What Do You Want to Do to Me?

In the water prison, the mermaid and the boy gazed at each other.

"Hehe, thank you for the compliment~"

Hearing the boy's praise, the mermaid smiled delightedly. Her tail, shimmering with rainbow colors beneath the water, swayed lazily. She winked at him, her voice growing even sweeter.

"Come on, a little closer. Let me get a good look at you~"

She called to him in a syrupy voice, a shy blush spreading across her face. Her gentle expression made her look like an innocent girl gazing at the lover she adored.

Yet deep within her eyes, there was nothing that could be called affection.

Her dark blue eyes were cold and fathomless, like an ocean that seemed tranquil but concealed raging currents.

Foolish, greedy mortal.

Come closer.

I'll show you the price you'll pay for underestimating the sea...

As she watched the boy actually approach, the mockery in her eyes deepened, but she still asked gently, "And then? What are you going to do to me?"

Yet just as she was about to reveal her vicious nature, for some reason, a sudden hesitation stirred in her heart.

Perhaps he's innocent.

She had no idea where this pity came from, but she no longer wanted to simply kill him.

That would be... such a waste.

While she wrestled with herself, she heard the boy's answer.

He said:

"What do you mean, 'and then'? I'm not going to do anything. I don't have a fish tank that big at home."

"Oh, you're going to... huh?" The mermaid froze completely. "A fish tank?"

"What's wrong with that? You can't go without water, can you?"

The mermaid: "...Huh?"

The boy: "Huh?"

The mermaid: "Uh..."

She had imagined Herbert might give all sorts of answers-lewd, deranged, greedy... but a rational answer was the one thing she had never considered.

A fucking fish tank!

She had never expected an answer like that.

What legendary Sea Monster ever ran short of water?!

Are you out of your mind... huh?

No.

Wait!

She suddenly realized something and gave the clear-eyed Herbert a strange look. "You weren't charmed by my voice?"

"Your voice is lovely too." Herbert tilted his head and said matter-of-factly, "It's just a little too cutesy. You can talk normally."

He wasn't joking.

With a sweet voice like that, she could put on a virtual avatar and sing as a VTuber, and her fans would be throwing money at her nonstop.

Herbert just didn't like that overly cutesy delivery. Things like "Little windmill, whoosh, whoosh!" gave him nothing but physical discomfort, with no other bodily reaction whatsoever.

After listening, the only parts of him that hardened were his fists.

And based on the mermaid's performance just now, he could only give her seven out of ten.

Meh. (Pulls up pants.)

"No, you..."

The mermaid narrowed her eyes and studied the boy's gaze carefully. She truly couldn't see any sign that he had been charmed.

It really didn't work?

But that doesn't add up either.

"Then all those things you said just now..."

"I meant every word."

Herbert, for his part, didn't think there was anything wrong with what he had said.

No matter how he looked at her, this Sea Monster fit human standards of beauty perfectly.

Although he could make out a few inhuman features-slightly pointed fingertips and teeth, and a thin layer of fluid coating her body when she rose from the water...

No matter how he looked at her, she resembled the fantastical mermaids of human legend.

Pretty. I like looking.

Of course, Herbert actually knew this prisoner's true identity.

She was no sweet-voiced, pretty little girl.

[Final Songstress], [Death Howl], [Sorrowful Glacier]-Freme Kya.

A terrifying Sea Monster who, three hundred years ago, had single-handedly driven hundreds of sailors and fishermen to drown themselves, turning several fishing ports into ghost towns.

From Freme Kya's expression, he could also guess that her intentions just now had been anything but kind. Most likely, she had wanted to lure him close and finish him off.

You're all so cruel.

I'm just a little paladin, as green as they come. Is this really necessary?

"So, what were you planning to do to me?"

At that moment, Herbert gazed at Freme Kya with a hint of hurt reproach.

After a brief silence, the mermaid quietly averted her eyes and said awkwardly, "Ahem... n-nothing!"

"It's not like I wanted to drown you or anything!"

Beneath the Misty Monastery, in the Seal Sanctuary.

"Your Excellency, Archbishop, what brings you here? It shouldn't be time to change shifts yet, should it?"

The red-robed Penitents, their entire body pierced by hundreds of rusty rivets, slowly opened their eyes and looked at the old man in coarse sackcloth robes who had appeared beside them at some point. As their brow creased slightly, two rivets knocked together with a strange, faint quiver.

"Has anything unusual happened recently?"

The old man offered no explanation. His calm eyes betrayed neither joy nor anger as he kept his gaze fixed on the stone statue at the center of the sealing array.

The statue, which appeared to depict a kneeling girl, stood only half a person's height. Its face seemed to have been worn away by wind and sand over long ages, leaving only the faint outline of a head bowed in devout prayer.

A saint-sealed artifact-the Profane Prayer Statue.

"...The deity has awakened twice."

"When?"

"The first time was at dawn a month ago, for two minutes. The second was at noon the day before yesterday, for thirty seconds."

"I see."

Their conversation was eerily calm, their voices entirely devoid of fluctuation. Neither seemed to take the sealed entity's awakening seriously at all.

"Go get some rest. Watch for any monks who have been beguiled. I'll stand guard for a while."

"...Yes."

Changing guards before the appointed time went against the rules, but the Rusty Nail Bishop asked no questions.

Naturally, the Archbishop had his reasons.

This was a saint who walked among mortals, a legendary figure whom even the gods would condescend to greet with a smile.

Besides, the Archbishop himself had founded the Misty Monastery all those years ago. His word was the highest law.

Once the Rusty Nail Bishop had left, the Archbishop sat cross-legged, stared at the statue, and slowly spoke. "I know you aren't asleep."

"What have you noticed?"

"What do you intend to do?"

The Archbishop continued his quiet questioning for a long time, but throughout it all, the sanctuary remained silent. Only his voice echoed within it.

The statue never gave him any response.

Ancient and silent.

At last, the Archbishop closed his eyes with what seemed like a hint of resignation and calmly delivered his final declaration.

"Whatever you intend to do, as long as I remain here, your schemes will never succeed."

The Archbishop's voice was mild and sounded utterly unthreatening. Yet at that moment, it seemed to cause some subtle, invisible change throughout the entire space.

He said:

"I will not let you hurt anyone."

At midnight.

In a dim room lit by a single candle, the boy silently wrote a passage in an open notebook.

"Pen Fairy, Pen Fairy! You are my past life, and I am your present life. If you wish to renew our bond, please draw a circle on the paper."

The next second, his left hand slowly moved, tracing a perfect curve across the paper...

Swish.

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