Chapter 53 : The Goddess Looked at Me!

For a moment, the surroundings fell silent.

The instant Usher reached out his hand, a brilliant light covered the sky, followed by a shockwave that exploded with dazzling light, and a tidal wave that swept across the island.

“Ahhhhh!”

The screams of the merfolk could be heard even from this far away.

It left the sailors dumbfounded.

As is obvious, pirates are not well-educated.

They are people who have lived trusting only their bodies outside the boundaries of law.

In front of the miraculous spectacle, the only person who could reasonably judge it was probably the wizard, Felik.

However, crowd mentality is truly terrifying—

“The Goddess of the Waves…!”

“Sh-she was really a goddess…!”

The sailors, who had witnessed Usher perform the miracle they feared most—the tidal wave—with a mere gesture, reacted in a way that could be seen as entirely expected.

“Eh, yes?!”

Usher, startled, spun his head around, but the sailors didn’t care.

An unfounded fanaticism began to grow.

“Goddess of the Waves! Goddess of the Waves!”

“The goddess looked at me!”

“Please look at me too!!!”

The morale was certainly boosted.

Except for Usher, that is.

“Wha, uh, uhh….”

Usher’s eyes spun around.

He was flustered and floundered.

Bersia placed a hand on Usher’s shoulder and said,

“Why not give the order to charge? Looks like the mood’s good.”

Was she acting so calm because it wasn’t her problem?

Usher glared at Bersia with eyes filled with betrayal, but nothing changed.

“Goddess!!!”

“Aah, Goddess!!!”

Several sailors, praying in a position that seemed to have no proper foundation, made Usher’s nape twitch.

Well, if this was the case, he might as well give the charge order.

Swallowing his tears, Usher drew his cutlass.

In the middle of this, the king of the archipelago, Gon, who had been shaken by the tidal wave, hurriedly headed to the palace.

His long black hair was in disarray.

“Mira! Mira!!!”

Bang!

The doors of the palace opened.

At the end of the direction where he looked, the woman called Mira was grinning slightly.

Her lavender-colored hair, fox-like impression, and black pupils made it hard to think she was human.

She spoke in a tone that didn’t feel human.

“Why are you so angry?”

“You crazy woman! Don’t you know the situation outside? The cult! The cult intervened!!!”

His anger was somewhat justified.

At the outset, Gon didn’t want this to happen.

The reason he cooperated with Mira was because she promised to help him conquer the archipelago.

In reality, the soldiers who became merfolk through her were strong.

If they were used well, not only could the archipelago be conquered, but the harbors on the mainland could also be taken.

If that happened, the entire trade route passing through these seas would be in his control.

The situation with the cult? He thought that if he held the harbor citizens hostage and trapped them on the island, he could stop them.

After all, to enter the archipelago, one had to go through the island, and discovering them on the sea wouldn’t be that difficult.

But now, things had turned out like this.

Gon believed this was entirely due to Mira’s radical actions.

“I told you… I told you I should move more secretly…! Damn it, we should have secretly swallowed the island!!!”

She had acted too openly.

If only the merfolk soldiers had been hidden underground on the island, they wouldn’t have been discovered so quickly.

A mixture of anger and anxiety crossed Gon’s face.

‘It must be the top-ranking knights. If they hadn’t come, the tidal wave wouldn’t have happened…!’

How had the cult become a global surveillance agency?

It was all because of those top-ranking knights.

The individuals known as the legendaries, the strongest beings in the world, tyrants who suppress all wars on this land through force.

If their intervention has begun, there is only one outcome.

Extermination.

Especially since the heretics are involved, all related individuals will be exterminated under the pretext of heresy judgment.

Gon’s body trembled.

Resentment filled his eyes.

But Mira remained calm.

“You called them on purpose?”

“What…?”

“They need to come for the plan to truly be complete.”

As blood rushed to Gon’s head, Mira rose from the throne and walked toward him, her heels clicking on the floor.

Her sensual figure blurred Gon’s vision.

She approached him and stroked his cheek.

Her upward-turned eyes formed a mischievous grin.

It was in that moment.

“Think about it. Are you really going to end it with just one port city? Huh? If you’re going to do it, you should aim bigger.”

“Bigger…?”

“Yeah, bigger. How long are you going to be content playing king on this tiny, remote island? If you just go a little further, there’s land. There’s a country. The merfolk obey us absolutely. If we use all the soldiers and capture even just one top-ranking knight?”

As Mira’s whispering continued, Gon’s pupils grew cloudy.

He saw a vivid illusion.

A top-ranking knight, walking, becoming a merfolk.

A puppet that moves according to his will.

If that happens, just as Mira said.

“A king… a true king…”

Gon grinned foolishly with unfocused eyes.

Mira, too, grinned widely, her lips stretching.

Then, she pulled Gon’s head in and blew into his ear.

“Yeah, you’ll be the king… and I’ll be the queen…”

“Ah, ah.”

“So stop whining and go. Go catch him. Or lure him here.”

“King… you’ll be the queen…”

Desire gleamed in Gon’s eyes.

His breathing became heavy. His hand moved toward Mira’s hips, but she gently pushed him away.

“Catch him first, then I’ll really give it to you.”

Gon staggered out of the palace.

Immediately after he left, Mira’s expression froze.

“Ah, shit. The smell of a widower.”

She brushed off her dress with her hand and hummed a tune as she returned to the throne.

The heretics lined up on either side of the throne and bowed their heads.

She was satisfied with this scene.

“Yeah, yeah, everything will work out. After all, I’m here, aren’t I?”

How did she come to possess such great fortune?

Though the world calls her a witch, Mira was clearly a saintess of a real god.

The god, however, was from another world.

Something artificially created? In the end, what’s the difference from what was naturally chosen?

After all, being treated this way is the same, isn’t it?

Mira propped her chin and muttered joyfully.

“Ah, I hope he’s handsome. The top-ranking knight.”

That would make it fun to play with.

This entire situation was just a fun game for her.

At that moment, somewhere in the northwest of the continent, in the catacombs where the heretics were hiding and scheming.

Boom─!

A giant the size of a building collapsed.

It was a giant made of many people’s heads formed into a human shape, and until just before, it had been sweeping through the cult’s soldiers with terrifying screams.

But now, it was nothing but a pile of corpses.

“Hiccup.”

Rubena, hiding behind Saturn, hiccupped.

At the end of her gaze, Halia was grinning with her body soaked in blood.

It was Halia who had taken down the giant.

‘Isn’t she really a monster…?’

Rubena couldn’t even follow with her eyes.

What she remembered was the flash of light just before the giant’s scream, and when she came to her senses, Halia had twisted the giant’s neck and pulled it off.

How could such a small body perform such an act?

Her blonde hair tied in braids and her cute appearance only made the gap even more striking.

Meanwhile, Halia spoke in a refreshing tone.

“Hmm, she’s definitely strong. I don’t know how long it’s been since I used this much power. I can understand why the top-ranking knight fell. Even we have our weaknesses.”

With a squeak, Halia shoved her hand into the giant’s neck and pulled out a woman from inside.

The woman, pouring blood from every hole in her body, was grinning crazily.

She was an artificial witch whose mind had shattered.

Halia stroked her chin and examined the witch from all angles.

“Who in the world made such a monster?”

Rubena quietly asked Saturn.

“Hey, hey. That’s really okay, right?”

“Since Saintess Halia handled it herself, it’s fine. No one can match her in terms of destructive power…”

Rubena suddenly felt resentful of the world.

It was normal for a saintess to be powerless except when listening to revelations, so why were all the saintesses from her generation nothing but monsters?

She didn’t know why, but it made her feel bad. She also realized she should never go against Halia in the future.

In the meantime, the cleaning up was done.

“I understand roughly what these artificial witches are like. They are those who inherited one of the foreign god’s powers. To be exact, they repeatedly shoved the foreign god’s powers into human bodies until someone survived. Anyway, they’re strong because they deal directly with the god’s powers. It’s not something we can easily deal with.”

“They were finished too quickly for that, though?”

“Well, it’s because I’m the one who did it quickly. Hmmm…! I’m worried about Bersia.”

“Bersia? Why?”

If anything, wouldn’t Bersia be the greatest of monsters?

While thinking, the answer to that mystery came to her.

“Power isn’t just about raw strength. Some powers are specialized in creeping into people’s weaknesses.”

Halia, twirling the hair of the almost lifeless witch, sighed.

“That girl, she’s good in every way, but her mental strength is like a scrap of paper…”

Rubena couldn’t deny that.

Certainly, thinking back to how Usher behaved when he was unconscious, it made sense.