Translator: Pai_

A few dozen minutes after landing on Miguel Island, Captain Pires discreetly sent a few crew members to procure a small rowboat.

It was just the right size to fit two people snugly, as requested.

Turan, with his whole body wrapped in cloth to hide the mermaid features of Armani, moved onto the rowboat together with him.

“It’s the moon! How long has it been since I’ve seen it?”

Armani murmured as he looked at the full moon hanging in the sky.

Even he himself didn’t know how long he had been trapped under the pirate ship.

After all, no sunlight or moonlight ever reached the ship’s hold.

He could only guess it had been a month or two, judging by the amount of food he ate and the time he spent sleeping.

“Oh? It looks like sir knight is going somewhere…”

“He said he had some business to attend to. He’ll be back soon, so don’t worry about it!”

Some of the crew members were surprised to see Turan boarding the rowboat with Armani, but as soon as Captain Pires spoke firmly, they lost interest.

After all, it wasn’t like he was getting on a large sailing ship, and there was no way he’d sail off alone in such a tiny boat.

“More importantly, are the preparations for landing complete?”

“Of course!”

“Good. Tonight, you can have fun wherever you want, whether it’s at the tavern or elsewhere! Anyone who doesn’t report back tomorrow should be ready to face the whip!”

“Wow!”

Amid the cheers of the crew responding to Captain Pires’ orders, Turan fastened Armani’s arms and legs to the boat using the chains he had prepared.

Armani complied quietly and asked for confirmation.

“You’ll really set me free if we find the treasure, right?”

“Yes.”

“Even if it turns out to be something not very useful, it’s not my fault.”

“Got it, now focus on guiding the way.”

Shortly afterward, the rowboat carrying the two began making its way across the dark sea.

At first, Turan simply used magic with the feeling of physically moving the boat forward. However, he soon changed his approach.

The trick was to direct the force not at the boat itself but at the water around it.

By pushing aside the water ahead while simultaneously propelling the boat forward using the water at its rear and sides, the effort was reduced significantly, and the boat moved much more smoothly.

Upon trying it for himself, he found that navigating such a small boat with magic wasn’t as bad as he had imagined.

Of course, given all the issues it presented, it wasn’t suitable for long-distance voyages.

“By the way, I understand the way there, but how are you planning to find your way back? Without me, you won’t be able to navigate.”

“Are you worried about me?”

“No, I’m worried you won’t release me because of it.”

“I’ve already thought of something, so don’t worry.”

Turan pulled a small compass from his pocket.

It was something he had received in advance from Captain Pires, and according to it, they were moving slightly southwest.

On the way back, he just needed to head slightly northeast to return to the starting point.

Of course, there might be some margin of error, but with a detection spell, they could scan a radius of over a dozen kilometers.

Well, if he still ended up getting lost… he could simply head straight south and eventually hit land somewhere.

Probably.

“I feel like jumping into the water…”

“Resist it.”

Turan lightly rebuked Armani, who was grumbling as he stared down at the sea, and focused his attention on steering the boat.

They continued rowing for what felt like an hour or an hour and a half.

Gradually, something began to appear ahead of them.

It was an island so small it couldn’t even compare to Miguel Island where they had been earlier, it looked like an uninhabited island.

“Is that it?”

“That’s right.”

“Alright, then hold on a moment.”

Before landing, Turan stopped the boat and scooped up a handful of seawater with his hand, activating a detection spell.

The sensory input he used was smell, and the target of the detection was a mermaid.

Closing his eyes, he scooped up seawater three or four times, sniffing it carefully, but he didn’t sense anything.

At the very least, this meant that Armani hadn’t deceived him and brought him to the mermaid's base.

Watching Turan’s actions, Armani tilted his head in confusion.

“What are you doing?”

“Just checking.”

When Turan first attempted to use a detection spell underwater, what flustered him was the absence of usable sensory inputs.

Smell was meaningless since water entering his nose would only cause his eyes to tear up. Sight and hearing were also far more limited underwater compared to on land due to interference from the water.

In contrast, the method of scooping water and sniffing it, while not capable of pinpointing precise locations, made it easier to confirm the presence of a target.

Even now, if he changed the detection target to something like a whale or a shark, he could immediately sense a peculiar scent rising.

Now that safety had been confirmed, there was no need for hesitation.

He docked the boat at a suitable spot on the shore and stepped onto the uninhabited island, heading inward.

The young mermaid glanced around, searching as if combing through the area, and muttered,

“It should be somewhere around here…”

From their conversations over the past few days, Turan had learned that this island was something of a secret retreat for Armani.

Whenever life in the mermaid community, or as he called it, the Mermaid Kingdom, felt too stifling, he would occasionally come here to walk around.

And it was during one such visit that he had discovered it in an underwater cave deep within the island.

It was almost comical to imagine that, in his rush to report the find to his father, the King, he had barely gotten anywhere before being caught by the pirates’ fishing hook.

“I found it! Over here!”

At that moment, Armani exclaimed, pointing at a small pond.

“There?”

“That’s right. You just need to go inside, but… can you breathe underwater?”

“I can’t.”

Perhaps a noble of the Carmine Bloodline might have the ability to breathe underwater, but such powers were not granted to Turan.

“It’s not that deep, right?”

“It’s about a hundred meters.”

“Alright, that’s manageable. Wait here.”

Turan took the chains he had brought from the boat and tightly secured Armani to a nearby tree.

The mermaid boy, who had been quietly watching, suddenly shouted in alarm.

“W-Wait a second!”

“What now?”

“If you suffocate and die in there, won’t I also starve to death tied up here?”

“Let’s hope that doesn’t happen, for both our sakes.”

After ensuring that the restraints were completely secure, Turan removed all his clothes except for a pair of undergarments and the Guardian Bracelet, then strapped a dagger to his waist.

Taking a deep breath to inflate his stomach until it expanded, he dove straight into the pond.

First, he created a thin barrier over his eyes to keep the water from obstructing his vision, then propelled himself downward using the same technique he had used to steer the boat earlier.

It felt like he could sustain this state for twenty to thirty minutes without much difficulty.

‘Alright, let’s see…’

As he scanned the bottom of the pond, it didn’t take long for him to spot a hole leading downward.

It seemed likely to be the underwater cave that connected to the sea.

As he descended further, relying on the flow of water to guide him, his ears began to ache slightly. Other than that, however, it was fairly bearable.

‘Swimming isn’t half bad.’

He thought that if he ever had the leisure, he should properly learn how to move underwater.

Mastering such skills would significantly reduce the amount of magic power needed to move underwater.

Not that he knew whether he’d have to enter the water again in the future.

After descending to the bottom, he scanned his surroundings and something came into view.

‘Found it.’

The deep sea at night was pitch-black, with not a single point of light, but for Turan, a descendant of the Zahar Bloodline, darkness posed no obstacle.

In the distance, he saw the enormous figure of a creature…

Even knowing that it was not alive, its sheer presence was enough to send shivers down his spine.

It was the shape of a monstrous beast.

‘Is this the great sea serpent?’

Its body was several meters thick, and its length appeared to stretch nearly a hundred meters as it lay coiled in place, long dead.

So much time had passed that layers of green moss had grown over it, making it resemble part of the terrain unless closely observed.

As he slowly moved upward along its massive body, he finally reached its head.

The four horns protruding from its head and the rows of teeth packed tightly within its gaping mouth made its form more reminiscent of a lizard than a snake.

And there, embedded deep into the center of its skull, was a figure with its hand thrust into it.

"Ah…"

Turan, forgetting for a moment that he was underwater, let out an exclamation, releasing a trail of bubbles.

The figure appeared to be an ordinary human male on the surface, but, like the great sea serpent, his entire body was covered in moss.

Surprisingly, aside from the chest, which had been pierced by a broken fang, the man’s body showed no signs of decay or damage, it was perfectly preserved.

Even though the armor he must have originally worn had largely disintegrated over time.

The man looked about thirty years old and, as Armani had described, had blue hair.

His wide-open eyes lacked focus, but they gave the impression that he might come to life at any moment.

And… just as Armani had mentioned, other than that, he appeared to be an extraordinarily ordinary human.

‘Is this being truly of the Preah God Tribe?’

For a moment, Turan considered channeling magic to attack, but the thought felt too irreverent, and he abandoned the idea.

If this truly was a god, it went without saying that it would be sacrilegious. But even if it wasn’t a god and was merely a powerful wizard, wasn’t this someone who had died fighting the great sea serpent, a foe of humanity?

As a descendant, he did not want to discard even the minimum respect due to such an ancestor.

‘Come to think of it, why hasn’t this person, or rather, this being, become an Undead Spirit?’

It was common knowledge that those who possessed magic power would transform into Undead Spirits upon death.

Yet, the fact that neither of the two who had perished in this underwater battle had turned into an undead spirit was peculiar.

At the very least, if someone had come here earlier and absorbed their magic power, they would have naturally taken this mysterious artifact as well.

Was it because they truly were divine beings? Or was there some other reason?

Out of curiosity, Turan attempted to absorb the artifact’s magic power, but nothing came forth.

If he had managed to obtain the power of entities as immense as these, he would have grown several, perhaps dozens, of times stronger in an instant.

Setting aside the unanswered questions, Turan etched the man’s face and appearance firmly into his memory.

The color of his hair and eyes, the shape of his facial features, the colors and design of the barely discernible remnants of his armor…

Later, he could investigate whether there were any myths or records of gods in other regions that bore a resemblance to this being.

After spending several minutes committing the image to memory, he shifted his attention to the purpose that had brought him here.

‘Pardon me, but I’ll be borrowing this for a while, ancestor.’

Of course, the likelihood that this man, god or wizard, was Turan’s direct ancestor was slim. Nevertheless, Turan offered this silent courtesy before checking the man’s waist.

The round, unidentified metallic object was barely clinging to a partially decayed belt. It gleamed as though it had somehow escaped the passage of time unscathed.

The question now was whether he could actually take the object with him.

Hadn’t Armani said that when he tried to touch it, some unknown force had repelled him?

However, contrary to Armani’s account, the round metal object allowed Turan to touch it easily.

‘Hmm?’

At that moment, an unfamiliar sensation passed through his fingers.

It felt as though something extended from the metal and began searching inside Turan’s body for something.

A few seconds later, a metallic click echoed faintly in his mind.

The moment he heard it, he instinctively understood.

Though he couldn’t grasp the details, the process just now had somehow established that the object now belonged to him.

‘Is this thing… testing its owner’s qualifications?’

Up until that moment, he had been skeptical. But now, he was beginning to believe that this object might truly be a Sacred Relic.

There were numerous legends about extraordinary treasures choosing their owners.

Having obtained the item, Turan felt his breath running short and began heading back the way he came.

After swimming diligently for about a minute, he spotted the moonlight filtering through the water. But just then, a strange, foreign sensation washed over him.

‘This is…?’

Even though only the faint moonlight filtering through the water’s surface was visible, Turan instinctively sensed that something was up there, near the edge of the pond.

A strange sensation, one difficult to define using any of the five senses…

“Puhah…”

“Did you find it? Did you?”

“For now.”

As Turan replied and tried to steady his labored breathing, he looked at Armani and realized that the strange sensation he had just felt was coming from the young mermaid.

Not only that, but when he looked at Armani with his own eyes, he saw something mysterious inside the boy’s body.

A faint light, pale blue in color, weak and flickering as though it could extinguish at any moment.

It spread faintly across Armani’s webbed ears, the gills on his neck, and the area around what seemed to be his heart.

‘What in the world is that?’

The reason for this phenomenon wasn’t hard to deduce.

The round piece of metal still clutched tightly in his left hand…

It was undoubtedly caused by this object, whether it was a Sacred Relic or some kind of Magic Artifact.

"What is it?"

"Nothing."

After stepping onto dry land, Turan evaporated all the water from his body and put on his clothes.

Then, he immediately placed the round metal object on the ground.

‘So it was because of this thing.’

As soon as he separated himself from the object, the faint light within Armani’s body disappeared, and the peculiar sensation of perceiving his presence vanished as well.

It seemed the artifact had at least two functions.

First, detecting the presence of living beings nearby.

Second, sensing something within those living beings.

What exactly that "something" was would require further investigation.

"So, now...?"

“Yeah. You’re free to go.”

With a simple wave of his hand, the chains binding Armani made a metallic clinking sound as they fell away instantly.

Despite being freed, the mermaid prince hesitated instead of diving straight into the water.

“Why?”

“No, it’s just… I didn’t think you’d let me go so easily.”

“You thought I’d take this and then try to capture you again to sell you off?”

“To be honest… yes.”

“I gave my word.”

It was only right to kill non-human races that preyed on humans. But since this one claimed to have never eaten humans, Turan didn’t feel the need to kill him.

Besides, Armani had faithfully guided him to the artifact without any tricks. In return, Turan believed it was only proper to honor his side of the deal, this was the moral code his mother had taught him.

Treat others as you would want to be treated.

“Th-Thank you. Kind devil. If I ever end up fighting humans, I’ll ask my father to leave you alone.”

"Stop with the nonsense."

After glancing back several times, Armani finally threw himself into the pond where Turan had just been diving.

With a splash, bubbles rose as the shape of a small juvenile shark could be seen diving deep into the water.

It seemed the claim that he was royalty among the mermaid wasn’t a lie after all.

In hindsight, the boy had been honest from start to finish.

‘Alright… time to head back.’

As Turan walked toward the spot where he had docked the boat, he fiddled with the round metal object in his hand.

Figuring out what this artifact truly was seemed like it would turn into a rather enjoyable task.