long while.

As for Caroline, rather than the forced nature of her brother’s question, she seized on its substance.

“My, Brother. You’re curious! Please rest assured. I have acquired this information. It has all the mystery and intrigue of a potion—shiny tea!”

Caroline rose up and grasped the teapot in her right hand. She pressed the lid with her thumb and held the handle with her middle and ring fingers. Her index and pinkie fingers stuck out straight, but she must have had quite a grip. She hadn’t been knead-knead-kneading medicine with Mariela every day for nothing.

Holding both the saucer and the cup in her left hand, she lit the interior of the pot with light magic, then poured tea from it into the cup.

She lifted her right hand holding the teapot up high to show off the shining tea to Robert as she poured it into the cup. The tea really looked like a mysterious waterfall.

With a background in dance, Caroline’s posture was excellent, and her pose was graceful. Full points to her.

Actually, Caroline was showing her potential of becoming an advanced tea pourer, seeing how she secretly used water magic to prevent the tea from spilling. But Robert knew nothing of “stylish tea parties.” With his mouth agape, he stared at the tea infused with magic for aesthetic purposes and at Caroline, who proudly exclaimed, “Well? What do you think?!” His eyes darted back and forth between the tea and his sister.

“Now here you are, Brother.”

Robert accepted the tea, which was now subtly cooled due to being poured from up high and easy to drink. He smiled at his sister and commented, “You seem to be enjoying yourself day after day.”

The tea his sister poured was quite delicious.

After leaving his little tea party with Caroline, Robert pondered alone in his room.

Looks like Sunlight’s Canopy is in the clear…

Mariela’s obliviousness seemed to have deceived even the mind of Robert, who boasted an intelligence score of five. Unaware of this, Robert thought things over.

It was obvious when he thought about it calmly. For the girl to appear in the Labyrinth City at the same time the Black Iron Freight Corps began handling potions would be too bold. The Corps was a transportation group founded by former commanding officers of the Labyrinth Suppression Forces. They couldn’t possibly be that foolish. It was reasonable to think they’d prepared her as a red herring.

The girl named Mariela was probably an alchemist summoned to the Labyrinth City from the outside. Thinking this, he was convinced.

A shop reminiscent of a teahouse would normally be conspicuous, thus reducing the danger of fools meddling with it who didn’t realize she was put there by the Corps. By offering to share her manufacturing secrets, she could buy her safety, Robert decided. The more acquaintances she made and the more important she became to the community, the harder it would be to half-heartedly make a move on her.

In the first place, it was irrational to think an alchemist of the Labyrinth City would still be out in the town. The Black Iron Freight Corps transporting potions might itself be a diversion to make people think “They’re transporting goods that were buried in the ground.” There was no doubt they’d secured a key alchemist a long time ago. Was the alchemist at the Labyrinth Suppression Forces’ base? Or the estate of Margrave Schutzenwald?

Unbelievable that they would get their hands on an alchemist when we, House Aguinas, should be the ones safeguarding this person. We must take them back. We must extricate them—before it’s too late. This much is necessary for the future of this region. But, how…?

Robert Aguinas ruminated.

How should they infiltrate the Labyrinth Suppression Forces or the house of Margrave Schutzenwald?

He needed information. Robert perused a file concerning recent affairs of the Labyrinth Suppression Forces, where he found a “Slum District Giant Slime Damage Report.”

“What’s this?”

“This is a report documenting the list of the victims from the recent giant slime hubbub. I had prepared it as a possible source of new ‘materials,’” the elderly steward responded.

The most recent small expedition from about two weeks ago used the new black medicine almost offhandedly. Up to now, they had used one bottle from time to time, but now they were going through them like it was cheap medicine. Owing to this, most of it had been used up. The “materials” in Robert’s possession were enough to cover the amount needed for next time, but though they were of low quality, they weren’t cheap by any means.

So, the steward had seemingly searched for a way to acquire cheaper materials.

The victims of the giant slime incident were being treated by the Labyrinth Suppression Forces’ medical team. However, the scars from the acidic liquid stiffened like deep burns and probably couldn’t be cured with a single treatment like they normally would. Fortunately for Robert, most of the victims were slum residents, with no family or money for medicine, let alone for a healer. It would be easy to lure them with false promises of treatment.

“This is…”

A single name jumped out at Robert from the list of victims.

Sherry Nierenberg. Twelve years old. Female.

Nierenberg—wasn’t that the name of the head of the Labyrinth Suppression Forces’ medical team?

Sherry Nierenberg’s injury was from the left side of her face to her temple. Robert could guess it had left an atrocious scar for a twelve-year-old girl.

“Heh, heh-heh-heh…,” he laughed. He’d found a lead for the identity of the alchemist the Labyrinth Suppression Forces were hiding. With a large grin that twisted the corners of his mouth, he ordered the old steward to carry out his plan.

05

“Is this the merfolk polymorph potion?”

Leonhardt and Weishardt stared at the thirty vials of polymorph potion Malraux handed them. This was the first time they’d seen it, too.

“Yes. The length of the effect has been adjusted to the maximum time of one hour, as requested.”

From the aurora ice fruit, Mariela had been able to make thirty vials this time. The white nights and polar nights in the thirty-second stratum alternated every hundred days, so if the Forces wanted more medicine than this, they’d have to wait another two hundred days.

Even in the treasure trove of materials that was the Labyrinth City, this was the maximum amount that could be made. That should have been enough for you to surmise the value of polymorph potions. They were so valuable that one vial would make even an aristocratic dilettante brag for a long time about how he’d enjoyed a stroll underwater. And there were thirty of those vials, no less.

More than a hundred soldiers had fought the king basilisk on the fifty-third stratum, but this time, the number of people had to be reduced even further. However, the information gained from three weeks of scouts surveying the fifty-fourth stratum, combined with the thirty vials, were enough for Leonhardt and Weishardt to predict that they might be able to win.

“The subjugation of the fifty-fourth stratum’s boss, known as the ‘Sea-Floating Pillar,’ begins now! After you take the polymorph potion, enter the water!”

More than a half mile from the Sea-Floating Pillar, Weishardt issued instructions from a small boat atop the water in the fifty-fourth stratum. Though they were in an ocean with no end in sight, the waves were gentle to the point that even boats small enough to carry into the Labyrinth could get a half mile from the pillar.

Though it was winter outside the Labyrinth, the sky in the fifty-fourth stratum was blue, and the climate was warm, so no one hesitated to dive into the water. Perfect conditions for taking a dip in the ocean. Although the Labyrinth Suppression Forces had female members, none of them had met the conditions for today’s mission, which meant, regrettably, that only men were present.

The “Beefcake Polar Plunge” mentioned by a certain alchemist had unexpectedly come to pass.

It would have been nice to at least have a spectator shriek, but the only ones watching the men getting wet were Nierenberg and the rest of his medical team with icy gazes. It was absolutely just a gross swim meet. No, wait, a stratum boss subjugation. (I almost mistook the enemy for something else before the battle even began. What a trap that was! Very dangerous.)

The member selection for this subjugation considered superiority in underwater combat. The focus was on spear users, but shield knights, sorcerers who could cast spells without chanting, healers, and sonar users who could detect the enemy underwater as well as act as messengers also participated. Every single one of them was an expert at swimming. They all wore hurriedly constructed armor consisting of tight, low-resistance leather pants and basilisk leather on limited areas of their bodies: shins, arms, chest, and forehead. Even the shields carried by the shield knights weren’t ordinary but had been replaced by equipment specialized for underwater use that resembled aerodynamic, shortened spears.

Adjustments had also been made to the equipment of spear users. Some had tridents, while others carried harpoons suited for underwater combat. Among them was a single large man carrying a black spear.

“Thanks for coming, Dick,” said Leonhardt.

Captain Dick nodded vigorously in response.

There was no better spear user than Dick in the entire Labyrinth City. When Leonhardt had asked him to join the operation as a mercenary, he accepted without a moment’s hesitation. He’d been warmly welcomed back into his old stomping grounds. Those who were friends with him said they were happy to fight alongside him again, while the younger people looked at him with inspired gazes.

Dick swallowed the polymorph potion he was given in a single gulp.

He was assaulted by a sensation like something in his chest moving. It resembled the feeling of your belly churning when you have an upset stomach, only it happened in the chest area. Although no pain accompanied it, he suddenly felt like he was choking and instinctively jumped into the sea, and cool water poured through gaps between his ribs into his body. When he put his hands to his ribs at the unexpected sensation, he found several notches there; he had acquired the gills of a fish.

He tried to see what was happening, but he had a hard time getting his eyes to focus. Instead, his field of vision had widened, and he could even see behind him, which was normally impossible. It was hard to see things in the distance, but his kinetic vision had improved. Was this merfolk vision?

Something felt out of place with his hands. When he raised them to look, he found webbing had formed between his fingers. Scales had sprouted on the backs of his hands, and he couldn’t feel the cold of the water, as if his sense of touch had changed.

Every one of the soldiers who changed into merfolk dived lithely into the water and checked their movement. Just being immersed in the water didn’t make them feel like they were suffocating at all, and they could freely move around as if they were on land. They seemed able to see better underwater than above.

“Neeeeeeyoooooooooom.”

Hearing the sonar users’ sound wave tuning, the soldiers formed a line underwater to receive Leonhardt’s orders.

Leonhardt stood underwater in front of the soldiers as if he were floating in space.

His hair trailed around him like a lion’s mane.

His thick, sensual lips seemed even larger, his mouth, which emitted a well-projected voice, had extended sideways a good deal, and his eyeballs were bigger and pronounced, with no eyelids. The eyeballs seemed to protrude a little as if to ensure a wide field of vision.

Yup. Looks like a fish.

Dick and the other soldiers surveyed their surroundings with the eyesight they were now accustomed to.

He hadn’t realized it before because he’d been so engrossed in how freely he could move underwater, but everyone had a fishlike face. Although Leonhardt was a fish, enough of his original face remained that Dick could recognize him, which was indescribably comical. If even the fine-featured and honorable Leonhardt looked unexceptional as a fish, the soldiers didn’t even want to begin imagining their own faces. There were some soldiers who were impressed by Weishardt’s thoughtfulness to not include women in this operation. It was sheer coincidence no women were participating, though.

At the very least, this medicine wasn’t something they would want a girl they liked to take. They didn’t want to see her with a fish face. The soldiers decided even if they became rich someday, they wouldn’t use merfolk polymorph potion for an underwater date.

At any rate, they were in the middle of an operation.

The polymorph potion would last for one hour. They couldn’t spare even a short time getting used to their transformed bodies. Thanks to their wide field of vision, the soldiers unfortunately had to look at the humorous faces of their transformed colleagues while directing their attention at Leonhardt by exhibiting powerful self-restraint.

The operation had already been drilled into their heads. All that remained was to await Leonhardt’s command.

As he turned to survey his soldiers, Leonhardt gave a vigorous nod to all present and opened his mouth to deliver his final words of encouragement.

“Blub, blub.”

Apparently, merfolk vocal cords were somehow different from a human’s.

In response to Leonhardt’s mouth repeatedly opening and closing like he was a fish being reeled in on a hook, air bubbles burst from the soldiers’ gills.

“Commence the operation.”

With the sonar user’s announcement, the Labyrinth Suppression Forces began to swim toward the pillar.

They maintained a depth of twenty yards to avoid the beam.

When they were around a quarter of a mile from the pillar, the sonar users detected several objects rapidly rising from the ocean depths.

And here they come.

At Leonhardt’s signal, the Labyrinth Suppression Forces prepared to intercept.

Compared to the impossibility of approaching the pillar above the water, the depth of ten yards or more underwater had been too safe. Of course, very few methods allowed activity that deep, and it was a plenty high hurdle considering the rarity of polymorph potions, but Weishardt and the others weren’t foolish enough to think no obstacles existed, even ten yards underwater. None of the Labyrinth subjugation operations up to now had been easy.

As the Forces prepared to intercept the enemy from below, they became able to distinguish the enemies’ forms.

From far away, all they could see was a blue glow.

As the enemies got closer, their silhouettes came into view.

Their dazzlingly beautiful blue hair hovered in the dim ocean. They had pale skin and the tail of a fish, which should have made them the species known as merfolk.

Their faces were covered by their hair and obscured, but the soldiers could discern large eyes and lips peeking out from gaps in their hair in the same place as human facades. Their ample chests gave the impression that the merfolk were female, and their arms stretching to the lower half of their bodies were clad in something that trailed behind them like dress sleeves fanning out toward their wrists.

The sleeves spreading through the water were probably pectoral fins, but they were the same beautiful blue metallic color as their hair. The creatures seemed to dance as they traveled through the water, resembling blue, gemlike butterflies that inhabited tropical regions.

The fish tails spread out and fluttered every time the creatures flicked them, and the blue glow changed to a variety of different colors. It really was as if the creatures were in the midst of a passionate dance in fluttering dresses, like beautiful maidens who drew all eyes to them at an evening party.

Were merfolk really this beautiful?

The beautiful merfolk swam toward the gross half-men, half-fish of the Labyrinth Suppression Forces as if to welcome them. There were more than twenty of the creatures. They all seemed to be smiling.

The soldiers’ grips on their weapons weakened from what could be human instinct to see something beautiful up close. All the approaching merfolk had their hands down, carried no weapons, and didn’t appear to be readying magic.

The merfolk had now intruded within reach of ranged attacks. Just when the soldiers were thinking they would try to interact with the creatures, who were similar to humans and hadn’t taken fighting stances…

“Dragon Spear Attack!”

The attack that sallied forth from a lone black spear formed a vortex like a tornado and rushed at the leading merfolk.

Don’t be fooled! Those are fake hooters!

Dick’s shout was hindered by his fishy vocal cords and the ocean water and, luckily or unluckily, didn’t reach the soldiers of the Labyrinth Suppression Forces.

However, his attack did reach the leading merfolk, piercing it and spilling blood into the water. The other merfolk paid no heed to their cohort hit by the merciless assault, nor did they get angry about it, but calmly opened their mouths.

Gwap.

The merfolk’s mouths looked as if they were splitting open from the place assumed to be the mouth all the way to the chest.

Their chests are jaws!

How many soldiers in the Labyrinth Suppression Forces thought the same thing?

To be exact, each merfolk’s “chest” was actually bones protruding from its lower jaw joints, but it probably didn’t make much of a difference since it wasn’t a chest. Their giant mouths featured several layers of sharp teeth and were open wide enough to bite off a human torso. It had been incorrect to think the merfolk—no, giant fish—had no weapons. Their mouths were their weapons—already prepared to strike.

Only after allowing the creatures to get close enough to snap at them did the soldiers finally understand the full picture. The fish had dark scales on their necks, waists, and what had been mistaken for their cleavage. In fact, their bodies had no curves. The arms clad in sleeves were actually pectoral fins similar to those of flying fish, and bladelike bones were exposed where their hands might have been. What appeared to be strands of hair were actually distorted dorsal fins and a protuberance akin to those on deep sea fish to attract their bait.

Once they were close enough to grasp the complete picture, the soldiers saw them as nothing more than grotesque fish in gaudy colors. Why had they thought these were beautiful merfolk?

No matter how similar their bodies were to fish from the polymorph potion, the soldiers couldn’t beat the speed of a real fish underwater. They let loose with their spears at the looming giant fishes as they came closer with their equally giant mouths, and the shield knights thrust their shields into the mouths of the ones about to bite them to avoid a fatal wound. The tips of the bones sticking out from the pectoral fins inflicted deep gashes on the soldiers’ chests and legs.

Did the blood drifting through the water belong to the soldiers or the giant fish?

In the midst of the melee, Leonhardt sent a signal to Weishardt.

With a nod from Weishardt, a guerilla group consisting of himself, Dick, the sonar users, and several sorcerers left the battlefront and began to swim at full speed toward the pillar.

Leonhardt fired a harpoon at the giant fish that was about to pursue Weishardt.

We’re the ones you should be fighting!

The attacks from spear users and sorcerers that sallied forth one after another seemed to succeed at attracting the giant fishes’ attention. They swam around and around Leonhardt and the rest of the Labyrinth Suppression Forces, and the curtain opened on a battle to the death with the fish that would take every opportunity to hound them.

Away from Leonhardt and the others in a do-or-die battle in an unfamiliar environment, Weishardt’s guerilla group aimed for the pillar.

The Sea-Floating Pillar was a huge column with a diameter of about five yards that extended twenty yards above water and over a hundred yards below. Atop it were four heads resembling dragons that shot beams or water bullets, each at a right angle from its neighbor. The pillar’s range extended a half mile around the dragon heads above the water, and there was no way to protect against the extremely high-power beams that caused even shields to disintegrate instantly.

Brutal water bullets fired in the intervals between beams, preventing enemies above the water from approaching. Above water, the power of the stratum’s boss, the Sea-Floating Pillar, couldn’t even be compared to that of the previous strata’s bosses.

One other characteristic of this stratum was its overwhelming vastness. The horizon extended 360 degrees, and the water was more than a half mile deep. It would appear that space itself had been controlled by the boss to support the sheer magnitude of its attacks. From the power of its beams to its ability to make space yield to its desire, the boss possessed far too much magic than that of any other previous strata.

“Most of the magical power in this stratum is used for the beams and to control space.”

This was the conclusion Weishardt drew based on the information from the scout unit.

In a normal stratum, the boss would generate monsters to protect itself, but nothing like that was visible here. Of course, the pillar fired at anyone, friend or foe, who came within range, so perhaps this was to prevent friendly fire, but it would make more sense to consider the possibility that no magic could be allocated to generating monsters.

Weishardt’s prediction was that the underwater defenses had to be the weakest. Did the fact that no new giant fish appeared to chase them mean he was right? If so, he still had one more conjecture.

Weishardt’s group hurried to the pillar.

The giant fish were most likely weaker than the basilisks. However, they couldn’t easily be felled underwater. Every soldier in this operation had been given several high-grade potions. The openings of the glass vials had been secured with glue so that when a soldier went to drink one, they could bite through the glue. In this way, the glue should fulfill its function as vial stoppers even underwater, at least for the hour that the polymorph potion lasted. The healers treated wounds, but if that wasn’t enough, they used potions at their own discretion.

How much time could they buy with this?

Weishardt’s group finally reached the pillar. The sonar users felt the pillar and probed its internal structure, then told the others it was just as Weishardt had conjectured.

Weishardt’s eyes gleamed, confident in victory.

A shield knight far from the pillar used all his strength to force the giant fish gnawing on his shield toward the water’s surface. When it got within ten yards of the surface, the water evaporated with a sizzle, and a beam fired, disintegrating both the giant fish and the shield.

Gah, hot!

The heat from the beam evaporated the seawater, and a column of water erupted from the surface. The hot steam and water churned the area where the Labyrinth Suppression Forces and the giant fish were fighting, throwing them into disarray.

Although the shield knight used a shield skill to protect himself, he suffered deep burns all over his body, but he immediately downed a potion and healed the wounds.

The giant fish chomped at the disordered ranks of the Labyrinth Suppression Forces to try and drag them into the depths, but this was also expected. The soldiers provided backup for each other and reformed their ranks to prepare for a counterattack.

The pillar’s beam was the cue.

Weishardt and the sorcerers followed the cue and poured magic into one spot in the pillar. Not flames, but heat. Hot enough to melt glass or iron. Although the temperature rose, it needed no oxygen. Few sorcerers could raise temperature correctly even underwater. Those limited few continued to heat the single point in the pillar.

Burble burble burble burble burble.

Bubbles rose up. They weren’t coming only from the seawater. Wasn’t the pillar itself emitting bubbles, too?

That was the instant when Weishardt’s conjecture was proven correct.

It was necessary to know the pillar’s structural design and materials to subjugate it.

The pillar’s structure was easy to imagine. It was a single giant object floating vertically in the sea. The entire thing was probably buoyant, with a hollow interior and weight in its lower portion. It was thought that the stability of the entire pillar was secured by lowering the center of gravity.

And the material?

Was it a material that could withstand high-powered beams?

According to the scouts’ report, the Sea-Floating Pillar fired a fixed number of water bullets after shooting a beam, even if its target wasn’t in range. After a number of attempts, they were fortunate to be able to obtain water from the bullets. They secretly brought this along with seawater from the fifty-fourth stratum to Ghark’s Herbal Supplies and were thus able to learn what the pillar was made of.

According to Ghark’s appraisal, the water fired as bullets seemed to lack a certain component.

It was the component that created seashells, and seawater contained an abundance of it. The Sea-Floating Pillar was made of the same component as shells, so every time it fired a beam, it absorbed that component from the water and repaired the interior damage caused by the beam.

When shells were smelted at a high temperature, they emitted a gas and turned into the same composition as lum stones. When this happened, their volume changed. No matter how thick the pillar was, no matter how much it was reinforced with other components, if a powerful strike were to be inflicted on a single point where its volume had changed through thermal decomposition…

“Dragon Spear Attack!”

Dick’s spear pierced the deformation in the pillar created by the sorcerers.

Snap.

The cracks created in the pillar quickly began to spread under the pressure of the water.

At Weishardt’s signal, the guerilla group withdrew. After confirming the soldiers were a sufficient distance from it, Dick struck one final blow, then retreated as well.

The sonar users confirmed the interior of the pillar was hollow, just as anticipated. The cracks inflicted on it spread from the water pressure, and the enormous chamber filled with water.

Weishardt’s guerilla group fell back to Leonhardt’s location so they wouldn’t be dragged into the churning water created by the sinking pillar. The Sea-Floating Pillar fired a final volley of water bullets to try and drag the Labyrinth Suppression Forces down with it, but the seawater hindered the bullets and weakened their effects so that they instead merely let Weishardt’s group get away. The pillar’s main weapon, the beam, had just been fired and didn’t seem to be ready to fire again.

Leonhardt’s group was obviously riddled with wounds, but nobody seemed to be missing any limbs. They’d reduced the giant fishes’ numbers to about half. With the assistance of Weishardt and Dick, the Labyrinth Suppression Forces dominated the battle with the fish.

The Sea-Floating Pillar sank toward the bottom of the endless ocean even as the Labyrinth Suppression Forces fought the enormous fish.

Would the pillar completely collapse under the water pressure first, or would it perceive the bubbles and shards as enemies and fire its next beam first?

Bubbles floated up from around the sinking pillar with a burbling sound.

It had probably fired a beam. Did the pillar’s dragon heads get blown off by the pressure caused by the beam, which superheated the seawater and turned it into steam? Or did the beam’s energy, converted into heat, raise the water temperature around the dragon heads to an extreme, causing the heads to disintegrate from the heat and pressure? Leonhardt and the others had no way to know.

However, in that instant, the fifty-fourth stratum that had been so vast before suddenly shrank. After the Labyrinth Suppression Forces annihilated the giant fish in the more favorable environment, the stratum had changed to a normal stratum’s size and now resembled a beach cavern.

The curtain closed on the subjugation of the fifty-fourth stratum’s Sea-Floating Pillar, which had self-destructed from its own abilities.

The stairs between the strata were located on a sandy beach and confirmed to lead to the next stratum. Since scouts for exploring the new stratum hadn’t accompanied the soldiers on this operation, exploration would start the following day.

When they pulled the defeated fish onto land, they couldn’t find that beautiful blue color anywhere, but instead found grotesque fish with large mouths, purplish-red scales tinged just slightly blue, and brown skin. The visible areas around the neck and waist had red scales.

“It’s because red seems to be difficult to see deep underwater.”

Leonhardt listened to Weishardt’s explanation with deep interest. To think these were the fish he’d mistaken for beautiful women.

“But this guy knew all along they weren’t mermaids……,” Leonhardt said to Dick in admiration.

Leonhardt had seen the giant fish as beautiful, amicable mermaids.

But he saw that Dick’s eyes had been opened to enlightenment from one glance at the fish’s lower jaws.

“It’s because they didn’t jiggle at all.”

Dick didn’t stare at Amber’s chest just for show. He was a true connoisseur of chests. No, actually, he mainly squeezed cushions. You could say the sad days he spent compelled to massage cushions had given him the ability to discern the truth.

“I…I see. At any rate, you performed a great service for us today… Having said that, it’s probably best not to tell the others how you caught on.”

Leonhardt’s gaze turned to the young spear users surrounding him and Dick from a distance and watching them.

Leonhardt clapped Dick on the shoulder and walked in Weishardt’s direction. He was giving the young spear users time to talk with Dick.

The distinguished A-Rank spear user who saw through the giant fishes’ camouflage and sank the pillar. With eyes full of admiration, the young spear users ran up to Dick.

Incidentally, a lot of merfolk gill gems were harvested from the giant fish.

Even after paying the fee for the polymorph potion, there would be plenty left over. With this, maybe they could have the skin from the fifty-third stratum’s King of Cursed Serpents added to their armor and develop new magical tools from the remains of the Sea-Floating Pillar.

Weishardt’s heart filled with excitement at these prospects for the future.

The soldiers who participated in this operation felt relieved that no mermaid’s tears came from the giant fish.

Those weren’t mermaids. Beautiful mermaids were still out there somewhere.

As if light were shining in from somewhere, the fifty-fourth stratum, now a beach cavern, was filled with a blue glow reminiscent of the giant fish that had looked like ravishing mermaids.