At Turan's answer, the hope on Armani's face gave way to confusion. The atmosphere, which had begun to relax, grew tense once more, and the merfolk boy asked in bewilderment,

“Why...?”

“For several reasons, but first of all, I don't trust you. How do I know this isn't just an excuse to take it back? Besides, something comparable to this would have to be on the level of that mirror you use underwater, and I doubt you'd part with that.”

“W-well, that's true, but—”

“Armani!”

It was his sister Rowina who yanked Armani back by the scruff of his neck as he tried to answer. Having restrained her brother, she scowled at Turan.

“Then what do you intend to do? Surely you don't mean to leave that monster roaming the sea? That would do you humans no more good than it does us. You've been lucky so far, but if it keeps swimming through these waters, eventually all your coastal cities will be devastated. And if it passes through the mirror, even the South Sea will no longer be safe.”

That was certainly not a prospect Turan welcomed. If, as the circumstances suggested, the Mimic Holy Relic had effectively kept the great sea serpent sealed away, he could hardly claim to bear no responsibility for the disaster caused by removing it.

He simply disliked the proposed solution, which demanded a one-sided sacrifice and offered no guarantee that it would even solve the problem.

Moreover, losing the Holy Relic would weaken them disastrously, considering the powerful gods they would someday have to face. There was another approach, however, that could vastly increase their strength instead—if it succeeded.

“How strong is this reanimated great sea serpent?”

“What?”

“You said earlier that it hadn't fully returned to life. I'm asking how strong it is now.”

“... Why do you ask? Don't tell me you intend to hunt it?”

“If it seems doable. Your way would only seal it away again. Getting rid of it altogether would be safer.”

Listening to Turan, Solif let out an impressed “Whoa.”

“You're really going to do it?”

“Unless it's so strong that we stand no chance. If you're scared, I won't blame you for sitting it out.”

“Don't be ridiculous. Have you ever seen me back out of something like this?”

As Solif answered, Turan glanced at Maysa. She too nodded without hesitation, showing her support for his decision.

Rowina looked at him as though he were mad.

“Do you even... know what a great sea serpent is? They once fought your gods as equals.”

“I know enough. I've seen one myself, even if it was a corpse. If you don't intend to answer my question, you can leave. We'll try to handle this ourselves.”

Of course, if the great sea serpent really was that powerful, he was willing to step back and grow stronger before challenging it. The Holy Relic's senses would give him a rough estimate of its power.

More people might fall victim to the storms in the meantime, but surely that did not mean he had to accept a massive loss of strength and all the dangers that came with it. His first responsibility now was to his friends, not the sheep living along the coast whose faces he had never seen.

As he cut the conversation short, Rowina's expression turned cold. She looked ready to attack at any moment, and Turan privately wondered how badly he would have to beat the merfolk princess to drive her off.

He intended to avoid killing her if at all possible. He might have felt differently before, when he knew nothing, but now he knew that the merfolk were connected to the god behind Karmine.

By taking away the heirs—or, in other words, the vessels—of the Arabion–Nagin and Zahar–Baraha alliances, he had already made enemies of them. He did not want to add another dangerous faction to the list. Of course, if they stubbornly kept coming after the Holy Relic, that would be another matter...

Contrary to his expectations, however, Rowina did not lash out in anger. She merely studied them before asking a question.

“How strong are you?”

“Hmm?”

“I'm asking just how much power you possess to act so arrogantly. Are you perhaps on the level of those great-house heads you worship up on land?”

“I can hold my own.”

If the merfolk attacked to seize the Holy Relic, they would become his enemies. He had no reason to reveal his abilities freely. Seeming to understand his meaning, Rowina turned both palms upward and shrugged, as though to show that she meant no hostility.

“If you're strong enough, I will speak to my father myself. I'll suggest that we hunt the great sea serpent together.”

“You would?”

“Yes. You understand how much of a difference our help would make, don't you? Quite apart from our strength in battle, you would struggle even to track the great sea serpent on your own.”

On the face of it, the offer was quite tempting. When hunting a great sea serpent that spent most of its time underwater, having allies who made their home in the sea would certainly make a meaningful difference. After all, they currently had no idea where their quarry even was.

There was just one thing that bothered him...

“That's quite a change of attitude. A moment ago, you were acting as though you were about to take it by force.”

“Anyone bold enough to declare that he'll hunt a great sea serpent can't be some weakling. If your companions are on a similar level, then taking the relic would be difficult not only for me alone, but even for our entire race working together. Many might be injured or killed in the process. That isn't what I want.”

Her surprisingly frank answer raised Turan's opinion of the merfolk princess a little. At first she had seemed an insufferably arrogant fool, but apparently she had at least enough sense to gauge an opponent's abilities. Or perhaps this was her true nature, and she had only acted intimidating at first in the hope that he would frighten himself into handing over the Holy Relic.

“So, are you in a position to persuade the merfolk king?”

“More than enough.”

When Turan glanced at Armani, the boy nodded vigorously in agreement.

“My sister Rowina is among the strongest and wisest of us! Our royal father is very fond of her!”

Turan had not thought particularly highly of her given the power she possessed, but apparently she was quite an influential merfolk. He revised his estimate of their race's fighting strength downward.

'That means less worry about them stabbing us in the back, but they'll be less help with the hunt too. Pros and cons, I suppose.'

In truth, that was about the level of most of the other races that had survived into the present day. Hadn't even the Dark Elf king, their most powerful wraith sorcerer, been weaker than Maysa when she was emaciated and in poor health?

Generally, they were strong enough to trample a few ordinary wizard houses, but would be utterly crushed if a great house made a determined effort. Those like the dwarves, who had all but become beasts, were in an even more miserable state.

By comparison, Rowina was on a level with the strongest Dark Elf wraith sorcerers he had fought, so she could certainly be considered one of the most formidable members of the other races. That did leave him wondering how the merfolk managed to maintain an equal partnership with Karmine's god.

As Turan sank deeper into thought, Rowina spoke.

“Still, I need to know whether you truly have the strength to back up that demand. There's no guarantee this isn't just some pathetic bluff.”

“How?”

“There's a secluded clearing on the northern side of this island.”

It was not hard to guess that she meant to test each other's abilities in a fight. Turan glanced down before asking,

“Will you be all right fighting on land rather than in the water?”

Rowina smiled faintly.

“I was prepared to fight you right here if necessary.”

* * *

During the half-hour walk north from the alley, Turan asked the merfolk siblings a number of minor questions, ranging from their basic biology to the structure of their society. Unlike Armani, Rowina knew considerably more, as befitted a relatively older merfolk, making the walk quite informative.

“So you can't teach them not to eat people?”

“Correct. They won't go out of their way to eat humans when they're reasonably full, but few prey are as easy to catch as humans in the water or along the shore. The lower classes have less self-control than most animals. Unless you're right beside them beating them openly, you can't control them.”

“What about you?”

“Apparently we royals ate plenty of humans in the past, but we stopped after your gods arrived. Not for ethical reasons, really. Simply to deny them a pretext for exterminating us...”

And so, almost casually, he learned the secret behind the merfolk's man-eating habits that Armani had not known before. After they had talked for a while, Turan subtly changed the subject.

“Come to think of it, what happened to that corpse?”

“Which one?”

“Our god's. Is it still there? I thought you would have mentioned something if he'd come back to life too, but you haven't said anything.”

The drowned god had neither decayed nor crumbled after Turan took the Holy Relic, but he had no way of knowing whether that was still the case. Rowina answered casually.

“All I've heard is that it's still there, intact. Do you intend to visit?”

“I don't particularly mind either way, but someone with me wants to see it.”

Hearing that renewed his curiosity. Why had the great sea serpent risen from the dead while the drowned god had not? What difference was there between them?

A short while later, they reached the clearing Rowina had mentioned. Surrounded by fairly dense woodland, it was an excellent place to fight without worrying about onlookers.

Turan handed Vije, who had been clinging to his side, to Maysa and lightly loosened his hands.

“I should be enough to represent us, right? The two behind me are stronger than I am anyway.”

At his words, Maysa and Solif looked at each other and smiled awkwardly in unison.

In truth, the three of them had different strengths and weaknesses. Turan excelled in everything from combat instincts to magical technique, but his bloodline magic was noncombat-oriented and he had the least mana. Solif possessed extensive combat experience and powerful fusion magic, but lagged furthest behind in magical sensitivity. Maysa excelled in mana, magical sensitivity, and bloodline alike, but was comparatively less physically trained and lacked combat instincts.

Given that mana was generally the most important measure of a wizard's ability, Turan's statement was not wrong. In a proper fight, however, it was difficult to say who would win. Of course, if he eventually awakened Arabion's lightning bloodline as well, there would be no question who was strongest among them.

“Very well. Just so we're clear, you need to be strong enough to subdue someone like me with ease. If you can only scrape a victory, you won't stand a chance against the great sea serpent.”

“Naturally.”

“You certainly have confidence. I hope your abilities measure up.”

The merfolk princess snorted, then drew a deep breath. Her body immediately began to change. Just as when Armani had turned into a baby shark, the transformation happened in an instant.

The outlines of her body blurred, then a carapace covered her with a series of cracking sounds. Facing a giant swimming crab whose body alone stood over three meters high, Turan let out a disbelieving chuckle.

“I see... I was wondering what gave a merfolk the confidence to come ashore.”

Unlike sharks or fish, crabs could breathe and move perfectly well on land. He simply had never imagined that she could turn into something like this.

Then Rowina spread her crab mouth sideways and spoke.

“You're not frightened, are you?”

“Of course n—”

Before he could finish, Rowina attacked, thrusting an enormous claw straight at him. She moved far faster than her massive bulk suggested.

Turan immediately dodged backward and lightly stamped his foot, raising several pointed pillars from the ground.

“Ugh!”

The spiked pillars crumbled with a crunch as they pressed into the crab's belly shell, but the way she flinched and stopped suggested they had not been entirely ineffective. He followed by sending a small amount of the Spirit of Fire at her and detonating it. With a thunderous boom, the crab's back shell burst into sizzling flames.

“Did that kill you?”

“Don't be absurd!”

Staggering from the explosion, Rowina shouted back and immediately set her many legs moving nimbly, charging after Turan as he entered the forest. Her huge body caught on nearby trees, but her thick crustacean legs easily smashed through them to clear a path.

'Strength, speed, durability... All far beyond a noble with the same amount of power. About on par with someone specialized in close combat? She's stronger than I expected.'

As he assessed her abilities, Turan lifted himself into the air with wind magic to put some distance between them. Rowina immediately turned her head skyward, opened her mouth wide, and fired a vivid blue beam.

“Oh.”

Since when were crabs built to look up at the sky? And what on earth was that beam?

Even as he marveled, the beam was already upon him. Without thought acceleration, he probably would have been struck before he could prepare.

He immediately activated his defensive magic tool, and a green shield emerged from his pouch to intercept it. The mana it consumed told him how powerful the attack was.

'Her physical abilities alone are on par with an upper-tier noble specializing in close combat, and she has a ranged attack too... Most nobles at her level wouldn't be able to beat her. She's even stronger than I thought.'

Still, now that he had a rough measure of her abilities, he had entertained her long enough. After briefly fingering the sling in his pouch, Turan put it away and looked up at the sky. It would be an absurd turn of events if a poorly placed hit from his specialty shattered her shell and killed her outright.

Instead, he decided to draw power from the sky. Perhaps because of the great sea serpent that had reportedly merged with a storm spirit, the sky here was full of clouds—ideal conditions for calling down lightning.

“If you think you're going to die, tell me beforehand.”

With that warning, Turan called lightning down from the sky onto Rowina. Since he had not fully awakened his Storm Bloodline, his lightning spell was not especially accurate, but hitting a giant crab standing three meters tall was hardly difficult.

One bolt, two, three. Rowina held firm for quite some time, but when the seventh bolt struck, she finally buckled to her knees.

“Urgh...”

“S-stop! Stop! Please stop, kind demon! The fight is already over!”

As Armani hurried to shield his fallen sister with his own body, Rowina shrank back into her merfolk form. Turan landed and gave Armani an incredulous look.

“I don't know why you're acting as if I bullied her. This was a sparring match we both agreed to.”

“That's true, but—”

“Enough, Armani. Don't make a spectacle of yourself. You're only embarrassing me.”

“S-sorry, sister...”

Pushing Armani aside, Rowina stood again and struggled to steady her breathing. The repeated lightning strikes must have dealt her a considerable blow, yet she recovered quickly, befitting a race sturdier than humans.

“I've seen enough of your abilities. With you, your two stronger companions, and our help, hunting the great sea serpent may not be impossible.”

“That's enough?”

“I believe so. We once worshipped them as lords of calamity and great gods, but the great sea serpent that exists now is nothing more than a shell.”

She would need her father's consent, Rowina said, but she herself was willing to cooperate.

* * *

After reaching a simple agreement, the merfolk siblings departed, saying they would return after speaking with their father, the king. They came back on the evening exactly one week after they had parted.

“My father has agreed.”

“Has he?”

“The terms are simple. The great sea serpent's mana is a power we can do nothing with anyway, so you may have it. But its corpse will be ours. In exchange, we will cooperate fully, from luring it to the battlefield to fighting alongside you.”

“Can you make something out of its corpse?”

As he recalled, the great sea serpent's horns and scales had not radiated any particularly mystical power, but perhaps things would be different now that it had become both a wraith and a spirit. True or not, however, the answer he received was quite anticlimactic.

“It is a being we once worshipped as a god. We intend to use it to decorate the royal court.”

He could not understand why they would use something they had worshipped as a god for decoration, but trying to understand the culture of an entirely different race seemed a foolish endeavor.

“All right. So where is the great sea serpent?”

“At the center of the storm roaming the North Sea.”

That meant the great sea serpent had been nearby when Turan and his companions were caught in the storm not long ago. Of course, since the Holy Relic's senses had not detected it, it must actually have been kilometers away at the very least.

Rowina said that in about ten days, the great sea serpent would move near an island roughly a thousand kilometers north of here. With land close by, Turan and his companions would have ample opportunity to rest on solid ground.

The essence of the plan was to join forces with the merfolk and hunt it there. Working with them certainly was convenient. Everything from the hunting ground to the schedule had been settled in an instant.

“By the way, do you have any other allies besides merfolk? Human wizards like us, for instance?”

Naturally, the target of Turan's discreet inquiry was House Karmine. He knew that their god was in league with the merfolk.

They stood to suffer most if storms destroyed the coastal cities. Their complete lack of presence in the matter was not merely odd, but suspicious. Rowina answered his question as though it were of little consequence.

“Hmm. To be honest, we secretly cooperate with several human houses, so I had hoped for their help... But for some reason, those I was certain would assist us gave us a negative answer.”

“Which ones?”

“Only my father knows. He is the sole person who deals with them.”

In any case, the conclusion was that they could expect no help from human wizards other than Turan's group. It seemed he would have to meet the merfolk king and ask him directly to learn more.