Ch.1181After a Long Wait

I met Rurik’s fur skin again, and it had changed quite a lot from before.

‘…I suspected as much, but he really doesn’t have pants. Should I have asked them to make pants too…?’

True to being a naga with no concept of lower garments, the fur skin repaired by the priestesses had become a one-piece leather garment without pants.

Meaning there was nothing to cover the lower body except underwear.

[ …Still, at least it has the basic essentials. Compared to when you were just wrapping a piece of leather around yourself, this is quite acceptable. ]

Perhaps the fortunate thing was, as Hersella said upon awakening with her recovered Karma of Murder, at least it could now be called clothing?

Though the lack of pants bothered me, it wasn’t like I was some pervert exposing everything below the waist.

Long sleeves with golden buttons to fasten the front, a leather belt at the waist, and a length that came down just above the knees.

The leather garment the nagas had repaired for Rurik was, simply put, shaped like a fur coat that nouveau riche people enjoy wearing.

It meant I had progressed from Haschal in underwear with just a cloak to Haschal in underwear wearing only a coat.

…Is this really progress?

—-

After quickly finishing my bath, laundry, and drying, I was finally able to set foot on the top floor of the tower where the Naga Raja was said to be staying.

“Naga Raja. Your invited guest has arrived.”

“Yes, thank you for your hard work. You may go now.”

A stone door engraved with mysterious patterns.

When the priestess who had guided me bowed respectfully outside the door to announce my arrival, a soft, thin voice was heard from inside the room.

A woman’s voice… no, closer to that of a young girl.

I had imagined a dignified, imposing middle-aged person as the highest elder and priest, but this voice was exactly the opposite of what I had imagined.

– Creeeak.

Beyond the stone door that opened wide without anyone pulling the handle, the sight of the top floor was completely different from what I had expected.

– Whoosh.

The audience chamber was dim like dawn despite having an open ceiling, as there was no sun. However, as soon as I entered, two rows of torches arranged across the spacious room all lit up at once, brightly illuminating the interior.

Inside the now-illuminated audience chamber, the first things that caught my eye were the decorations hanging on all four walls like wallpaper.

Scrolls with incomprehensible squiggly writing and paintings of unidentifiable beasts.

With the added crimson glow, it felt less like a king’s chamber and more like a shaman’s ritual room where fortunes are told for offerings.

The wooden altar on a platform opposite me, covered with red curtains, further enhanced that shamanic feeling.

“I’m pleased to meet you, benefactor.”

From behind that altar, a snow-white hand suddenly emerged, pulling back the curtain to greet me.

“I am the current Naga Raja, Elashaz the forty-eighth.”

A body clearly smaller and thinner compared to other nagas. Snow-white scales without a single blemish. A pure white cloth garment with an excessively wide fit that dragged on the floor.

The white naga coiled on the altar introduced herself as Elashaz the 48th generation, bowing to me respectfully.

‘…A child?’

A small stature about half the size of other nagas. A face that clearly looked young despite being in snake form. And that thin voice.

The Naga Raja who appeared before me looked noticeably younger than the other nagas I had seen so far.

Since we were different species, I couldn’t tell precisely, but she appeared to be in her early to mid-teens at most. That’s why I was surprised.

I had guessed the Naga Raja would be female since only women had successfully reincarnated among the nagas, but I hadn’t expected her to be this young.

She said she was the 48th generation, so adding her age before reincarnation, she must be over 4,800 years old… but honestly, who could really grasp such a number?

It’s not like she exuded any particular dignity or presence befitting someone 4,800 years old. Judging by appearances alone, she was just a very young naga child.

“…Thank you for your hospitality, Elashaz. I am Haschal of Hestella.”

Of course, regardless of how young she appeared, she was still the ruler of a species and not yet confirmed to be my enemy.

So, I responded with a certain level of courtesy instead of my usual manner of speaking, showing my intention to respect her.

“You may speak casually, Lord Haschal. You are our benefactor who has fulfilled our long-cherished wish.”

“Oh, really? Then I will.”

Since she replied that I didn’t need to be formal, I immediately dropped the formality as if I’d been waiting for it.

“But I’d like you to speak more comfortably too. It feels a bit awkward if I’m the only one speaking casually.”

“Hmm… is that so? However, I am accustomed to speaking this way…”

I took the opportunity to suggest she speak casually too, but unfortunately, this was politely declined.

She claimed that having lived her entire previous life maintaining proper etiquette and formality, speaking casually now felt uncomfortable?

In reality, it seemed more like she was insisting on formal speech because she felt uncomfortable speaking casually to someone significantly stronger than herself…

“…Well, if that’s the case, I can’t help it. Do as you please.”

But what could I do about it? If formal speech is more comfortable for her, then she should use formal speech. It wasn’t something worth insisting on if she didn’t want to.

—-

I sat across from Elashaz, who had come down from the altar with two cushions, and engaged in what amounted to small talk for a while.

Was your journey comfortable? It was very comfortable, thanks to you.

We’ve prepared a guest mansion and medicinal herbs good for recovery, so please rest as much as you wish. Thank you for your kindness.

On the contrary, we should be thanking you. We received great help as well.

Waiting for her to reveal the real reason she invited me here, we wasted time with circular pleasantries, trying to shake off the subtle awkwardness for several minutes.

Finally, Elashaz began to explain the real reason she had called me.

“What do you plan to do with Leviathan’s corpse?”

“Well, I suppose we’ll have to let it rot? It’s a shame, honestly, but we can’t exactly move something that huge to the surface.”

“Then how about entrusting it to us?”

“Entrust it…?”

The first reason: Elashaz asked me to entrust them with Leviathan’s corpse, which was half a white elephant to us.

Of course, she wasn’t suggesting taking it for free; she offered to use the dragon’s byproducts combined with their sorcery to create the finest armor for our entire party.

Naturally, I couldn’t hand over the entire dragon corpse just for a few sets of armor.

After various discussions with her, we finally agreed that they would process half of the dragon’s corpse and hand it over to us.

Additionally, she offered to refine and strengthen the magic on my Frosting to make it more effective.

It was still a deal where we came out at a loss… but well, what could we do?

The dragon’s corpse was certainly invaluable, but to us right now, it was just a massive burden that we couldn’t move anywhere.

“Um… Lord Haschal. This is, well, difficult to bring up, but…”

Anyway, after finishing that negotiation, Elashaz, who had been hesitating for a moment, opened her mouth again in a serious tone, as if getting to the main point.

“How do you intend to manage the Emerald Lake region in the future?”

“It’s not a lake anymore, you know? I guess you haven’t been informed yet, but all the water there has completely evaporated and melted, turning the area into a lava field.”

So there’s nothing to manage.

While the edges might have cooled and turned back to stone due to river water, the center would still be boiling with lava, so what could be done there?

It might once have been an important place serving as the water source for the entire region, but now it was just a useless ruin.

At least, that’s what I thought.

“Hmm… that may be the case now, but that state won’t last long. Eventually, it will return to its former appearance before long.”

I was immediately contradicted by Elashaz.

“Its former appearance…? Well… that seems difficult. For it to recover naturally, it would take at least several decades, wouldn’t it?”

“Naturally? Um… did that sea dragon not tell you anything?”

“Tell me what?”

“I see you didn’t know. The Emerald Lake is not just an ordinary lake.”

Elashaz slightly raised her head and gently closed her eyes, then spoke softly in a somewhat distant voice, as if recalling old memories.

“While it appears to be an ordinary lake on the surface, beneath it…”

The truth about Emerald Lake. The reason Leviathan had specifically settled in that lake. And why the nagas came to regard the fish people and Leviathan as enemies.

“Beneath it sleeps a god. A monster from the ancient past, recorded to cover the world in a tidal wave and bring destruction upon awakening.”

Deeper than the abyss. In the darkness beneath the lake slept an ancient calamity.

The deep sea itself and a living embodiment of terror.

The dreadful deep sea Vimos.

—-

“The city built on that lake, Lyrie, was originally our territory, not the fish people’s. It was an altar and seal built by our ancestors to keep that evil god eternally subdued.”

In the distant past, even before Elashaz experienced her first reincarnation.

The ancient nagas, while wandering through Naraka, discovered traces of Vimos sleeping in the abyss and attempted to build a city there to permanently seal the evil god so it would never awaken.

The result was Lyrie.

Once the capital of Nastaria, it was a massive temple city and itself a large-scale sealing formation, with construction materials and internal structures combined with all kinds of sorcery.

However, even after completing such a massive sealing formation, they couldn’t completely block the power that Vimos leaked little by little in its sleep.

Vimos’s power that flowed out from the abyss pooled on the land of Naraka, forming a huge lake, and Lyrie, which was originally a land city, became half-submerged in the lake.

They didn’t build a city in the lake; rather, a perfectly fine city became submerged in the lake.

Of course, since nagas were amphibious creatures that could live both on land and in water, the city’s submersion didn’t particularly hinder their lives, but…

“The leaked power brought calamity. A legion of minions who worshipped Vimos, and a blue-scaled ancient dragon who coveted Vimos’s power.”

The fish people who came in legion-scale numbers and Leviathan massacred the resisting nagas and occupied Lyrie, and for thousands of years since then, they continued to live by feeding on the power that leaked out.

Despite destroying the city, the sealing formation didn’t disappear, and they waited for the day when it would eventually reach its limit and break, and the awakened Vimos would cover the entire world with a tidal wave.

Or, after continuously absorbing and digesting the leaked power, they waited for the moment when they themselves would ascend as new deep sea incarnations.

…But before that day came, they all died by my hand. It was like someone who had been waiting for a big payday after a long investment, only to die in an accident before it could happen.

That was the full story of the mythical tale surrounding Emerald Lake.