By the time he walked over, he did not even need to speak. The face he wore—that of Sir Davis Tevalin—was a living signboard. The circus owner had already hurried over, smiling obsequiously as he greeted him.
"Young master, you must have been bored stiff coming from Tevalinburg to this remote backwater. I've been thinking of you, you know, so I traveled day and night specifically to come here first and relieve your boredom!"
Well, it seemed this man knew Sir Davis Tevalin. Unfortunately, the real Davis Tervalin was already dead, and Ergons did not know this man.
However, Young Ramai, who had served as the Baron's attendant, recognized him. He casually asked, "What new attractions do you have that you'd dare boast about entertaining our lord?"
"Of course I have something fresh! See that huge box covered in black cloth? It's an aquarium, and there's a sea demon inside! I paid a huge price to get it. When would ordinary people ever have the chance to see such a thing?"
Ergons instinctively searched for William with his eyes. William Adena, that big braggart, had previously claimed he had seen a priest use Holy Light, only for it to turn out that the Holy Light was actually medicine made by grinding up an organ from a monster.
He had also claimed to have seen fish-men. Then Ergons remembered that his original body had seen one at a circus too...
Now there was a sea demon. How had William bragged about it back then?
Unfortunately, he could not see him. Perhaps, after hearing that they were not setting out, William had gone off to fool around with some young widow?
Ergons decided to let him off for now. When he saw the sea demon that evening, he would see how that braggart managed to explain away all the nonsense he had spouted.
As they spoke, evening arrived. In a poor rural place like Tervain Village, where there was nothing to do after dark except hold bonfire parties, martial arts tournaments, or make babies in bed, entertainment was truly scarce.
Nearly every villager had been looking forward to the circus's arrival, so the whole village ate dinner unusually early today.
By the time Ergons arrived with Elisa, the largest square in the manor was already packed. The area around the drying yard in front of the granary was filled with seated spectators.
On the drying yard, the troupe had already erected a tall framework. Judging by its appearance, it was probably meant for high-wire walking and aerial acrobatics.
Everyone rose and saluted him. Amid the chorus of greetings, Ergons and his eight attendants took their seats in the spots that had been reserved long ago.
The circus officially began.
First came the opening remarks, followed by a lizardman and a goblin walking on stilts while riding a unicycle.
This act, which was rather like one featuring a bear and a monkey, did not interest Ergons in the slightest. Seeing how delighted everyone around him was, he could not understand what was so difficult about training demi-humans to perform such tricks.
Was this not much easier than training animals to reach the same level? Besides, lizardmen and goblins were so ugly!
However, this comical little goblin did pique his interest. Judging by the goblin's eyes, he seemed to be more than merely a beast trained by the circus.
Before the act began, the announcer introduced the goblin as some kind of village chief captured from a goblin village in the Kolonse Mountain Range. Even while being captured, he had shouted that he would make a comeback.
Unfortunately, the defeat of nonhumans and demi-humans had already become inevitable. Now, these demi-humans could only be playthings performing before humans.
While Ergons pondered this, the villagers around him burst into round after round of applause. One act after another ended, and at last, the grand finale arrived.
The host enthusiastically babbled on about all sorts of legends concerning sea demons from the deep sea. Finally, the black cloth was pulled away from the aquarium, which stood taller than a person and measured two meters on each side.
Inside the water-blue tank, a woman covered in blue patterns was revealed. She wore nothing at all, merely floating in the water in a slight crouch.
The woman truly radiated an unusual beauty, making people feel that she was best left motionless like this. It was an inexplicable, indescribable kind of beauty—the sort of description that would get a novel taken down.
There was something about this woman that made it impossible to tell what she was supposed to be. Even though her skin was light blue with dark-blue patterns, and even though her hair was a brownish green that looked like something excreted after eating too many vegetable leaves, it still drifted with an indescribable elegance.
Suddenly, the woman floating silently in the water like a work of art moved. She opened her eyes, and they truly sparkled like jewels, making it impossible to look away!
She even began to speak. Although no one could understand what she was saying at all, it still caused desire to rise from the depths of their hearts.
That voice could not exactly be called seductive. It completely seized the soul, creating an impulse deep within them—the impulse to draw a knife.
It seemed that there was a demon among them, and that demon intended to harm the woman before them, a woman they could willingly give their lives to protect.
That demon had to die.
The knights drew the short swords at their sides, while the farmers pulled out the small knives they carried. They searched, searching for that demon.
Ergons began to feel uncomfortable. The system's successive warnings left him sitting on pins and needles, as though thorns were pricking his back!
"Your troops have suffered a spell attack. The immunity check failed. You are under control."
"You have lost command of your troops. Troop morale decreased. Troop morale decreased. You have suffered a spell attack. The immunity check failed. You are under control..."
Ergons felt that he was different from the people beside him who had already drawn their knives. At least his mind was clear. It was merely that his body was no longer under his control.
As for why his body was out of control while his consciousness remained clear, that was probably because the system's repeated warnings at the critical moment had interrupted the strange sound coming from the woman's mouth.
A woman?
Ergons took another look at the thing inside the aquarium. How could that possibly be a beautiful woman with a blue body and dark-blue patterns?
That fucking thing was a giant catfish! A giant catfish with four limbs and a huge tail, a flat, blunt head, and a body that seemed to radiate blue slime.
Who knew what this catfish monster was emitting? It was continuously deepening the color of the tank, and its light spectrum seemed to have already passed through the aquarium, scattering through the air in rippling waves.
"Holy shit..."
At that moment, he even regained control of his body!
How had the circus owner introduced it earlier?
He had said that a noble from another village was willing to spend a fortune to spend a night with this "beautiful sea demon," and that a knight from a neighboring territory had even tried to seize the sea demon by force and make her his concubine...
Ergons' expression immediately turned bitter.
That scene was simply too horrible to imagine. Just thinking about it made him feel sick.
He was genuinely afraid that the subordinates beside him, who had drawn their blades and now saw everyone as an enemy, would receive an order from the sea demon in the next moment and stab one another.
However, he did not dare knock the sea demon unconscious immediately, because he had no idea whether doing so would suddenly trigger some unforeseen consequence.
Before you continue