Chapter 31: (an unknown era) 1,999,999 Years Before Zero : All respect to Prince Mackerel.

Van placed the camera at the edge of the table where he and Elena were sitting. Their dishes were also captured, making them look like food vloggers.

Van smiled faintly and gestured for Elena to speak.

"Go ahead, start..."

Elena glanced at the camera lens pointed at her, then looked at Van with a blank expression while pointing at the camera.

"Seriously? This is a serious conversation, you know..."

Van shrugged while chuckling and eating a tempura shrimp.

"What can we do? The sea gate in the human world won’t open until two million years from now... you know, there’s no way I’ll remember, so... this is just in case..."

Elena scratched her forehead while letting out a sigh. She stayed silent for a few moments before finally speaking.

"Yeah... this happened dozens of years ago when I was still little... forty? Or fifty? I don’t want to count my age."

One of Van’s eyebrows rose as he looked at Elena’s smooth and youthful face.

’Fifty years?’

Van opened his mouth to speak, but before his words could come out, Elena covered his slightly greasy mouth after eating fried food.

"Shh... if you keep answering every time I talk, we’ll never finish this conversation... do you want that? I don’t mind."

Van nodded obediently, but he didn’t promise that he wouldn’t speak again while Elena was telling the origin of the sea gate.

Elena wiped the oil off her fingers with a tissue as she spoke.

"Actually, there was one more race in Pangea... they were the first to notice the strange things happening beneath the sea... they were the Mer race."

Van frowned while nodding several times.

"Mer? Are they mermaids?"

Elena nodded once while stirring her bowl of salad, looking at Van, whose entire body was now facing her.

"Yes... that’s the name for the women of that race, while the men are called mermen..."

Elena ate several pieces of vegetables that tasted fresh and slightly sour because of the dressing.

"The thing you call the sea gate didn’t happen suddenly... after the sea started becoming contaminated and we fought the monsters that came up to the surface, it turned out the signs had already appeared several years earlier..."

Elena clicked her tongue as if remembering something she regretted and shrugged.

"Before the sea gate existed, we actually lived separately and, well, at the very least respected each other... there wasn’t any conflict that led to a major war. Of course there were occasional disputes..."

"Unfortunately, that became one of the reasons why Pangea now only has one theme... survival."

Van blinked several times while Elena continued speaking.

"From the Mer race... there was one merman who discovered one anomaly after another... he was Prince Mackerel..." Elena glanced at Van. "Don’t comment about his name..."

Van smiled faintly and shrugged while Elena continued, eating a tomato.

"At first, it only felt like the migration routes of sea creatures had become strange. Prince Mackerel, who was more sensitive than the other Mer, eventually tried to find out... yeah, he could talk with sea animals... do you know what he heard from the strangely behaving sea creatures?"

Van frowned, narrowed his eyes, and thought for a while, but eventually shook his head because he didn’t know the answer.

Elena then raised her index finger.

"They all said... they smelled an irresistible scent coming from a trench in the sea of Pangea."

"Can you imagine if every sea creature said the same thing? You know they all eat different kinds of food, right...?"

Van swallowed and nodded several times.

The food court where they were sitting now felt even quieter, even though from the beginning there had only been the two of them.

Elena continued.

"In the end, Prince Mackerel followed them... they really entered that trench... you know seals and orcas are predator and prey, right?" Elena clicked her tongue, the hairs on the back of her neck standing up. "But once they entered the trench? They were swimming side by side..."

Van tried imagining an orca and a seal holding hands like two close friends before shaking his head.

"That... that’s very strange."

Elena nodded several times.

"Yeah. Prince Mackerel kept swimming after them... the deeper he was swallowed by the darkness of the trench, the less the sea creatures answered him..."

Elena shaped a letter with her fingers.

"You know a sea trench is shaped like the letter V, right?"

Van scratched his nose.

"I don’t know... but I think so."

Elena clicked her tongue before forming a square with her fingers.

"But that trench was shaped like a cube going downward... and at the end, there was a huge dark chamber..."

Van scratched his neck, beginning to imagine Prince Mackerel’s courage.

"That prince was really brave... I mean, it was dark, right? And even the sea creatures... I mean, they weren’t answering him anymore..."

Elena shrugged.

"Honestly, as far as I remember, he wasn’t that brave... yeah, I’d met him several times before that incident... he was like a kind uncle... he was simply driven by curiosity..."

Elena bit a slice of pizza while speaking.

"Of course, because of that curiosity, this story exists."

Elena wiped her lips, which were covered mostly with tomato sauce, while Van listened more quietly.

"What he saw at the bottom of that chamber-shaped trench was... thousands of sea creatures forming a circle around a cone-shaped stone that was releasing bubbles..."

"Prince Mackerel waited for a long time... he was really patient... until his patience brought something he definitely didn’t want, but perhaps it made him the only being who witnessed the opening of the sea gate..."

Van frowned while Elena stayed silent for a few moments before continuing.

"That stone, which had been releasing bubbles, slowly began releasing a current of water until the stone shattered. From there... cursed black liquid came out..."

"That liquid seemed to devour the surrounding water... or maybe it actually did, as if seawater itself was its food..."

Elena sighed and turned toward the camera.

"After that, everything happened very quickly... the sea creatures gathered around that cursed place transformed rapidly... or became contaminated? Either way, they changed." Elena tapped the table before looking at Van. "Have you ever seen an orca with four clawed arms? Then veins appearing across its face... anyway, it was very ugly."

Van shook his head, making his golden hair sway.

"That’s strange... even in my wildest imagination, I never thought of something like that."

Elena smiled faintly, resting her cheek on her hand.

"Yeah... you’ll see plenty of them in the future... of course, I hope you succeed."

Elena cracked her fingers.

"Yeah, everything happened very fast back then. The Mer race fought against the sea creatures that had become monsters... they repeatedly asked for help." Elena lowered her head. "But once again, we really lived separately in peace... we never took the Mer race’s requests seriously..."

Elena rubbed her face and bit her lip.

"I still remember it... when the meeting between the races took place... it just happened to be held in the Elf Palace."

Elena looked at Van seriously. They faced each other without paying attention to the food on the table that had gradually grown cold.

"Prince Mackerel kept asking for help... he told us horrifying things..."

"No one believed him... some even laughed and thought it was just a trick by the Mer race..."

Elena covered her mouth. Her hands trembled slightly, and her gaze became one of disbelief.

"Everything changed when Prince Mackerel dragged in a disgusting creature that smelled horribly fishy... the lower half of its body was a fish, just like the Mer race when they’re in the sea. Its body was so skinny that its bones protruded. Its eyes bulged out, and fangs filled its mouth so completely that it couldn’t close it..."

Van swallowed after every feature Elena described, her voice growing softer and softer.

"...its hair fell out with every movement... its skin was pale..."

"Yeah, this is just additional information. The songs of the Mer race are famously beautiful..." Elena clicked her tongue. "...but that creature... its song intoxicated and hypnotized people."

"We called them sirens... they were contaminated members of the Mer race."

Elena’s lips trembled. Her body felt uncomfortable as she tried to breathe normally.

"I cried that day... maybe it was the hardest I had ever cried."

"And in that room where there was only my crying and the siren’s song... Prince Mackerel beheaded the siren."

Van covered his mouth. His whole body felt hot as he watched Elena struggle to continue.

"I still remember how many times that head rolled... I still remember the green blood dripping from Prince Mackerel’s sword."

Tears fell down Elena’s cheeks. She could no longer hold back her crying.

"I... I also still remember the prince’s cries..."

Elena wiped her face, trying to smile through her tears, but she couldn’t. Van didn’t know what to do, so he simply listened to what Elena was trying to say.

"Do you know who that siren was?" Elena sighed. "She was Prince Mackerel’s mother... the queen of the Mer race."

Elena bit her lip.

"I knew her... she was very kind... very, very kind..."

"We all knew her... but what we saw that day wasn’t her anymore."

Elena roughly combed her white hair back.

"The irony was... from that day onward, after the Mer Queen’s head rolled away, after Prince Mackerel’s cries..."

"We all finally united."

"And it was too late."

Elena massaged her forehead as if needles were piercing it.

"That’s why I’m here... our lord gave us the mission of gathering Artium that can resist the contamination of the cursed black fluid..."

"That’s also why there are no Mer among us... only hundreds remain. They lost their home and had to move to the lakes just so they wouldn’t forget who they truly were."

Van sighed and finally picked up the camera, turning it off. Elena looked at him.

"I’m sorry if I went off-topic several times. Well, you can see and review it yourself later, right?" Elena smiled faintly.

Van looked at her, nodded several times, lowered his head, then looked at Elena again with determination.

"I’m sorry... maybe this is also outside of what you were talking about... but why didn’t your lord warn all of you? I mean, he knew Artium would fall here, and this is another world, right? So why didn’t he tell you beforehand? I think he should have, right?"

Elena shrugged.

"Our lord never said anything... he only informed the dragons through dreams... yeah, this Artium mission was also learned through the current Dragon Queen’s dream."

"It does sound a little strange... but that’s simply how it works... and he’ll grant one wish to thousands of us."

Van blinked several times.

"Then couldn’t all of you just wish for the black fluid to disappear? Wouldn’t that be easier?"

Elena chuckled, letting out a warm sigh after crying.

"If it were that easy, why would we go through all the trouble of coming here to gather Artium...?"

Elena rubbed her chin.

"What I understand is that everything has already happened and can’t be undone... and the so-called sea gate isn’t even the end, right? Your mission isn’t only about the sea gate, but also gathering Artium for what’s after it..."

Van nodded while scratching the back of his neck.

"Ahh, right... the Great Event. Though I still have one more mission, guarding the gate..."

Elena chuckled, gently stroking the back of Van’s hand.

"In that case... come with me sometime... I mean, I’m borrowing you because you’re strong too... you’ll definitely become famous there."

Van scratched his eyebrow that wasn’t itchy.

"What’s this? Are you proposing to me again?"

"Of course... you can count it as gaining experience fighting sea monsters... though I hope this world never ends up like Pangea... actually, I hope someday you’ll be able to bring the Mer race here... where the sea is still blue."

Van blinked several times, spreading his arms.

"Just bring them here... I’ll welcome them with open arms. And I’ve said this over and over again... I’ll live for two million years—"

Van’s words were interrupted by Elena’s teasing smile as she pinched the back of his hand.

"Then I’ll ask for immortality as the reward for carrying out this mission."

Van fell silent for a few moments before bursting into laughter. Seeing that, Elena laughed as well.

Their laughter echoed throughout the food court where only the two of them existed.

"You’re joking, right?"

Unfortunately, there was never an answer to Van’s final question because Elena only kept laughing, making Van laugh once again.