The Boss Wants to Die - Chapter 76

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

The boss wants to die.
Episode 76
[You have a record of clearing the Worshippers’ Den of Debauchery dungeon with Aktr. As a reward, your Party Quest earnings this time are doubled!]
[Cradle of the Sea. NEW!
— Reward: Party Points 20 (×2!)]

‘Right, of course.’
I dredged up a fact I’d carelessly forgotten.
‘I was told I’d get double points on Party Quests whenever I helped with Aktr’s Job Quests.’
So much had happened to reach this moment.
A chain of events had unfolded as naturally as flowing water, and I’d lost track of it all.
‘This Party Quest itself came about so suddenly.’
As if I’d anticipated this very moment, I felt a chill at the system’s past reward of doubled points hanging over me now.
This made it seem not like I was enjoying the game at all, but like the system was playing chess with me as the piece.
‘I don’t like this feeling.’
I buried the discomfort and walked toward Eriel.
With short red hair tousled, Eriel was grunting and pulling herself upright.
‘Looks like she can’t transform freely.’
She leaned her back against the wall, gasping, as if the tail was getting in her way.
Siris, whom she’d been clutching to her chest, had been lost somewhere in the Tidal Wave.
Instead, she held a Shell Pendant in her hand.
Unlike the genuine pendant shattered into fragments, the necklace conjured from illusion remained intact.
But even that began to fade as the Party Quest ended.
“Why were you holding onto that necklace? Was it Siris’s keepsake?”
Eriel, barely able to lean her back against the Ruins building, looked down at her empty hand.
Her face was sad.
“This necklace can bind a mermaid’s tail.”
“A tail?”
“More precisely, it buys a little time after death so the spirit won’t return to the Sea immediately. Every mermaid’s Spirit Essence transforms into something that returns to the Sea when they die. This was a holy relic.”
“Spirit Essence…….”
I recalled the blue Spirit Essence that had scattered into the air when the necklace broke.
‘So that must have been Siris’s Spirit Essence. Is that like a soul for humans?’
Eriel continued, her face growing darker.
“The Water-type Race are forbidden to cry before death. Their Spirit Essence transforms into Pearls and can’t return to the Sea. Otherwise they’d wander Wandering Limbo forever.”
“Then the shell necklace isn’t a holy relic, is it? You’re capturing the Spirit Essence even though she didn’t cry, stopping it from returning to the Sea.”
“No, this is…….”
Eriel bit her lip bitterly.
“This necklace only holds pure Spirit Essence that hasn’t transformed into Pearls. I heard that pure Spirit Essence can even be revived if it meets water. Though I don’t know exactly how…….”
Eriel wiped her cheek with the back of her hand.
The glistening, wet skin could have been from seawater or tears — there was no way to tell.
“Wait.”
I paused, thinking through what Eriel had told me, and asked a question.
“Those pirates came to steal Pearls, didn’t they?”
……
“Dozens of them must have had their Pearls taken. What about those people?”
Eriel’s breath quickened.
Her face twisted in anguish as she fought to suppress her rage.
“……Even if their bodies died, they couldn’t depart peacefully.”
……
“Mermaids need to draw on the Sea’s essence periodically, but in a state of Wandering Limbo, they can’t meet the Sea. They’re probably suffering something like fever, just like me.”
I furrowed my brow.
The more I thought about it, the more it angered me.
If I ever crossed paths with those pirates again, I might just kill them myself.
Even if they came back through resurrection.
“That Spirit Essence in the necklace — it was Siris’s, wasn’t it?”
Eriel nodded quietly.
“When the necklace shattered, I remember seeing something like blue smoke rise up. So Siris returned to the Sea?”
……Yes.
Eriel assented, her face tight with profound pain.
“Eriel?”
Eriel lowered her head.
Her hand, which had been gripping the Shell Pendant, had turned pale and was trembling visibly.
“There’s an old legend that pure Spirit Essence can be revived, so I didn’t return it to the Sea…….”
“…….”
“But the necklace broke. The Spirit Essence returned to the Sea. I can never, never…….”
Eriel clenched her teeth.
Her face flushed red as she fought with all her might to hold back tears.
“I can never meet Siris again…….”
― Mm…….
For a moment, I thought I’d misheard.
I tilted my head and lifted my gaze toward the sky.
‘What was that? I could have sworn I heard another voice.’
Was it just my imagination?
As I shrugged and turned back to look at Eriel, another sound washed over me—like the Sea itself trembling.
― Perhaps there is a way after all…….
That voice thundered inside my head like lightning.
I spun around in alarm, craning my neck beyond the cliff’s edge.
The Sea rolled and heaved.
For some reason, it felt as though that Sea were speaking to me.
“Eriel, didn’t you hear that sound just now?”
“A sound?”
Eriel looked bewildered.
The voice came again.
― You there—would you come to my side for a moment?
This time, I scanned the surroundings frantically, eyes wide, desperate to locate the source.
But I soon realized I had no time for such leisurely observation.
A second Tidal Wave was bearing down on the Ruins with terrifying force.
‘Damn it—I found you, not whatever that thing was!’
Though smaller than the first, it was more than enough to swallow both Eriel and me.
It felt several times faster by comparison.
It looked less like a Tidal Wave and more like an arm of seawater rising up and lunging toward me.
“Eriel, behind you——!”
But before I could even finish the warning, seawater had already engulfed me up to the crown of my head.
“Ugh……!”
Cursed water!
Swallowed by the Tidal Wave, I plummeted into an abyss so deep its darkness seemed fathomless.
I widened my eyes and thrashed my limbs, but I couldn’t swim.
My body should have moved forward, but the Sea pulled me back as though it possessed a will of its own.
Without strength to propel myself, swimming was impossible.
‘Eriel……!’
I searched for Eriel, who must have fallen into the Sea with me, my eyes darting about.
Fortunately, I spotted her quickly.
In the distance, something shimmered—scales that caught the light.
In an emerald-hued sea so transparent you could see straight through it, with coral gleaming pale beneath, the color would look just like that.
Pure in its pastel tone, as delicate and beautiful as if powdered pearl dust had been scattered across it.
Eriel was struggling to find me in my black dress as I sank through the murky depths.
She spotted the red jewel of my Tiara only belatedly and swam toward me with fierce speed.
Eriel was astonishingly fast.
‘If a Water-type Race could live in the Sea like this, no one would ever be able to catch them.’
Water churned in her wake as her powerful tail undulated, propelling her body forward like a cannon shot.
It took Eriel less than five seconds to reach my side.
“Are you all right? I’ll get you to land right away!”
Eriel, naturally, could both breathe and speak underwater.
I gazed at the small Gills I spotted just behind the fins that waved so gracefully.
The situation was grave, but seeing such obvious markers of an alien race was oddly mesmerizing—I couldn’t help but stare.
‘That’s… fascinating…….’
Eriel looked at me with exasperation, her eyes narrowing slightly.
Her bright red hair swayed gently as her head turned.
“It seems I’ve been profoundly mistaken about the Demon God.”
“…….”
“Your curiosity’s as reckless as a child’s. It really doesn’t suit that arrogant face of yours, does it?”
Of course it doesn’t.
This body isn’t mine!
I scowled and glared at him, but he simply tugged my forearm in a soothing motion.
“I’ll show you everything later—just focus on getting out of here now. Wrap your arms around my neck.”
I did as instructed, linking my arms around his neck.
Perhaps because we were underwater, Eriel’s fever had subsided somewhat, but it seemed to be rising again.
Even in the cold depths of the sea, the nape of his neck was warm against my bare forearm.
“This might be the last time I move this fast. I’m going to shoot straight up past the surface in one burst, so don’t let go.”
And just as he was about to thrust his tail upward toward the water’s surface—
Crack!
The seawater near Eriel’s tail froze solid in an instant.
‘Ice?’
Such an artificial change could only come from magic.
‘There’s no way Eriel did this to himself.’
Who could do this at such a depth?
― So there was a living mermaid here.
Eriel stared in shock at his tail, now completely frozen solid.
“This… this can’t be… Ugh!”
Glub-glub.
The cry of alarm rose upward, trapped within suffocating bubbles.
Opposite to the ascending bubbles, Eriel and I began plummeting steeply downward.
“Ngh!”
My awareness of how far we might fall—whether we’d be dragged all the way to the abyssal floor—gradually grew dim.
The strength drained from my body, and my arms drifted upward.
Just as my vision began to fade to white, I suddenly gasped for air, coughing violently.
“Hack! Cough-cough-cough!”
― I’m sorry. I didn’t think to consider that you wouldn’t be able to breathe.
‘Who… who are you?’
I lifted my head, completely drenched.
An Oxygen Bubble had formed—narrow enough for just me to breathe.
One step forward and I’d be back underwater.
As I watched fish swimming leisurely at eye level as if in an aquarium, something felt deeply wrong.
“What is this?”
Eriel noticed the Oxygen Bubble surrounding me and tilted his head.
As he swam through the water, he circled around me, trapped in the small bubble, examining me from every angle.
“There’s no way a bubble like this could form here…”
― You’re the Demon God, aren’t you?

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