Chapter 304

“Splitting the ocean... You sure chose a flashy way to enter, envoy of the Sēmen,” Natantes said, staring at Seong-Hwi with his blue eyes.

Seong-Hwi smiled faintly and replied, “I had no choice. The water gate was closed. I couldn’t be late to a party I had been invited to, could I?”

“A party, huh?”

Natantes smirked, seeing Seong-Hwi’s sly smile. He understood the hidden meaning behind his words.

Is he asking about why the water gate was closed? Indeed, this could be considered the starting point of a civil war, but he called it a party, he thought.

Not only that, he made it clear that he had been invited. In other words, the envoy was criticizing their careless reception of a guest.

“Allow me to introduce myself. I am Cheon Seong-Hwi of Underground. I have been dispatched to Gurzes as an inspector of the Sēmen,” Seong-Hwi said with discipline.

However, one of the ten merfolk staring at him interjected, “Liar! If you’re not part of the Sēmen, then why are you even here? Besides, I’ve never even heard of Underground. I knew the Sēmen didn’t take our request seriously!”

He had red scales and red hair, glaring at Seong-Hwi with his red eyes filled with bloodlust.

Just then, a male merfolk with brown and grey stripes said firmly with crossed arms, “Behave yourself, Raud. Father is speaking to a guest.”

He had a sharp, bony fin on his back, exuding a razor-sharp aura.

“But Brother Sverd, he’s spouting a bunch of nonsense!” Raud shouted.

“Hoho, don’t be like that, Sverd. Raud has a point,” remarked a female merfolk wearing a white dress, giggling with her mouth covered.

She had light blue scales and pink lines from her eyes to her neck, but her pink wavy hair stood out the most.

“Right, Sister Tauma?” Raud said.

“Hoho, I have also never heard of a faction called Underground. On top of that, one cannot be part of a faction if they are a member of the Sēmen,” Tauma remarked as she stared at Seong-Hwi, her mystical pink eyes shining.

Seong-Hwi shrugged and said, “Well... I thought we had been doing our best, but it appears Underground is not reputable enough to reach these isolated seas. I reflect as deeply as the depth of Gurzes.”

“What?” Tauma said, staring at Seong-Hwi in confusion.

The other merfolk snickered. If one only thought superficially, they might interpret it as Seong-Hwi apologizing for how lacking Underground’s reputation was. However, he was actually criticizing Pontus’s reclusivity.

“Children, he is an envoy of the Sēmen who has come to help us. We should be grateful to him. Do not be disrespectful,” said Natantes, who had been watching in silence.

“Yes, Father!” the ten merfolk simultaneously shouted, standing back at attention.

“I apologize in their stead,” Natantes said.

“It’s okay. It’s fine not to know,” Seong-Hwi said, nodding as if it were no big deal.

He knew they had been trying to taunt him, but something so trivial could easily be laughed off.

“I know about Underground very well. Its reputation had been spreading even to the inner zones, after all.” Natantes turned to a short male merfolk with white scales and a mouse-like face and said, “Explain to the other children, Mushveli.”

“Yes, Father,” replied the merfolk named Mushveli. He then explained with his thin, weak voice. “Underground is a confederation whose members include Steel King Bafor, Last Spirit Elementum, Abkai Taidzu, New Glory Irura, and Centaur Archer Chiron. They are an up-and-rising group that has recently created the joint city, Together.”

The merfolk stared at Seong-Hwi with great interest.

“Steel King Bafor?”

“Isn’t Elementum the one who led the group that fought against Insectum?”

“Oh?”

Mushveli added, “Their most recent feat is joining forces with Barbaria to wage war against Consanguineus. Cheon Seong-Hwi was one of the people who contributed to killing Haema Sanguis.”

The merfolk’s reactions exploded.

“Haema Sanguis?!”

“Are you the one who killed that filthy vampire?!”

“Whoaaa!”

“Gahaha! You’re way cooler than I had thought, human!”

The hostile attitude of the merfolk immediately changed to one of greeting a close friend whom they hadn’t seen for a long time.

“Albeit late, allow me to express my gratitude for killing that cowardly vampire, Haema Sanguis,” Natantes said with an amicable smile.

Seong-Hwi shook his head and said nonchalantly, “You should express that gratitude to the Sun Wolf King, Master Pseraslav. I was merely the supporting role.”

“Even so, my gratitude is genuine. Haema Sanguis is the mortal enemy of Pontus. Anyone who damaged even a hair on his body is a friend to us.”

Bloodlust momentarily glinted in Natantes’s eyes just from the mention of Haema’s name.

Yeah, this reaction is to be expected, Seong-Hwi thought, smiling inwardly. After all, the Sēmen had chosen him as the envoy because of it. But what was with that shark I met at the surface, then?

As Seong-Hwi was about to ask about it, Natantes asked first, “But putting that aside, I must ask some questions. How are you affiliated with a faction despite being a member of the Sēmen? And what is the position of inspector that you claim to be?”

His questions were natural since his two questions were completely foreign to one who knew of the old Sēmen’s laws and order.

“The answer is simple,” Seong-Hwi answered easily.

“It’s simple?”

“Yes, because it is the will of the First Lord, Guardian Titan Grandis.”

The merfolk remained silent, but the amount of air bubbles being released from their blowholes dramatically increased. Seong-Hwi had mentioned the name of the most influential person in the Mirror World, causing everyone to lose their words.

Natantes fell into thought momentarily. He then nodded and said, “I see. Grandis must have made his move at last. Things are about to change for the crazier.”

The new position of inspector was clearly against the factions of old. Considering that, it wasn’t difficult to know what Grandis was thinking.

Then that means Grandis has chosen this man himself. Come to think of it, I heard Grandis had something to do with creating Together, Natantes thought. After much thought, he judged, It appears he is not only pretending to help.

In reality, he was angry when the envoy of the Sēmen was a human, an inferior race. Not only that, but he had never even heard of the human’s position. He believed that the Sēmen did not take Pontus’s request for support seriously and was only doing this to save face.

However, that had not been the case. When the water gate was closed, the human named Cheon Seong-Hwi proved his martial prowess by performing a godly act of splitting the ocean in half. Not only that, but the position of inspector had actually been the blade that the First Lord, Grandis, had been sharpening.

It means the Sēmen is giving Pontus its full support! Natantes thought as he clenched his fists.

With the Sēmen’s arbitration, they could minimize casualties in the bloody civil war against the placoid scale tribe.

We must stop this massacre, Sir Carcharocles. If you don’t, you will leave me with no other choice!

As Natantes was encouraged by the appearance of reinforcements, Seong-Hwi said, “Please let me ask a question this time.”

“Go ahead,” Natantes said.

“What is the situation in Gurzes right now?”

Natantes’s blue eyes shone. “I was just about to explain.”

***

Over a decade ago, Squama, the Ocean King, a man respected and loved by all the merfolk, was killed by Haema Sanguis. This incident came to be known as the Sorrow of the Abyss among the merfolk.

“It all began from the Sorrow of the Abyss,” Natantes said, closing his eyes as he recalled the past.

The merfolk were a thriving race under the rule of Squama, their central figure. They were famous for being overlords of the sea that had conquered the blue ring, spanning from the sixth to the outer rim of the seventh zone.

Countless tribes existed among the merfolk, but the main ones were the ganoid, placoid, ctenoid, and cycloid scale tribes. Among them, the ganoid scales, represented by Natantes, and the placoid scales, represented by Carcharocles, were especially mighty.

“There were also other tribes like the coelenterates, crustaceans, echinoderms, mollusks, and annelids who worshiped Lord Squama.”

However, the problem arose after Squama’s death. Cracks began to form between the tribes that had united under Squama.

“Pontus focused on selecting the next Ocean King who would take Lord Squama’s place.”

This was immediately after they cut ties with the Sēmen, who had sided with the coward, Haema Sanguis. Hence, the merfolk sincerely wished for a new, powerful king who could unite all the tribes and protect Pontus from invaders without help from the Sēmen.

Two candidates naturally came up on the list: White Whale Natantes of the ganoid scale tribe and Ghost Tooth Carcharocles of the placoid scale tribe.

“I believed Sir Carcharocles would be more suited to become the next Ocean King since he was older and had conquered the ocean alongside Lord Squama.”

Natantes’s children ragefully disagreed.

“Absolutely not!”

“Keh!”

“That was your one midjudgment, Father!”

“He’s nothing but an ignorant strong geezer!”

However, Natantes did not agree with his children. He continued to be respectful to Carcharocles.

“But Sir Carcharocles refused, saying he was not worthy of becoming king,” he said.

At the time, Carcharocles was the supreme ocean commander, while Natantes was the commander of the capital defense corps, one rank below Carcharocles. Carcharocles could have easily taken the seat of Ocean King if he wanted to, but didn’t.

“Sir Carcharocles took responsibility for Lord Squama’s death and stepped down from the position of supreme ocean commander, serving as an enlisted man.”

Natantes still remembered Carcharocles’s words.

“Gahah! Stagnant water is bound to rot. The ocean must always be moving wildly. The cycle of deep and surface water replacing each other must continue for ocean life to thrive!”

Natantes had not doubted a single word from Carcharocles back then. Carcharocles had given up on his rank, worried that the new Pontus under Natantes would be split into two. Natantes looked up to him, wanted to live up to his expectations, and make him proud. Because of that, he began to organize the disordered Pontus from the inside, driven by a sense of duty.

“And one year ago, I thought we were ready,” Natantes said.

“Ready for what?” Seong-Hwi asked.

“For war!”

Pontus did not forget their grudge over losing Squama. They had been preparing for war against Consanguineus. Natantes had planned to kill Haema Sanguis and let the entire Mirror World know that Pontus had been revived.

“But then... a shocking incident reverberated from inside Pontus.”

It was also known as the pisciceps incident. The word meant fish killer, a derogatory term referring to merfolk who killed their own kind. Indiscriminatory murders began to occur throughout the streets of Gurzes. The gruesomely torn apart corpses of merfolk grew by the day, numbering in the hundreds.

“We mobilized all our forces to catch the culprit, and managed to do so,” Natantes said.

“Isn’t that problem solved, then?” Seong-Hwi asked.

Natantes’s eyes gleamed in sorrow. “The problem was the culprit’s identity. He was Carcharocles’s eldest son, Lodon!”

Seong-Hwi expressed shock.

“We knew the culprit was a member of the placoid scale tribe. The victims’ corpses all had traces of being torn apart by the placoid scale tribe’s characteristic skin teeth.”

However, no one could have expected the culprit to be Lodon, Carcharocles’s eldest son.

“Hoho! I was the one who caught him,” said Taumafiskur. She smiled chillingly, causing the pink line on her face to bend. “Sir Carcharocles opposed the arrest, but the evidence was too clear. He was caught in the act.”

Natantes’s children shouted ragefully.

“Hmph, there wasn’t a single placoid scale tribesman among the victims in the first place. They were all members of the ganoid, ctenoid, and cycloid scale tribes!”

“Sister Tauma is right! Lodon, that nasty son of a bitch!”

“I’m sure he killed members of the other tribes out of petty revenge for Father becoming king instead of his father!”

Natantes continued, “The incident could have been smoothed over if it had ended here, but things weren’t so simple.”

The ganoid scale tribesmen began to be murdered this time.

“And Sir Carcharocles claimed the culprit was Katthveli,” Natantes said, turning to the smallest girl among the gathered merfolk.

Katthveli, hiding behind Taumafiskur’s white dress, had brown scales, a circular head, and pointy ears, resembling a cat. She was Natantes’s second daughter.

“I-it wasn’t me...” she mumbled tremblingly.

Natantes’s children supported Katthveli as they denounced the placoid scale tribesmen’s schemes.

“Of course, it wasn’t! Katt can’t even hurt a lugworm!”

“Pfft, they’re just being ill-natured. Since Carcharocles’s child was arrested, they wanted one of us arrested, too!”

“Filthy scheming bastards!”

“Ever since then, murders have been occurring every night in Gurzes. When one placoid scale tribesman dies, a ganoid scale tribesman dies the next night, and the cycle continues.” Natantes put pressure on his temple and sighed. “The atmosphere in Gurzes grew worse and worse, and the tribes no longer trust one another. And today, the placoid scale tribesmen attacked the artificial island and closed the water gate.”

Yeah, that man was a placoid scale tribesman, Seong-Hwi thought, recalling the shark merfolk covered in dark blue scales who had attacked him.

The civil war had progressed to a much bigger scale than he had expected.

“I am so glad you arrived. The placoid scales don’t trust the ganoid scales, and the same is true for the other way around. We were desperately in need of a third-party arbitration,” Natantes said, staring at Seong-Hwi with his blue eyes.

Seong-Hwi smiled awkwardly and thought, Hasn’t this progressed to a state that’s far beyond what I can arbitrate?

However, unlike Seong-Hwi’s worries, Natantes was filled with high expectations for him.

“You can do it, can’t you? You are an inspector of the Sēmen.”

Seong-Hwi felt like he had been scammed.

This wasn’t what we discussed, Grandis! I thought you said this was going to be simple! he screamed inwardly.

He thought all he had to do was to act as an arbitrator using the name of the Sēmen and his position as the inspector, but the matter was much more complicated than he had expected.

***

There’s no such thing as a free lunch.

Milton Friedman