“What is everyone dreaming about?”

“Happy dreams.”

“Happy...?”

“That way, they won’t try to escape.”

Looking weary, Eunha sat on the marble steps, where golden ripples shimmered. Cha Yi-sol followed suit, settling beside him. Jio sat only a few steps above them.

Eunha looked at the adult humans submerged in the seawater filling the pope’s room.

“The years only bring more wounds.”

The world was not as beautiful as a dream.

“I know how humans behave. When things turn against them, they struggle to find a way through, whatever it takes. My sister and Teacher called that ‘growth.’ It’s a terribly vague word to a mermaid, though...”

“Mermaids don’t grow?”

“I suppose the kinds differ from dimension to dimension, but on my planet, mermaids are born from the sea, not inside another living creature. At some point, seawater gathers together and forms a being called a mermaid.”

“Uhhh...”

Cha Yi-sol poked Eunha’s bare arm.

“... But it’s solid?!”

“Well, of course it is.”

Mermaids, however, were beings that moved through a cycle.

“We’re born from the sea and take a form resembling humans. As time passes, we become increasingly one with the sea and wield its power, until we eventually dissolve and disappear. That is the cycle of mermaids.”

It was also the natural order of the sea.

“Strictly speaking, I haven’t become as one with the sea as my sister has.”

“Why? Your sister seemed really smart. Didn’t she help you?”

“I lacked the aptitude...”

Iser was neither purely mermaid nor purely human. Every mermaid looked a little different, but Iser had been born on a branch particularly distant from the sea. Even his tail was a separate appendage, like a beast’s.

“I wasn’t a child fit to contain that vast sea.”

So Aria had devoured every sea they passed through, while Iser devoured the suns trapped within those seas, their divinity shattered.

“That’s one reason I can still pass for a Priest of the Sun.”

“How do you eat a sun? Wasn’t it hot?”

“It is.”

Eunha gave a hollow laugh.

“That’s why my body is still so terribly weak.”

Aria had made him as strong as she could, but it was nowhere near enough. In the end, he had only ‘grown’ into something like a key for holding the suns’ many divinities and powers.

“So I would certainly lose in a direct fight. Usually, I stayed here in the safety of this dungeon and used the weapons and traps my sister had made, or borrowed her powers.”

“What about the suns?”

“As you can see, it isn’t me who holds the suns’ divinity itself, but this golden staff. To use the corrupted powers of those Divinities, I had to make it blossom into a form that could withstand their strength. And that meant turning it into an enormous tree like this...”

“So it was frustrating?”

“It was a hassle.”

COUGH, COUGH.

Eunha gave a dry cough.

“... And it puts a strain on me, like this.”

Iser was an insignificant mermaid.

“If my sister hadn’t taken me in at the beginning, I would have died on my own, I was so weak.”

“Your sister must be really strong. Mine is too. She protects me.”

“There was a time when my sister did that, too...”

“She doesn’t protect you anymore?”

“Because of a sin I committed.”

“What sin? What did you do wrong?”

“I ate Teacher.”

“...”

Cha Yi-sol asked, his eyes trembling,

“... Are you going to eat me too...? D-don’t tell me that’s why you’ve kept me alive all this time...”

“Why would I do that now?”

“R-right? You scared me for a second.”

“Of course, I wasn’t in my right mind when I ate him.”

Mermaids were born with bodies incapable of digesting humans in the first place. Even their mouths were not built to eat meat easily. What, then, would it have taken for Iser to tear into a living person and eat him?

He could do it only because he had gone mad.

“Things became strange between my sister and me after that day.”

The two still cherished and loved each other. The shape and weight of those feelings remained unchanged, but after Teacher’s death, something called ‘hatred’ had naturally seeped in between them. It was inevitable.

“Teacher used to help us make up at times like that. It became rather difficult afterward.”

“You don’t know how to make up...?”

“We just never brought it up.”

“But why?”

“Hmm...”

Iser raised a hand and stroked Cha Yi-sol’s little belly.

“Let’s say you ate something you shouldn’t have, and a thorn you can’t digest got stuck in here.”

“In my belly...?”

“Deeper inside. Below your throat, below the pit of your stomach. Here, inside your belly.”

“I don’t like that.”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

“Can’t you take it out?”

“That would require major surgery.”

He took his hand away.

“The thorns are so badly tangled that they won’t come out easily, and they aren’t food that will digest on its own if you wait. To have the surgery, you would have to suffer a great deal. They’d have to open your belly, and pulling the thorns out would leave wounds...”

“...”

“Well, I suppose it would cost a lot of money, too.”

“I don’t have any money...”

“I know. That’s why I chose that example.”

But there was another option.

“You could also leave it where it is.”

“The thorn? Inside my belly?”

“You only notice it on the rare occasions when you move around a lot. Only then. It won’t hurt much if you leave it alone. There’ll be an occasional twinge, but not enough to bother you all day. Your health will be fine, too.”

“Uh...”

“Would you still have the surgery? Endure all that pain, spend all that time and money?”

“... I-I’d have to think about it.”

“So did we.”

They needed time to think about what to do with the thorn called Teacher.

“It wasn’t something we had to remove in a hurry.”

They had far too much time.

“Now, let’s add another comparison. It wasn’t actually a thorn, but something precious to you. Hmm... a resonance stone.”

“... The one Ruda gave me?”

“Exactly. If you leave it alone, the resonance stone will remain intact. But if you have surgery to take it out, it will break and shatter, and you’ll never be able to see it or hold it again.”

“I think that would feel like a waste.”

“You understand.”

It was the same for the mermaids.

“I was afraid I would erase Teacher that way, too.”

“Your teacher?”

“He was my thorn, and my jewel.”

“... But you should still make up,” Cha Yi-sol said.

“Your family is all you have left.”

“You’re right, but I’m a coward.”

He always veered away from the right path. Once, he had followed nothing but the straight and narrow, only to come to his senses and find his hands and feet scraped raw. He had felt sorry for himself, and simply turned aside.

“Maybe it would have been all right if I’d been born a little stronger.”

In body, in power, or in spirit.

“If I’d been as exceptional as my sister in anything at all...”

He would have guided his revenge-crazed sister onto the right path.

He would not have eaten Teacher under the influence of drugs. He would not have been captured by the priests and subjected to that diabolical trial. He might have helped the humans more capably, so they would not fear him.

And...

“Teacher...”

He might have helped keep that man from being captured the way he was that day.

“... I might never have held on to Teacher.”

He would never have reached out in longing for the sun in the first place.

“It makes me sick to think that all of this happened because of my own greed from the very beginning.”

“Why is wanting to be friends with a good person greedy...?”

“I knew you would say that.”

He was a kind human.

“And in the end, even now, I vent my hatred of humans through petty tricks like this.”

Iser looked at the humans immersed in their ‘happy dreams.’

“Oh.”

“... Ah!”

Just then, a man awoke.

“...”

It was Kang Seodam, Priest of the Sun.

“... Why are you... sitting there...?”

“Would you care to talk?”

“Would you, in my place...?”

Iser smiled at the sight of him grinding his teeth and glaring like a vengeful ghost. Just as Kang Seodam frowned at the smile’s resemblance to Seo Jio’s, the mermaid gestured to the empty space beside him.

“This seat is closer to Hunter Seo Jio, too.”

“...”

Cursing the world once again, Kang Seodam reluctantly forced himself into the seat.

“Did you have a pleasant dream?”

“... Thanks to you, I saw my partner’s face for the first time in ages.”

“I assume that’s sarcasm?”

“No, it’s just...”

He sighed deeply.

“... It is true that I have you to thank.”

After all, Kang Seodam had nearly forgotten what his old partner looked like.

“What on earth is going on? Why are you sitting here chatting so peacefully?”

“I was waiting for you to wake up.”

“Yes, but why? For what reason?”

“There’s something I need your help with, Priest Kang Seodam.”

“Do you really think I would help you now? Especially when I’m in such a foul mood?”

“I think you’ll find it a reasonable proposition.”

Iser pointed to himself.

“Kill me.”

“...”

“And wake Teacher.”

Kang Seodam narrowed his eyes.

“Why?”

“Teacher has already decided.”

“Decided what?”

“To stay on Earth.”

“Then why hasn’t he woken up?”

“He’s only being considerate of us.”

The humans would win anyway, and the mermaids would leave forever.

Iser stood and leaned against his teacher’s knees again.

“He’s merely spending a little time with us, however brief.”

“... Are you saying Mr. Seo Jio still has attachments to his life as a human? Do you mean that seriously? About this immense mystery?”

“He’s an ordinary person who can have ordinary lingering attachments.”

“You’re reducing a Divinity of the Sun to a mere human...”

“He is a person.”

He listened closely.

“...”

He could hear tears falling.

“... He knows how to cry, too.”

Perhaps it was the sound of droplets of dreams falling.

“Again, this isn’t such a bad proposition for you humans. My sister’s death and mine will firmly establish the existence of ‘Black Cloak’ in this world. You benefit from avoiding unnecessary bloodshed, and we... will be able to take responsibility in our own way.”

“Was this your aim from the start?”

Kang Seodam stared at the mermaid.

“For your ‘teacher’?”

“That is part of it.”

But this performance was not solely for his teacher.

“Whatever the method or the process, we must come to an end, too...”

“An end? What sophistry. Do you have any idea how many humans you’ve killed?”

At last, Kang Seodam let his anger show.

“Don’t you find it disgusting? Even now, you bandy about a weighty word like responsibility while committing more sins to satisfy your desires. How is anything you’ve done different from what those Priests of the Sun you hated so much did?”

“My regrets are not for our sins, but for my own desires. That is why we are monsters.”

“So for all your smooth talk, you’re a monster in the end. It’s truly pitiful that all you can do with that intelligence is repeat the same sins.”

“If anything we do is a sham, wouldn’t it be cleaner to choose a fitting path? That’s what gives me the impudence to speak of ‘responsibility.’”

Only then could he earn even the slightest ‘chance’ of being accepted by his teacher.

'Perhaps one called hell...'

Leaning against the thigh of his teacher, who sat like a corpse in the pope’s seat, Iser blinked, then straightened.

“... The others will wake soon. You’ll have to kill me while there are no witnesses if you want to avoid a pointless battle. I’ve played my part, and set aside all unnecessary emotions.”

“...”

“But killing me won’t be easy. My sister has made me into a cloth sack for the suns we’ve devoured. Still, as I said before, this body is far weaker and more insignificant than hers...”

“So if we stuff too much of the Sun’s power into you, you’ll burst?”

“It seems you understand.”

He looked at Cha Yi-sol.

“...”

“... Tell me.”

Giovanni’s first apostle asked,

“Are you cold here?”

“Yes, I’m cold.”

Mermaid though he was, he felt the cold of the deep sea.

“So show me your sun,” Eunha pleaded.

To return to the natural order, he needed the sun.

* * *

CRAAACK!!!!

“Gasp!!”

Heat erupted with an enormous roar.

“W-what’s happening...?!”

“Where are we...?”

“Everyone, snap out of it! We’re inside the dungeon!!”

The clamor sounded like a tremendous thunderbolt being crumpled through a narrow gap. Jolted awake by the immense shock, the Hunters could see only after the terrible flash had passed.

“Cough, ack...!!”

“What the hell? Where did all the monsters go?”

“Ah, my eyes...”

Only then did silence fall.

“...”

“... Ah...”

The golden tree that had hurt their eyes had reverted to a slender branch.

“... Hunter Seo Jio?”

The god’s apostle, who had been bound to the throne, had awakened.

“Excuse me, are you all ri—!”

“Be quiet a moment.”

“But why...!”