The Boss Wants to Die - Chapter 75

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The boss wants to die.
Chapter 75
I barely caught her before she fell face-first, managing to twist my body so she’d land on my back instead—but that was all I could do.
The pirate’s arrow had already pierced straight through her heart.
Siris lay dead with her eyes open, her lips curved upward just slightly, as though welcoming what had come.
“You fool! Why did you kill her so quickly! She should cry first, and then—ugh!”
I sent a blade of energy screaming toward the babbling pirate’s throat.
‘Loud insects.’
I flicked my hand dismissively and turned my head toward the two who remained pressed together.
‘Looks like she knows her.’
Aerial had grown up in the Water Ruin; there were probably few people whose faces she didn’t recognize—but this woman seemed unusually special.
Aerial, who had been accepting the Water Deity’s Hallucination with admirable composure until now, let out a pained whimper.
‘Siris was her name?’
Under different circumstances, I suspected she would have been quite cheerful, with a bright and lively temperament.
Aerial held Siris close, not moving for a long time.
“I’m sorry, Siris.”
She brushed the eyelids of the open-eyed corpse and bit her lower lip miserably.
Ding!
[The Repeating Nightmare Party Quest is nearly complete!
Pirates who’ve noticed the disturbance are converging on this location in force!]
[Survive the pirates’ full assault!
— Remaining pirates: 20%]
‘Twenty percent isn’t that many.’
But Aktr and Aerial were the problem—both non-combatants.
They would die the moment a single attack from the pirates even grazed them.
I raised my voice, sharp as a bell, and pointed toward the nearest inhabited structure.
“Aktr! Take Aerial and find any empty house! I’ll set up a Barrier to protect you!”
The roar of distant pirates echoed across the water.
The wind of killing intent scraped across my skin like fragments of broken razor blades.
My heart clenched tight.
“Aerial!”
Though time was desperately short, Aerial remained motionless, holding Siris in her arms.
“You keep interfering like this, I’ll knock your other ear off too!”
I lashed out with all the anger I could muster, and finally Aerial lifted the head she’d been bowing.
I thought I saw her eyes, burning a deep red, flicker blue for just an instant.
Aerial spoke quietly.
“Don’t worry about me. Just hold on tight to whatever you can. Don’t let yourself get swept away.”
“Swept away?”
“Do you know why the Water Ruin was built?”
A deep rumble echoed.
Ponderous thunder growled threateningly, flashing with violent lightning.
I suddenly looked around, sensing that the world had grown far too dark.
‘What is this?’
The Water Ruin was ordinarily an incredibly loud place.
Waves constantly crashed against the cliff face with unceasing splashes.
But now, strangely, it was quiet.
“This place was built as a Sanctuary because it’s close to the Sea where the Water Deity sleeps. The structures are protected by special magic so they won’t be worn away or swept into the water.”
“That’s not what matters right now—!”
“And the ‘only race’ that could endure this place was brought here to live.”
I looked up.
Now I understood why the world had grown so dark—a massive, pitch-black curtain was suffocatingly covering the sky like a tablecloth.
‘No, no. That’s not a curtain…’
Drops of water began pattering down onto my face.
They varied in thickness, and strangely, they seemed to fall without the force of something from the sky.
I flicked out my tongue and tasted salt.
‘Not rainwater… seawater…?’
Gasp!
The moment I understood what the curtain was, I opened my eyes wide and unfurled my wings.
[Demon God Helorod has unleashed Evil Wings!]
And in a single motion, I wrapped my wings around Aktr and dragged him to my side.
Aerial was too far away for his wings to reach her.
“Aerial!!”
“Don’t worry about me.”
Then the tsunami crashed down.
“Ugh, gah——!”
All I could hear was the roar of water surging in all directions.
Could this even be called a tsunami?
It was as though the sea itself had been scooped up and dumped onto the land.
The Water Ruin was a peninsula that jutted toward the ocean like a beak.
But the gently protruding headland was completely submerged by the tsunami.
I wrapped one wing around Aktr so I wouldn’t lose him.
‘His bulk is nothing but a liability……!’
I poured more strength into my Evil Wings, doubling their size.
I stretched the other wing with all my might and coiled it around the Water Ruin’s pillar.
The seawater crashed in with full force.
“Nngh……!”
The water pressure pressing against my entire body felt as though I’d be swept away.
The force was so immense that my spine could shatter from straining alone.
If I hadn’t been safely supporting my entire body with my wings, Aktr would’ve been crushed like a poker.
“Krrrrgh——!”
This was the first time since awakening in the Demon God’s body that I’d had to endure something with such desperation.
Nature’s force—something no resistance could overcome.
The merchant’s warnings about Level being useless echoed back to me.
‘If this keeps up, I won’t be able to breathe……!’
I could barely hold on, wrapping my wings around the pillar to keep from being swept away by the tsunami, and now I was suffocating.
I forced my left eye, clenched shut, open.
A Level 60 body—so fragile—had no capacity to endure a disaster of this magnitude.
My wings couldn’t shield against every impact.
Aktr lay unconscious, his long white hair seized by the tsunami and flailing about without mercy.
‘Water can’t get into his lungs……!’
This was no ordinary tsunami.
It was an instantaneous, overwhelming attack—like spraying disinfectant on a pathogen that had invaded the Water Ruin.
The water depth dropped rapidly, and my submerged body was hurled against the bottom.
As buoyancy vanished, my body of bone and muscle felt infinitely heavy.
I folded away my soaked wings and crawled to Aktr, pressing my ear against his chest.
Fortunately, he was intact, and he was still breathing.
“Aerial! Aerial, can you hear me?”
I pushed myself up, searching for Aerial, who’d surely been swept away by the tsunami.
The Water Ruin, scoured clean by the sea, was both sterile and hollow.
Not a corpse in sight—no traces of habitation, no weapons, no burnt ash remained.
‘With such a massive tsunami pouring down, it makes sense it’d become a wasteland.’
I could see seaweed that hadn’t made it back to the sea and fish flopping about.
Around the area, there wasn’t so much as a weed, let alone any plant—a sight that explained why.
With so much salt caked into the soil, it would be impossible for land life to take root.
‘I don’t see Aerial. Is she dead?’
I was standing there in a daze when I spotted something—a vividly red head like a dot near the cliff.
‘Aerial?’
The only red things in this place were my eyes and Aerial.
It had to be her.
‘She’s not dead.’
“Aerial!!”
I dashed toward her, then gradually slowed my pace.
At first I’d accepted without doubt that it was Aerial, but something felt off.
“……Huh?”
I saw a silhouette that made me doubt my own eyes.
Aerial lay face-down on the ground, unmoving—her hair was the same red it always was.
Her upper body was bare, her clothes stripped away, but even that was nothing unusual for her.
Only her ears…….
Her ears…….
I narrowed my eyes to slits and studied the shape of her ears carefully.
My eyelids fluttered uncontrollably, my eyes aching as though they might burst from their sockets, yet I couldn’t relax the tension.
The ears were as if…….
“……fins?”
Yes.
They looked like fins.
Where ears should have been, translucent coral-colored wings—or fins, rather—fluttered like those of a fish.
In shape and material, gleaming like vinyl, they were unmistakably inhuman.
But that wasn’t all…….
I lost all words the moment I saw Aerial’s legs.
“…….”
Iridescent scales that shimmered with five colors of light.
An emerald tail layered with gossamer-thin, translucent fins like lace.
I rubbed my eye sockets.
Yet the identity of the figure collapsed before me remained unchanged.
Aerial was…….
“Good heavens…….”
A mermaid.
So that was what the Water-type Race truly was.
Ding!
[You have achieved an Achievement and acquired a new Title!]
[One Who Endured the Water Deity’s Tail Strike!
You have withstood the terrible tsunami brought forth by the Water Deity’s thrashing!
It would have been difficult for an ordinary person—not of the Water-type Race—to survive it, yet you managed nonetheless!
You are more than worthy of being called the Mermaid Without a Tail!
By the way, tsunamis surge not only from the Water Deity’s tail strike, but also from the fury of corrupted mermaids.
What was the cause this time, I wonder?]
Still reeling, I stood stupidly before the holographic display, unable even to think of closing it.
“A mermaid who wields Fire Magic…….”
Truly, I never saw it coming.
‘Wait, this game has mermaids as a selectable race?’
How broad is the range of races available to Players that such a thing is even possible?
If mermaids exist, then surely elves and demons do as well.
Ding!
[The pirates who invaded the Water Ruin have been eliminated!]
[The Repeating Nightmare Party Quest has been completed!]
[Your next Quest has been unlocked as a reward for completing the Party Quest!]
No, stop this.
I don’t want any more Quests…….
My energy drained completely as I collapsed onto the ground with a heavy thud.
Yet the merciless system continued to display the next Quest without hesitation.
[Cradle of the Sea.
The Water Deity, tormented every moment by rage, sorrow, and anguish, is a being who must sleep.
The Water Deity is the sea itself, and if left as things stand, the entire world may be submerged beneath its waters.
A single gesture, a single tail strike, could spell catastrophe for all mankind.
How can the awakened Water Deity be made to sleep once more in the Cradle of the Sea?
Perhaps death is the only salvation that can be granted to the Water Deity.
Returning to the sea, the Water Deity will be reborn as a younger self, remembering nothing of what came before.
― Completion Condition: Put the Water Deity to sleep.
― Reward: 20 Party Points]

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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